Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 79, No. 484, February, 1856
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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 79, No. 484, February, 1856

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BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCCLXXXIV.      FEBRUARY 1856.      Vol. LXXIX.

CONTENTS.

Modern Light Literature—Poetry, | 125
A Military Adventure in the Pyrenees—concluded, | 138
The Wondrous Age, | 154
Public Lectures—Mr Warren on Labour, | 170
Touching Oxford, | 179
The Ancient Coins of Greece, | 193
Tickler among the Thieves! | 200
The Drama, | 209
Lessons from the War, | 232
Religion in Common Life, | 243

EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET,
AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON;

To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed.

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCCLXXXIV.      FEBRUARY, 1856.      Vol. LXXIX.

MODERN LIGHT LITERATURE—POETRY.

“Poets,” said the ancient wisdom, “are not made, but born.” We have made miraculous progress in all the arts of manufacture since the time of this saying, but we have not been able to controvert the judgment of our forefathers. Education, refinement, taste, and talent, are great things in their way, and men do wonders with them; but we have not fallen yet upon a successful method of bringing down the divine spark into the marble, let us work it ever so curiously. The celestial gift in these new times, as in the old, comes down with divine impartiality, yet seldom into the tenement most specially built and garnished for its reception. We can make critics, connoisseurs, “an enlightened audience,” but, let us labour at it as we will, we cannot make a poet.

And indeed, to tell the truth, it is but small help we can give, with all our arts and ingenuities, even to the perfecting of the poet born. Science discusses the subject gravely—at one time troubled with apprehensions lest her severe shadow should kill the singer outright, as Reason killed Love—at another, elate with the happier thought of increasing all his conquests, and sending forth as her own esquire, bearing her ponderous lance and helmet, the glorious boy in his perennial youth. It is a vain speculation. The poet glances past this important figure with a calm eye and a far-shining smile. His vocation is beyond and beyond the range of all the sciences. The heart and soul that were in the first home, ere ever even spade and distaff were invented, when two forlorn hopeful creatures, wistfully looking back to the sunset of Eden, wistfully looking forward to the solemn nightfall of the drear world without, with all its starry promises of another morning and a higher heaven, were all the human race—are world and scope enough for the humanest and most divine of arts. That God has made of one blood all the nations and all the generations of this many-peopled earth, is the argument on which he speaks; that heart answers unto heart all the world over, is the secret of his power. The petulant passion of a child, the heroisms and exultations and agonies of that fantastical sweet youth, over whose unconscious mockery of our real conflict we graver people smile and weep, are of more import to the poet than all the secrets of the earth, and all the wonders of the sky; and he turns—it is his vocation—from the discovery of a planet, forgetting all about it, to make the whole world ring with joy over a cottage cradle, or weigh down the very wings of the winds with wailing over some uncommemorated grave.

Yes, it is a humiliating confession—but in reality we are quite as like to injure as to elevate our poet by all our educations. Perhaps the heavenly glamour in his eyne had best be left entirely unobscured by any laws save those of nature; but at all events it seems tolerably sure, that the more we labour at his training, the less satisfactory is the result of it. A school of poets is the most hopeless affair in existence; and whether it dwindle into those smallest of small rhymsters, leaden echoes of the silver chimes of Pope, in whom the eighteenth century delighted, or to the present makers of dislocated verses, whose glory it is to break stones upon the road where the Laureate’s gilded coach flashes by, we wait with equal weariness and equal impatience for the Coming Man, who knows neither school nor education—whose business it is to rout the superannuated spinsters, and make the world ring once more with the involuntary outburst of song and youth.

But we who are but the unhappy victims of the mania, why do we blame ourselves? Alas! it is not we, but our poets, foolish fraternity, who have set about this fatal task of making a school and perfecting themselves in their art. How do you suppose they are to do it, kindest reader? In other arts and professions the self-love of the student in most instances suffers a woeful downfall at his very outset. Tutors and books, dire conspirators against his innocence, startle the hapless neophyte out of all his young complacency; professors set him down calmly as a know-nothing; chums, with storms of laughter, drive him out of his last stronghold. He has to shut himself out from his college doors; seal himself up, poor boy, in his home letters, and so sit down and study other people’s wisdom, till he comes by that far away and roundabout process to some true estimate of his own.

But the poet, say the poets, needs other training. For him it is safest that we shut him up with himself. Himself, a separated creature, garlanded and crowned for the sacrifice, is, in one noble concentration, all the ethics, the humanity, and the religion with which he has to do; significances, occult and mysterious, are in every breath of wind that whispers about his dedicated head; his smallest actions are note-worthy, his sport is a mystery, his very bread and cheese symbolical. He is a poet—everywhere, and in all places, it is the destiny of this unfortunate to reverence himself, to contemplate himself, to expound and study the growth of a poet’s mind, the impulses of a poet’s affections; he is not to be permitted to be unconscious of the sweet stirrings within him of the unspoken song; he is not to be allowed to believe with that sweetest simplicity of genius that every other youthful eye beholds “the light that never was on sea or land,” as well as his own. Unhappy genius! ill-fated poet! for him alone of all men must the heavens and the earth be blurred over with a miserable I,—and so he wanders, a woeful Narcissus, seeing his own image only, and nothing better, in all the lakes and fountains; and, bound by all the canons of his art, falls at last desperately either in love or in hate with the persistent double, which, go where he will, still looks him in the face.

But we bethink us of the greater poets, sons of the elder time. There was David, prince of lyric-singers; there was Shakespeare, greatest maker among men. The lyricist was a king, a statesman, a warrior, and a prophet; the leisure of his very youth was the leisure of occupation, when the flocks were feeding safe in the green pastures, and by the quiet waters; and even then the dreaming poet-eye had need to be wary, and sometimes flashed into sudden lightning at sight of the lion which the stripling slew. He sung out of the tumult and fulness of his heart—out of the labours, wars, and tempests of his most human and most troubled life: his business in this world was to live, and not to make poems. Yet what songs he made! They are Holy Writ, inspired and sacred; yet they are human songs, the lyrics of a struggling and kingly existence—the overflow of the grand primal human emotions to which every living heart resounds. His “heart moved him,” his “soul was stirred within him”—true poet-heart—true soul of inspiration! and not what other men might endure, glassed in the mirror of his own profound poetic spirit, a study of mankind; but of what himself was bearing there and at that moment, the royal singer made his outcry, suddenly, and “in his haste,” to God. What cries of distress and agony are these! what bursts of hope amid the heartbreak! what shouts and triumphs of great joy! For David did not live to sing, but sang because he strove and fought, rejoiced and suffered, in the very heart and heat of life.

Let us say a word of King David ere we go further. Never crowned head had so many critics as this man has had in these two thousand years; and many a scorner takes occasion by his failings, and religious lips have often faltered to call him “the man after God’s own heart;” yet if we would but think of it, how touching is this name! Not the lofty and philosophic Paul, though his tranced eyes beheld the very heaven of heavens; not John, although the human love of the Lord yearned towards that vehement angel-enthusiast, whose very passion was for God’s honour; but on this sinning, struggling, repenting David, who fights and falls, and rises only to fall and fight again—who only never will be content to lie still in his overthrow, and acknowledge himself vanquished—who bears about with him every day the traces of some downfall, yet every day is up again, struggling on as he can, now discouraged, now desperate, now exultant; who has a sore fighting life of it all his days, with enemies within and without, his hands full of wars, his soul of ardours, his life of temptations. Upon this man fell the election of Heaven. And small must his knowledge be, of himself or of his race, who is not moved to the very soul to think upon God’s choice of this David, as the man after His own heart. Heaven send us all as little content with our sins as had the King of Israel! Amen.

And then there is Shakespeare: never man among men, before or after him, has made so many memorable people; yet amid all the crowding faces on his canvass, we cannot point to one as “the portrait of the painter.” He had leisure to make lives and histories for all these men and women, but not to leave a single personal token to us of himself. The chances seem to be, that this multitudinous man, having so many other things to think of, thought marvellously little of William Shakespeare; and that all that grave, noble face would have brightened into mirthfullest laughter had he ever heard, in his own manful days, of the Swan of Avon. His very magnitude, so to speak, lessens him in our eyes; we are all inclined to be apologetic when we find him going home in comfort and good estate, and ending his days neither tragically nor romantically, but in ease and honour. He is the greatest of poets, but he is not what you call a poetical personage. He writes his plays for the Globe, but, once begun upon them, thinks only of his Hamlet or his Lear, and not a whit of his audience; nor, in the flush and fulness of his genius, does a single shadow of himself cross the brilliant stage, where, truth to speak, there is no need of him. The common conception of a poet, the lofty, narrow, dreamy soul, made higher and more abstract still by the glittering crown of light upon his crested forehead, is entirely extinguished in the broad flood of sunshine wherein stands this Shakespeare, a common man, sublimed and radiant in a very deluge and overflow of genial power. Whether it be true or not that these same marvellous gifts of his would have made as great a statesman or as great a philosopher as they made a poet, it does not lie in our way to discover; but to know that the prince of English poets did his work, which no man has equalled, with as much simplicity and as little egotism as any labouring peasant of his time—to see him setting out upon it day by day, rejoicing like a strong man to run a race, but never once revealing to us those laborious tokens of difficulties overcome, which of themselves, as Mr Ruskin says, are among the admirable excellences of Art—to perceive his ease and speed of progress, and how his occupation constantly is with his story and never with himself,—what a lesson it is! But alas, and alas! we are none of us Shakespeares. Far above his motives, we would scorn to spend our genius on a Globe Theatre, or on any other vulgar manner of earning daily bread. The poet is a greater thing than his poem; let us take it solely as an evidence of his progress; and in the mean time, however he may tantalise the world with his gamut and his exercises, let all the world look on with patience, with awe, and with admiration. True, he is not making an Othello or a Hamlet; but never mind, he is making Himself.

Yet the thought will glide in upon us woefully unawares,—What the better are we? We are ever so many millions of people, and only a hundred or two of us at the utmost can be made happy in the personal acquaintanceship of Mr Tennyson or (we humbly crave the Laureate’s pardon for the conjunction) Mr Dobell. In this view of the question, it is not near so important to us that these gentlemen should perfect the poet, as that they should make the poem. We ask the Laureate for a battle-song, and he gives us a skilful fantasia upon the harp; we hush our breath and open our ears, and, listening devoutly to the “Eureka!” of here and there a sanguine critic, who has found a poet, wait, longing for the lay that is to follow. Woe is upon us!—all that we can hear in the universal twitter is, that every man is trying his notes. We are patient, but we are not a stoic; and in the wrath of our disappointment are we not tempted a hundred times to plunge these melodious pipes into the abyss of our waste-paper basket, and call aloud for Punch, and the Times?

Yes, that great poetic rebel, Wordsworth, has heavier sins upon his head than Betty Foy and Alice Fell; it is to him we owe it, that the poet in these days is to be regarded as a delicate monster, a creature who lives not life but poetry, a being withdrawn out of the common existence, and seeing its events only in the magic mirror of his own consciousness, as the Lady of Shallott saw the boats upon the river, and the city towers burning in the sun. The Poet of the Lakes had no imaginary crimes to tell the world of, nor does it seem that he regarded insanity as one of the highest and most poetic states of man; but we venture to believe there never would have been a Balder, and Maud should have had no crazy lover, had there been no Recluse, solemnly living a long life for Self and Poetry in the retired and sacred seclusion of Rydal Mount.

It is in this way that the manner which is natural and a necessity to some one great spirit, becomes an intolerable bondage and oppression to a crowd of smaller ones. The solemn egotism, self-reserved and abstract, which belonged to Wordsworth, is more easily copied than the broad, bright, manful nature of our greatest English poet, who was too mighty to be peculiar; and the delusion has still a deeper root. It is in our nature, as it seems, to scorn what is familiar and common to all the world; priesthoods, find them where you will, are bound to profess a more ethereal organisation, and seek a separated atmosphere. Wordsworth is a very good leader; but for a thorough out-and-out practical man, admitting no compromise with his theory, commend us to Anthony the Eremite, the first of all monkish deserters from this poor sinking vessel, the world. The poet is the priest of Nature; out with him from this Noah’s ark of clean and unclean,—this field of wheat and tares, growing together till the harvest,—this ignoble region of common life. Let the interpreter betake him to his monastery, his cloister, his anchorite’s cell—and when he is there? Yes, when he is there—he will sing to us poor thralls whom he has left behind, but not of our ignoble passions and rejoicings, or the sorrows that rend our hearts. Very different from our heavy-handed troubles, rough troopers in God’s army of afflictions, are the spectre shapes of this poetic world. True, their happiness is rapture, their misery of the wildest, their remorse the most refined; but the daylight shines through and through these ghostly people, and leaves nothing of them but bits of cloud. Alas, the preaching is vain and without profit! What can the poet do—when he is tired of his Mystic, sick of his Balder, weary of Assyrian bulls and lords with rabbit-mouths? Indeed, there seems little better left for him than what his predecessors did before. The monk spent his soul upon some bright-leaved missal, and left the record of his life in the illumination of an initial letter, or the border of foliage on a vellum page; the poet throws away his in some elaborate chime of words, some new inverted measure, or trick of jingling syllables. Which is the quaintest? for it is easy to say which is the saddest waste of the good gifts of God.

Also it is but an indifferent sign of us, being, as we undoubtedly are, so far as poetry is concerned, a secondary age, that there can be no dispute about the first poet of our day. There is no elder brotherhood to compete for the laurel; no trio like Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey; no guerilla like Byron to seize upon the contested honour, nor Irish minstrel to strike a sugared note of emulation. Should a chance arrow at this moment strike down our poetic champion, so far from comforting ourselves, like King Henry, that we have “five hundred as good as he,” we could not find for our consolation one substitute for Tennyson. Echoes of him we could indeed find by the score; but no one his entire equal in all the field. Let no one say we do not appreciate poetry; in these mechanical days there are still a goodly number of singers who could echo that unfortunate admission which cost Haverillo his life, and was the last stroke of exasperation to the redoubtable Firmilian, “I have a third edition in the press.” But in spite of Smith and Dobell, the Brownings and the Mystics, our Laureate holds his place; holding his laurel with justice and right less disputable than most of his predecessors. Yet our admiration of Tennyson is perplexed and unsatisfactory. He is the first in his generation, but out of his generation he does not bear comparison with any person of note and fame equal to his own. He is small in the presence of Wordsworth, a very inferior magician indeed by the side of Coleridge; his very music—pardon us, all poets and all critics!—does not flow. It may be melodious, but it is not winged; one stanza will not float into another. It is a rosary of golden beads, some of them gemmed and radiant, fit to be set in a king’s crown; but you must tell them one by one, and take leisure for your comment while they drop from your fingers. They are beautiful, but they leave you perfectly cool and self-possessed in the midst of your admiration. To linger over them is a necessity; it becomes them to be read with criticism; you go over the costly beadroll and choose your single favourites here and there, as you might do in a gallery of sculpture. And thus the poet chooses to make you master of his song,—it does not seize upon you.

This is a kind and manner of influence which poets have not often aimed at. Hitherto it has been the object of this fraternity to arrest and overpower their audience as the Ancient Mariner fascinated the wedding guest; and we all know how helplessly, and with what complete submission, we have followed in the train of these enchanters, wheresoever it pleased them to turn their wayward footsteps. But Mr Tennyson aims at a more refined and subtle influence than this downright enslaving. A poet who writes, or seems to write, because he cannot help it,—and a poet who writes, or seems to write, of set purpose and malice prepense, are two very different persons. A man of the first class could not have written In Memoriam. Had he been mourning, he must have mourned a closer grief, and broken his heart over it, ere he had wept the half of those melodious tears; but for the poet quietly selecting a subject for his poem, the wisest philosopher could not have suggested a better choice. A great deal has been said and written on this subject, and we are fully aware that grief does not make books, or even poems, except in very rare and brief instances, and that the voice of a great sorrow is a sharp and bitter outcry, and not a long and eloquent monologue. But Mr Tennyson does not present himself to us under the strong and violent compulsion of a great sorrow. It is not grief at his heart which makes him speak, using his gifts to give ease and utterance to its burden of weeping; but it is himself who uses his grief, fully perceiving its capabilities, and the entrance it will give him into the sacred and universal sympathy of his fellows. For, like all great works of art, this poem appeals to one of the primitive and universal emotions of human nature. The dead—the early dead, the beloved, the gifted, the young: we may discuss the appropriateness of the tribute, but we cannot refuse to be moved by its occasion. No man can look on these pages without finding here and there a verse which strikes home; for few of us are happy enough to live so much as twenty years in this weary world of ours without some In Memoriam of our own.

Yet we cannot complain of Mr Tennyson that he makes merchandise of any of the nearest and closest bereavements, the afflictions which shake the very balance of the world to those who suffer them. His sorrow is as much of the mind as of the heart; he weeps a companion beloved, yet almost more honoured and esteemed than beloved—a friend, not even a brother, still less a child or a wife;—enough of the primitive passion to claim sympathy from all of us, but not so much that our sympathy loses itself in a woe beyond consolation. Pure friendship is seldom so impassioned; but had it been a commoner tie—a relationship more usual—these gradual revelations of grief in all its successive phases must have been too much at once for the poet and his audience. This nice discrimination secures for us that we are able to read and follow him into all those solemn regions of thought and fancy which open at the touch of death; he does not fall down upon the grave, the threshold, as we are but too like to do, and we wander after him wistfully, beguiled with the echo of this thoughtful weeping, which must have overpowered us had it been as close or as personal as our own. We feel that over our own minds these same thoughts have flashed now and then—a momentary gleam—while we were wading in the bitter waters, and woefully making up our minds, a hundred times in an hour, to the will of God; but who could follow them out? The poet, more composed, does what we could not do; he makes those flashes of hope or of agony into pictures visible and true. Those glimpses of the face of the dead, of the moonlight marking out upon the marble the letters of his name, those visions of his progress now from height to height in the pure heavens, all the inconsistent lights and shadows—mingled thoughts of the silence in the grave, and of the sound and sunshine of heaven—not one of them is passed over. People say it is not one poem, but a succession of poems. It must have been so, or it would not have been true. One after another they come gleaming through the long reverie of grief—one after another, noting well their inconsistencies, their leaps from day to night, from earth to heaven, the poet has set them down. He knows that we think of the lost, in the same instant, as slumbering under the sod and as awaking above the sky; he knows that we realise them here and there, as living and yet as dead; he knows that our

“fancy fuses old and new,
And flashes into false and true,
And mingles all without a plan.”

It is the excellence of In Memoriam that it is a succession of poems—that the thread of connection runs loosely—now and then drops, and as unexpectedly comes to light again—that the sequence of these fancies knows no logic, and that they come in the strain as they come to the heart.

At the same time it is equally true that all this is done of set purpose and intention—that the act with which, glimpse by glimpse, the whole tearful chronicle is made visible, is a calm deliberate act, and not a voice out of the present passion of a heartbreaking grief. The poet has chosen the theme—it is not the theme which urges with an overpowering impulse the utterance of the poet.

And so it is with all Mr Tennyson’s verses, for—no disparagement to his poetic power—verses we must call them. It is true he is now and then moved by some sudden exclamation, and shouts it out with an unexpected force which startles his readers, for the moment, into a more eager sympathy—but for the most part this poet holds his verse in perfect subordination, and is never overcome or led away by it. His poetry is made, it is not born. When he can round a sentence into a stanza, the effect, of its kind, is perfect; but the very form of his favourite measure, the rhythm of In Memoriam, is against any real outburst of involuntary song; for the verse which falls so sweetly when it contains all that belongs to it within its perfect crystal round, like a dewdrop, makes only a most blurred and unshapely strain when it has to eke out its sense with another and another stanza. When the necessities of his subject force him to this, the poet labours like a man threading together a succession of fish-ponds in hopes of making a river. Of themselves these silvery globes are perfect, but there is no current in them, and, work as you will, they can never flow and glow into a living stream. Yes, our Laureate unhappily is always far too much “master of his subject;” would that his subject now and then could but master him!

If it should happen, by any chance, that Mr Tennyson shared in Wordsworth’s solemn conceit, and designed to make a Gothic cathedral out of his works and life, we marvel much what place in it could be given to The Princess, that prettiest of poetic extravagances. Not a Lady-chapel, though it is of a college of ladies that the story treats—not a delicate shrine, all wrought in lilies and graces of foliage, like the shrine of some sweet maiden-saint. No; the Marys, the Catherines, and the Margarets, symbolised an entirely different fashion of womankind; yet have we the greatest kindness for Ida in her girlish heroics, sincerest of all fictions—in her grand words, and her pride, her inconstant subjects, and her own self-betraying heart. For our own part, we are so entirely weary of symbols, that we do not pause to inquire whether The Princess means anything more than it professes to mean. To us it is only a pleasant picture of the phantasies of youth.

The sweet and daring folly of girlish heroics and extravagance has not done half so much service to the poet and story-teller as has the corresponding stage in the development of man. Yet there is more innocence in it, and perhaps in its full bloom its pretensions are even more sublime. The delicate temerity which dares everything, yet at its very climax starts away in a little sudden access of fear—the glorious young stoic, who could endure a martyrdom, yet has very hard ado to keep from crying when you lose her favourite book or break her favourite flower—the wild enthusiast dreamer, scorning all authorities, who yet could not sleep o’ nights if she had transgressed by ever so little the sweet obedience of home,—there is a charm about this folly almost more delightful than the magic of the bolder youth, with all its bright vagaries; and it is this which makes our tenderness for the Princess Ida and all her “girl graduates in their golden hair.”

Strange enough, however, this phase of youthfulness does not seem to have struck any woman-poet. We have heroines pensive and heroines sublime, heroines serious and heroines merry, but very few specimens of that high fantastical which embraces all these, and into which most men, and doubtless most women, on their way to soberer life, have the luck to fall. Mrs Browning is too sad, too serious, too conscious of the special pangs and calamities which press heaviest on her sisterhood, to take note of any happier peculiarity. Nor is this special eye to feminine troubles confined to Mrs Browning: a weeping and a melancholy band are the poetesses of all generations. “Woman is the lesser man,” says the Laureate; but only woman is the sadder man—the victim set apart on a platform of injury—the wronged and slighted being whose lot it is to waste her sweetness on hearts unkind and ungrateful, say all the ladies. “Her lot is on you.” The mature woman has no better thought, when she looks over the bright girl-heads, bent in their morning prayer; and wherever we have a female singer, there stands woman, deject and pensive, betrayed, forsaken, unbeloved, weeping immeasurable tears. Is a woman, then, the only creature in God’s universe whom He leaves without compensation? Out upon the thought! but there ought to be some Ida bold enough to proclaim the woman’s special happinesses—the exuberant girl-delights—the maiden meditation, fancy free—the glory of motherhood—the blessings as entirely her own as are the griefs. Bertha in the Lane is a most moving story, sweetly told; but ye are not always weeping, O gentlest sisterhood! and where are your songs of joy?

If Mr Tennyson intends the hysterical folly of Maud for a companion picture to this one, he is indeed elevating the woman to a higher pedestal than even Ida dreamed of; for the youth is a miserable conception in comparison with this sunbright girl. In the beginning of the last reign of poets—when men, disturbed by the great rustle of the coming wings, endeavoured to find out wherein the magic consisted, to which they could not choose but yield—we remember to have seen many clever speculations on the nature of poetry “One said it was the moon—another said nay”; and it was very hard to understand the unreasonable potency of this enchantment—which, indeed, clever people, unwilling to yield to an influence which they cannot measure, are perpetually accounting for by rules and principles of art. “It has always been our opinion,” says Lord Jeffrey, “that the very essence of poetry, apart from the pathos, the wit, or the brilliant description which may be embodied in it, but may exist equally in prose, consists in the fine perception and vivid expression of that subtle and mysterious analogy which exists between the physical and the moral world—which makes outward things and qualities the natural types and emblems of inward gifts and emotions, and leads us to ascribe life and sentiment to everything that interests us in the aspects of external nature.” Lord Jeffrey is a good authority, though sometimes this troublesome poetry put even the accomplished critic out of his reckoning; but we are sadly afraid that this deliverance of his, or at least the idea it contains, has had some share in the present insanity of all our poets in regard to Nature. Mr Tennyson may have a private reason of his own for making such a miserable grumbler as his last hero. Mr Dobell may hold himself justified, in the heights of self-complacence, and for the benefit of art, for his atrocious Balder, a criminal, by all poetic laws, for prosiness interminable, worse than murder; but we would crave to know what right these gentlemen may have to seize upon our genial nature, and craze her healthful looks and voices to their hysterical and ghastly fancy? We are content, if he uses his own materials, that the Laureate should dabble his hollow with blood to his heart’s content; but we will not consent, for a hundred laureates, to make the free heather of our hills, the kindly blossom sacred to home and to liberty, an image of disgust and horror. After all, this is a very poor trick and a contemptible—at its best much like that which Mr Ruskin denounces as the most ignoble thing in painting, the excitement of mind which comes from a successful deception, the consciousness that the thing we look at is not what it appears to be. When we feel Nature sympathising with us, it is well; but it is not well when we force her to echo our own mad fancies, of themselves forced and unreal enough. The “frantic rain,” the “shuddering dark,” the “maddened beach”—alas, poor poets! is force of expression not to be found by better means than by this juggle of misplaced adjectives? How widely different was the “sea change into something rich and strange” of the sweeter imagination and the greater heart!

But it is doubtless a very perturbed atmosphere in which we find ourselves when we come face to face with the last new arrival in the land of poesy, the unfortunate young gentleman whose hard fate it is to love Maud, and to shoot her brother. He has no name, this ill-fated youth; but doubtless Balder is reckoned in his roll of cousinships, and so is Mr Alexander Smith. There are three of them, ladies and gentlemen, and they are an amiable trio. Strangely as their garb and intentions are altered, there is a lingering reminiscence about them of a certain Childe Harold who once set the world aflame. Like him they are troubled with a weight of woe and misfortune mysteriously beyond the conception of common men; but unlike him—and the difference is characteristic—these unhappy lads are solemnly bent on “improving their minds,” in spite of their misery. For our own part, we are much disposed, in the first instance, to set down Maud as one of the greatest impertinences ever perpetrated by a poet; but we confess, after an hour’s trial of Balder, and the ceaseless singing of that wife of his, which of itself certainly was almost enough to drive a sober man crazy, and ought to be received as an extenuating circumstance, we return in a kinder spirit to the nameless young gentleman who wrote the Laureate’s poem. After all, he is only an idle boy, scorning other people, as idle boys are not unwont to scorn their neighbours in the world; he does not think himself a divinity; he has not a manuscript at hand to draw forth and gaze upon with delighted eyes; he is not—let us be grateful—a poet. His history is all pure playing with the reader, a wanton waste of our attention and the singer’s powers; but, after all, there is something of the breath of life in it, when we compare it with the solemn foolery of its much-pretending contemporaries, the lauds of the self-worshipping man, or the rhapsodies of the self-admiring youth.

We remember to have heard a very skilful painter of still life describe how the composition, the light and shade, and arrangement of one of his pictures, was taken from a great old picture of a scriptural scene. Instead of men and women, the story and the action of the original, our friend had only things inanimate to group upon his canvass, but he kept the arrangement, the sunshine and the shadow, the same. One can suppose that some such artistic whim had seized upon Mr Tennyson. In the wantonness of conscious power, he has been looking about him for some feat to do—when, lo! the crash of a travelling orchestra smote upon the ears of the poet. Are there German bands in the Isle of Wight? or was it the sublimer music of some provincial opera which woke the Laureate’s soul to this deed of high emprise? Yes, Maud is an overture done into words; beginning with a jar and thunder—all the breath of all the players drawn out in lengthened suspiration upon the noisy notes; then bits of humaner interlude—soft flute-voices—here and there a momentary silvery trumpet-note, or the tinkle of a harp, and then a concluding crash of all the instruments, a tumult of noises fast and furious, an assault upon our ears and our patience, only endurable because we see the end. Such is this poem—which indeed it is sad to call a poem, especially in those hard days. We mean no disparagement to Mr Tennyson’s powers. It is perhaps only when we compare this with other poems of the day that we see how prettily managed is the thread of the story, and how these morsels of verse carry us through every scene as clear as if every scene was a picture; but a man who knows only too consciously that a whole nation of people acknowledge him as their best singer—a man who also doubtless must have noted how the good public, those common people who take their ill names so tenderly, hurry his books into sixth and tenth editions, a fact which ought somewhat to counterbalance the cheating yard-wand—and one, moreover, so thoroughly acquainted with the gravity and passion of this time, and how it has been startled into a humbler estimate of itself by the fiery touch of war,—that such a man, at such an hour, should send forth this piece of trifling as his contribution to the courage and heartening of his country, is as near an insult to the audience he addresses as anything which is not personal can be.

Mr Tennyson, however, has insight and perception to keep him from the strand on which his imitators—the smaller people who endeavour to compete with him in poetry, and triumphantly excel him in extravagance—go ashore. He knows that a poet’s hero ought not to be a poet—that a man’s genius was given him, if not for the glory of God, its best aim, yet, at worst, for the glory of some other man, and not for the pitiful delight of self-laudation, meanest of human follies. A great book is a great thing, and a great poem is the most immortal of great books; yet, notwithstanding, one cannot help a smile at the “Have you read my book?” of Mr Smith’s Life Drama, or the

“O thou first last work! my early planned,

Long meditate, and slowly-written epic,”

of Mr Dobell! The poet’s glory is to celebrate other achievements than his own. His inspiration is the generous flush of sympathy which triumphs in another’s triumph: “Arms and the man I sing;” and so it becomes him to throw his heart into his subject, and leave his own reputation with a noble indifference to the coming ages, who will take care of that. But it is a perilous day for poetry when poets magnify their office through page after page of lengthy argument—not to say, besides, that it is very unjust to us, who are not poets but common people, and cannot be expected to follow into these recondite regions the soaring wing of genius. The greater can comprehend the less, but not the less the greater. He can descend to us in our working-day cares, but it is not to be expected that many of us can ascend to him in that sublime retirement of his among the visions and the shadows. To take Balder, for instance: marvellously few of us, even at our vainest, think either kings or gods of ourselves; ordinary human nature, spite of its prides and pretensions, is seldom without a consciousness at its heart of its own littleness and poverty; and when we hear a man declaring his sublime superiority, we are puzzled, and pause, and smile, and try to make it out a burlesque or an irony. If he says it in sport, we can understand him, for Firmilian is out of sight a more comprehensible person than his prototype; but if our hero is in earnest, we shake our perplexed heads and let him go by—we know him not. There may be such a person—far be it from us to limit the creative faculty; but how does anybody suppose that we—

“Creatures not too wise nor good

For human nature’s daily food,”

can be able to comprehend a being who makes no secret of his own intense superiority, his elevation over our heads? Again, we say, the greater comprehends the less, and not the less the greater. We can enter into the trials and the delights of ordinary men like ourselves; but, alas! we are not able to enter into those pleasures and poetic pains “which only poets know.” And the poet knows we cannot appreciate him—nay, glories in our wonder as we gape after him in his erratic progress—showers upon us assurances that we cannot understand, and laughs at our vain fancy if we venture humbly to suppose that we might; but in the name of everything reasonable, we crave to know, this being the case, why this infatuated singer publishes his poem? “Have you read my book?” says Walter, in the Life Drama; and being answered, “I have:” “It is enough,” says the satisfied poet,—

“The Book was only written for two souls,

And they are thine and mine.”

Very well! So be it! We did not ask Mr Smith for a poem, neither did our importunity besiege the tower of Balder; but if they were not written for us, why tantalise us with these mysterious revelations? For two souls the Life Drama might have answered exceeding well in manuscript, and within the bounds of a private circulation the exceptional men who possibly could comprehend him might have studied Balder. How does it happen that Shakespeare’s wonderful people, with all their great individualities, are never exceptional men? It is a singular evidence of the vast and wide difference between great genius and “poetic talent.” For Shakespeare, you perceive, can afford to let us all understand; thanks to his commentators, there are a great many obscure phrases in the Prince of Poets—but all the commentators in the world cannot make one character unintelligible, or throw confusion into a single scene.

Balder, we presume, has not yet been hanged, indisputable as are his claims to that apotheosis; for this is only part the first, and our dangerous hero has yet to progress through sundry other “experiences,” and to come at last “from a doubtful mind to a faithful mind,”—how about his conscience and the law, meanwhile, Mr Dobell does not say. But we have no objections to make to the story of Balder. That such a being should exist at all, or, existing, should, of all places in the world, manage to thrust himself into a poem, is the head and front of the offending, to our thought. The author of this poetic Frankenstein mentions Haydon, Keats, and David Scott as instances of the “much-observed and well-recorded characters of men,” in which “the elements of his hero exist uncombined and undeveloped.” Poor Keats’s passionate poet-vanity seems out of place beside the marvellous and unexampled egotism of the two painters; but we do not see how the poet improves his position by this reference; nay, had we demonstration that Balder himself was a living man, we do not see what better it would be. He is a monster, were he twenty people; and, worse than a monster, he is a bore; and, worse than a bore, he is an unbearable prig! One longs to thrust the man out of the window, as he sits mouthing over his long-meditated epic, and anticipating his empire of the world. Yet it really is a satisfaction to be told that this incarnate vanity represents “the predominant intellectual misfortune of the day.” Is this then the Doubt of which Mr Maurice is respectful, which Mr Kingsley admires, and Isaac Taylor lifts his lance to demolish? Alas, poor gentlemen, how they are all deceived! It is like the story we all believed till truth-telling war found out the difference for us, of the painted ramparts and wooden bullets of the Russian fortresses. If Mr Dobell is right, we want no artillery against the doubter—he will make few proselytes, and we may safely leave him to any elaborate processes he chooses for the killing of himself.

“Many things go to the making of all things,” says a quaint proverb—and we require more than a shower of similes, pelting upon us like the bonbons of a carnival—more than a peculiar measure, a characteristic cadence, to make poetry. There is our Transatlantic cousin rhyming forth his chant to all the winds. Well!—we thought we knew poetry once upon a time—once in the former days our heart leaped at sight of a poetry-book, and the flutter of the new white pages was a delight to our soul. But alas, and alas! our interest fails us as much for the Song of Hiawatha as for the musings of Balder; there is no getting through the confused crowd of Mr Browning’s Men and Women, and with reverential awe we withdraw us from The Mystic, not even daring a venturesome glance upon that globe of darkness. What are we to do with these books? They suppose a state of leisure, of ease, of quietness, unknown to us for many a day. It pleases the poet to sing of a distempered vanity brooding by itself over fictitious misfortunes, and what is it to us whether a Maud or a Balder be the issue?—or he treats of manners and customs, names and civilisations, and what care we whether it be an Indian village or a May fair? We have strayed by mistake into a delicate manufactory—an atelier of the beaux arts—and even while we look at the workmen and admire the exquisite manipulation of the precious toys before us, our minds stray away out of doors with a sigh of weariness to the labours of this fighting world of ours and the storms of our own life. There is no charm here to hold us, none to cheat us into a momentary forgetfulness of either our languors or our labours. If it is all poetry, it has lost the first heritage and birthright of the Muse: it speaks to the ear—it does not speak to the heart.

Yet in this contention of cadences, where every man’s ambition is for a new rhythm, Hiawatha has a strong claim upon the popular fancy. Possibly it is not new; but if Mr Longfellow is the first to make it popular, it matters very little who invented it; and to talk of plagiarism is absurd. But, unhappily for the poet, this is the very measure to attract the parodist. Punch has opened the assault, and we will not attempt to predict how many gleeful voices may echo his good-humoured mockery before the year is out. The jingle of this measure is irresistible, and with a good vocabulary of any savage language at one’s elbow, one feels a pleasing confidence that the strain might spin on for ever, and almost make itself. But for all that, though the trick of the weaving is admirable—though we are roused into pleasant excitement now and then by a hairbreadth escape from a rhyme, and applaud the dexterity with which this one peril is evaded, we are sadly at a loss to find any marks of a great or note-worthy poem in this chant, which is fatally “illustrative of” a certain kind of life, but contains very little in itself of any life at all. The greatest works of art,—and we say it at risk of repeating ourselves—are those which appeal to the primitive emotions of nature; and in gradual descent, as you address the secondary and less universal emotions, you fail in interest, in influence, and in greatness. Hiawatha contains a morsel of a love-story, and a glimpse of a grief; but these do not occupy more than a few pages, and are by no means important in the song. The consequence is, of course, that we listen to it entirely unmoved. It was not meant to move us. The poet intends only that we should admire him, and be attracted by the novelty of his subject; and so we do admire him—and so we are amused by the novel syllables—attracted by the chime of the rhythm, and the quaint conventionalities of the savage life. But we cannot conceal from ourselves that it is conventional, though it is savage; and that in reality we see rather less of the actual human life and nature under the war-paint of the Indian than is to be beheld every day under the English broadcloth. The Muse is absolute in her conditions; we cannot restrain her actual footsteps; from the highest ideal to the plainest matter of fact there is no forbidden ground to the wandering minstrel; but it is the very secret of her individuality, that wherever she goes she sounds upon the chords of her especial harp, the heart;—vibrations of human feeling ring about her in her wayfaring—the appeal of the broken heart and the shout of the glad one thrust in to the very pathway where her loftiest abstraction walks in profounder calm; and though it may please her to amuse herself among social vanities now and then, we are always reminded of her identity by a deeper touch, a sudden glance aside into the soul of things—a glimpse of that nature which makes the whole world kin. It is this perpetual returning, suddenly, involuntarily, and almost unawares, to the closest emotions of the human life, which distinguishes among his fellows the true poet. It is the charm of his art that he startles us in an instant, and when we least expected it, out of mere admiration into tears; but such an effect unfortunately can never be produced by customs, or improvements, or social reforms. The greatest powers of the external world are as inadequate to this as are the vanities of a village; and even a combination of both is a fruitless expedient. No, Mr Longfellow has not shot his arrow this time into the heart of the oak—the dart has glanced aside, and fallen idly among the brushwood. His Song is a quaint chant, a happy illustration of manners, but it lacks all the important elements which go to the making of a poem. We are interested, pleased, attracted, yet perfectly indifferent; the measure haunts our ear, but not the matter—and we care no more for Hiawatha, and are still as little concerned for the land of the Objibbeways, as if America’s best minstrel had never made a song. The poet was more successful in the wistfulness of his Evangeline, to which even these lengthened, desolate, inquiring hexameters lent a charm of appropriate symphony; but it is a peculiarity of this sweet singer that his best strains are always wistful, longing, true voices of the night.

It is odd to remark the entire family aspect and resemblance which our English poets bear to one another. Mr Tennyson is the eldest of the group, and they all take after him; but they are true brothers, and have quite a family standard of merit by which to judge themselves. Mr Dobell is the sulky boy—Mr Browning the boisterous one—Mr Smith the younger brother, desperately bent on being even with the firstborn, and owning no claim of birthright. There is but one sister in the melodious household, and she is quite what the one sister generally is in such a family—not untouched by even the schoolboy pranks of the surrounding brothers—falling into their ways of speaking—moved by their commotions—very feminine, yet more acquainted with masculine fancies than with the common ways of women. Another sister or two to share her womanly moderatorship in this noisy household might have made a considerable difference in Mrs Browning: but her position has a charm of its own;—she never lags behind the fraternal band, nay, sometimes stimulated by a sudden impulse, glides on first, and calls “the boys” to follow her: nor does she quite refuse now and then to join a wild expedition to the woods or the sea-shore. If she has sometimes a feminine perception that the language of the brothers is somewhat too rugged or too obscure for common comprehension, she partly adopts the same, with a graceful feminine artifice, to show how, blended with her sweeter words, this careless diction can be musical after all; and you feel quite confident that she will stand up stoutly for all the brotherhood, even when she does not quite approve of their vagaries. She has songs of her own, sweet and characteristic, such as “Little Ellie,” and leaps into the heart of a great subject once in that Lay of the Children, which everybody knows and quotes, and which has just poetic exaggeration sufficient to express the vehement indignation with which the song compelled the singer’s utterance. Altogether, Mrs Browning’s poems, rank them how you will in intellectual power, have more of the native mettle of poetry than most modern verses. She is less artificial than her brotherhood—and there is something of the spring and freedom of things born in her two earlier volumes; she is not so assiduously busy over the things which have to be made.

And Robert Browning is the wild boy of the household—the boisterous noisy shouting voice which the elder people shake their heads to hear. It is very hard to make out what he would be at with those marvellous convolutions of words; but, after all, he really seems to mean something, which is a comfort in its way. Then there is an unmistakable enjoyment in this wild sport of his—he likes it, though we are puzzled; and sometimes he works like the old primitive painters, with little command of his tools, but something genuine in his mind, which comes out in spite of the stubborn brushes and pigments, marvellous ugly, yet somehow true. Only very few of his Men and Women is it possible to make out: indeed, we fear that the Andrea and the Bishop Blougram are about the only intelligible sketches, to our poor apprehension, in the volumes; but there is a pleasant glimmer of the author himself through the rent and tortured fabric of his poetry, which commends him to a kindly judgment; and, unlike those brothers of his who use the dramatic form with an entire contravention of its principles, this writer of rugged verses has a dramatic gift, the power of contrasting character, and expressing its distinctions.

But altogether, not to go further into these characteristic differences, they are a united and affectionate family this band of poets, and chorus each other with admirable amiability; yet we confess, for poetry’s sake, we are jealous of the Laureate’s indisputable pre-eminence. It is not well for any man—unless he chance to be a man like Shakespeare, a happy chance, which has never happened but once in our race or country—to have so great a monopoly; and it is a sad misfortune for Tennyson himself, that he has no one to try his mettle, but is troubled with a shadowy crowd of competitors eagerly contending which shall reflect his peculiarities best.

For the manfuller voices are all busy with serious prose or that craft of novel-writing which is more manageable for common uses than the loftier vehicle of verse. True, there are such names as Aytoun and Macaulay, and we all know the ringing martial ballad-notes which belong to these distinguished writers; but Macaulay and Aytoun have taken to other courses, and strike the harp no more. And while the higher places stand vacant, the lower ones fill with a crowd of choral people, who only serve to show us the superiority of the reigning family, such as it is. It is a sad fact, yet we cannot dispute it—poetry is fast becoming an accomplishment, and the number of people in “polite society” who write verses is appalling. Only the other day, two happy samples of Young England came by chance across our path—one a young clergyman, high, high, unspeakably high, riding upon the very rigging of the highest roof of Anglican churchmanship, bland, smooth, and gracious, a bishop in the bud; the other, his antipodes and perfect opposite, gone far astray after the Warringtons and Pendennises—a man of mirth and daring, ready for everything. They had but one feature of resemblance—an odd illustration of what we have just been saying. Both of them had modestly ventured into print; both of them were poets.

And yet that stream of smooth and facile verse which surrounded us in former days has suffered visible diminution. It is a different kind of fare which our minor minstrels shower down upon that wonderful appetite of youth, which doubtless cracks those rough-husked nuts of words with delighted eagerness, as we once drank in the sugared milk-and-water of a less pretending Helicon. After all, we suspect it is the youthful people who are the poets’ best audience. These heirs of Time, coming leisurely to their inheritance, have space for song by the way; but in the din and contest of life we want a more potent influence. If the poet has anything to say to us, he must even seize us by the strong hand, and compel our listening; for we are very unlike to pause of our own will, or take time to hear his music on any weaker argument than this.

And he too at last has gone away to join his old long-departed contemporaries, that old old man, with his classic rose-garland, from the classic table, where generations of men and poets have come and gone, a world of changing guests. He was not a great poet certainly, and his festive, and prosperous, and lengthened life called for no particular exercise of our sympathies; yet honour and gentle recollection be with the last survivor of the last race of Anakim, though he himself was not among the giants. The day has changed since that meridian flush which left a certain splendour of reflection upon Samuel Rogers, the last of that great family of song. Ours is only a twilight kind of radiance, however much we may make of it. It differs sadly from the full unclouded shining of that Day of the Poets which is past.

A MILITARY ADVENTURE IN THE PYRENEES.

BY A PENINSULAR MEDALLIST.

CONCLUSION.

CHAPTER XIII.

On arriving at our billet, we there found the Padre, who expressed his profound regrets at the insult offered by the villagers to my companion, and repeated his assurance that nothing of the kind should happen again.

“Señor Padre,” said I, “that is hardly sufficient. I think that people who misconduct themselves as the villagers have done, should be made sensible of their error by stringent measures.”

“This time let it pass,” said M. le Tisanier. “Should the same thing happen again, I shall hold the alcalde responsible, and shall invite him” (M. le T. twists his mustache) “to a promenade outside the village.”

The Padre was in a little bit of a fidget. We had come upon him in the kitchen, with a ladle on the stove, and sleeves turned up. He was casting bullets.

“No news of this French column,” said he; “I have been waiting about here, expecting intelligence all the morning.”

“Why not send out some of the villagers?” I asked. “They might pick up information.”

“Señor Capitan,” he replied, “I have thought of a better plan than that. You and I were to have gone out shooting to-day. Suppose we go to-morrow morning.”

“With much pleasure,” said I, “but what are we to effect by that?”

“We will take a new direction,” he replied. “We will not go northwards, as hitherto; we will go southwards. This will bring us towards the point from which the enemy are approaching. We may obtain tidings; perhaps we may get a sight of them.”

“You must be guide, then,” I answered. “Of course, you know the ground.”

“Trust me for that,” said he. “I will not take you by the direct route across the open plain. We will strike off to the right, and skirt the foot of the hills.”

“Why go over rough ground, in preference to level?” I asked.

“Ah,” said he, “you are, I perceive, a novice in guerilla warfare. Regular tactics are your line. If they caught sight of us on the open plain, don’t you see they would be sure to overtake and capture us? If we have the hills on our flank, cannot we at any time escape up the rocks and gullies? They are not likely to follow us there. If they do, at any rate, I promise you some beautiful shooting.”

“Let alone a little bloodletting among the thorn-bushes,” said I; “trousers in tatters, and our beasts rolling heels over head down all sorts of places.”

“We must go on foot,” he replied.

“Very good,” said I; “you know best. Only recollect my left leg is in far better walking order for half-a-league than for half-a-dozen. Suppose I knock up?”

“Chito! then I will carry you on my back.”

“Be it so,” said I, inwardly determining to drop dead tired for the fun of the thing, and take a spell out of the Padre as long as I found it pleasant. “Then, to-morrow after breakfast——”

“We must start before breakfast,” said the Padre.

Supposing the enemy at hand, it really was desirable to know what they were about. So I ended by assenting, with one proviso, to all the Padre’s propositions. The proviso was, that in the interval we received no intelligence sufficiently conclusive of itself, and rendering our reconnaissance superfluous.

CHAPTER XIV.

No intelligence arrived, and early next morning we set out to seek the foe. M. le Tisanier was up betimes to see us off. “Expect to see me return,” said I, “in a state of absolute exhaustion and immense inanition, with heels hanging down over the Padre’s shoulders. In pity have a good dinner ready.”

“I shall be prepared for you,” said M. le Tisanier.

“Of course you feel easy,” said I to the Padre as we went along, “respecting the four Frenchmen.”

“No fear about them,” replied the Padre. “They know it is their safety to keep quiet; and if they come to any harm, it will be their own act. If they attempt to move, or even show themselves abroad, they will be shot down luego, luego.”

Our ramble proved well worth taking for its own sake; but we saw no Frenchmen, and very little game. The Padre was fortunate, and bagged a fox. My success was but scanty in respect to hares and partridges. After a long detour through a wild and very thinly inhabited district, and a few calls at scattered cottages or rather hovels, the abode of a rough and noble peasantry, all of whom received the Padre with profound veneration, and me as his companion with high Spanish courtesy, we reached at length a village which we had agreed to make the extreme limit of our excursion. Still obtaining no intelligence, we set out, after resting, on our return. We now, however, took the direct route over the plain, and found our journey homeward far more agreeable than our journey out. There was a point on which I deemed it requisite to obtain information, and the Padre being in a remarkably conversable vein, the present seemed a good opportunity.

“You mentioned,” said I, “that the proprietors of your abode were worthy people. I should be sorry, for their sakes, if the house received damage from the enemy.”

He. “It is not altogether for their sakes that I wish to preserve the house.”

I. “Of course, not altogether. Your own property—your own effects——”

He. “I have no property; I have no effects; I have nothing. It is a rule of my order. I am under a vow of poverty. No, no; my wish springs from a principle of honour.”

I. “Just what I should feel towards my own landlord. But you say it is not on your landlord’s account.”

He. “It is on account of the fraternity of which I am an unworthy member.”

I. “Oh, oh! then your fraternity have an interest in the premises?”

He. “Not exactly in the building itself, but in its contents. The fact is, our convent——but I forget. You, as a heret——pardon me; you, as an Englishman, can have no acquaintance with our regulations. I will just explain. Our poor indigent community has some trifling property in lands, principally vineyards. I am their factor. That house is one of our depôts.”

I. “Very good wine, too, the growth of your estates. Little did I imagine, while seated with you at table, or puffing a cigar, that we were sipping the property of the Church.”

He. “You may say smoking as well as sipping. The cigars also are the property of our humble fraternity.”

I. “Well, I like that idea of a vow of poverty amazingly. You don’t intend to convert me?”

He (benignantly). “One thing at a time. As to the wine we drink, you mistake, however, if you suppose that is the wine we grow. The wine grown on our lands is the ordinario sort—abundant, indeed, as to quantity, and in that respect valuable; but not of a sort fit to be drunk by my order. No, no; we exchange it for better. For example, what you have been drinking I trust you will admit is a good sound wine.”

I. “As good a Spanish red wine as I ever tasted;”—and it was no compliment.

He. “Yes, yes; and we sometimes exchange for foreign wines. Would that you had been here before the branch convent, which is now your hospital, was ransacked by the French. Have I not good reason for shooting a Frenchman whenever I can? Ah, I would have given you such a bottle of bordeaux! And port! As good port as you can drink in the Peninsula, and far better than you ever are likely to drink in your own country.”

I. “And so it is you who have the management of all this. Surely it must give you no end of trouble.”

He. “Trouble? It is my business. Besides that, it is a duty I owe my fraternity, consequently a duty of my profession. As to trouble, my only real trouble is in running foreign goods from the coast, or across the frontiers. I certainly do sometimes find a little trouble in that. But why should I complain? After all, it is exciting, and so far a pleasure. A man of my cloth ought always to be contented.”

I. “French goods?”

He. “French goods and English. French, across the Pyrenees; English, from the shores of the Mediterranean and Bay of Biscay. We sell again at a very fair profit—moderate as becomes our order, but fair nevertheless.”

I. “A heavy deduction, though, the fiscal exactions of your government, no doubt.”

“Fiscal?” he exclaimed, frowning horribly. “Fiscal? Do you think me, in managing the concerns of my venerable brotherhood, capable of such a dereliction of principle—do you consider me such an ass as to permit any deduction like that? Why, if we conducted our little business subject to fiscal obstructions, we might as well have no management at all. Señor Capitan, although this conversation was brought on by a remark on your part, the subject is one on which I have long wished to confer with you confidentially, and I thank you for the opportunity. And now let me bespeak your kind, benevolent offices on behalf of my self-denying humble brethren. As I said before, we profess poverty, we have nothing. Charitable laics, touched by our dependent and destitute condition, have from time to time bequeathed us trifles of landed property, which we frugally farm to the best advantage, taking the chance—you know it is a toss-up—of profit or loss. The produce, when realised, we turn to account as well as our poor opportunities permit; and my object is to supplicate your best offices in behalf of our little store in the village, which, as well as one or two others in different localities, is under my charge and responsibility. Some damage our store has suffered already. After the plunder of the convent by the French, your own troops, on their arrival in the village, found their way into the cellar of the house, and were beginning to make free with the wine, when you happily arrived, and order was soon restored. All I ask is, that as long as you remain here, or have influence in this neighbourhood, you will kindly give our depôt the benefit of your protection, so far as you may be able. I ask it, not only on my own account, but for the sake of my venerable brethren. Our wants are few. The French silks and English prints we sell for what we can get. We also drive a trifling business in English cutlery, and French quincaillerie. The poor must do something to live. As to the convent in Vittoria, I forward to it from time to time, as best I can, and when I have got them, only little supplies of such common necessaries as bordeaux, port, champagne, sherry, French brandy when I can get it good, sardines, gruyère cheese, caviar, vermicelli, macaroni, spicery, Dutch herrings, maraschino, Hamburg sausages, and a few other little knicknackeries not worth enumerating. Our wants are few.”

Had liberal Spain, when she laid hands on the property of the religious orders, gone through as she began, made a clean work of it, and reformed ALL that we consider the errors and abuses of Romanism, I, as an ardent Protestant, should have cordially rejoiced. But merely to confiscate endowments, and to leave other things as they are, is a different thing. There can be no doubt of it, that at the beginning of this century, when Napoleon I. attempted to make Spain a province of France, the Spanish clergy, by their influence with the nation, and by their success in maintaining the spirit of national resistance, were the saviours of their country. That these have been made the victims, and the only victims of reform, is hard indeed.

I walked on, listening to the Padre’s discourse with so much interest, that we arrived close upon our village before I recollected his promise of a lift, and my own fixed purpose of taking it out of him. We were now not a quarter of a mile from our journey’s end; and I was beginning to muse, with complacent anticipation, on the capital dinner which M. le Tisanier was to have ready on our arrival, when we noticed Francisco coming down the lane to meet us.

As he approached with hasty strides, his visage was clouded. He made an angry gesture, as if signalling us to halt.

“That endiablado doctor,” said he, “(may his soul never see the inside of purgatory!) has armed the four Frenchmen, seized all the ammunition in the village, and barricaded the house!”

CHAPTER XV.

We halted. As the tidings brought by Francisco deprived the Padre of utterance, I demanded particulars.

It appeared from Francisco’s indignant statement that, subsequently to our departure, when M. le Tisanier, having made his preliminary arrangements for our dinner, had visited the hospitals, and was returning through the village, he was again set upon by the inhabitants. The villagers, taking advantage of the Padre’s absence, surrounded and insulted him, menaced both him and the four prisoners with death, and pelted him with stones, one of which had taken effect, very much to the detriment of his physiognomy. On reaching home, however, he occupied himself as usual, without doing anything to excite suspicion; but, after a while, he sent off Francisco with a message to the “two wounded Spaniards” at the convent, and with directions to await their further instructions. After being detained a couple of hours, which he spent in the study of English, under the tuition of the convalescent soldiers, with whom Francisco was popular, the two Spaniards merely gave him directions to go home again, and he returned to the house.

On entering the kitchen, he was surprised to see what to all appearance was a dinner ready-cooked, arranged on a tray, and under covers. M. le Tisanier, pointing to the tray, bade him carry it to the Alcalde’s, with a message that he himself would be there immediately. The Alcalde was from home; and Francisco, on coming out after leaving the tray, beheld in the street a spectacle which, as he elegantly expressed himself, “revolved his interior” (revolvió-me las tripas). Close at hand appeared, all bearing their muskets and fully accoutred, the four French soldiers, headed by M. le Tisanier, who marched en militaire, with his drawn sword sloped on his shoulder. This armed party, compelling him to return with them, entered the Alcalde’s house, demanded all the arms on the premises, obtained a gun, a blunderbuss, a pair of Spanish rapiers, and a quantity of ammunition. They then, leaving behind them a basket which contained several bottles of the Padre’s wine, went back to the house, which immediately on their entering they barricaded, leaving the astonished Francisco in the street.

The villagers noticed these proceedings with consternation, but had been taken by surprise, and were overawed by the military display. After the closing of the house, they assembled tumultuously in the street, and meditated all sorts of things. But M. le Tisanier, appearing at the window of an entresuelo (a closet or small chamber half-way up-stairs), warned them to disperse if they did not wish to be fired upon; an admonition which they were the more readily induced to follow by a bullet that whistled over their heads. They then withdrew to their huts, anxiously watching the closed house, in which no movement was discernible, and expecting with much palpitation the Padre’s return.

Francisco, recovering from his first surprise, had started off, he told us, in search of the Padre and me; but not knowing which way we had taken, assuming that we had followed our usual direction towards the shooting-ground, and being too much confused to make inquiries, he had covered a great deal of ground to no purpose, and had not got back to the village till a short time before our return.

“Santiago de Compostella!” gasped the Padre, at length recovering partially his senses and his breath, and dashing his bonnet on the ground. “For which of my many sins was I withheld from cutting that hangdog’s throat the first moment that I set eyes on him! Santiago! Trecientos mil diablos!”

“Compose yourself, Señor Padre,” said I. “At least wait till we see how things look, and till we can judge for ourselves. If the Doctor has been menaced and assaulted, what wonder that he should place himself in security till our return? The business, according to my view of it, is not so serious as you appear to think.”

“Ah!” said the Padre, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, “you are very kind. I totally forgot what I had just told you—that, with the exception of the wine, I had sent off all our stores to Vittoria.—Oh no! I mistake! Three dozen Lamego hams! Beautiful!—delicate! The choicest rarity in these parts! Oh, my Lamego hams! To think that the poor provision for my self-denying, self-mortifying, exemplary brethren should go to feed those hounds of Frenchmen!”

“Never mind,” I replied, still striving to tranquillise his agitated feelings; “should the worst come to the worst, we’ll have them out of that long before they finish your hams. But not to lose time, suppose I just step forward, and try the effects of a parley.”

CHAPTER XVI.

On approaching the house, which had now become a place d’armes, I saw no one stirring. Every shutter was closed. It was a square low building, as old as the Moors, flat-roofed, solidly built of stone. Its little windows were high above the level of the ground. As I drew nigh, I remarked that the large massive door, which usually stood open all day, was, as well as the shutters, closed. Spanish-fashion, I took the liberty of kicking at the said door, in the absence of any such superfluities as bell or knocker. A voice responded over my head, “Quien es?” (Who is it?)

I looked up. At the window above, already indicated by Francisco’s narrative, with an awfully damaged peeper, stood M. le Tisanier. He bowed politely.

“Ah!” said he. “So you have returned from your reconnaissance. Any intelligence of the French column? What sport to-day?”

Not choosing to answer the former of these inquiries, I addressed myself to the latter. “Very poor indeed. Only a brace and a half of birds, and a couple of hares. The Padre, though, has brought home a fox. Dinner ready?”

He. “Your dinner? Oh, yes, that was ready some hours ago. It awaits you at the Alcalde’s—hope you’ll enjoy it. It will merely require warming.”

I. “Shall we not, then, have the pleasure of your company?”

He. “To tell you the truth, I have made up my mind to remain where I am. The villagers, as you perceive, have maltreated me; so the idea occurred to me, my best plan would be to fortify the house.”

I. “In our absence, quite right. But now that the Padre has returned, as well as myself, no further precaution is requisite.”

He. “Pardon me. I take quite a different view of the subject.”

I (a little annoyed). “Explain yourself.”

He. “In case you should receive satisfactory intelligence that my countrymen are approaching in force, and supposing you should in consequence deem it requisite to evacuate this hamlet and fall back on Vittoria, permit me to inquire, would you not feel it your duty to invite me to accompany you as a prisoner?”

I. “Probably.”

He. “Of course you would. Now, that being your duty, I have been led to consider what, under the circumstances, is my duty. And it strikes me, I confess, that in the prospect of a speedy reunion with my countrymen, the most proper thing I can do is—to remain where I am.”

I. “Permit me, however, to suggest, that if you persist in this view, and if we should be induced in consequence to adopt vigorous measures, you may find yourself, on their proving successful, very awkwardly situated among the people of this place. You know their feeling, and I might no longer be able to restrain them.”

He. “Permit me, on the other hand, to suggest, that should I maintain myself in this house till my countrymen arrive, the exploit will cover me with glory, my comrades will rush to congratulate me, and I shall be appreciated throughout the French army. In short, M. le Capitaine, I consider my actual position impregnable; and never in my life did I feel more completely at my ease than I do at this moment. Benevolently anxious to prevent the needless effusion of blood, I tender you my disinterested advice to abstain from any rash attempt; and, by no means unwilling to impart useful information, I beg to state that, while your sick men in the hospital have next to no ammunition, I, on my part, have secured all the powder and shot in the village. The Padre’s store, the Alcalde’s, and—pardon me—your own, are all in my safe keeping.”

Beginning to feel out of temper, I made an appeal. “I thought, Monsieur, in dealing with an officer and a gentleman, I should, at any rate, find security in his plighted word. Remember, you are on your parole.”

“Ah!” he replied with much gravity, “you touch my honour. I cannot permit that. But, Monsieur, I think you scarcely recollect. My parole? Let me see. What was my parole? That I would not escape from this place. Very good. Here I am. If my own countrymen come and fetch me away, that, of course, is quite another affair.”

I was sick of this long conversation, and a little sulky. “Monsieur,” said I, “you seem to reckon on the arrival of your countrymen. Doubtless the movement on their part will bring some of mine. Should you hold out till they arrive, which, however, is far from certain, depend upon it you will not again obtain your parole; you will be treated as a common prisoner.”

“Never mind,” said he; “I must take the rough with the smooth. As far as my own military experience goes, the French are quite as quick in their movements as the English; and you yourself have taught me to believe” (he bows very low indeed) “that the conduct of British officers to a French officer who happens to find himself in their power, will never be other than that of a gentleman. By the by, I have a little request to make. Should you send for assistance to Vittoria, pray let it be such a force that I may capitulate without disgrace,—not less than a corps d’armée, I beg. As to artillery, a siege-train, if you please. I could not possibly surrender to field guns.”

I felt excessively disgusted, and was about to withdraw. Yet, recollecting that, with all his gasconade, M. le Tisanier had certainly manifested a sort of good feeling, by preparing our dinner in the midst of his arrangements for defence, I paused.

“I am sorry our stock of game is so small to-day,” said I. “Will you do me the favour to accept of it?”

“No,” said he, with an air of decision; “I could not. Excuse me. A thousand thanks.”

“Come, come,” said I; “bent as you are on resistance, at least let us carry on this war without mutual animosity. Oblige me by accepting of the hares and partridges for your private use.”

“It is out of the question,” he answered firmly. “Honour forbids my compliance. Nevertheless,” he added, after a pause, as if struck by some new idea, “to prove that I am not above receiving an obligation, I will accept—the fox.”

Accept the fox? Though not exactly understanding this, I returned to where I had left the produce of the day’s sport in the keeping of the Padre and Francisco. The Padre was gone; so, making free to lift the fox from Francisco’s shoulders, I went back to the place of conference, and handed it up to M. le Tisanier, who reappeared at his window. He received the gift without explanation, but with a profusion of bows as well as many polite acknowledgments. Fortunate for him were his limber indications of gratitude; for, just as he made his first bow on receiving the slaughtered fox, the crack of a musket from an opposite hovel was accompanied by the whiz of a bullet, which passed just over his head, and, had he remained upright, would have doubtless passed through it.

“Good,” said he; “another bullet added to our store of ammunition, and one charge less in the Padre’s pouch. That was his musket.”

“Now,” said I, “be persuaded. Go in at once. The Padre will not make a second miss.”

“It will take at least two minutes,” he replied, “ere the Padre can fire again. Monsieur,” he continued, with earnestness and emotion, “I have yet a request. Having resolved to assume my present attitude of defensive hostilities, not so much for my own sake, as to save my captive countrymen, to whom even your influence might not always prove an adequate protection in this execrable village, I think you can guess the parties who are now the chief objects of my solicitude. On the whole, I judged it their safest course that they should continue in the hospital rather than join me here. As Spaniards, should they find their present position untenable, they can at any rate escape. But, as you know my secret, may I still depend on your good offices? May I venture to hope that, in any case of exigency, you will render all the assistance in your power to one whose life I prize, as much as—as much as I disregard my own?” There spoke the Gascon.

“Depend upon me,” I replied. “Now withdraw from the window without further parley.”

He backed into the house with another bow, and reclosed the shutter. As he disappeared he smiled; nor could I altogether preserve my gravity.

Certainly the Padre’s ideas touching the laws of war were a little primitive. In fact, his firing while the conference was in progress, looked almost like violating a flag of truce.

“Well, Señor Padre,” said I, on entering the cottage whence the shot had proceeded, “how do you intend to regain possession of your house?”

The Padre looked dumfounded. “I rather depended on your experience,” he replied. “Were I in the house, I would undertake to hold it against fifty Frenchmen. But, as we must now be the assailants, and as that is a line of warfare less in my way, I look chiefly to your own more extensive acquaintance with sap, mining, intrenchments, and approaches.”

“No, no,” I answered. “You have thought fit to commence operations, so you must go through with them.”

“Señor Capitan,” said the Padre, “I am already sufficiently punished by having missed that shot. Do not aggravate my penalty by——.” Enter a messenger in haste.

It was Francisco, not only in haste, but in a high state of exasperation. His look I will not attempt to delineate. The face of a well-conducted, taciturn, sober-minded Spaniard, when distorted by passion, must be seen, not described; and, if seen, will not soon be forgotten.

“The enemy,” he cried, “defies us! He has hoisted his standard!”

We looked towards the house. An ensign of some sort he had raised, sure enough; of what kind we could not immediately distinguish, but the fact was palpable. From the flat roof there rose a slender pole, and at its summit hung suspended and swinging in the wind a something—what?—the fox’s brush.

CHAPTER XVII.

Francisco spoke truly. It was defiance, and no mistake. To hang out a fox’s tail! Not only defiance, but mockery—rank insult! I had suggested to M. le Tisanier, in our recent parley, the possible arrival of an English force. But this was a contingency to be now as much deprecated on my part as on his. To be caught by my countrymen laying siege to my own prisoner ensconced in my own billet, the housetop surmounted by a banner which whimsically spoke the language of challenge and derision combined,—why, on returning to headquarters, I should never hear the end of it. M. le Tisanier might think it a very good joke; but I very soon settled it in my own mind that either by storm or by regular approach I must reduce him and his garrison in the least possible time. So nothing remained but to let slip the dogs of war—i. e., to open the campaign.

From inquiries instituted on my suggestion by the Padre, it was at once ascertained that the village possessed next to nothing in the shape of ammunition and matériel for carrying on the siege. M. le Tisanier had indeed very correctly stated that the bulk was in his own safe keeping. Burning the house would not exactly have suited the Padre, even had it been built of combustible materials, or had I myself entertained any such truculent designs.

Without interruption on the part of the enemy, I reconnoitred the building on all sides. It stood in its strength, completely detached from all other tenements, without garden, trees, fences, or anything else affording cover for our approaches. Close by, indeed, there stood a small shed which served as a wood-house, solidly built of stone. But this also was entirely detached from the main building; and its door, opening sideways, was completely commanded from the roof and windows of the house itself.

Having posted some of the villagers to watch in the surrounding cottages, with directions to report if they noticed any movement in the house, but not to show themselves, the Padre and I, not in the best of humours, were about to withdraw to our dinner at the Alcalde’s. At that moment, with some surprise, I noticed Sergeant Pegden coming down the village from the hospital.

Sergeant Pegden was a Dover man. On my visit to the hospital the day before, I had left him, tardily convalescent, in bed. His conduct in the regiment had been always good, and had gained his actual rank as a noncommissioned officer. Like many other fine fellows, he had knocked up in the Vittoria campaign; and, after going into hospital, he had appeared to be labouring under a total prostration of physical powers, almost amounting to atrophy. He there was kept as comfortable as circumstances permitted, and had perfect rest. But even with all the benefit of M. le Tisanier’s culinary skill, he had made but poor progress; in fact, his frame appeared too far exhausted to recruit, except very gradually indeed, by either rest or nourishment.

The Sergeant’s step, as he now approached, was shaky, almost tottering. His countenance, emaciated while he remained in bed, now looked deathlike. He had turned out neat and tidy after a fashion, though his clothing was worn and faded. He reached us, and we exchanged salutes.

“Why, Pegden,” said I, “what brings you down here?”

“Please—sir,” he feebly replied, “I hope you’ll excuse me; but we heard what has happened, so I thought I had better come down. Would have been here a good bit sooner, sir, only if I hadn’t not had some stitching to do first.”

“What other men,” I asked, “are able to turn out?”

“Please, sir,” replied he, “that’s what they wished me to speak to you about. There’s five of them as says they can come down whenever you please, sir, only if they had a few buttons, and some needles and thread.”

“Which five are they?” said I.

“There’s the Lancashire man, sir,” he answered, “and there’s Sandwich Sam, and Cockney, and the Parson, them four. And there’s Teakettle Tom, he says he thinks he could come, only he hasn’t not got no breeches.”

“Very good,” said I; “go into the house, and take some refreshment, while we see what the village can supply. To-morrow morning you can bring the men down.”

The Padre having instituted an inquiry in the village to meet the requisition for military stores, we sat down to dinner. All the articles required were soon forthcoming; so, having allowed the Sergeant a little time for rest and refreshment, I directed Francisco to take the things, and to go back with the Sergeant to the convent.

Dinner concluded, we were leaving the house, when I was surprised to find Sergeant Pegden seated in the porch.

“Why, Sergeant,” said I, “will you take anything more to eat or to drink? I fear you have overtaxed your strength.”

“Nothing more, thank’e, sir,” said the Sergeant. “Much obliged to you for all favours. Only please, sir, I’m waiting for that Sandwich Sam. I brought him down with me from the hospital; only when we got into the village he hung behind, because he said he wasn’t regimental.”

“Well,” said I, “bring him down in the morning with the rest, as tidy as you can turn them out. When you get back to the hospital, you will probably find he is there before you. By the by, Pegden, I suppose you know all about those two Spaniards up there.”

The Sergeant sniggered. “Yes, sir,” said he; “we all knows pretty well about them.” The smirk on the Sergeant’s cadaverous visage reminded one of a death’s-head illumined by a flash of lightning. In fact, it might be truly said that the Sergeant “grinned horribly a ghastly smile.”

“Well then,” I added, “tell the men I depend on their good behaviour. There must be no annoyance, no interference of any kind.”

I had by this time mentally arranged my plan of operations for the next day. So, after posting a relief of sentinels, I lay down in my clothes, occasionally going my rounds till daybreak, to keep the watchmen wide awake, and secure a good look-out. What I chiefly apprehended was an attempt of the garrison to escape in the night.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Early in the morning, Sergeant Pegden brought down his party; one short, however, of the number announced by him the evening before. The absent man was Sam, the same who had been already reported missing. In fact, I learnt from the Sergeant that Sam had been out all night, and had not returned to the convent at all. This was a serious reduction of our available force.

Sandwich Sam, alias “Shrimps,” had, previous to his enlistment, enjoyed the benefit of a somewhat amphibious education. By profession a hoyman, but also smart as a smuggler, he had occasionally condescended to fill up a leisure hour with the lively amusement of shrimping. Though certainly not the steadiest man in the regiment, Sam, who was a very handy fellow, and an old campaigner, when sober knew his duty, and maintained, on the whole, the character of a smart soldier.

Under other circumstances, I should have given directions for looking him up. But the sick Sergeant, and his party of convalescents, had, in their zeal for his majesty’s service, come down without their breakfast. I therefore felt it my more immediate duty, as the best preparation for the exploits of the day, to supply them with that needful meal. My brave army had turned out anything but stout in health and smart in equipment; but they all showed full of pluck, well under command, and ready for anything.

Having extemporised a breakfast for the men, the Padre and I sat down to our own. Touching the important operations of the day, we were proceeding with our arrangements when an interruption took place, in the shape of a little disturbance outside. Sergeant Pegden was speaking to some one in the street, and speaking loud, in a voice of authority and angry expostulation.

“Come now, you; be quiet. Fall in, and behave like a man.”

A voice responded: “File up your rusty old keys! Lock up your chastises! and go to dinner with the poor!”

“Better take care, Sam,” growled Teakettle Tom in a low voice. “The Captain’s in there, a-having his breakfast.”

“Oh, is he?” replied Sam, “then I’ll give him a song:—

‘My fairther, he’s a preacher,
A wherry honest man;
My mother, she’s a washy-wom’;
And I’m a true Brit-tan,

With my whack fol lol,’” &c.

I send Francisco to call in Sergeant Pegden. Enter the Sergeant.

“Why, Pegden,” said I, “what’s all this about?”

“Very sorry, sir,” replied the Sergeant; “but I’m afraid Sandwich Sam is a little overtaken.”

“How can that be?” I asked. “Where could he get it?”

“Please, sir, I don’t know,” said the Sergeant. “But he seems to have got too much of it, and he has some with him now.”

“Bring him in,” said I.

Glorious, but a little stupid, Sam was brought in. His hand grasped the neck of a half-emptied bottle. Under his arm was another bottle, corked and full.

“I see what’s the matter,” said the Padre. “The man has found his way into the store-closet, and got at the wine which was brought here yesterday. Francisco, how could you be so negligent? Step into the back-room, and see whether he has left us any.”

Francisco went as directed, and promptly returned. “Not a bottle is missing,” said he.

“Señor Capitan,” said the Padre, “this is an enigma. With the exception of my stock, there is no bottled wine in the village.”

“To make sure, suppose we try it,” said I.

“No need of that,” answered the Padre. “The villagers keep their wine in skins. The Alcalde keeps his in a barrel. Within a circuit of three or four leagues, my cellar, since our convent here was plundered, is the only depôt of bottled wine. My reason for keeping a stock you will readily understand. My poor self-denying fraternity, when they do drink wine, prefer it from the bottle, not from the wood.”

“Why then, according to that,” said I, “this drunken fellow must, since last night, have found his way into the cellar of the house which we are presently to attack and carry by storm.”

“I can only repeat what I have said already,” replied the Padre. “It is an enigma.”

“Where have you been, Sam?” I asked. “What have you been about?”

“About?” hiccupped Sam. “What have you been about? I am the lad as can (hiccup) show the British (hiccup) army how to walk into (hiccup) the hinnimy’s persition, and (hiccup)—Oh, my dear Sergeant Pegden, I vos so wherry dry (hiccup)—knocked off the heads of half-a-dozen (hiccup)—and didn’t not drink owny hate on ’em (hiccup.) Hooray! Death or glo——(hiccup, hiccup).” Here Sam became so much worse, that I felt it advisable to order his immediate removal from the apartment.

It was no bad way of assailing the hostile fortress, if we could effect a lodgment in its lowest storeys. Assuming that Sam had been there before us, the first question was how he entered; but this he was too far gone to tell us.

CHAPTER XIX.

It was imperative, however, to determine the question without loss of time, and to determine it without revealing the fact to the garrison, to whom, it was to be presumed, their weak point remained as yet a secret. Under these circumstances, having first directed Francisco to ascertain as far as possible, in the village, what Sam had been about the night before, I promptly commenced a general reconnaissance of the enemy’s position. The affair, which had hitherto been stupid enough, now became a little exciting. I made the circuit of the beleaguered house without interruption from the foe, but also without discovering an entrance.

My attention, however, was at length attracted by the wood-house, which stood by the side of the premises, contiguous, but wholly detached from them. At that end of the shed which was farthest removed from the main building, I noticed, close to the gable-wall, what appeared to be a small heap of rubbish. To this, without betraying my object, I could not make a direct approach; yet it seemed to invite further investigation.

It soon became apparent, on more particularly noting the character of the locality, that, by availing himself of the shelter afforded by one or two neighbouring cottages, a person might approach obliquely, without being noticed from the dwelling itself, right up to the end wall of the wood-house, where the rubbish was lying on the ground. Immediately availing myself of this important discovery, I made my approaches accordingly, and reached the spot.

The heap of rubbish was at once accounted for. A hole had been broken in the wall. The opening was sufficiently large, so I took the liberty of entering, and now found myself in the wood-house, which was decidedly an outwork of the enemy’s position.

Sam had been there before me, and had left his marks in the shape of empty bottles. But, what was still more important to the progress of the siege, I noticed, at the other end of the shed, which was furthest from the perforated wall, and nearest to the house, an excavation in the earthen floor. I looked down, but could not discover its depth. Nothing could be discovered, save darkness visible.

Here then was the shaft by which Sam had walked into the Padre’s best bin; and here too, in all probability, was a ready-made entrance into the enemy’s stronghold. Determining to muster my forces and head an assault without further loss of time, I quitted the outhouse, as I had entered it, without being observed, and returned to the Alcalde’s. The Padre, at my request, followed me into a private room.

“Señor Padre,” said I, “oblige me by describing in general terms the topography of your cellar.”

“Ah, hijo mio,” said the Padre with deep emotion, “I trust you have no idea of carrying on the war in that quarter. Believe me, except the Lamego hams, the cellar contains nothing but wine.”

“Tell me,” I asked, “does your cellar extend under ground in a lateral direction? Has it any subterranean recesses?”

“Nothing, believe me,” replied the Padre in a panic, “with the sole exception of the wine and the hams, and a few trifling articles in silver which I succeeded in rescuing from our plundered convent.”

“If you wish,” I replied, “to be reinstated forthwith in the possession of your cellar, and of your house besides, only have the goodness to explain to me——”

“Oh, spare the cellar!” cried the Padre, frightened out of his wits, “even if a dozen houses—all the houses in the village—are assaulted, sacked, gutted, levelled with the ground, blown up sky-high!”

“What’s the use of talking in that way?” I replied. “Come, Señor Padre, just give me the information I want, and it shall go hard with us but you and I will dine in the house this afternoon. We must take it offhand, and I already discern the road to victory. Only tell me, does the cellar extend, underground, outside the walls of the house? In particular, does it extend in the direction of the adjoining shed?”

The Padre subsided into a brown study. “Why, now you ask the question,” said he, “I think it does. The house is old, built after the fashion of the Moors. There certainly is an underground recess or passage, of some length, going off from the cellar; and, on consideration, I think it must run in the direction of the wood-house—nay, perhaps extend under it. Probably it served originally as a subterranean communication between the outhouse and the house itself.”

The “enigma” was now well-nigh solved. I summoned Francisco, and inquired whether he had succeeded in obtaining from the villagers any intelligence of Sam’s proceedings. All that could be learnt amounted to this, which, however, was quite decisive: that Sam, the night before, when he stole away from Sergeant Pegden, went begging from cottage to cottage, till he had procured the loan of an implement called a “pico,” which, though not identical with an English pickaxe, in some measure resembles it, and is available for the same purposes. Sam, having made this acquisition, was seen no more, till he reappeared in the village next morning, “mucho embriagado” (very drunk).

I also recollected that when, on our first occupation of the village, some little plundering took place, Sam, though he had pleaded exemption from duty as an invalid, and had been brought along on a bullock-car, then also contrived to become considerably elevated; and I now felt convinced that he had made his first acquaintance with the Padre’s cellar on that occasion. The rest was easily explained. An old smuggler, accustomed, in the locality of his former exploits, Kingsdown, Walmer, Richborough, &c., to underground deposits of goods, he had, in his previous visit to the Padre’s bins, at once made himself acquainted with the peculiarities of the position; and now, on his return to the village with the Sergeant, he had promptly embraced this first opportunity of renewing his acquaintance with such an agreeable locality. Hence the requisition for the pickaxe, the hole in the wall, the excavation in the floor. Sam, it was clear, had tapped the Padre’s cellar before he tapped his wine.

Taking a circuitous route in order that the enemy might not discover our movements, I brought round the Sergeant and three of the men to the perforated wall. We then passed through the opening, one by one, and got into the wood-house unseen by the garrison. Hurra! we have effected a lodgment in the enemy’s counterscarp—only don’t make a noise.

CHAPTER XX.

The shaft by which Sandwich Sam had dropped into the Padre’s cellar could not be very deep, but we saw no bottom. It struck me that something might be gained by excluding the daylight, which principally entered by the newly-made hole in the gable-end of the shed. Against this hole, therefore, I placed the three soldiers, to keep out as much light as possible; and now the Sergeant and I, on looking down into the shaft, were able to discern a glimmer which, feeble as it was, sufficed to show us that, assisted by others, a person might descend with no great difficulty. I, therefore, descended first; the Sergeant followed; then came the men.

We found ourselves in an arched tunnel constructed of stone, and leading from under the outhouse, with which in former days it had doubtless communicated, right into the cellar, which we entered—cautiously, you may suppose, but without difficulty. Now, M. le Tisanier! Once in the cellar, we no longer had need to grope our way. There was no window, but light came in from various crannies. I listened. There were footsteps above. So! we were under the kitchen. How effect an entrance?

Close to the wall of the cellar, and immediately to the left of the opening by which we had entered from the recess, stood a dilapidated flight of steps, say an old ladder. Doubtless there was a trap-door at its summit. I mounted, and gently pressed against the ceiling above. It gave signs of yielding. The way into the fortress, then, lay open before us. Turning to Sergeant Pegden, I desired him in a whisper to remain with the three soldiers where he was, but to hold them in readiness to come forth on my first summons.

Then, using a little more force, I gradually raised the trap-door, which was kind enough not to creak, and emerged into the kitchen. There stood M. le Tisanier, solus. Profoundly intent on some culinary operation, which with his accustomed sedulity he was conducting at the stove, he awhile remained utterly unconscious of my presence. I let down the trap-door into its frame, and so concealed the manner of my entrance.

From scanty materials he was preparing dinner for the garrison. On a dresser I noticed—1, A very moderate supply of bread for a party of five; 2, Some lard; 3, Certain wild herbs, roots, and champignons, such as he had been accustomed to cull in his rambles; 4, The bones remaining from former meals, specially those of a hare, a goose, and a hind quarter of mutton; 5, The giblets of the said goose, set apart with the head and pluck of the said hare, as if designed for some signal triumph of a scanty cuisine. I coughed. He turned.

Startled at first, he recovered in an instant his usual self-possession and urbanity.

“Ah,” said he, “good morning, M. le Capitaine. I am not at present exactly aware how you found your way in, but I am not the less happy to see you. In entering without noise you have acted wisely. Considering the state of things outside, you could not have adopted a more discreet or a safer mode of presenting yourself before me, with the view of surrendering yourself a prisoner. Good. You will do me the honour of dining with me. Thus will you escape the inconvenience of losing, even for a single day, the benefit of my matchless skill as a culinary amateur.”

“I see you are preparing dinner,” said I, “without having availed yourself of the Padre’s stores.”

“Bah!” he exclaimed; “cookery, in its higher operations, is independent of materials. When there is nothing for dinner, then it is that the true artist develops his professional resources. To tell you the truth, Monsieur, the Padre’s chief store is his cellar, into which he never permitted me to enter. I therefore, with that delicacy which always distinguishes men of elevated sentiments like myself, felt it right, now that I am in military possession, to abstain from purveying in that direction.”

This was all the better for the Padre’s Lamego hams, and also the enterprise by which we had effected a lodgment. For, had M. le Tisanier once made acquaintance with the cellar, he was not the man to have left that way of approach unguarded.

“How is it,” I asked, “that your garrison keeps so bad a look-out? Here am I, come to beat up your quarters, without having received a single challenge.”

“Pooh, pooh,” he replied; “no doubt they let you in on purpose. As you have presented yourself here without showing a flag of truce, of course I must regard you as my prisoner.”

“Excuse me,” said I, “if I take the opposite view. Monsieur, you are my prisoner. Probably you are not aware that my forces have effected a lodgment, and at this moment occupy your position.”

“Is it possible?” he exclaimed seriously, setting down a saucepan.

“Monsieur,” I replied, “I give you my word that the soldiers under my command now occupy these premises in force. And by the same entrance through which they came in, I could, if I pleased, bring in not only my reserve, but all the Spaniards in the village. You know what would be the consequences. Yesterday you expressed a benevolent wish to prevent the needless effusion of blood. Now, therefore, give me credit for being actuated on my part by a similar motive of humanity, in politely soliciting your instant surrender. In case of further resistance on your part, although I can control my own men, I could not answer for the Padre and his people, who are very much exasperated. Therefore determine what you will do; but, remember, your own life, and the lives of your unfortunate and gallant countrymen, depend on your decision.”

He. “Have the kindness to put it on their lives only, not on mine. Then I can treat without compromising my sense of honour. By further resistance, you say, their lives would be imperilled. In case of my condescending to accept terms of capitulation, would their lives be safe?”

I. “That I have already arranged with the Padre. He promises, in case of your coming to terms without delay, to be answerable for the personal security of your whole party till you are safe in the hands of the English at Vittoria. He also promises that he will remain in the village as a check on his own countrymen till the transfer takes place.”

He. “It appears then that, by accepting terms, I may now secure that safety for my comrades which I sought by resistance. Very well, M. le Capitaine. In occupying and holding this position, I discharged a duty. In surrendering it, I discharge another.”

I. “Very good. Then all is settled.”

“Excuse me,” said M. le Tisanier, assuming an air of considerable gravity. “There is one little matter which we have not settled yet.”

CHAPTER XXI.

“It will gratify me to meet your wishes,” said I, “in any further arrangement which you may propose.”

He. “M. le Capitaine, you particularly oblige me by saying so; for the business to which I now refer is one which personally affects you and me. In the conference which I had the pleasure of holding with you yesterday afternoon, you alluded to my parole in terms which affected my honour. As I said then, so I say now: I cannot permit that.”

I. “Nothing could be further from my intention. Surely, in merely reminding you of your parole, not saying you had broken it, and in viewing it according to my own interpretation rather than yours, I did nothing at which you can reasonably feel hurt.”

He. “Ha! you explain, but you do not apologise. M. le Capitaine, though punctilious—nay, more than punctilious, chivalrous—I am not implacable. One word of apology would——”

I. “Apology? What do you mean by apology? I tell you I intended no offence; and I have nothing to retract. If I unintentionally wounded your feelings, of course I regret it; but apology is out of the question.”

He. “Precisely. That is just what I expected you to say. Then, M. le Capitaine, there remains but one alternative. We had better decide this little affair at once. (Brings from a corner of the kitchen two swords.) You really must oblige me.” (Crosses the swords in his right hand, bows, and presents the hilts.)

I. “If you insist upon it, of course I must. I never heard of anything so absurd in my life!”

He. “Hold! Let me fasten the kitchen-door. That will prevent interruption on the part of my countrymen, and also of yours.” (He fastens the door.)

I. “The door may serve to exclude your men, but it will not keep out mine. No matter. They have already received orders to keep where they are, till summoned by me.” We crossed our swords.

He. “Hold! Excuse me one moment, just while I take off that boiler.”

Again our swords crossed.

He. “Monsieur, the attack is with you.” (Stamps.) “Commencez donc.” (Stamps twice.) “Not bad, that lunge. Hold! your left shoulder is a little too forward. Withdraw it un petit peu, if you please. Capital, that thrust in quarte! You lunge better in quarte than in tierce. I hope you enjoyed your dinner yesterday? Ah, you threw away that coup. By keeping your point a trifle lower, you might have had me just under the arm. I suppose the Padre was not in the best of humours? You fence a little too wide. Better! Capital! Capital!”

Though acknowledged the best fencer in my regiment, I could make no impression on M. le Tisanier. I therefore bowed, and stood on my guard.

“Ah,” said he, “now the attack is with me.”

The attack of M. le Tisanier was not only brilliant and energetic, but in every respect formidable. With the arm of a Hercules, the eye of a lynx, and the skip of a chimpanzee, he advanced, he retreated, he sidled right and left, he got round me, till we had more than once perambulated the whole circuit of the kitchen, and till I, in meeting him front to front, had repeatedly faced the opposite points of the compass. Any one practised in fence will understand, when I say that, even while I succeeded in parrying every thrust, his attack was evidently gaining upon me; that is, his movements in assault had become a little in advance of mine in guard; and this advantage (most important, though in point of time scarcely appreciable) he gradually went on improving as the attack proceeded. In fact, nothing could be cleaner than his style of operating. Even his wrist, though always in position, moved in a larger area than his point, which played about my sword in a small semicircle, like summer lightning.

At length, seeing an opportunity for which I had long watched, I raised my blade by the same movement with which I parried a thrust in quarte, and, ere he could recover himself, dropped it again so as just to touch his hand. My object was to inflict a slight wound, and disarm him. I was so far successful, that my point reached him, but with no visible consequences. I had made the first hit, but without putting my opponent hors de combat.

He sprang backwards with an angry growl, and for a few moments seemed to be collecting his forces. Foreseeing the impetuosity of his renewed assault, I prepared to give him a suitable reception; but, at the instant when about to commence a repetition of his favours, he moved a little to the right. This movement compelled on my part a corresponding change of position, to effect which I slightly shifted my left foot. My foot struck against something on the floor. I stumbled. Though just on the point of springing forward, M. le Tisanier, who through this mishap had me completely at his mercy, with a most winning bow immediately dropped his point.

The cause of my tripping is easily explained. Sergeant Pegden, either from having discovered, down in the cellar, that war had commenced over his head, or from some other motive, was beginning to raise the trap-door. I tripped against the edge. Stamping it down with my left heel, as a sign for the sergeant to keep quiet, but not so as to attract the notice of M. le Tisanier, who remained unconscious that my forces were in such immediate proximity, I again put myself on guard, saying, “My best acknowledgments are due for your forbearance. Whenever you wish to proceed, I am ready.”

“A thousand thanks,” said M. le Tisanier, with a renewal of supple and profound inflections. “I am satisfied.”

“Very well,” said I, extending my hand. “All things besides, then, can be easily arranged.”

We tackled after the English fashion, and shook hands—an operation the more sedulously sought on my part, from visible symptoms of preparation, on the part of M. le Tisanier, for what in those days so frequently terminated French duels—a hug.

The shake accomplished, I noticed something on my hand. It was blood.

“Is this yours, or mine?” I asked.

“Did I not tell you that I was satisfied?” said he. “My honour is satisfied. Whether I am whipped through the body, or scratched on the knuckle, what does it signify?”

CHAPTER XXII., AND LAST.

From the inferior regions now rose the voice of Sergeant Pegden. “Please, sir, I beg your pardon; but it’s immediate.”

“What’s immediate?” I asked.

“Please, sir,” he replied, “it’s an orderly come from Vittoria; and brought a letter for you, sir, directed ‘immediate’ on the back of it, sir.”

“Will you permit me?” I asked M. le Tisanier, raising the trap-door.

“Why, this is perfectly incredible,” said he. “Above, and all around, I was prepared. It never entered my thoughts that I could be assailed from the shades below.”

When I had raised the trap-door, there appeared—not Sergeant Pegden, but—the head of his halbert, and three glistening bayonets, fixed to the muzzles of three firelocks.

“Ground arms!” I cried. “Sergeant Pegden, show yourself.”

The muskets promptly subsided into the darkness from which they had emerged, and, with a letter in his hand, the Sergeant slowly rose.

While, partly amused, partly surprised, M. le Tisanier gazed on the wasted form and pallid visage of the Sergeant, who ascended like a spectre from the grave, I took the letter and opened it.

It was an order to adopt immediate measures for the removal of my invalids to the convalescent station at Vittoria, and then to rejoin forthwith my regiment on the frontiers of France, taking with me, to be exchanged for Sir Charles Popham of the —— light infantry, my prisoner, Le Vicomte d’Y, lieutenant of the —— Voltigeurs.

I. “M. le Vicomte, I am your most obedient, humble servant.”

He. “M. le Capitaine, accept the assurances of my high consideration.”

I. “M. le Vicomte, I have intelligence which no doubt will gratify you. It will be my pleasing duty to attend you to the frontiers, there to be exchanged.”

He (with nonchalance). “For an Englishman? or for a Spaniard?”

I. “Happily, you are considered my prisoner, not a prisoner of the Spaniards. You will be exchanged for an English officer of the same military rank.”

He. “Very good” (with much dignity). “That is quite satisfactory to my sense of honour. Were it for a Spaniard, I hardly know whether I could condescend to accept of the exchange. By the by, since it is as your prisoner that I am to proceed to the frontiers, I think it best, for reasons which you will doubtless appreciate, that so long as we are together I should fully maintain that character. M. le Capitaine, I offer you my sword.”

I. “M. le Vicomte, you have taught me that you can use your sword not only with courage and address, but with magnanimity. Wear it.”

The arrangements for our departure were soon completed. My sick men were conveyed to Vittoria. With them went Sergeant Pegden in charge, and the four French soldiers as prisoners to the English. Then, taking an affectionate leave of the Padre, we joined a party of British dragoons, who had been out on a reconnaissance towards Pampeluna, and with them pursued our route towards the frontiers.

The first day’s march took us across undulating ground, the road alternately dipping into valleys, and topping the intermediate elevations. As the Vicomte and I jogged on side by side, I noticed that, on our reaching the summit of each successive eminence, he cast a furtive but anxious look backwards, as if watching for some party in the rear. I also looked back, and perceived that we were followed by a couple of mules, which bore on their backs two wounded Spaniards.

ש.

THE WONDROUS AGE.

“Oh wondrous Mother Age!”

Wondrous!—such is the title this Age assumes. She wears it written broadly on her phylactery, trumpets it loudly on quay and bourse, on platforms and at market-places, blabs it at clubs and reading-rooms, placards it in railway carriages, puffs it in steam-ships; everything she buys or sells is docqueted, everything she says or does, engraven with the epithet—Wondrous! This is the Age of ages—so she says. The Golden, the Silver, the Brazen, the Iron ages were as nought: it combines them all, and is grander, richer, stronger in its fusion than any of these separate stages. Men are now only beginning to live. In former times they merely dosed or daundered, trifled or philandered, brawled or rioted, dreamed or philosophised through life, wasting its golden sands in writing love-songs, and calling that—poetry; in fighting great battles, and calling that—heroism, chivalry; in sitting by the midnight lamp, gathering knowledge, which in after years might ripen into wisdom, and calling that—study; in sitting by hearth or board, quaffing from the wine-cup, drinking toasts, telling old stories, singing old songs, and calling that—conviviality, good-fellowship; in giving alms to beggars, in feeding the hunger of the idle and the vagabond, and calling that—charity; in uttering strong words, in doing strong deeds, and calling that—manliness; in upholding nationalities, and calling that—patriotism. Such are a few delusions in which men were ever wrapping themselves, until the day of enlightenment dawned, and this Age burst upon us, with its railways and its steam-ships, its doves of peace and arks of commerce, its treaties and tariffs, its leagues and institutes, its unions and schools, its ledgers and invoices, its cotton-mills and manufactories—proclaiming to the world that the true purpose of life, the true destiny of man, was to trade, to manufacture, to make money and circulate it, and, through the medium of cotton bales, silken freights, cargoes of coal, and sacks of corn, to fulfil the great mission of peace and goodwill. Knowledge, learning, courage, perseverance, mind, thought, enterprise, strength, were not to be utterly repudiated; they were only to be converted to the one purpose, driven out of the old slow processes of development, touched with the impulses of the time, and quickened to a more rapid production and circulation. What boots it that our locomotives go at the rate of forty, fifty, sixty miles an hour? that our ships cross the Atlantic in eleven days? that our electric wires carry messages from one end of the land to the other? that our printing-presses throw forth papers by the hundred and books by the thousand? Of what use are our political economics, our statistics, our lectures, our leagues, our steam-power, our mechanical inventions, our liberalism, if men are to move, talk, think, and legislate no faster than in bygone days? This must be, and is, the age of fastness,—of fast travelling, fast talking, fast thinking, fast reading, fast writing, of fast—no! not fast statesmanship—not fast law. These remain, like the old vans and coaches in the by-roads of Cornwall and Wales, to show the world what slow-going was. Men must not now await the long results of time. They are not to sow in youth that they may reap in old age—to labour and conceive in patience that they may produce in strength. The Age will not admit of such stagnation. Its maxim is, that the greatest production in the shortest time, and at the least cost, the best markets and the quickest returns, are the only worthy aims of labour and intellect—the only fit investment for capital of the brain or the pocket.

Thus the Age is to go on growing stronger, busier, faster, doubling the power of machinery, multiplying its mills, increasing its exports and imports, sending forth its freights, machinery, and products as missionaries to all lands, until, by a loving interchange of cotton and corn, a sweet intercourse with ledgers and bills of exchange, men are knit together in a beautiful unity of commerce, and some glorious consummation be attained, such as the poet sees in his vision—

“When the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle’s flags were furled,

In the parliament of man, the federation of the world,

There the common cause of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.”

And what is to be this universal law, according to the Age, if not to the poet’s meaning? Love? Honour? Charity? Truth? Religion? These are all old-world principles. We, in our blindness, ever believed that love, inspired and propagated by religion, was to be the benign influence which would still the discords, close the schisms, unite the jarring creeds and warring nationalities, soothe the angry passions, and wither the petty jealousies, which set man against man, nation against nation, and bind them in a world-wide brotherhood. We were walking in darkness. The illumination of this Age throws its light upon us, and we know there are other means to this great end: that self-interest, the reciprocity of producers and consumers, buyers and sellers, the sweet persuasions of barter, are ultimately to level nationalities, quench the animosities of race and creed, and create a sort of commercial millennium, in which Swede, Russ, and Turk, Hun, Austrian, and Lombard, Dane and German, are to lie down together under one universal tariff.

Gold—the lust of which has been the bitterest curse of sin, and has ever and ever, through the long roll of ages, begotten hatred, wrath, envy, oppression, bloodshed, and division,—is at last to be the peace-maker, the love-mission of the world. This, however, is a vision of the future—“a wonder that shall be.” Let us turn to the Age as it stands before us—wondrous. All ages have had their characteristics. There have been ages of simplicity, ages of grandeur, ages of heroism, ages of degeneracy, ages of barbarism, ages of civilisation, ages of intellect, ages of darkness, ages of superstition, ages of philosophy, ages of faith, ages of infidelity—ages when men have lived the patriarchal life, sitting under their own vines and their own fig-trees, tilling the ground, tending their flocks, worshipping earnestly, enacting justice severely—ages when they revelled in magnificence and luxury, spread their splendour over the earth, and set it up in palaces and monuments—ages in which the strong heart and the strong deed, the bold thought and the generous impulse, were the master agencies, in which strong men, brave men, noble men, were recognised as the natural chiefs—ages in which the earth reeked with the pestilential vapours of vice and dissoluteness, in which manhood and honour had set in long nights, and the profligate, the profane, the sybarite, walked abroad without scorn, and sat in high places without shame—ages when man’s lordship of creation was manifested only in power over brute life, and in the tenancy of fen, forest, and mountain—ages, again, when culture, art, refinement, found a ripe maturity and gorgeous development—ages in which the light and glory of intellect shone on dark places, and the voices of the gifted echoed through many lands—ages in which such voices were silent, and both mind and intellect lay shrouded in thick darkness, or veiled in twilight—ages when men doubted, speculated, and rationalised—ages when they accepted superstitions as creeds, lies as living truths, serpents for fish, stones for bread—ages in which faith was strong, and earnest men lived in it, strove, fought, died for it—ages when men, worse than devils, neither believed nor trembled. Our Age was none of these. It ignored, repudiated, superseded all others. It is the Age of production, of utility, of circulation—to produce the utmost, by forced processes, from brain and muscle, man-power and steam-power, hand and loom, energy and ingenuity, capital and labour; and to circulate the products with a power which almost commands, and a rapidity which almost outstrips the elements: this is the great wonder of the age.

Heroism, chivalry, faith, imagination, romance—these are all at a discount with it; they are unremunerative, unmarketable, could not be cashed or negotiated. Everything, every man, is to be measured by productive capacity or practical uses. “He who makes a blade of corn grow where a blade of corn ne’er grew before, is of more service to mankind than fifty warriors.” The wit and politician who wrote this, or something like it, would have stared to see the present development of his doctrine—to find production and utility the great tests of progress and civilisation. And is this progress? Is this civilisation? So says the Age. We had dreamed that progress was of the mind and heart; that its stages would be marked by the recognition of justice, the advancement of the knowledge which leads to wisdom, the increase of honesty, courage, faith, honour, truthfulness, the growth of love, and the spread of virtue and godliness, as well as by census tables, statistical returns, financial budgets, and the stock exchange. We had dreamed that civilisation meant mental and social development as well as the existence of wealth; that it must be based on a well-balanced prosperity, which should include a comparative equality in the happiness of all classes, giving each man a power of well-being and comfort in his own sphere—the maintenance of the due proportions in society, and a fair ratio in the increase of riches and the decrease of crime; that it involved the moral, intellectual, religious, and social growth of man, as well as the productiveness of his industry and the development of his science; that it involves the expansion of courtesy, honour, generosity, kindliness, and good faith, as well as the diffusion and circulation of merchandise and gold. Were we dreaming dreams? Are these phantasies? So says the Age; and we, who are living in the glare of its noontide glory, must fain accept its interpretations with humble submission, and expand our faculties to the comprehension of its wonders. But whilst we do this, we may at least indulge in a retrospect of the past,—note what this great change has cost us, and compare our losses with our gains. This has been an age of supercession, and ere we swell the triumph which shall seat the conqueror on its throne, it may be permitted us to look back on the smouldering walls of old homes, the trampled fields of old principles, and the ruined fanes of old faiths, which it has left in its onward march—to mourn over and bury our dead. And what time more fitting for such a valedictory survey than this?—now, when the Age has paused in its career at the grim apparition of war, and the world is undergoing a partial relapse—now, when heroism is once more a power in the land, when men are talking, exulting, and watching over brave deeds, more than over funds, invoices, or railway scrip—when fair women are weeping for the brave dead, and praying for the living brave—now, when a great battle, or the fall of a city, stirs a stronger pulsation in the nation than the rise and fall of stock, or the most stupendous bankruptcies—now, when old things are becoming new, and men are looking back with tolerance, if not with affection, on old principles and old faiths. Let us then cast a glance on the past—our own past—the past of our own generation—think of what we were, and what we are, and strike the balance.

We have little belief in the days of merry England, or in the “good old times,” that illusory paradise of dullards and sluggards, who would rather mourn over a lost Eden than find one in the present, or look for it in a future; but we do remember when the land had more mirth in it than now, when it was more romantic and picturesque. We remember it ere the utilitarian spirit had laid its iron grasp on the hearts of our people, and spread its iron network over our fields and valleys. We remember it less wealthy, less prosperous, less cultivated, and we remember it also as more genial, more joyous, and more beautiful. A change—a great change, almost a revolution—in our social feelings, thoughts and habits,—in our aims and pursuits—in the character of the people and the features of the country—has taken place even in our memory. Has this change wrought most of good or evil? We admit that it had become a necessity of progress that men should be shaken out of their domesticity, their local isolation be more centralised, and become more cosmopolitan—that their intercommunications should be more rapid, their diffusion more general: we admit that the increase of population and labour-power demanded that wealth should no longer be hoarded or land be wasted, and that every penny, every acre, should be made productive—that some such changes as have come upon us must needs have come: but have we not bought them at a price, have we not paid for them at the cost of many manly attributes—many social virtues—by the loss of much rural beauty, and many characteristics of our pastoral life? We quarrel not with steam, the great wonder of the Age—the great means to the mighty end of utilitarianism. We know all that it has done for us—all it has brought us. We know that it has accelerated intercourse, impelled industry, expanded our resources, extended knowledge, equalised consumption and production, given facilities to enterprise, and opportunities to labour. Much has it done for our material prosperity; and we should hail it as an altogether beneficent agent, did we not think—God knows whether rightly or not—that this shuffling together of people, this eager competition, this hot-bed production which it has fostered, was rapidly effacing individuality and simplicity of character—had overstrode that honest persevering industry which toils on slowly and patiently to its end, which is content to labour and to wait—had raised an unrest, a rapid craving for quick results, a discontent with appointed spheres of action, a restless movement of classes to tread on each other’s heels, and had decreased their mutual trust and despondency—did we not know that it had invaded the seclusion of our valleys, smoked and scorched our woods and copses, tunnelled our rocks, cut up our meadows, and overlaid the poesy of nature by the materialism of traffic.

Commerce and manufacture! shall we raise our voices against them? God forbid! Have they not been the great agents in our prosperity? Have they not created our wealth, begotten our merchant princes, raised our shipping, filled our island with products, and circulated our own to the ends of the earth? Have they not promoted science, encouraged enterprise? Have they not nourished our colonies, given employment to our growing millions, made this little spot to swarm like a busy hive, and placed it as the centre of a wide-spreading civilisation—the heart of a mighty organisation? Should they, however, beget a thirst for gold—a mad pursuit for wealth, which will engross and absorb our thoughts and feelings to the exclusion of generous impulses and noble principles, hitherto main elements in the happiness and greatness of nations—will they be all gain? Will not there be a balance then—moral loss against material gain? Answer for thyself, O wondrous Age!

Neither will we quarrel with model farming. The competition of production, the opening of markets, the pressure of other classes and interests, have forced agriculture, for the sake of its very life and being, to adopt utilitarianism—have compelled it to turn every inch of ground to account. Utility demanded that hedgerows should be levelled, the waste patches, knolls, and nooks ploughed up, old pollards and groups of trees uprooted, and that sheep and oxen, instead of cropping the pleasant herbage in pleasant sunny meadows, should be cooped and stalled in narrow spaces, fed by rule and measure, and left to fatten in darkness; that machinery should supersede the reaper’s and thresher’s work, and that crops should be stacked and garnered as a matter of business, and not borne home, as heretofore, with festive rejoicings and thanksgivings. And if the increasing number of mouths required so many more bushels of corn, so many more pounds of meat, and they can be obtained only by such means, then must the picturesque, the poetic, and the beautiful be sacrificed instantly and ruthlessly, that man may eat and live. Yes! uproot, overturn, change, overlay them all, if thus, and thus only, the people may be fed, the poor have bread. The beautiful has ever yielded to the inroads of necessity or utility, which is a sort of modified and modernised necessity. Yet may we not mourn over the things which are gone or going, the things belonging to the outer world of the poetic, the romantic, and the picturesque? They are associated with sunny holidays, with the memories of boyhood, and the feelings of youth; and we must mourn them, though their extirpation be the doom of an imperious and beneficent necessity. We must fain mourn over those hedgerows, as we remember them, with their soft, grassy banks—the nursery of early violets and gregarious primroses—the parterre of more gaudy daffodils, and the nestling-place of hundreds of tiny flowerets, whose names we knew not, but whose faces we loved, with their tops crowned by rich-scented hawthorn, budding hazel, and dark-leaved sloe—with their bases bordered by luxuriant brambles and flowering gorse. They were favourite haunts of ours, those hedgerows: there we sought the early nosegay, there we clutched at the ripe brown clusters of nuts,—the slip shellers, the Spolia prima of the season—our hoards were gathered elsewhere: there we stripped the sloe-bushes of their fruit, under the delusion that, by a long process of hoarding in bran, they would become luxuries, and would not set the teeth on edge; there, with net and ferret, or with dog and gun, we commenced our initiation as sportsmen; there, as Dandie Dinmont would say, we were entered on the rabbit.

We must mourn, too, for these groves and thickets, which lay in the intervals of cultivation like the remnants of a conquered race amid the conquerors. Much, very much, did we love to thread these coverts, in the schoolboy pursuits of nutting or bird-nesting, or to roam in mere wantonness through the thick underwood, gathering an immature poetry from the massed foliage of holly, mountain-ash, alder, and willow—from the tangled shades of briar, woodbine, convolvulus, and the other creepers which wreathed their wild luxuriance round stem and boughs, or trailed it in a rich undergrowth along the ground—from the lights, which fell soft and mellow through the openings and through the leaves on the long-tufted grass below, rich with blue-bells, harebells, wild anemone, and many another wildling;—from the fluttering of wings, the twitterings and the cooings of birds—from the sweet-scented breaths—from the solitude, and from the many gentle influences through which nature inspires the beautiful. These places have glad memories—the gladdest of all—the memories of the full heart, the free fresh impulses, and of growing thought. On some such spot, too, we took our first stand as a sportsman. We see it even now—an opening glade, a plash overhung with the boughs of a holly bush—behind a knot of alders and some tangled brushwood. Even now we feel our heart fluttering, and our cheek flushing, as Flush—the best of cockers—after wagging and bustling about in a most excited manner, gave one sharp bark, one spring, and, something rising before us, we fired, and a bird fell. We had killed our first woodcock. Utilitarianism has waged the war of extermination most ruthlessly against these spots, and the gorse brakes which shone in golden patches betwixt the fallow and grass lands. There are few left now. The fields are spread before us, smooth and bare, and the corn waves on the ground, erewhile cumbered by old trees and brushwood, which were of no use, save to grow berries, give a covert to birds, rabbits, and vermin, and to offer the eye a pleasant spot to rest upon in the landscape. Away with such uselessness! The world is not large enough for such waste.

Those old pollards, too—those venerable solitary trees which, with their grey scarred trunks, and the green twigs shooting from their tops, evidences of the life still within,—seemed to us always the very symbols of a hale, vigorous old age, furrowed perchance, or shrunken by time, but crowned and flowering still with the presence of youth. Is there not room for them? and wilt thou, oh man! regret also that utilitarianism has wrought such a similitude betwixt agriculture and manufacture,—has so imbued both with the self-same economy of space and material, that the buildings and structures of the one are as stiff, formal, and red-bricked as the other? Yea, O Age! even so far will our perverseness carry us. Those old farmhouses, with their low thatched roofs covered with grass and lichens, their stacks of chimney, the old tree at the gable-end, the trim little garden and the bee-hives in front, those old straggling farmyards with their ivy-covered out-houses and linheys, their pools and scattered groups of trees, were doubtless incommodious and wasteful, but they had a picturesqueness in our eyes never to be claimed by their successors. Utility seeks not such effects.

Those brooks which used to meander through pleasant meadows and shady copses, or ripple gently over rocks and yellow pebbles, and whose waters are now diverted into straight channels and narrow cuts to irrigate land or turn wheels, are not they a lost beauty? But there is a gain in water-power, a saving in labour.

Harvest-homes—merry-makings—rural feasts! The Age repudiates and ignores them utterly. The land is too poor, life too short, for such follies. Yet do we look back lovingly on the days when the loud shout of the reapers announced far and wide the cutting of the first sheaf—when the last load was carried home, attended by a long procession of men, women, and boys, all rejoicing with shouts, song, and laughter, in the plenty which had been gathered in; and when the event was celebrated ever with feasts and mirth, with open-doored hospitality, and open-handed charity. Nor has there ever yet been a time in the age of the world when the fruitfulness of the earth has not been hailed by man with joy and triumph, or the completion of its riches been calendared by festivity and thankfulness. Now the goodly sheaves are carted and thrown out before their garners as so much manure or so many cotton bales. “So much the better,” says utilitarianism; “there is so much time, so much money saved.”

And are men’s stomachs, men’s pockets, to be the all in all of consideration? Are their hearts and fancies not to be fed or cultured? Is man’s labour to find the dead level of toil, ungladdened by the sound of rejoicing, unbrightened by hours of mirth? Is he to see no other end and aim in such toil than the receipt of a few shillings at the week’s end—the fair day’s wage for the fair day’s work? Is this to be the sole tie betwixt him and the soil—betwixt him and his labour? Is life to be stripped of all its poetic and noble inspirations, and be reduced to a dead materialism? Is man’s soul to become merely the motive power in a mechanism of profit and loss, utility and production? Is thy civilisation to take this form, O wondrous Age! If so, the experiment may be a grand one, a successful one; but the experiences of the past, and the instincts and sentiments of mankind, are against it. For what do men most love to look into the past? To seek the useful, or the heroic and the beautiful? Do they pore over musty tomes, and delve into buried cities, that they may discover the secret of Tyrian dye and Etruscan pottery, the system of Phœnician commerce and the sources of Egyptian wealth; or that their hearts may burn with the heroism of Marathon or swell with the glories of Alexander, and that the thrilling words of Pindar, the noble thoughts of Sophocles, the beautiful legends of Grecian mythology, the grand truths of Grecian history, may be their own? Do they investigate the records of the middle ages to understand the monetary schemes of Lombardy and Venice, or that they may read how men fought, how women loved, and minstrels sang—that they may dwell on knightly courtesy and knightly chivalry? Utility has, I fear, little of the study. This may be a human error, but it is a deep-seated and long-standing one. What a Jeremiad to sing over a fine old hedgerow, rotten stumps, and barbarous customs! Not so, O Age! It is not things themselves we mourn, but the feelings, the principles they nurtured or represented.

Agriculture followed of necessity in the march of utilitarianism. It was challenged to fight for its own footing—to struggle and compete with its rivals in the quickness and quantity of production. In this struggle it gained, maybe, much strength from its alliance with science, and added to its resources by the applications of art; but it lost much of the Arcadian character, the pastoral beauty, the simplicity of pleasure and simplicity of toil, the simple honesty and the generous manliness, which placed in point of attraction the rural life next to the heroic in men’s minds, which invested the vocation of the husbandman with the graces and dignity of a higher order of labour, and wreathed the bare facts of his toil with the garlands of poesy and sentiment. It was forced to strip for the race, to throw away all its adornments, its poetry and sentiments, and descend to the bare remunerative materialism of husbandry. It can no longer afford

“Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,

Those calm desires that asked but little room,

Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,

Lived in each look, and brightened all the green.”

We doubt whether the consummation, imagined by the poet, has arrived, when “rural mirth and manners are no more,” but we see that they are being fast swept into the vortex of the great maelstrom of utilitarianism and generalisation. Carp we at these changes, then? We merely, according to our first proposition, balance gains against loss, crediting so many more cultivated acres, so many more turnips, so much more corn, against the loss of picturesqueness, the loss of many moral features and characteristics in a class which has hitherto been no mean element in our commonwealth. Had the Age, however, done no more than this, we should not have grudged the sacrifices thrown in the path of the great Juggernaut of progress. Spite of railroad and factory, there will still be beauty enow in our land—enow for poet and painter. It will not lie so much in our daily paths; it will not be such a constant presence to worker and wayfarer; but it will still be found by its worshippers. Even utilitarianism cannot nullify nature or denude the world of its Edens. Still must the corn wave, the grasses grow, the trees bud. Still will the “stately homes of England” stand beautiful “amid their tall ancestral trees through all the pleasant land,”—the cottage homes peep from their coverts. Still will the mountains stand in their grandeur, the rivers run in their gladness, and the valleys laugh and sing.

The rural virtues, too, may have only disappeared, to reappear under the influence of a higher intelligence. At least, we feel that a vocation, which is carried on in the open air, in constant communion with nature, must ever maintain a certain healthiness of feeling, a certain manliness of spirit.

But if this self-same utilitarianism, which has levelled our fields, turned our rivers, and laid open our valleys, be also levelling and laying bare our hearts, and frittering the great currents of the soul into a thousand channels—if it be overthrowing our moral landmarks, and invading the moral principles, which were once laws in our social cosmos, what hast thou, O Age, amid all thy wonders, to balance such work?

First of the levelling. We speak not of the changes or influences of democracy, for we have a firm belief that the proportions of society are determined by laws so fixed and true, that any attempt to violate them will eventually produce reaction; but of the changes which are gradually levelling and overthrowing the moral distinctions and moral barriers of our social life, and especially those of age. Where is now our youth?—where our old age? Where are our boys?—where our old men? We have men-boys and boy-men. But where are the veritable boys—the boys with eager hearts, throbbing pulses, buoyant spirits, gay hopes, glowing fancies, unreasoning beliefs, and ready faith—the boys with the young thoughts and the young feelings gushing through them like the juices of young life—the boys who hail their stage of existence joyfully, gathering its pleasures, battling its sorrows, and venting its impulses; not striving and straining after an unripe knowledge and a forced maturity? Where are now our veritable grey-beards—the old men who calmly, and of course, enter on their stage of life assuming its dignities, claiming its privileges, and fulfilling its functions; separating themselves from the turbid action, the toil and strife of the world, and reposing honourably in the retirement of experience and council; not clinging to the semblance of foregone periods, not envying the energies of youth or the prime of manhood, but keeping alive the memories and feelings of both to ray their declining day with mellow light—the old men who rejoiced to wear their grey hairs as a crown of glory, and stood amid their fellows with their hoary heads, their wise hearts, and their brows engraven with the lines of thought like

“The white almond-trees full of good days.”

Such a man the poet draws—

“Behold a patriarch of years, who leaneth on the staff of religion;

His heart is fresh, quick to feel, a bursting fount of generosity.

He, playful in his wisdom, is gladdened in his children’s gladness;

He, pure in his experience, loveth in his son’s first love.

Lofty aspirations, deep affections, holy hopes are his delight;

His abhorrence is to strip from Life its charitable garment of Idea.

The cold and callous sneerer, who heedeth of the merely practical,

And mocketh at good uses in imaginary things,—that man is his scorn;

The hard unsympathising modern, filled with facts and figures,

Cautious and coarse, and materialised in mind,—that man is his pity.

Passionate thirst for gain never hath burnt within his bosom;

The leaden chains of that dull lust have not bound him prisoner:

The shrewd world laughed at him for honesty, the vain world mouthed at him for honour;

The false world hated him for truth, the cold world despised him for affection:

Still he kept his treasure, the warm and noble heart,

And in that happy wise old man survive the child and lover.”

Such men may still exist, scattered like old pollards over the levelled face of society; but they are not thy products, not the results of thy materialism, O Age! The youth which opens under thy auspices, and runs by thy creeds, cannot sow the seeds of such a harvest. The youth formed under thy influences and action will have no growth, will not know the natural processes of maturation—“First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” Thy youth will be put up and fashioned like a piece of mechanism, set to work like a steam-engine, moving ever by the same hard heavy material laws,—so much speed from so much power, so much knowledge from so much pressure.

Such a morning cannot end in the even we have pictured. “The merely practical,” “the facts and figures,” “the exacting coarse materialism of mind,” “the passionate thirst,” will be “the leading chains” which must bind the old age of the man who lives by thy doctrines and fulfils thy theories. Affection, feeling, imagination, faith, cannot wreathe or foliage the hoar trunk, for these will have been long before lopped off and withered by “that solid falsehood, the material.”

Truly the tendency of thee and thy utilitarianism, O Age! is to materialise the beginning and end of life—to take from youth its freshness and romance, from old age its geniality and repose; and better so, thou sayest, for thus will its space, its strength, and its energies, be concentrated on the great producing period manhood, and not expended in boyish frolics and follies—in the maunderings and idleness of dotage. Why should there be these waste places in life? “Is not youth the preparation for manhood, and old age its result?” Is it not right, therefore, that our youth should not be fed on nursery tales, prurient fancies, fiction, poetry, and high-flown sentiment, but be early imbued with the solid facts, the useful knowledge, the rules of science, and the power of calculation, which will fit it to play its part well and ably in the great battle of utility? And why should old age rest, sink into placid inaction? If it cannot labour, cannot it scheme and calculate and speculate, till the brain begin to err, and the mind to fail in its correctness?—then, indeed, let it be thrown aside like an old file, or used-up machine, to moulder and decay. It were well said, O Age! if life had no uses save the practical—if this world were merely one great warehouse, one great mart, one mass on which trade and manufacture were to erect their fulcra, and were not, as it is, covered and filled with the beautiful and sublime; if man were a machine of brain, muscle, and bone, and not endowed with heart and soul, the divine sparks of vitality; if he were to live by bread alone, or be judged by his gold,—then, indeed, ’twere well said and well done. But whilst beauty and sublimity still exist as elements of the physical cosmos, and heart and soul of the moral; whilst we know the glorious thoughts and glorious deeds which the study and culture of them has produced through all time, we cannot but think that they will still be, as ever, chief agencies in this great world of ours; we cannot but think that the beautiful and sublime, reflected on heart and soul, should now, as ever, radiate in the warm impulses, pure worship, and warm imaginings of youth, and beam round age in the sunset hues of a summer day. What are their uses, sayest thou? What are spring and autumn to the seasons? What morn and even to the day? Shall there be no more spring shooting of leaves—no bursting buds, no fluttering or carollings of spring life? Shall there be no brown leaves, no fallow, no mellow fruit? Shall there be no rosy lights of morn, no jocund sounds or pleasant sights of waking life? Shall there be no gorgeous sunsets, no calm splendour of declining day? Is life to toil and sit henceforth under summer heat, and abide ever in the blaze and glare of noonday, rising only in the glimmer of infancy, and setting in the cold gleam of twilight? Shall the bounding step, the joyous laugh, the free heart, generous thought, and intuitive heroism, be no longer the attributes of our youth? Have these no uses? Do they cast no bright lights on a land, raise no pleasant echoes? Have they no genial influences, no glad inspirations for the working world? Shall we no longer see the glorious sight—to us the most sublime spectacle which human life or the world can offer—the sight of a man resting in old age from his labours, not estranging himself from the world, but weaning his thoughts from its cares and turmoil, holding still by its affections and memories, but gently withdrawing his spirit from the strife, to prepare it by repose for the great emancipation it is expecting? Has this no uses? Has it no grand lessons—no sublime teachings—no infinite suggestions? Does it shed no blessing or holiness around—nor reflect a ray of its own peacefulness on striving, toiling men? And are these things nought, and shall they not be? Wilt thou dare, O Age! to cast thy spell over youth and old age, and thus sacrifice to thy materialism and utility the periods which God has sanctified to the highest manifestations of spiritualism—to the purest developments of innocence, love, truth, and faith—to the richest perfectedness of peace, purpose, and wisdom?

We have seen somewhat of the system by which thou nurturest thy youth, and like not it nor its results. We love not the Lanista, gladiatorial training by which heart and imagination are rubbed, starved, and sweated down—and the mind fed, the intellect exercised, for the merely material struggle—the combat of facts and realities—the great game of profit and loss. We love not the training, nor love we those who undergo it. They have not, in our eyes, the loveliness or the lovableness which we used to associate with the image of youth. Young without youth, old without maturity, young in form, old in heart and brain, they stand before us, keen, sharp, and confident; strong in a knowledge of facts, dates, and tables—a knowledge unleavened by the touches of imagination, unsoftened by modesty, unmoved by the freshness and simplicity which give such beauty to youth, and which sometimes make even the wisdom of manhood bow to its intuitions, confessing with the German philosopher, that “the fresh gaze of the child is richer in significance than the forecasting of the most indubitable seer.”

In what spirit dost thou lead them to the first study—the book of nature? Dost thou spread it before them as a book of God, that they may see its great wonders, learn its great lessons, perceive its great symbols, learn its great poesy, and inhale its great sublime worship,—not comprehending all at once, but gathering them in, for future thought and future perception? Is it thus thou presentest nature to thy children, or not rather as a science and mechanism, the laws, rules, times and measurements of which they must learn and master, forgetting or heeding not the great principles which these represent, the great system of which they are a part? Thy children are taught accurately the distances between stars and the times of their movements; they can babble of strata and formation, explain the secrets of tide, and current, and the law of storms; classify plants, from the hyssop on the wall to the cedar which groweth on Lebanon, and name scientifically the shells on the sea-shore; but we seldom hear them talk of the glory of the heavens or the beauty of the earth, or the wonders of the sea, or point to them as types and revelations of the Power which made and moveth in them all. Nature, with her laws and changes, appeareth in thy schools as the result of mechanic forces and chemical combinations. If thou teachest more than this, we find it not in thy books, in thy public teachings, or in the minds of thy pupils! Is it not the same with other studies? History, science, and poesy are, with thee, so abridged, extracted, epitomised, and tabulated, that only facts are left for the memory, not thought for the mind. All the noble examples, the heroic deeds, the noble thoughts, and great principles which they recorded or contained, are carefully suppressed or parodied; for what have they to do with the practical work on which this generation is about to enter? Thus with their catechisms and manuals, thy pupils, learning without reverence, thinking without feeling, knowing without believing, unencumbered by modesty, unchecked by impulse, enthusiasm, or imagination, can rush at once into the arena, ready and confident. And in choosing this system of training and education, thou art wise in thy generation—wise as the serpent—for by what other couldst thou hope to raise men, who, eschewing nobleness, and aspiring not to greatness—who, rejecting antecedents and abandoning individuality, shall swell the throng of money-getters, buyers, sellers, producers, contractors, speculators, and other zealots of utility, and thus elevate thee to the height of practical glory, thus make thee still more wondrous!

Such men thou wilt have, such men thy system must make; but to quote more eloquent words and thoughts than our own, “If we read history with any degree of thoughtfulness, we shall find that the checks and balances of profit and loss have never been the grand agents with men; that they have never been roused into deep, thorough, all-pervading efforts by any commutable prospect of profit and loss, for any visible finite object, but always for some invisible and infinite one.”

Ages, in which self-interest has been the one pervading principle, this world has seen before: such an age was that of Louis XV., only that then pleasure, not profit, was the prevailing object; lust, not mammon, the presiding deity. Such an era is being now enacted across the Atlantic. There self-interest, in the shape of mammon, is running its race boldly and fiercely, unstayed by old traditions, old memories, or old institutions, and is exhibiting to the world, in all its glory and success, the reign of the practical, the triumph of utility. Let thy admirers, followers, pupils, study these well, ere they rush on their onward career.

We, personally, stand aghast at thy offspring. They terrify us by their unripe shrewdness and “Smallweed” wisdom. Though verging on the period of the sere and yellow leaf, we ever loved the companionship of boys, and were considered rather a good fellow by them. We could discuss the shape of a bat, the colour of a fly, the merits of a pony, or the distinction of prison bar and prison base, pretty well, and at a push could even talk respectably of the stories of old Virgil, the marches of Xenophon, or the facetiæ of Horace. This was all well. But one does not now dare to touch one of these young prodigies without a fear that he will forthwith shoot an arrow from his quiver of facts and dates, by deliberately asking, how far Saturn is from the Earth, or at what rate sound travels, or what is the population of China, or the date of the Council of Nice.

Our flesh quakes even now, and a cold perspiration comes over us, at the thought of the intellectual contests we shall have to undergo with our firstborn. That child-man haunts us like a phantom. The vision sits upon us like a nightmare. We believe him to be our lawfully-begotten offspring, but he will be thy child, O Age; child of thy nurture, of thy circumstances, thy influences. Thou wilt be the she-wolf who will suckle him! We see him grown formal, knowing, and conceited, battering us with questions from his catechisms, ’ologies, tables, and measures. We are not yet resolved how to meet this coming contest; whether to read up covertly for the emergency, or to follow an expedient once successfully adopted by a patriarch of our experience—that of affecting to despise and pooh-pooh all elementary knowledge as beneath and unworthy of him. Yes; we see this our offspring, and we know him chiefly by negatives, chiefly by contrast with boys of our own youth. We know that he will be more proper, discreet, and decorous than ourselves or our contemporaries. We know that he will not be misled by impulse or sympathy; that his mind will never be led from Euclid or Greek grammar, by the ringing of some old rhyme in his brain, or the memory of some old joke, or the thought of the green fields and green woods on which the sun is shining without; that his pulse will not beat quick at reading of the heroic three hundred at Thermopylæ; that he will perhaps vote the Horatii and Camillus humbugs; pronounce the Lay of the Last Minstrel an idle tale, and the Arabian Nights a collection of fooleries; that he will never believe in ghosts, and will smile scornfully at the mention of fairies and pixies; that he will never risk a flogging for the sake of Robinson Crusoe or Roderick Random; that Childe Harold and Don Juan, so sedulously kept from us, may safely be left within his reach; that he will never secrete the family tinder-box, or tear leaves from his father’s logbook to make bonfires on the 5th of November; that he will never give, except a quid pro quo; or play, except with a calculation of gain or loss. Will he ever know a boy’s love? Yes, perhaps, but he will pursue it calmly and discreetly, like a man and a gentleman; will approach his inamorata without diffidence, and talk to her without hesitation. Not such was our boy’s love; not thus did we go through that ordeal of beating pulse and rushing thought. To our recollection, we never spoke six words to the object of our adoration, and never entered her presence without blushing or stammering; but the sight of her flaxen curls and blue eyes at the window would set our brain in a whirl, and a smile or bob of the curls would cause such a beating of the heart that we forthwith set off at topmost speed, and were only stopped by loss of breath or wind. After all such interviews, the said curls and eyes, and certain frilled trousers with which our deity was generally invested, would come dancing in on every mote and sunbeam, drawing off eye and thought from slate or book; and the memory of the many occasions on which we ate cane on account of such distractions, still causes a tingling in the regions devoted to flagellation.

Will he be a sportsman? Probably, but scientifically and unenthusiastically. We think not that he will ever mingle with his sport that love of wood and fell, stream and river, rock and waterfall, cloud and sunshine, leaf and spray, without which rod and gun would be to us as vain and idle implements. We know that he will never sleep in barn or outhouse to be early by the side of the stream or cover; that he will never invest pocket-money in flies, until their fitness for the season or stream has been well tested; that he will never, in anticipation of a raid on hare or rabbit, collect and lock up all the curs and mongrels in the neighbourhood, thereby delighting his parents by a midnight serenade. Will he delight in feasts and revelry? Yes; but staidly and soberly, dressed in fitting costume, conducting himself decorously, and talking on most proper topics. He will never, methinks, taste the luxury of banqueting on potatoes and sausages roasted in the cinders of a bonfire, or rejoice in the irregular joviality of harvest-home, village feast, or dancing in a barn. Wretch that we are! the shadows of such things cling lovingly to the skirts of our memory. One occasion we remember especially. It was the custom of our locale, that every village should have a day appointed for a feast, and on this all doors were opened, all friends welcomed from far and near. On such a day we crossed accidentally the threshold of a yeoman friend, and were dragged forthwith to a board literally groaning under the weight of a piece of beef of nameless form, a kid-pie made in a milk-pan, a plum-pudding ditto, with other delicacies of the like light kind. After trying our digestion, and working our wicked will on them, we adjourned to the barn, and there, claimed as a partner by a cherry-cheeked daughter of our host, we had to confront the struggle of a country-dance or jig, which or what we know not now, and knew not then. It was a fair trial to dance each other down. A bumpkin at our elbow looked on us with invidious rivalry, and commenced at once most outrageous operations with heel and toe. Our partner rushed recklessly on her fate. We felt misgivings as to our own powers. The limbs grew weak, the breath faint. We looked at the Cherry-cheeks; a few oily drops were trickling down them. We felt encouraged. Presently the steps of our bumpkin fell more fitfully and irregularly. Again we looked at the Cherry-cheeks; the moisture was streaming down now in copious rivulets. Bumpkin at last went off in a convulsive fling, and Cherry-cheeks, with a groan and a sigh, confessed herself beaten. We stood conqueror on the field. It was our first and last saltatory triumph. We have never before or since gained éclat in the mazy. Blush not for thy parent, child of our love, but throw thy mantle decently over his delinquencies! No such escapades will ever disturb the regular mechanism of the life which thou and thy comrades will lead!

Thus we trace him onwards by negatives from a youth without enthusiasm to a manhood without generosity or nobleness—a perfect machine, with the parts well adjusted and balanced, regulated to a certain power, fitted to work for certain ends by certain means—the end profit, the means the quickest and cheapest which can be found. As such a man, he will be a richer and shrewder one than his forefathers, and gain more distinction—perhaps become a railway director, have pieces of plate presented to him at public dinners, die a millionaire or a beggar, and be regarded hereafter, according to success, as a great man or a swindler. Such, O Age! is the distinction, and the reverse, which thou offerest to thy children!

Yes; so bigoted are we, that we would not exchange the memory of days spent on green banks, with the water rippling by and the bright sky above us—of nights passed with an old friend—of hours of loving commune with the gifted thoughts and gifted tongues of other days—the memory of the wild impulses, fervid thoughts, high hopes, bounding sympathies, and genial joys of our past—a past which we hope to carry on as an evergreen crown for our old age—even to play for such a high stake, and win.

We cannot test thee so well by old age, for the old men now standing in this generation are not wholly of thy begetting; but, judging by the law of consequences, we can foretell that material youth and material manhood must lead to a material old age; that souls long steeped in reekings from the presses of Profit, and bound for years in the chains of Utilitarianism, cannot readily escape from their pollution and bondage; and we can see also, even now, the dark shadow of the present passing over the spirits of men who began their career in a past. Old age is not, as of yore, a privileged period. Men no longer recognise and value it as a distinction, nor aspire to it as to an order having certain dignities, privileges, and immunities, like the old men at Rome, who were granted exemption from the heavy burden of state duty, and served her by their home patriotism and counsel. Men love not now to be considered or to become old; they fight against this stage of life by devices and subterfuges, and strive to stave off or disguise its approaches. Nor are they so much to blame. The relations of age are changed; it holds not the same consideration or position as in former days, receives not reverence and deference as its due homage, nor is accorded by common consent an exemption from attack, a freedom of warning and counsel. The practical workers of to-day would as soon think of bowing to the hoary head or wise heart of a man past his labours, as to the remains of a decayed steam-engine or broken-down spinning-jenny. The diseased faculties of old age are to them as the disjecta membra of worn-out mechanism. It is this non-estimation, this non-appreciation, which drives men to ignore and repudiate the signs and masks of a period which brings only disability and disqualification, and makes them cling by every falsehood, outward and inward, to the semblance of youth—very martyrs to sham and pretence.

It was not always thus. Within our own experience, men at a certain time of life assumed a change of dress, habits, and bearing—not relinquishing their vocations and amusements, but withdrawing quietly from the mêleé, and becoming quiet actors or spectators; thus signifying that they were no longer challengers or combatants, but rather judges and umpires in the great tussle of life. We remember with what respect we used to regard these as men set apart—a sort of lay priesthood—an everyday social house of peers—a higher court of council and appeal. How deeply we felt their rebukes and praises; with what reverence we received their oracles, whether as old sportsmen, old soldiers, old scholars, or old pastors. These men are becoming few, for such feeling in regard to them is dying out or extinct. Your young utilitarian would show no more mercy to a grey-haired veteran, than the barbarians did to the senatorial band of Rome, but would indifferently hurl Cocker at his head, or joust at him with his statics.

How many classes of these old men, familiar to this generation, are disappearing! We will not touch on the old gentleman, the old yeoman, and others; their portraits have been drawn most truly already, and are impressed on most of our memories; but we must mourn over them with a filial sorrow, believing, O Age! that the high honour, dignity, worth, courage, and integrity by which they tempered society, were of more use to it than the artificial refinement, multiplied conveniences, rabid production, and forced knowledge which thou callest civilisation—that the moral virtues which they represented were more precious to a people, and more glorious to a nation, than the products and wonders of thy mechanism! If thou has bereft us of these, it will be hard to strike the balance!

One class we miss entirely—the old clergymen. Taunt us not, O Age! with the fox-hunting, hard-drinking, hard-riding parsons of the last generation. We knew them too, and knew many whose burden of delinquencies in regard to horse, hound, gun, and wine-cup, leavened as they often were by kindly charities and loving sympathies, will perhaps sit as lightly as that of many a well-oiled, smooth-going machine of capital, who sets the moral tone for our time. We speak not of these, but of the mild evangelists—the gentle brothers whose benevolent faces still beam on our memory; whose gentle words, unmixed with the gall of controversy or the fearfulness of commination, fell often sweetly on our hearts. These lived ere this age discovered that the gospel of Christ required a new development, and the religion of God a new adaptation to the purposes and destinies of man. In many of the quiet sequestered villages of England, pastors who were content to preach and live as their Master had preached and lived, delivering His promises and commands gently and lovingly, and following faithfully His behest in visiting the sick, and comforting the afflicted—many such it was our lot to see and hear. A servant of our household often took us, in our childhood, as the companion of her Sunday holiday. This woman was most erratic in her devotions, and wandered indiscriminately from fold to fold—now sitting under the Established Church, now under Wesleyan, Brionite, or Ranter. Many a field-preaching and conventicle meeting have we attended in consequence, much to the scandal of an orthodox aunt. As she loved, however, to mingle creature-comforts with her religious exercises, we more often visited some friendly yeoman, and went with him and his family to the village church. Pleasant is the memory of many of these Sabbaths; the walk through a quiet lane, or by a shady wood-path; the entry through the sequestered churchyard, with its grass-green graves, ‘neath which the forefathers of the hamlet slept; the church, simple and unadorned, where

“The golden sun
Poured in a dusty beam,
Like the celestial ladder seen
By Jacob in his dream.
And ever and anon the wind,
Sweet-scented with the hay,
Turned o’er the hymn-book’s fluttering leaves
That in the window lay;”

—the minister, reverend and benignant, earnest in entreaty, meek in rebuke—all these are pleasant memories. We knew these pastors better afterward, but this was often our first acquaintance. Oft have we asked for them since. Their places now know them no more. In their pulpits and by their altars, stand men who would impose religion on their fellows as a ceremonial, or inflict it as a penance.

Where, too, are the companions, the fellow-workers of these old pastors, the old-fashioned sisters of charity; those dear old ladies who, with hearts warmed and opened by the affections of their own social life, went forth from their hearths to the homes of the poor, dropping here a word of comfort, here of admonition, here an alms, here a book, and leaving ever behind them a sense of true sympathy and kindly interest? They knew not—so dark was their age—that a regular organisation, discipline, and uniform, a prescribed drill and manuals, were necessary to the perfection of their mission. Their charity was a natural feeling, not an instituted effort; their admonition a friendly appeal, not a systematised summons to reform and penitence; their kindness, an intuition unset to rule; their books, the selection of their own reading, not the licensed and revised issue of repositories and societies. They were the ducts by which many an unseen stream of benevolence flowed into poor houses. Strange to say, too, though unaided by tea-drinkings, public meetings, bazaars, societies, public lists of subscribers, and all the recognised mechanism of modern charity, they had always the wherewithal to give; and almsgiving, as they gave, brought no pain or mortification, injured no sense of self-dependence, and left no moral degradation. They did good in their time—a time when individual endeavour did the work of institutions and corporations, but have passed away now, and are superseded by a very different caste. Their successors march upon us, a stern, zealous, resolute, and to us rather a grim sisterhood—the trained-bands of morality and charity. They are an order having outward and inward forms. The outward sign seems to be sad-coloured raiment; and when we see a young lady dismiss the bows from her bonnet, and adopt a grey shawl, we know that she is about to rush on her vocation as a district visitor. They have rules and codes, an appointed task, and appointed order; and, when duly organised and drilled, advance on some benighted town or village, each cohort attacking a quarter with the stern determination to trample down and drive out poverty, vice, and uncleanliness wherever they may be found. They are a moral police, detective and repressive, each on a separate beat, rushing down courts and through alleys in pursuit of want and immorality. They may fulfil their work, these sisters, and we wish them good speed; but we believe that they must first clothe their charity with more love, and learn especially, what their predecessors knew so well, how to speak to the poor.

We loved those good old sisters and their work. One, whom we remember well—thanks be to God—still walks this earth, doing her beautiful mission of love and charity. How or when she began this mission we know not. It was no sudden adoption, no result of sudden conviction or disappointed hope. We never remember her except as engaged in this genial task. It grew with her growth, as the natural ripening of early sympathies and early feelings. Bred, as gentles often were in those barbarous times, to regard the poor as their lowly friends, and to keep up a kindly intercourse with them, she had come to know their characters and their little histories, to understand their peculiar ways, and to learn to address them in the language by which alone the poor are moved,—the language of the heart. Thus, as time went on, the kindly greetings and kindly interest expanded easily into the higher offices of comfort, instruction, and relief. The transition was natural, and the people wondered not to see one whom they had known, loved, and revered so long, moving among them as a ministering angel of good, chasing darkness from the hours of the bedridden by her pleasant converse, uplifting the soul of some stricken sufferer by her cheering presence, bringing relief to the indigent, or dropping on the ears of some blind or aged Christian the precious words of Gospel writ. Great, too, was she in the nursery and by fireside, as we knew full well, and as another generation is now experiencing. What rhymes she knew, and what stories she told, and how she told them! and how have her love and pleasantness followed us from infancy up to manhood! By the by, what story-tellers there were in those days! The art seems lost at present. People compose their talk now, and the faculty of easy telling a natural narrative is getting rare indeed. Patient and gentle, thus for many years she pursued her loving mission, without the parade of circumstances or ostentation of duty, and without a murmur; though, in later years, she became the channel of all indiscriminate benevolence, and the director of all general charities. No outward humility of garb or look distinguished this our sister. She went forth even on her errands—lady as she was—apparelled after the fashion of her order. Nay, it must be confessed that she rather loved a handsome cloak or bonnet, nor thought them unbeseeming her mission; for she could not understand, nor can we, why acts of charity should be done, like deeds of penitence, in serge and sackcloth. One of her functions was a great mystery to us. Ever and anon mention was made of a certain bag, in connection with certain women. We used to wonder, in our small way, what this could mean; and discovered at last that she was manager of a Lying-in Society, which distributed bags containing all the requisites for ladies expecting that interesting event, and that the bag in the gift of our house was in yearly requisition for a matron, whose habit it was regularly to increase an already swarming brood of white-headed, freckle-faced urchins, who, as soon as they could crawl, seized on gutter and dunghill as their natural heritage.

Her labours were not, however, confined to the homes of the poor, but extended to a field from which most would have shrunk—the prison. Even there, amid the reprobate and the vile, she carried her teachings and her charity, and strove, by earnestness and tenderness, to reclaim and raise her fallen sisters. Many was the rebuff she met with—many the scoff from profligate lips; but still she was neither daunted nor deterred. Vice had for her no pollution, no repulsion; still she persevered; and though her words were often spoken in pain, yet may they often have brought comfort to some sin-laden heart, or awoke contrition in some first sinner. As instances of her failures and disappointments, she used often to tell, with a playful humour, slightly dashed by sorrow, how a woman, who had frequently been a tenant of the jail, and had always left in a feigned state of repentance, on her coming, for the sixteenth time, greeted her with, “Well, ma’am, I must surely be converted this time.” Perhaps the mild teachings and sweet truths, so often told, may, after many days, have been as bread cast on the waters, even to this hardened heart.

Gentle sister! loving heart! thou didst thy mission in love. There be those coming after thee who will employ threat, rebuke, and discipline, where thou wert wont to use persuasion, and strive to force or torture mankind into goodness by forms and penitential processes. They may succeed; but we believe, as thou didst, that God’s work is to be done by gentle influences; that God’s messages should fall on the heart softly as evening dew; that God’s truths should shine on the understanding like the summer sunshine; that God’s promises should be wafted on the soul with the gentleness and fragrance of a south wind. Sweetly does the memory of thy good deeds rest on many a heart, and sweetly, doubtless, has their incense risen to Heaven.

There were other old ladies, too, who had no mission save that of their gentle degree, whom we regard as goodly relics of a past—the old gentlewomen who sat and moved in a certain state and stateliness, and surrounded themselves with a dignity which won deference from those who approached them. We associate these with high-backed chairs, in wainscoted parlours, hung with dark portraits, with old folio picture-bibles; with pleasaunces and laurelled walks—with avenues and parterres—with peacocks and Blenheim spaniels—with gold-headed canes, ebony cabinets, and wondrous coiffures. We defend not those headdresses; they stand in evidence against us, in back numbers of the Ladies’ Magazine. But we remember sitting with great pride at our first play, between two turbans—one yellow, one pink—and recollect regarding the large gold-faced watches which hung pendent from the girdles of our patronesses, as an almost Aladdin realisation of wealth and splendour. Lovely were these gentlewomen often, in the richness and mellowness of their decline, illustrating, by their serenity and peaceful repose, the beauty and holiness of grey hairs—not mocking old age in a caricature of youth, nor scaring young hearts by the skeleton image of their own life.

There were old women, too, whom we regret—old servants, old nurses—garrulous, chattering, snuffy old gossips! O Age! they were pleasant old women withal; told pleasant stories; had an unprofitable habit, when their functions ceased, of regarding those whom their care had brought into the world with a sort of foster affection, and had a pleasant way of bringing back, by story and anecdote, the image of our infancy. These reminiscences were not, however, always gratifying to stripling pride. We remember once, when standing six feet without our boots, and arrayed in our first London suit, being rather humbled at hearing of a period when we hadn’t a shirt to our backs, and might have been squeezed into a quart pot.

We have done with the old age of the past; let it sleep its sleep.

We could instance much more fully, O Age! the levelling tendencies of thy materialism. But if it be true—and surely there must be proof before us—that thy doctrines are shading the brightness of youth, and mumming the majesty of old age, then do we know enough to be certified that those are not all gain! Ring out the table of thy exports, exult over the lists of thy shipping, the number of thy markets, the increase of population, the multiplication of comforts and conveniences, the rapidity of thy communications, the spread of thy education! Yet still would we say, Woe to the land whose youth is not as a vision of gladness! woe to the land where old age is not reverend or revered! Such a land may know a material prosperity, a commercial greatness which shall dazzle the world—may produce men, able in counting-house and on bourse—men ready in speech and debate; but it will not, we think, possess the elements which produce the great qualities—the Heroic—the Poetic—the Moral—the Truthful—on which hitherto have been built the grand structures of the world’s glory. Nor do we think that it would retain virtue enough to continue a line of merchant princes, such as England has ever rejoiced to number among her great men.

PUBLIC LECTURES—MR WARREN ON LABOUR.[1]

A social phenomenon of much interest has recently arisen in Great Britain, and it is one which as yet has no counterpart in other countries. We allude to the practice, now become systematic, of the delivery of public addresses and lectures by the leading men of the nation. We do not refer to the ordinary lectures contracted for by literary institutions, through which the grown-up public supply themselves with important knowledge not obtainable by them in youth at our universities, and for the study of which indeed the brief curriculum of youth has no spare time. The phenomenon to which we allude is something beyond this; it is not stipendiary in character and regular in appearance, but gratis and desultory. It is a spontaneous step taken by men of standing in the world of politics or literature, with the view of adding to the knowledge, improving the social condition, or influencing the political sentiments of their fellow-countrymen. A century ago the only medium of publishing facts and propagating opinions, was the excellent but limited one of books; the last half-century has seen the mighty engine of the Press attain to full power, diffusing views and statements with less accuracy and impartiality than books, but with infinitely greater speed and wider range. As newspapers are commercial adventures, they naturally seek, as their first object, to enunciate views acceptable to the class to whom they address themselves; and hence, whenever any party in the country happens to attain a great preponderance over its rivals, that preponderance is followed by an increase of newspapers in that interest, which in turn tends to augment the preponderance, it may be, even into a tyranny. And accordingly, at times when party-spirit runs high, the side which chances to possess a virtual monopoly of the newspaper press has it in its power, by bold assertion and frequent iteration, to make any misrepresentation or false charges against an antagonist pass generally current as truth, and at the same time keep from view the real principles by which the opposite party are animated. We cannot but regard the recent great development which the practice of making public addresses has obtained amongst us as in some degree a reaction against this natural one-sidedness of the newspaper press, and, on the whole, as the happiest remedy for it that can be devised. For by this means, without the aid of the restricted arena of Parliament, public men of all ranks and parties become the defenders of their own actions, the exponents of their own policy; and, moreover, to a great extent, can thus make the newspapers record at least all sides of the question.

On the whole, we regard the rise of this social phenomenon with much satisfaction. It is the best safeguard, and an ever-living protest, against that worst of all tyrannies, the tyranny of Public Opinion. As yet even America, where it is most needed, has hardly begun to develop the practice; and this not from want of toleration (though the tyranny of the majority be more pressing there than here), but rather from a want of the class from which the chief public speakers of England proceed. American society is not old enough, or rich enough, to have yet given birth to the two classes of public men and literary men, which give such bloom and power to the British commonwealth, and which, mutually aiding and correcting one another, together form a vast and distinguished caste, whose services go directly to instruct, elevate, and guide the general community. In America, the development of Mind as a separate profession, has as yet made but little progress, because the general community is still not rich enough to support a separate literary class of much extent; and their public men, though many of them distinguished by elevated talents, belong in the aggregate to a class entirely dependent for support upon industrial pursuits, the personal direction of which they cannot afford to abandon without pecuniary compensation, and to which they immediately return as soon as released from their legislatorial duties. In Great Britain, on the other hand, our public men are men of substance, who can afford to devote their time wholly to the service of the country, and who in very many cases are trained from their youth to statesmanship as a profession. Such men are proud of their noble profession; to them, their character as legislators and administrators is all in all; and they lose no opportunity of righting themselves with, and impressing their individual views upon the country at large. Hence the frequent public addresses delivered by our leading statesmen during the Parliamentary recess; and even when Parliament is sitting, not seldom do our public men seek a congenial audience out of doors, to which they may make a profession of sentiments which perhaps would be very coldly received from their place in the House. Of late it has been the Peelites and Cobdenites who have stood most in need of this appeal against public opinion; and the studious efforts which some of the leaders of these parties have made to prevent themselves being forgotten, and as protests against the sweeping censure which their indignant country has passed upon them, have not been entirely free of the ludicrous. But this makes no difference. We are proud of a country where opinion is thus free, and where men have the manliness to speak their opinions even when unpopular. It is a noble privilege to our public men, a corrective to the press, a benefit to the community. While it exists, no social or political disease is incurable, and by such aids and renovating influences, we trust, Great Britain is yet destined to flourish and progress for ages to come. The tyranny of the multitude is as odious to England as the oppression of a Czar; and as long as this is the case, the noble inheritance of British freedom is secure; for we shall never react into an autocracy until we have first suffered from the still worse tyranny of the multitude.

But politics furnish hardly a half of that public oratory which nowadays is ever welling forth, like springs of thought, over the length and breadth of the land. The other half belongs in nearly equal proportions to Literature and to practical and patriotic Philanthropy. It is most gratifying to see, as we so often do, the nobility of Britain stepping from their baronial halls to the rural meeting or the provincial athenæum, there to advocate the cause of moral and intellectual improvement,—in words, it may sometimes be, not overcharged with eloquence, but still influential and productive of much good from the position and personal character of the speakers. The place becomes hallowed where good and kindly words have been spoken; and these public addresses have unquestionably contributed with other causes to give a higher tone to many convivial meetings and social gatherings, formerly remarkable for little else than deep drinking and empty laughter. The people still look up to our nobles as their natural leaders, and they may well do so,—for the great body of the aristocracy comport themselves in a manner worthy of their exalted station; and we doubt not the recent eulogium and prophecy of Count Montalembert will prove well-founded, that the nobles of England, ever improving themselves, and still keeping in the van, will continue to rivet to themselves the respect and regards of the British nation.

It must be confessed, however, that our nobles and statesmen appear to greater advantage when advocating the cause of social elevation and moral or sanitary reform, than in addresses of a purely literary character. A good man engaged in a good work disarms criticism and attracts esteem; but when the work essayed is purely literary, the case is otherwise; and in not a few instances addresses of this kind, volunteered by men of position in the country, have fallen far short of the reputation or public position of the speakers. For example, it seems to us that the dignity of statesmanship must suffer an eclipse in public estimation, when one who has played so important a part in imperial politics as Lord John Russell delivers himself of a lecture so altogether trashy as that which he lately pronounced in Exeter Hall. It was a voluntary performance made by his lordship to keep himself before the public eye; but he merely pilloried himself. He has so long regarded himself as the great champion of civil and religious liberty in this country, and has been so flattered by his followers, that he has arrived at a condition in which he is manifestly incapable of measuring his own powers. In the course of the last twelvemonth his lordship has been in the Cabinet and out of it—he has gone to negotiate at Vienna and to lecture at Exeter Hall—he tries everything, and fails in all. In those stirring times, when public questions of the most pressing moment must be answered, and problems of the most complicated kind require to be solved, it was natural to expect that a statesman of Lord John Russell’s standing, if he did court a public appearance, would at least grapple with a question of the day; instead of which, he treated his audience to a piece of “antiquated imbecility,”—as shallow in thought as it was worthless in style,—wherein the “old saws” were schoolboy commonplaces, and the “modern instances” came no nearer to us than the days of Galileo! As a contemporary journal remarked,—“for any sympathy of his readers, or for any practical effect upon their wills, he might as well have discoursed to them of the patience of Job or the justice of Aristides.”

Such exceptions, however, ought not to affect an estimate of the general system or practice, which we regard as fraught with much good. It is observable that men of mark who have special relations to any place, to any town or district, frequently seek to make their literary or oratorical powers a graceful means of cementing the connection which subsists between them and the place in question. It is to a kindly desire of this kind that we owe the lecture or address whose title we have made a text for the preceding remarks, and which we desire to commend to the notice of all address-givers as in many respects a model of this class of compositions. It is well considered,—a tribute of respect to which every assembly is entitled; the rare but fascinating charm of style is felt throughout; and its spirit is not more genial and sympathetic, than its counsels are calculated to be of deep practical influence in the affairs of life.

In choosing Labour for his theme, Mr Warren addressed himself to a subject which he knew must interest every unit in the crowded audience around him. The establishment of the rights of labour is the first-fruit of freedom, and the maintenance of these rights is the first necessity of a commonwealth. “Labour,” says Adam Smith, “was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased.” And, as that clear-sighted writer adds, “the property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing his strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty of both the workman, and those who might be disposed to employ him. As it hinders the one from working at what he thinks proper, so it hinders the others from employing whom they think proper.” “Labour,” almost simultaneously remarked the great and good Turgot, “is the poor man’s property: no property is more sacred; and no time nor authority can sanction the violation of his right freely to dispose of this, his only resource.” Words these, as Mr Warren remarks, worthy to be recorded in letters of gold. In Britain, Labour, like Opinion, is FREE. And so profoundly cherished by our nation is the principle of freedom in labour, that even in our colonies we have struck the fetters of bondage from the Negroes, by an act, we will not say prudent in the manner of its accomplishment, but noble in the highest degree from the spirit which dictated it.

But things were not always so in England. In the early stages of society everywhere, the only law is the law of the strongest, and might makes right. Even in the classic States of Greece and Rome, where civilisation of a certain kind reached great eminence, the proportion of free men to slaves was infinitesimal only; and in Russia at the present day, the vast majority of the nation are still kept in a state of serfdom. England too had a period—now happily past by six or seven centuries—when a similar state of things prevailed. The working-classes of England then groaned in the state of slavery called villeinage,—a villein being as absolutely the property of his feudal lord as a dog or a hog; unable to acquire any property for himself, whatever he earned belonging to his lord,—held to belong to the land and sold with it,—torn at will from his family,—his children slaves like himself; and if a male and female slave of different masters married, their masters claimed any children that might be born, who were divided between them! The thirteenth century had ended before any considerable proportion of these villeins had risen into the condition of hired labourers. And the first time we hear of these on a grand scale is in the year 1348; on which occasion, the great plague having terribly reduced their numbers, the legislature sternly interposed, “to deny the poor,” in the indignant language of Mr Hallam, “that transient amelioration of their lot which the progress of population, or other analogous circumstances, would, without any interference, very rapidly take away.” “These poor creatures,” says Mr Warren, “were naturally anxious to be better paid for their labour, when it had become so greatly increased in value; and the legislature, in the time of Edward III., passed acts peremptorily fixing, with great precision, the rates at which artisans should be obliged to work, on pain of punishment by fine and imprisonment. This was the famous Statute of Labourers, passed just five centuries ago (1352), and which applied exclusively to those whose means of living was by the labour of their hands—by the sweat of their brow.”

How different the case in England now! What an advance have the virtues of justice, mercy, and wisdom made amongst us during these last five centuries! Freedom, whether personal or political, is no longer an empty boast,—a privilege reserved for a wealthy or high-born minority. Its only limits are where the liberty of the individual trenches upon the liberty of his fellows, or the good of the commonwealth. As regards the rights of labour, of which Mr Warren so ably treats, a British labourer may work to any master, for any number of hours a-day he pleases, and may even contract to work for a particular master for his whole lifetime.[2] But as regards women and children the case is different, and, acting not in accordance with mere theory, but the dictates of experience and philanthropy, the British Legislature have found it necessary to put restrictions upon female and juvenile labour,—these portions of the community being in certain cases too weak and dependent to look after their own interests. In factory-works this is especially the case. The mighty machinery in these establishments requires simply to be tended, so that a considerable portion of the work can be done by mere children. And hence it happens that premature and improvident marriages are frequent among the mill-workers, who, instead of thinking of supporting their children, look forward to children as a means of supporting themselves! A most cruel and unnatural state of things, fatal to the children, and pernicious to the community, which thus witnesses within its own bosom the growth of a class utterly degenerate in body and totally uneducated in mind. Acting upon these considerations, the British Legislature in 1833 passed the first Factory Act, which bore in its preamble “that it was necessary that the hours of labour, of children and young persons, employed in mills and factories, should be regulated, inasmuch as there are great numbers of children and young persons now employed in them, and their hours of labour are longer than is desirable, due regard being had to their health and means of education.” By that statute many excellent regulations were made to mitigate the evil. And again, in the years 1844, 1847, 1850, and 1853, other acts were passed, says Mr Warren, “further restricting the hours of labour of women, young persons, and children, in print-works, mills, and factories; carefully providing for their education, fixing the time for beginning and ending work, so as to prevent their toiling unnecessarily and at unseasonable hours; securing their holidays and periods for recreation, fixing their meal-times; providing for the cleanliness and ventilation of the scenes of their toil; guarding them as far as possible against exposure to danger from machinery; and subjecting mills and factories to constant and systematic inspection and regulation by medical men and government officers, whose business it is to see that the benevolent care of the Legislature is not defeated, or in any way evaded. Again, no woman or girl, of any age, and no boy under the age of ten years, is now allowed to work on any pretence whatever in any mine or colliery; and no boy can be apprenticed to such work under that age, nor for more than eight years. No young person under twenty-one years of age is allowed to enter any flue or chimney, either to sweep it or extinguish fire; and no boy under sixteen can be apprenticed to a chimney sweeper; and even if he be, the moment he wishes it, a magistrate will discharge him from his articles.” Such legislation, undeniably, requires to be very prudently proceeded with; for, while taking care of the employed, we must at the same time respect the freedom of the employer, otherwise manufacturing capital will flee our shores, and the state of the working-classes will be rendered worse than before.

The question, indeed, at issue between Labour and Capital is one of exceeding difficulty, yet it is one which every year is pressing itself more urgently upon the consideration of the country. The present laws relating to this matter are unquestionably a great improvement upon what they were thirty years ago. Down to the year 1824, two or three working-men could not meet together, though never so quietly, to settle what wages they would work for, and during what hours, without committing an offence in the eye of the law, and being punished for it; while the masters, at the same time, were at full liberty to meet, and agree to give their men no more than a particular sum! That was neither freedom nor justice; and the late Mr Hume only spoke the truth when, stigmatising the principle, he said,—“The law prevented the labouring classes of the community from combining together against their employers, who, though few in number, were powerful in wealth, and might combine against them, and determine not to give them more than a certain sum for their labour. The workmen could not, however, consult together about the rate they ought to fix on that labour, without rendering themselves liable to fine and imprisonment, and a thousand other inconveniences which the law had reserved for them.” This legal inequality has been removed, but how much remains to be done need be told only to such as shut their eyes to the ever-recurring strikes and misery which desolate our manufacturing districts. Labour is free,—and each man wants to get as much for it as he can; but unfortunately another man as naturally wants to get it for as little as he can. There is no love, no sympathy, not even a common understanding of each other’s affairs; each party forms a league against the other,—and so the heartless suicidal strife goes on. Masters and men—it is hard to say which party is the more to blame. If improvidence on the part of the work-people often tempt them into, and aggravate their position in strikes, by leaving them no little surplus wherewith to meet “hard times,”—turn to our last month’s article on the Lancashire strikes, and see if there be not also an improvidence and gambling spirit on the part of the master-manufacturers, by which the wages and employment of their men are needlessly placed in jeopardy.

Masters and men combine against each other—that is the barbarous order of the day. Men who fancy that war with foreign nations can be wholly abolished by means of arbitration, yet wage an internecine contest with their own brother-countrymen,—a war which, so far from even acknowledging the principle of arbitration, is regularly carried on until one or other of the parties sinks exhausted in the combat! It is not long ago since the combinations of the workmen on strike were of the most savage and atrocious character.[3] Of late they have become less envenomed in spirit; but still the tyranny which trades-unions exercise over individual members of the trade is as glaring as could be practised by Governments even the most despotic. The law attempts to remedy this, but, alas! with little effect. “If,” says the late Chief-Justice Tindal, expounding the existing statutes upon this point, “there be one right, which beyond all others the labourer ought to be able to call his own, it is the right of the exertion of his own personal strength and skill, in the full enjoyment of his own free will, altogether unshackled by the control or dictates of his fellow-workmen; yet strange to say, this very right which the discontented workman claims for himself to its fullest extent, he does, by a blind perversity and unaccountable selfishness, entirely refuse to his fellows who differ in opinion from himself! It is unnecessary to say that a course of proceeding so utterly unreasonable in itself, so injurious to society, so detrimental to the interests of trade, and so oppressive against the rights of the poor man, must be a gross and flagrant violation of the law, and when the guilt is established, must be visited by a proper measure of punishment.” But the masters also may now be made to feel the restraining power of the law; and at this moment one of our highest tribunals, a Court of Error, is occupied with a question of no small importance and difficulty, arising from an attempt of eighteen Lancashire mill-owners to enter into a counter-combination. Their men having combined to support each other in forcing their masters to yield to their terms, the masters entered into a bond to each other not to open their mills for twelve months, except on terms agreed to by a majority; and the question was brought before the Court of Queen’s Bench, whether such an agreement was or was not one in restraint of trade, and consequently consistent or inconsistent with the public good. “The Court differed,” says Mr Warren; “but the majority held that the agreement was illegal, as unduly restraining the freedom of trade, holding ‘that if particular masters might thus combine, so might all the masters in the kingdom:’ and, on the other hand, all the men in the kingdom might combine themselves into a sort of Labour Parliament.” The case, it is understood, will not be held settled on either side until it has been taken to the House of Lords, and decided by the Court of last appeal in the kingdom.

The principle or object kept in view by the Legislature in framing the present statutes seems to have been, as Chief-Justice Tindal once observed, “that if the workmen, on the one hand, refused to work, or the master, on the other, refused to employ, as such a state of things could not continue long, it might fairly be expected that the party must ultimately give way whose pretensions were not founded on reason or justice—the masters if they offered too little, the workmen if they demanded too much.” But, says Mr Warren, “this leaves each party to decide on the reason and justice of its pretensions, and the unreasonableness and injustice of those of its opponent. And it is more likely that the Legislature said to itself,—‘It will always be a question of time; the weakest will go to the wall first, though not till after it has greatly hurt the stronger.’” They just left each side to do its worst, and worry or be worried to death by its opponent, without the State interfering so long as this work of social murder went on peaceably!

Truly, this is sad work! And yet legislation, we fear, though it may in some degree curb, will never reach the root of the evil. The only cure, we feel persuaded, will be found in social, not legislative reform. Better information on the part of the working-classes will do something to the attainment of this most desirable end; and Mr Warren, while paying a just tribute to the “keen mother-wit and right honest heart” of the English working-classes, says,—

“If many years’ observation and reflection entitle me to make a recommendation, it would be, that the working-classes would find it of the highest value to acquire, in a general way, as they could with a little effort,—as by plain and good lectures in this very place,—some knowledge of the circumstances which determine the rate of wages. That is a question, in its higher and remoter branches, of extreme difficulty; but its elementary principles are pretty well agreed upon now, and directly touch the only capital of the poor man—his labour, and teach him how to set a true and not a chimerical and exaggerated value on it, at times when the keenest dispute has arisen on that very subject. Oh, what incalculable benefits might arise from a knowledge, by the acute working-classes, of the leading principles agreed upon by great thinkers, statesmen, and economists of every hue of opinion, as those regulating the relation between employers and employed, and establishing, not a conflict of interest, but an absolute identity!”

Yet it is not Ignorance, but Selfishness—that passion the most abiding of our nature—that is the prime mover in these dire contests between the employers and employed; and along with every effort for the education of our working-classes, we should strive also still more assiduously to cultivate their moral nature and make mutual charity and forbearance more prevalent both among high and low. Very beautifully, and no less wisely and earnestly, does Mr Warren speak on this subject. Inculcating forbearance between master and man in hard-times, he says:—

“Each ought honestly to place himself, for a moment, in the other’s situation—when each might see causes in operation which he might not otherwise have seen—trials and difficulties of which he had not dreamed. Let the master look steadily at the position of the working man, especially in hard times, pressed down to the earth with exhausting labour, anxiety, and galling privations endured by himself and his family, often almost maddening him, as he feels that it is in vain for him to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrow: in moments of despondency and despair, he feels as though the appalling language of the prophet were sounding in his ears—Son of man, eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and with carefulness! He cannot keep himself and those towards whom his harassed heart yearns so tenderly from the jaws of starvation, with all his patience, economy, and sobriety; and yet he sees out of the fruit of his labours, his employers apparently rolling in riches, and revelling in luxury and splendour! But let that workman, on the other hand, do as he would be done by: let his master deal with his capital, which happens to be money, as the workman with his, which happens to be labour—‘freely.’ Let him reflect on the anxieties and dangers to which his employer is often exposed, but dare not explain, or make them public, lest it should injure or ruin his credit: his capital may be locked up in machinery, or he may be otherwise unable to realise it, however desperate his emergency, without a destructive sacrifice: great but perfectly legitimate speculation may have failed from causes he could not foresee or control—from accident, from fraud, or misfortune of others—from a capricious change in public taste: he may have been running desperately, but with an honest spirit, along the black line of bankruptcy for many months, without his workmen dreaming of it, and yet has punctually paid their weekly wages to perhaps several or many hundreds of them, often borrowing at heavy interest to do so, while these workmen supposed him always the master of untold thousands! Now I say, let each party try to think of all these things, and pause before he commits himself to a rash and ruinous line of hostility. A strike too often partakes of the nature of a social suicide. Capital—that is, labour and money—at war with itself, may be compared to the madman who, in a sudden phrenzy, dashes each of his fists against the other, till both are bleeding and disabled—perhaps for ever.... Let each party sincerely try to respect the other; to find out and dwell on those qualities really, and to so large an extent, entitling each to the other’s respect and sympathy. Let the master reflect on the patience, ay the truly heroic patience, self-denial, fortitude, and energy with which the workman endures severe trials and privations; and let the workman reflect on the fairness and moderation, often under circumstances of serious difficulty,—on the generosity and munificence of his master, as could be testified by tens of thousands of grateful workmen, in seasons of sickness, suffering, and bereavement.”

Towards the close of his elaborate lecture, Mr Warren discourses nobly and cheerfully on the Dignity and Consolations of labour, and glances at the monster evils of Improvidence and Intemperance by which the daily life of the working-classes is robbed alike of its honour and its comfort. In this part occurs a passage so striking and so eloquent that we cannot but transfer it to our pages, and we trust the warning and appeal which it conveys will animate all who have the privilege of influencing the working-classes, with an enduring desire to banish the debasing and all-abstracting passion of intemperance from their ranks.

“I hope and believe that I must go out of this hall, to find a victim of Intemperance! Such a man, or rather wreck of a man, is not to be found here! I know, however, where to find him; there is another hall in which I took my seat this morning, have sate all day, and shall be at my gloomy post again in the morning, to see,—possibly,—standing trembling, or sullen and desperate at the bar of justice, one whom the untiring and remorseless fiend Intemperance has dragged thither, and stands grim but unseen beside his victim. He had been a man, might we say, well to do in the world, and getting respected by all his neighbours, till he took to drink, and then it was all up with him—and there he stands! disgraced, and in despair. I need not draw on my imagination for illustrations, especially before an audience which numbers so many men whose painful duty as jurymen it is to sit every sessions, with myself, engaged in the administration of justice. You have seen how often, in a moment of voluntary madness occasioned by drink, a life’s character has been sacrificed, the brand of felon impressed on the brow, and free labour exchanged for that which is profitless, compulsory, and ignominious to the workman, within the walls of your prison! It would be unjust, however, not to say that exhausting labour, and the companionship of those who are together so exhausted, supply but too many temptations to seek the refreshment and exhilaration afforded by liquor, and which soon degenerates, from an occasional enjoyment, into an accursed habit. Home soon ceases to be home, to him who returns to it under the guilty delirium of intoxication: there, weeping and starving wife and children appear like dismal spectres flitting before his bloodshot eye and reeling brain. As the husband frequents the dramshop, so he drives his wretched wife the oftener to the pawn-shop, and her and his children at length to the workhouse; or perhaps in her desperation—but I dare not proceed! The coroner can tell the rest.

“Look at yonder desolate little room, at the end of a dreary court; a funeral goes out from it in the morning! Enter this evening. All is silent, and a single candle on the mantel-piece sheds a dull flickering light on a coffin, not yet screwed down. Beside it sits morally a murderer; his bloated face is hid in his shaking hands; he has not yet ventured to move aside the coffin lid, but at length he dares to look at his poor victim—his broken-hearted wife! Poor, poor soul! thou art gone at last! Gone, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest! ’Tis a happy release, say the friendly neighbours, who have contributed their little means to lay her decently in her coffin. Ay, besotted husband! let your bloodshot eyes look on that white face, that wreck of a face so sweet and pretty when you married her! Never fear! the eyes are closed, and will weep and look mournfully at you no more! Touch, if you dare, those limbs, which the woman who laid them out said, with a sigh, were mere skin and bone! Dare you take hold of her cold hand and look at her wedding-ring? Do you see how her finger is worn with the needle? During the day, during the night, this poor creature was your willing slave, mending your linen, and that of your wronged children, and what was left of her own, and which are nearly rags. Do you hear those children sobbing in the next room? Do you see the scar on that cheek? Look and tremble. Have you forgotten the blow that caused it, given by your hand of drunken and ruffian violence? Yet she never reproached you! And when at length, worn away with misery, starvation, and ill-usage, she was forced to give up the struggle for life, her last—her very last act was gently and in silence to squeeze your unworthy hand! Perhaps remorse is now shaking your heart, and you inwardly groan—

‘Oh, if she would but come again,

I think I’d grieve her so no more!’

She will come no more on earth, but you will have to meet her again! So, man, close the coffin lid! Go to bed, and sleep if you can! The funeral is in the morning, and you must follow the poor emaciated body close past your favourite dramshop!”

As befitted the audience, it is manual or mechanical labour that Mr Warren in his essay chiefly concerns himself with. But so eminent an author cannot be insensible to the still nobler labour of the Mind, or to the grand and touching lives of so many of its votaries. Manual labour may appear harder than some kinds of intellectual pursuits, but it cannot be carried to the same excess. It is less fatal, because less alluring. The labour of the hands does not kill like the labour of the head. It is not the lower classes alone that work. Mr Warren well says:—

“The working-classes! Are those not worthy of the name, and in its very highest sense, few in number, comparatively, though they be, who by their prodigious powers of thought make those discoveries in science which have given tenfold efficacy and value to labour, turned it suddenly into a thousand new channels, and conferred on all classes of society new conveniences and enjoyments? Are we to overlook those great intellects which have devoted themselves to statesmanship, to jurisprudence, to morals, to the science of medicine—securing and advancing the best interests of mankind, and relieving them from physical anguish and misery; the noble genius devoted to literature, refining, expanding, and elevating the minds of all capable of it, and whose immortal works are glittering like stars of the first magnitude in the hemisphere of thought and imagination? No, my friends; let us not be so unjust, ungrateful, or unthinking; let us rather be thankful to God for giving us men of such powers, and opportunity and inclination to use them, not for their own reputation’s sake alone, but for our advantage; and let us not enhance the claims of manual, by forgetting or depreciating intellectual labour. I could at this moment give you a dozen instances within my personal knowledge, of men whom God has given very little physical strength, but great mental endowments, and who cheerfully undergo an amount of exhausting labour of which you have no idea, in conducting public affairs, political and legal, and prosecuting scientific researches, immortalising the age in which they live.”

Genius in all ages commands the spontaneous homage of mankind. And it is only just that it should be so. “Tell me,” said an acute observer of human affairs, “what a few leading minds are thinking in their closets, and I will tell you what their countrymen will be thinking in the next generation.” It is the great minds of a country that most deeply influence its fortunes,—it is the great minds of the world that mould the progress of our race. These men may live a life of toil and sacrifices in the cause to which their high powers are devoted, and may die ere the precious seed sown by them has begun to germinate. But they do not lose their reward. The fruit comes at last. Their words enlighten the world, hastening its progress to a happy goal; while their example of high powers and glorious self-devotion reaps a rich recompense by inspiriting others through future ages to follow in their steps. As saith Longfellow,—

“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us,
Footprints on the sands of time:
Footprints that perchance another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreck’d brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again!”

TOUCHING OXFORD.
A LETTER TO PROFESSOR NEBEL.

My dear Professor!—You see that I have not forgotten the note of admiration which your countrymen use at the beginning of letters when they address each other. It is an easy way of giving emphasis to the greeting, or of expressing the admiration of the writer for the character of the person written to. When I last saw you at Dummerjungenberg, I recollect I promised to write you down the impressions which an intended visit to my old University might make upon me, and I hasten to fulfil that promise now. It is superfluous for me to tell you that the two English universities are essentially different in their constitution from a German university, as you are well acquainted theoretically with the constitutions of both. I maintain that each kind is good, and answers its own end. The German university fully answers its purpose of making men learned, but the stamp of character which it affixes to the man is evanescent, and does not follow him through life. According to the language of the Bursch or German student, as soon as a man has ceased to be a student, he falls back again, as a matter of course, into the Philisterium, or limbo of the Philistines, which is the student’s term to designate the uncovenanted class, which comprises all mankind excepting the student. On the other hand, we speak of men for the whole of life as Oxford or Cambridge men much more than we do of them as Göttingen or Leipzig men, inferring by this mode of expression that they have been, as it were, fed on the milk of Alma Mater, which continues through the whole of life to affect their constitutions in a peculiar manner. So highly do some of our men think of this influence, that they dread too much infusion of the Germanic element, as dangerous to this peculiar quality of our universities of forming and stamping the whole man, instead of merely the logical part of him. I recollect well that at a meeting of Convocation at Oxford, when some material changes were brought under consideration, no sentiment was more highly applauded than one which concluded the Latin speech of a talented polemical churchman, when he said, “Hanc Universitatem Germanizari non volo”—“I protest against this university being Germanised;”—by which he plainly meant, not that he objected to the widening of its scope of teaching, but that he feared that mere instruction would usurp too much prominence in the scheme of education, and throw into the shade that general moral training which is now a most essential part of the system. One of the feelings, to speak individually, that I should be sorry to lose is that which this very name of Alma Mater implies. The word “Almus” is one of the most beautiful in the Latin language; it means that whose nature is to cherish, nourish, inspire with life. Thus, Venus is called “Alma” by the ancients, as representing the principle of life in nature; Ceres is also called “Alma,” as being the goddess that supplies the staff of life. If it be true, as Mr Carlyle says, that our word “lady” is derived from two old words, meaning a giver of loaves, it would be a good translation of the word “Alma.” And desirable it certainly is, that the word “lady” should bear this fulness of meaning; the function of woman, in her beautiful ideal, being to give life, to support life, and to make life worth living. And the poet saw the matter truly, as poets generally do the most truly, when he said—

“Woman, dear woman, in whose name,
Wife, sister, mother meet,
Thine is the heart by earliest claim,
And thine its latest beat.”

Now, to every Oxford man, his Lady Mother, or Alma Mater, in the transcendental sense, is his university, occupying nearly as high a place in his heart as Our Lady occupies in that of the devout Catholic. And this much I can say from experience. As Hercules could do nothing in wrestling against the giant Antæus, the son of the Earth, as long as he persisted in throwing him, seeing that whenever he fell in his mother’s lap he gained new strength, so is it with myself; the world never throws me,—I never am cast down by circumstances, but a thrill from the warm bosom of Alma Mater, as powerful but more enduring than galvanism, inspires me with a new life, and I rise with fresh courage and fresh heart to the wrestling-match of life.

I have lately visited my old University after a long absence, and found its outward aspect fair as ever—nay, rather fairer and fresher than ever. Changed it is undoubtedly, but changed for the better. Much that is new and tasteful, at the same time—a rare accident in our times—has been added, and the hand of Time has been arrested, and that which was decayed or destroyed has been restored with affectionate fidelity. One of the greatest improvements, to my mind, has been effected by the railroad, which was at first greatly feared as a revolutionary agent. It has diverted from the main thoroughfares that brawling stream of traffic which formerly flowed through them in the shape of stage-coaches, stage-waggons, and other properties and accessories of the stage, and left the town to its genuine academical character of a dignified repose. Although this change gives to the town, in the eyes of commercial travellers, a somewhat dead-alive appearance, and although a similar change in other places seems to take away truly the only life they possessed, it seems, on the contrary, to have withdrawn an unpleasant intrusion from Oxford, and left her to the dignified retirement from the world of bustle and action, in which she most delights.

Oxford is a town which, for its medieval beauty, deserves to be kept under a glass-case; and nothing can be more advantageous to its academical character, than diverting from its walls the turbid current of commerce which belongs to this much-bepraised nineteenth century. This the railroad has achieved most effectually. There is still abundance of life in the streets, but life in unison with the history of the place; and suddenly whirled as one is by the express train from the turmoil of London to the repose of Oxford, with its lines of venerable colleges, and troops of sombre but graceful gowned figures, one experiences a feeling as of having been transported in a trance on the carpet of the Arabian Nights from one place to another. Never did the High Street appear so broad or so beautiful as now that its area is uninvaded by the rattle of vulgar vehicles. The time to see it to perfection is when the sun happens to set behind the opening at Carfax Church, dazzling the eye at its focus, and forcing shafts of amber light out along the fronts of St Mary’s and All Saint’s churches, and the fantastic façade of Queen’s College. This is a condition which presents one of the finest town-views in the world that can be seen where there are no mountains in the case. There is much similarity between Oxford and the grand old Flemish towns; and the railway has been a boon to them, as it has been to her, in preserving their quiet character. Unlike other English towns, the inhabitants of which point with an ignorant pride to the substitution of stucco-fronted houses, and cockney plate-glass, for the cross-beamed gables and lattices, all the architectural changes which have taken place of late years in Oxford appear to have been for the better. One is certainly sorry to see the time-corroded and weather-beaten stone disappearing from the faces of the colleges, and new freestone appearing in its place; but this change, though one that we may sigh over as even over the seasonal changes of nature, is, in reality, of a conservative character, and its absolute necessity is an unanswerable plea. The nature of the stone of which most of the colleges are built being such as to peculiarly expose it to wear and tear of weather, we are not sorry to see it replaced by a material which looks durable in its novelty, and to many generations yet to come will become more beautiful with age. No expense has been spared in these reparations; and the stranger will be peculiarly struck with the manner in which they have been carried out in many of the principal buildings. In Oxford alone, of all the towns in England, domestic architecture appears properly subordinate to that devoted to public purposes; and as she grows in beauty with each addition, her inhabitants may be one day allowed to boast as the Romans of the olden time,

“Privatus illis census erat brevis,

Commune magnum,”

for the splendour of her public buildings will quickly dwarf the most ambitious attempts of private proprietors; and one good result of the communal, or, as a Cantab would rather say, combinational life of Oxford, is the prospect that things will be achieved there by bodies of men imbued with the “genius loci,” which would surpass the aspiration, taste, or indeed ability of most individuals to accomplish elsewhere. So should it ever be. What can the use be of any individual, whose establishment does not assume palatial proportions, pluming himself on the possession of architectural decorations, or masterpieces of painting or sculpture, which, added to a public gallery, would give delight and instruction to thousands, instead of administering to the pleasures of a few? I do not know whether you have ever visited Oxford. If you have, I may remind you, though unnecessarily, that, besides the world-renowned High Street, there are two other streets in it not less characteristic—one the Broad Street, parallel with it for a part of its length; and the other St Giles’s, a continuation of the Corn Market, running at right angles to the High Street from Oxford Cross. The Broad Street is one of those areas reminding us of Continental cities, where the population might be mustered in arms if necessary. It was in the middle of this that Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were martyred; and at its junction with St Giles’s is now set up an elegant Gothic monument, something in the manner of Sir Walter Scott’s at Edinburgh, to perpetuate the memory of that event. St Giles’s is a most remarkable street. It has a church at its commencement and near its end, where it branches into two roads. It is so spacious that the houses on each side, irregularly built as they are, and ought to be, appear diminutive; and between the houses and the central road, on each side, is a row of trees, which gives it the appearance of a boulevard. On entering it, you have on the right the new buildings of Baliol, and farther on, the more ancient face of St John’s College; facing which are the new Taylor Buildings—a structure with which much fault has been found, as a weak centre on the side towards Beaumont Street appears to carry two heavy wings, but which must be allowed on all hands to conduce greatly to the adorning of its site, and indeed of the town generally. It is in this street that fountains, judiciously placed, would add much to the general effect; but many may doubt whether fountains would ever have other than an unnatural and artificial aspect in England, where the wetness of the atmosphere renders drier objects pleasanter to look upon. There are two seasons of the year when fountains are especially agreeable—in the summer heats, when it is delightful to be within reach of their spray; and in frost, when they are draped with pendulous icicles of the most fantastic beauty—a phenomenon I have indeed seen on the little fountain in the Botanic Garden at Oxford. Both these seasons are generally with us of short duration, and during all the rest, fountains to many would be somewhat of an eyesore, and create a shivering sensation. Those in Trafalgar Square count as nothing. As for the Crystal Palace and Versailles fountains, and all of the same description, people delight in them more for their mechanical cleverness than their artistic effect, and they are things got up for holiday occasions, not meant to form parts of the scenes of everyday life, like the fountains of Italy, or the gossip-haunted Brunnen of Germany. I fear then that, for the present, Oxford must be contented with her rivers, and not babble of fountains. She is one of the few large towns singularly blest with the presence of ever-flowing and ever-living water. The Isis runs beside her, covered with a fleet of pleasure-boats, probably as large as that of Athens during the Peloponnesian war, to which it has been wittily compared, and in the summer days, swarming in and out amongst each other like the gondolas of Venice. The Cherwell, which is a river as large as the famed Cam, or nearly so, encircles the meadows of Christchurch and Magdalen, and, with its sinuous course, and banks overshadowed with trees, presents numberless nooks of beauty, and spots of refuge from the heats of summer. The avenue in Christchurch meadow is second to none in the world, perhaps superior to all, though there are many like it; for instance, the avenue at Cambridge, which was compared by Porson to a college fellowship, as a long dreary vista with a church at the end of it; the avenue by the Severn, in the Quarries at Shrewsbury: that of the University of Bonn, and others at royal residences, and near places of academic retirement. In connection with this avenue, it is well to mention that there is a time-honoured custom prevalent in the University, of making it a general promenade on the Sunday in Commemoration-week, which generally occurs towards the end of the leafy month of June. On that day, most of the members of the University are to be seen in their distinctive dresses; and those are considered happy who are accompanied with friends, called, from their object in visiting the University, “lions and lionesses;” nor is the wealth and beauty of the city unrepresented. From this custom arises the name of “Show Sunday.”

The rivers afford an inexhaustible source of amusement, at a cheap and easy rate, to the gownsmen, who luxuriate in all sorts of boats, according to their activity or laziness—the energetic eight-oar, the social four-oar, the friendly pair-oar, the fantastic canoe, the adventurous outrigger-skiff, the dreamy sailing-boat, and the sleepy punt, the latter having come into fashion chiefly of late years, and in the hot season, and being a method of amusement which, at the price of the violent exertion of one of the party, purchases the perfect repose of the rest, who lie on their backs in boating-dresses, cigar in mouth, and the last work of Dickens or Thackeray, chosen for its lightness, in hand, and watch over the sides the swimmings of their Skye terriers. This peculiar dog, distinguished from all others by its sagacity, fidelity, and an ugliness which has worn into beauty, is now quite a part of the University system; yet I remember when the first was introduced into Oxford, and considered so remarkable that he gave his master the name among the townsmen of the “gentleman what belongs to the dog.” The poor little fellow had to suffer much for his resemblance to a door-mat, before his position was fully recognised.

Next in importance to the colleges and rivers of Oxford are the gardens. With the latter we must include the college-meadows, which are composed of a real meadow in the centre, surrounded by a planted gravel-walk, bounded generally, on the outer side, by one of the rivers. These gardens, though private, are liberally opened by the college authorities to the public, and, occupying a large part of the area of the town, they invite the residents to a number of short walks and lounges, the temptation to which in other towns is generally wanting, but which must be most conducive to health. In some of them—as in St John’s—the members of the college amuse themselves with archery, in others with bowls—a truly after-dinner recreation; while in the park that is attached to the grounds of Magdalen College the eye is gladdened by the sight of a number of browsing deer, who become singularly tame in consequence of the attentions of the Fellows. Well might Macaulay call it “their pleasant abode” of Magdalen! Magdalen is now rendered even more pleasant to some minds by the choral service of the Church of England having been brought to perfection in its chapel, so that its members can never attend Divine service without their ears being charmed by the most exquisite music. Others may be of opinion that the service solemnly read produces an effect which is appreciable by all rather than by a few of peculiar temperament. I do not take upon myself to strike the balance. In two other colleges is the service sung instead of being said—namely, in St John’s and New Colleges, and these three colleges are naturally a source of great attraction to strangers—so much so, that the chapels being of limited dimensions, admission to them has of necessity been made a favour. In the chapels at Oxford, customs have been perpetuated from time immemorial, which would shock rigid Protestantism, unless inured to them by habitual contact—such as the lighting of candles on the altar, and painted altar-pieces, instead of the Commandments-table which is usual in Anglican churches. Be this as it may, the attendance at morning chapel, which is enforced on the junior members, and sometimes considered by them a grievance, becomes in time so much a habit that they feel the want of it when they become parochial clergymen, and in many cases endeavour to perpetuate it by daily services (having certainly the letter of the law of their Church on their side), with considerable success indeed in some town parishes, and among the richer classes; but with doubtful result in the rural districts, where the peculiar habits of the labouring poor scarcely seem to allow them to fall in with it to any great extent.

While on the subject of Oxford, you naturally wish me to say what I think generally of the system of education of the place. I will tell you, then, in short, that I consider it the best possible system of education to form the character of a man and a gentleman. Do you ask me why? I answer that it is so for this simple reason—that it tends to develop in the fairest manner all the various energies of that many-sided creature, Man. There are two sorts of education at Oxford, as at our public schools—one enforced by law, the other dependent on social customs: both have their full sway at Oxford. Thus we have a practical illustration of the strongest kind of the Platonic theory of education. Plato very properly thought that the development of the bodily powers was almost of as much consequence as that of the mental, and accordingly enjoined that education in his Utopia should consist of music and gymnastics. By music he understood all that falls into the province of either of the nine Muses. By gymnastics he understood not a dreary tugging at ropes, and hugging of bars, and climbing ladders with hands, but a simultaneous exercise of mind and body in pastimes where the body is deceived by the mind into activity, and cheated into wholesome weariness—such as contests of strength and passages of arms, hunting, fowling, and the like. Even so at Oxford physical education is complete; and although it does not form a subject of examination in the schools under the new system, it is carried perhaps to greater perfection than any other kind, and therefore we may conclude that the Royal Commission does well to leave it where it stands. These Oxford gymnastics (using the word always in its special and Platonic sense) are for the greater part perfectly consistent with the “musical” part of the system which emanates from authority. Occasionally, however, those sports, which, as a Catholic founder of one of the colleges said, “miram atque incredibilem delectationem afferunt” (showing that the old boy himself, though he wished to see his seminary like a bee-hive, thoroughly appreciated them), interfere with the hours devoted to study; and therefore fox-hunting, which I especially allude to, is generally discouraged by the Dons even in the case of those students who are able to afford it. The delicious languor, so unlike the rude and partial fatigue resulting from any other exercise, which pervades the whole system after a good day’s riding, and gives a Parisian savour to the plainest dinner, is of course fatal for the rest of the day to any other intellectual work; for who shall deny that hunting is intellectual work?—intellectual for the hounds, who have the sagest of beasts to outwit—intellectual for the horses, who have the safest footing to choose in a moment of time, and the exactest distances to measure; intellectual for the rider, who requires the eye of an eagle and the judgment of a Solon to know where he ought to be, not to mention the huntsman and M. H., whose whole lives, if they take deep interest in the matter, as they generally do, must be spent in intense thought? An excellent exercise it is of mind, undoubtedly, but fatal to other exercises of a less absorbing character, and therefore consistently discouraged by the Dons. The same may be said of driving. Driving is at best but a lazy exercise; and though it requires skill, it is not sufficiently gymnastic; besides, it is expensive, and presents no advantage corresponding to the expense. But we cannot help thinking that if the thunders of each university Zeus had been less lavishly launched against tandem-driving in particular, this antiquated practice, very good in peculiar countries, but generally merely a puppyish display, would have died out of itself. There is always a peculiar sweetness to young minds in forbidden pleasures.

But boating and cricket and football, tennis, rackets, fives, and billiards, still please, although there is nothing illegitimate about them, and are perfectly consistent with the earnest pursuits of the place. With regard to billiards, I must just observe that this fascinating game has in a great measure lost its reputation, from the fact that the billiard-room is in most English towns the rendezvous of all the blackguardism of the place; but in Oxford the billiard-rooms are private, and engaged by each party of players; they are an especial refuge on wet days, nor can I see any exception that can be taken to the pastime, save when it degenerates into the public pool, becomes a species of gambling, and loses its real character, which is that of a game of skill, quite as much as that of chess, combined with gentle exercise. As there is not the slightest danger of the studies I have mentioned falling into desuetude, so have they been with good judgment overlooked by the University authorities, and as they present in every phase an examination of themselves, it has not been found necessary to create any special honours as a reward for proficiency in them. The universal existence of this gymnastic education in Oxford, superadded to a peculiar keenness and dampness in the air, induces an appetite which can only be satisfied by what appears to strangers an unusual amount of eating and drinking. In the latter particular there is indeed a great improvement. Excess in quantity is extremely rare even among extravagant students; but the fiery wines of Portugal and Spain still hold their ground against all comers, and public opinion is decidedly in their favour—so much so, that others are treated with a sort of contempt. It is said that on the occasion of the visit of a great personage to the sister University, whose habits bear a strong resemblance to those of Oxford, when the servants of that personage sent a complaint to the entertainer,—a Head of a House,—that they were only supplied with port when they were used to claret, he sent back a message to them that the college port, with a due admixture of pump-water, would make the best claret in the world. The substantial nature of an Oxford breakfast, enough of itself to convert Bishop Berkeley to a belief in the existence of Matter, is in itself an evidence that the potations of the preceding night have seldom been immoderate. With regard to that part of the education of the place, to the furtherance of which its gymnastics and good fare are supposed only to administer, it is truly “musical” in the Greek sense of the word. Of music, as we understand it, there is certainly little as yet enjoined; but every encouragement is given to its culture by chanted services in certain chapels, by a liberal allowance of concerts sanctioned by authority, by doctor’s degrees conferred in it, with a most splendid gown worthy of Apollo himself if he ever wore one; by especially the Grand Commemoration festival, at which the first public singers are often engaged. On the whole, there is a great taste in Oxford for this beautiful art, which requires little forcing, for it grows of itself in the climate of the place. This taste is especially shown by the liberality with which brass-bands playing your national airs are remunerated; but important as it is, it is sometimes found to interfere with the soundless but sounder elements of education, and therefore it becomes necessary in certain cases to check it. The rooms of the men have in general such thin partitions, that the noise of one seriously interferes with the silence of another. I once knew a reading man in —— College, who was placed between two pianofortes, one overhead, and the other underfoot: he especially complained of the interruption on Sundays, as on that day his more celestial neighbour played sacred tunes, while his neighbour of the nether world played profane, producing a discord in mid-air as ludicrous as painful to an ear of taste. But I take it that the sense in which music is used in old scholastic Latin, is in general the Platonic sense, and thus the Music school at Oxford means one not especially devoted to exercises in what we call music, but to exercises on examination in belles lettres. That this term has acquired a broader significance by the recent changes in the Oxford University system, I cannot but think a subject for congratulation. When the University departed as a general principle from the practice of making verse-writing in the dead languages the mainspring of erudition in them—a practice still far from obsolete in the public schools of England—it became necessary, if only to take up the time of the students, and prevent them from lapsing into intellectual inanition, to supply them with other food congenial to the spirit of the place. The germ of these new studies had existed before, and only required development. There could be no better foundation for culture in modern history and jurisprudence than the exact study of the ancient historians of Greece and Rome pursued under the old system. Even so with mathematics. The modern examinations are, for the most part, mere distributions of the former work, and by getting part of it over sooner, the student is less puzzled as to the disposal of his time. But the paucity of candidates for mathematical honours, in comparison with those who cling to belles lettres, is a sign that the exact sciences are still exotics in the atmosphere of Oxford; and as long as the spirit of the place remains what it is, they are scarcely likely to become otherwise. Nor are the physical sciences apparently likely to acquire soon a hold on the popular feeling of the University. Still, as before, the pivot around which Oxford studies revolve is formed by the solid metal of the ancient classical authors, whose words are picturesque and statuesque, and fraught with the same eternal beauty, the same adaptability as models for all time, as the things that the hands of their contemporaries produced. Although as yet no school of modern languages has been formed in which examination in them forms a part of the University system, yet every encouragement has been given to the study of them by the foundation of a professorship supported by public teacherships; and even if nothing more is done, there is every reason to think that, supported as it is by the cosmopolitan position which our country has taken of late years, this important branch of literature will sufficiently nourish in Oxford.

So far it appears that the changes which have been made in the constitution of Oxford have been of a conservative character—the reforms have destroyed nothing, but developed a great deal that formerly lay dormant in the University system. They will continue to be of this character if the University is allowed abundance of light and air and space to put forth its own energies, and not damaged by injudicious meddling from without. There have been rumours of further changes, some of which are apparently called for by the necessities of the time, while others have merely been engendered by the inventiveness of the spirit of innovation. One peculiarly delicate subject has been brought on the tapis, which, although I hold an opinion of my own respecting it, I should prefer stating in the position of one balancing two conflicting views, as far as my prejudice admits. I mean the celibacy of the Fellows. In the first place, if it is true that women are like a church, because there is no living without them, a proposition I heard the other day in the form of a riddle, the business is settled at once, because it is cruelty to condemn any body of men to a living grave; but, on the other hand, if the men themselves acquiesce in this social burial, and refuse to be delivered from it, they have undeniably a voice in the matter, even though it be from the catacombs, and ought to be heard in a manner so nearly and dearly affecting their own interests. The defenders of the present system have a great advantage in being able to raise a laugh against those who from within advocate a change, alleging that they have some gentle reasons for doing so. We are a nation peculiarly sensitive to being placed in a ridiculous position, and it requires no small amount of moral courage for any man who is a member of a body to start opinions which the rest, though they may in their hearts sympathise with, are not immediately prepared to fall in with. It must be allowed that the outcry against collegiate celibacy has been louder outside than inside the walls of common rooms. It may be said, on the other side, that the voices of those without are not stifled by the fear of snubbing and ridicule as those within are, and that those who see the effect of a system on others are better qualified to judge than those whose own minds are biassed by its pressure. Those who work in mines and live in unwholesome air only feel by diminished energy the evil effects of the miasma they have to breathe, while those who live apart from them see it in their pale and haggard looks. It is not the bondsman in general who calls for emancipation so loudly as the spectator who has tasted the sweets of freedom. To come to a practical aspect of the question; it is urged by the advocates of emancipation that celibacy was part of the religious system under which the colleges were founded, and that as that religious system has ceased to exist in reference to them, there is no object in keeping up a restriction which can have no such motive; and to those who would urge that the intentions of the founders ought to be consulted as that of any testator ought to be, it is answered that it is hypocrisy to pretend to consult the wills of founders in a matter which is merely a corollary to a rule which has been essentially broken through, and that the wills of founders are even in this instance nullified by the marriage of heads of colleges, who being of necessity priests by the statutes under the papal regime, would render such a prohibition in their cases superfluous. Again, those who are for continuing the celibacy system urge that a fellowship is intended only as a stepping-stone to a permanent provision in the view of the world, and that to allow the marriage of Fellows would render the succession so slow as to destroy the practical value of the foundations. To this is opposed the statement that in fact men are well content to settle down on a fellowship, which is indeed a premium on indolence, and that they acquire, even if industrious, habits of expense, which make them loth to part with a large proportion of their incomes without grave cause, so that in fact many men do continue Fellows until late in life, when they care naturally less about marriage; and moreover, that the slowness of succession might equally be urged in the case of livings which only become vacant by death, and that for the same reason it would be equally reasonable to enforce the celibacy of bishops were they not expressly commanded to be husbands, as some interpret Scripture; yet more, the fellowship might be made tenable for a certain number of years only, and superannuation might not entail, as it does now, the loss of the chance of college patronage to livings. Some satirical writers have drawn a humorous picture of the condition of colleges with sets of rooms inhabited by family Fellows, the quadrangles turned into play-grounds, and the sacred grass-plots invaded by nursemaids with their charges, still further presuming to imagine intestine feuds between jealous fellowinnen (as you Germans would call them), which they think would be incompatible with the feeling of collegiate brotherhood or sisterhood. To this it may be answered, that, as it is, the majority of Fellows reside in the country, and are otherwise occupied than with collegiate duties, and there would be less inducement than formerly for the plural Fellow to content himself with the limited accommodation of a college; and it would be easy to make a rule that a certain number of the Fellows,—that is to say, of the younger, should reside to undertake the offices; and even if they were married, those offices should only continue so long as to incur no danger of their inundating the quadrangles with urchins. The worst of it is, that the Oxford education has a peculiar tendency to develop the poetical and artistic temperament; and to men of this temperament, who are, in all countries, in a much larger proportion to others than is generally thought, the long vista of celibacy is little else than a long perspective of purgatory. To all who love the beautiful, whether saints or sinners, there is one central point round which all their thoughts revolve—one standard by which all their comparisons are made,—and that is none other than woman. The musical mind is drawn to her through the symphonies of Mozart or Handel—through the complicated opera strain, and the simple national air—

“The soul of love and bravery;”

for even the hero-songs of war, by arousing the manliness of man, suggest the loveliness of woman. The artistic mind is drawn to her through all the schools of painting—through even the sumptuous Madonnas which the sacred painters have imagined, as through the sun-warm but less heavenly creations of Titian or Correggio. It is impossible for the artistic eye to look at the symmetry of a tree or the graceful lines of a mountain, or even the crystal curves in a fountain, without dwelling on that form which, of all created, is undeniably the most beautiful without any of its associations, and dwelling on it, too, with somewhat other feelings than those expressed by the Italian priest when he remarked, in a tone of reproof, to a friend who wished to call his attention to a fair lady at an assembly—

“Una bella creatura di Dio!”

Thus I do think that if this celibacy is to be continued, it would be a great improvement to enjoin the study of pure mathematics on college Fellows, with examinations at intervals to prove that their time is only taken up in contemplating the affinities of triangles, and the love of the angles (not of the angels). The whole series of classical literature ought to be forbidden them for the time; ditto all galleries, pictures, and statues, all music and poetry; and they ought, as a final measure, to be relegated to that monastery mentioned by Mr Curzon, somewhere in the Acroceraunian mountains, where there were some Greek monks who had never seen a female face, and had even forgotten their mothers. One of them asked him whether women were like the Madonna. The poor fellow had better not have seen that Madonna. Even now, some men in their undergraduate life grow tired of the exclusively masculine aspect of the University, and some very good lines on that subject, of which I only recollect the end, were written by a now eminent poet, when he was an undergraduate—

“As I am one who feels the full divinity
Of a fair face in woman, I protest
I’m sick of this unvaried regularity

Of whiskered cheeks and chins of black barbarity.”

And one painful consequence of the present system is, the violation of the good old adage, “Happy’s the wooing that’s not long a-doing:” the notorious evil of long engagements becomes, in this case, exaggerated to a painful degree. There being no absolute, but only a conditional prohibition, and the prospect of a living, certain though distant, appearing to justify the formation of such ties, engagements are formed in early life, the ratification of which seems ever near, but never actually comes, till both parties have passed their meridian, and the fulfilment takes place, if it is thought worth while that it should take place at all, rather as a matter of course, than because the parties really now desire it. The hope deferred which “maketh the heart sick,” embitters the masculine temper, and withers the feminine frame, even before their natural bloom would have disappeared. The courage which, in earlier life, would have taken a bold step, and dared the world to do its worst, becomes irresolution and timidity; and as it often happens that those who have been kept without food too long, only know the sensation of hunger through a general faintness of the system, so the vacuum of the affections too long kept up by circumstances, becomes at last a chronic disease, which, to the end of life, remains irremediable. At the same time, the life of the common-room, and the extreme ease with which material wants are provided for, acts on the mind as opium acts on the system, till at last it ceases to care for anything but the drug which has become a habit. It may be with some of those who have felt the enduring influence of this soporific regime, as with the lotos-eaters of Tennyson; they even come to dread a change, and cling to the indolence from which at first they would have fled:

“Our island home

Is far beyond the sea, we will no longer roam.”

But, on the other hand, it may be urged that the immediate happiness of those concerned is not so much contemplated in the foundations as their usefulness, and that they must be content to cull the flowers which grow beside the path of duty. This may be answered by urging that, in certain cases, a man’s usefulness is diminished instead of being increased by his being denied certain sources of happiness. The best workman is ever the man who is best fed and clothed, and made most generally comfortable; even so in the great work of human life is that individual most efficient whose legitimate wants, both of body and soul, are satisfied. The motives which actuated the founders of the Roman Catholic colleges were no doubt, as most human motives are, of a mixed nature. On the one hand, they wished their money to fructify and do as much good as possible; on the other hand, they wished it to fructify in such a way as to redeem their own souls from purgatory, by providing a succession of those who should sing masses for them for all time; at the same time, it was the prevailing notion in these times, and is now, among Romanists, that celibacy, if not the happiest, is the holiest state of man.[4] If there be any truth in this, even to the most limited extent, there is something to be said for the system; but if the poor founders have been cheated out of their masses, and may remain, for all the present generation care, boiling and broiling in purgatory to the end of time, it seems purely hypocritical to lean on a notion which has no better foundation than the ruling opinions of founders. All the great and imposing faith is gone which would support a heavy burden with the supernatural sinews of religion, and the burden remains still to be borne as it best may by human muscle alone. But it may be also said, the fellowships of colleges are in themselves eleemosynary institutions, and poverty was in most cases made a condition of the enjoyment of them; and just as, under the new poor-law system, we imagine that a man, though he has a right to existence, has no right to encumbrances which others must support, so some would argue that the charity of the founders ought to be thankfully accepted under all its conditions. But in the first place, the question may be asked, whether apparent necessity, rather than humanity, did not suggest the new poor-law system? In the next place, whether that can strictly be called eleemosynary of which merit is made a condition? We give to a beggar sometimes, although we know him to be utterly worthless, merely because he is destitute; and even the utterly worthless have a certain claim, in right of their Maker’s image; but we give to a good man as a tribute to his virtue, and the application of these foundations to proficiency in knowledge is to those who accept them usually accounted peculiarly honourable, just as a national pension is to the wounded soldier. Besides, it might be said that all bequests are in a manner eleemosynary, because the legacy is not a payment for labour in most cases, but a free gift from the testator to the legatee; nor is its character materially altered by the fact of its having been given under conditions. It appears to some that the college property is as much real property to those who have the use of it, as any property bequeathed subject to conditions; such as, for instance, the law of entail in England. Indeed, a case has been mentioned, in which, for some peculiar reason, a very rich man inherited his estates subject to this very condition of celibacy. And eleemosynary institutions, strictly so called, are commonly administered by trustees, not by those who reap the benefits of them, as is the case with college fellowships. I think I have now, as well as I can, stated the arguments, both pro and con, though perhaps it is easy for you to see to which side I lean. I confess that I should regard the repeal of celibacy as a conservative change, because it would give individuals a more enduring interest in their University. I dread innovation, and especially from profane hands; at the same time, I feel the necessity of such wholesome repairs in the constitution of Alma Mater as shall secure for her, as far as possible, a perpetuity of youth, or at least a green old age. How other changes, such as the admission of Dissenters, can be brought about without ignoring the entire history, associations, and character of the University, I do not well see. If Dissenters are admitted at all, Roman Catholics must be admitted with the rest; and they may perhaps lay claim to a participation in the good things of the University, seeing that the ancient foundations were undoubtedly made in their favour; and if this participation be allowed, the rights of the foundation will be again disturbed; and they may push their claim to the entire exclusion of all other communities, for, unless there be a reason for disfranchising them, they will ask why others should share advantages originally intended for them alone. They are not like the Jews, a sect who keep to themselves, and seek not to domineer over others; but universal dominion is as much the policy of pontifical as of imperial Rome. Thus they will be sure to take every advantage. Thus there is a primâ facie danger in mooting any integral question concerning the constitution of the University, lest an opening should be unwarily made which would destroy everything on which its existence depends; and this is, in my opinion, the most plausible argument in favour of continuing the celibacy of Fellows. But averse as all well-wishers to Oxford would be to any change in the way of subtraction or diminution of her privileges, no such one could look with coldness on any proposed additions to her area of efficiency, and especially on extensions which seem suggested by her natural aptitudes. As Cambridge seems to possess the soil in which everything connected, however remotely, with science, is destined especially to thrive, such as natural history in its various branches, so does Oxford appear to be that University which should assume a prominently artistic character. The foundations of a new museum have been laid, which is to be built on a grand and imposing scale. Is its chief attraction, when completed, to consist in a collection of dried beetles and stuffed humming-birds, or even a complete skeleton of the megatherium, if such a thing is to be had; or is an attempt to be made to bring together, by every possible means, a collection of works of art which would really do credit to the University? It must be remembered that we have in England no national gallery worthy of the name; not that the pictures composing the collection in Trafalgar Square are to be despised—far from it; but the building which contains them shows them to so little advantage, and is altogether so inadequate, that it presents few temptations to large additions, either by purchase, gift, or bequest. The very atmosphere of London is an argument against building a new national gallery in the neighbourhood of any of the centres of metropolitan life. Trees may be blackened, but flourish under the soot; but the purity of the marble, and the freshness of the canvass, are liable to be permanently discoloured by the constant action of an air impregnated with smoke, in a manner far other than that in which they receive the mere mellowness of age. This would be conclusive against a central situation, and if such a building is to be placed in the suburb, to arrive at it would cost a sacrifice of time and effort little short of that necessary to arrive at a site at a moderate railroad distance from the metropolis. As it is, Oxford is a great point of attraction to all strangers, and no Englishman who had not seen it, could pretend to an average knowledge of his own country. It is even placed within reach of the working-classes of London by excursion-trains, who are thus led in the pursuit of pure air to a place full of associations, which are in every way likely to do them good. It seems to me that it is worth considering whether the national gallery of England might not with advantage be placed at Oxford, and combined in some way with the scheme of the new museum. A school of art would probably spring up around it, to which the University would naturally present many advantages, and to which it might well extend peculiar privileges. The present is not the worst time to consider this matter, when the existence of a great war postpones the execution of all plans of subordinate importance. It is quite certain that everything cannot be concentrated in London; and this being the case, it is well to consider what other places are calculated, in their own way, to become capital cities. Oxford has already received some of the Muses as its inmates, and it is abundantly spacious to receive them all. With respect to the natural scenery of its environs, very much might be said in favour of its being suited as a residence for an artist. The banks of its rivers are especially fertile in subjects for the brush, and though its upland scenery is generally stamped with that mediocrity which seems peculiar to the central counties of England, there are spots here and there which, from their wildness or woodiness, are well adapted for the sketcher. I am sorry to see many of the wild places round Oxford either already enclosed, or in course of enclosure; but what I saw with most regret was, that Bagley Wood had been surrounded with a fence, and placed under a most rigorous taboo to the public in general. Now, there is some excuse for bringing land into cultivation which may be made available for the wants of the community, and can only become so if enclosed; but when the better preservation of game is the only object, to exclude the public from a place where they have been accustomed for years to expatiate and “recreate themselves,” and an intelligent public, such as that of the University;—to exclude them from one of the spots which Arnold mentioned as giving him especial delight on his return to Oxford, and as being one of its chief glories,—this, though perfectly justifiable according to law, is scarcely consistent with that Aristotelian equity which ought to be above law, especially in the neighbourhood of those brought up in his precepts, and whose philanthropy might naturally be expected to be more expansive than that of other men. It appears, however, that this mischief has been done for some time; and the only compensation the public gain is that a fine wide road has been made, which certainly makes the walk round the wood complete—a poor consolation, indeed, to those who, like myself, look upon walking along a road as one of the dreariest duties imaginable, and have an irreclaimable vein of the savage in their composition. Why, to me the sight of the stiff hedges and mathematical drains of Bagley Wood would spoil half the pleasure of shooting there; but, of course, those who have that privilege may say that the grapes are sour. I may mention that on the walk which crosses the railway, and cuts across into the Abingdon road, which leads through Bagley Wood, a large reservoir has lately been made, which in one place is crossed by a bridge, that seems as if it had been put there on purpose to give the best near view of the city. The best distant views I consider to be those about the Hinksey fields, near the spot where Turner, with singular ignorance of the customs of the University, painted gownsmen in their academicals among the haycocks; and at a place near Elstree, called Stow Wood, well known as a fox-cover. But perhaps the most characteristic view of all is that of the towers of Oxford, seen reflected in the flooded surface of Christchurch meadow under a red sky. This view is suggestive of Venice, especially if the boats are magnified by a slight effort of the imagination into sea-going ships, or softened into gondolas. I have mentioned the advantages which an artist might derive from residence in Oxford, alike from the models that might be placed there, the architectural beauties of the place, and the natural scenery. To the second of these advantages would belong the excellent studies of interiors that some of the rooms present. The rooms of one of my friends, which were those at first intended for the Head of the College, are quite a gem in the profuseness of decoration, especially as applied to the ceiling. The halls of many of the colleges are also remarkably fine, as presenting studies of interiors of peculiar magnificence. Occasionally the internal decoration of the rooms themselves, in which individual taste has perhaps taken a wider range than in any other place I know, would assist a painter in his composition. Pictures and engravings, profuse in quantity, if not always good in quality, decorate the rooms of most of the junior members, and a marked improvement has of late years taken place in this matter, engravings from good masters, and really good original pictures by modern artists, having taken the place of trumpery hunting-prints and portraits of the nymphs of the ballet. Other rooms are hung round “with pikes, and guns, and bows,” now obsolete, and seemingly made, at the time of their construction, for this ulterior object of ornamenting a room, which they fulfil so much better than any modern invention. But perhaps the most extraordinary rooms of all are those of a friend of mine, in one of the most picturesque colleges. The whole centre of his room is taken up by a kind of immense Christmas tree, formed by his own labour and ingenuity, on which is hung every imaginable article that would be chosen in an old curiosity-shop from mere oddness in form or nature. It is a rare collection of what the French call specimens of “bêtises,” ironically, as I suppose, considering the extreme cleverness which imagined them all. There are, if I rightly remember, gods from the Sandwich Islands and fetishes from Africa, clubs from New Zealand and bows from Tartary, stuffed birds, pipes of all kinds and sizes, skins of snakes and crocodiles, skulls of men and animals, and everything, in fact, that ever entered into a skull to devise. The walls are papered with engravings, and engravings are hung from the ceiling because there is no room for them on the walls. There is a collection of divers plants, native or exotic, flourishing in stands or trailing over the windows, in each of which is a kind of caravanserai for wild birds (not aviary), for the amiable proprietor does not detain them there longer than they wish to stay, but invites them in by abundant proffers of their peculiar kinds of food; and as he sits or reclines by his fire (for he has abundant facilities for assuming either position) by the motionless silence which he purposely observes—has constant opportunities of watching their flittings and hearing their twitterings, and studying their little habits with the gusto of a naturalist. That such an inventory, which entirely passes my memory to describe, should have been amassed in a single room by any amount of time and trouble, is a marvel to me, only to be explained by the perfect and lotos-eating repose of a college life. Long may our friend enjoy his quaint and instructive rooms! Travellers see strange things, but few can say that they have seen stranger than those that are enshrined in the colleges of Oxford.

You see that I have carefully abstained in what I have said from making invidious comparisons between Oxford and the sister university; nor have I spoken of the universities of the north, with which I am but little acquainted, but which I should imagine to hold an intermediate place between the English and the German system. On the whole, it appears to me that the function of education, comprising theology, philosophy, science, and belles lettres, is to impress upon the mind images of Beauty and Truth, and to enable the mind which has received these impressions to act in like manner through life. If education cannot make a man’s actions truthful and beautiful, he remains to the end a savage, or rather, I should say, the scion of a vulgar civilisation, even if he knows all the poets by heart, or can discourse with the acumen of an Erasmus or a Crichton. That Beauty and Truth are one and the same in that perfect sunlight which our eyes cannot see, and from which all lesser lights proceed, few will deny. But here on earth they may be considered as in a measure apart, and as exciting, each for good in its way, separate influences on the moral life of man. Men incline to one or the other light according to their natural bent or the bias of their education. It seems to me that if a distinction is to be made between our universities, the tendency of Oxford studies is to look at Truth through Beauty, while that of Cambridge studies is to look at Beauty through Truth. It is therefore that I have laid so much stress on the capabilities of Oxford as a school of Art. I confess that I am anxious to gain a closer insight into the nature and life of your German universities. Probably they are with us but imperfectly and unfairly understood. If it be true that the Bursch preserves, under his outwardly rough exterior, any remains of that antique chivalry of thought which is so fast dying out in this country, he preserves a treasure which is of inestimable value, and which ought to be secured to him at any price. At the same time, I think you will allow that our system has certain superiorities of its own, which deserve at least careful study, if not active imitation. We, at least, are successful in affixing an ineffaceable stamp to the character of the great majority, while you seem only to succeed in permanently impressing the nature of a few, and impressing only a limited part of that nature. May you live and lecture many years, Herr Professor; and may your brimming Rhine flow on for ever, free and German as of yore; and may the vine-blight spare the clusters that yield that molten gold which, unlike the morbid production of Australia and California, brings nothing but innocent joy to the soul of your Fatherland. Vale! and believe me,

Your loving friend,

Tlepolemus.

THE ANCIENT COINS OF GREECE.[5]

Father Hardouin, a learned French Jesuit of the seventeenth century, lived to the venerable age of eighty-three years, and died, as he had lived, in the full persuasion that the only authentic monuments which we possess of classical antiquity are comprised in coins, a few Greek and Latin inscriptions, with the Georgics of Virgil, the Satires and Epistles of Horace, and the writings of Pliny and Cicero. Out of these materials he held that certain ingenious “falsarii,” in the thirteenth century, whom he styles the “architects of annals,” compiled those multifarious productions of poetry and prose which we have been accustomed to regard as a most precious legacy bequeathed to us by ancient Greece and Rome. This fact we mention to our readers, not with any view to shake them in their old and orthodox convictions upon the subject, but simply to show them what a vast amount of matériel this learned Father had discovered in the study of ancient numismatics. A coin indubitably presents, within the smallest compass, the fullest view of ancient times that we possess. Though silent, it is always waiting to communicate knowledge; though small, it is always ready to teach great things. “Inest sua gratia parvis,” is the motto of the Cabinet. It would be difficult, indeed, to say what department of ancient lore—whether in mythology, or economics, or politics, or chronology, or geography—may not be elucidated and explained by the study of coins. A series of coins are, in fact, a series of illustrative engravings, of contemporaneous date with the literary works of Greece and Rome, and of the noblest school of art. We may realise much of what we read by turning to designs executed by artists who lived in those very countries, and at that very period. The lordly oak is uprooted by the tempest, the lowly willow is spared. While the temples of the gods and their concomitant myriads of statues have been reduced to unintelligible fragments, those coins which formed the medium of ordinary traffic—the tetrobolus, the soldier’s daily pay—the drachma, that of the mariner—and the tetradrachmon, which, by virtue of the archaic visage of Pallas, with her rigid smile, passed current among merchants of every state and province,—these have remained safe in their hiding-places under the soil, and may be found in nearly the same condition in which the Greeks handled them more than two thousand years ago.

Cities have been built with the express intent of perpetuating the glory of a founder, and after all the founder’s intent is achieved, not by the enduring testimony of edifices and streets of marble, but by that of its coins. Thus the Emperor Augustus thought to immortalise the fame of his victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, by erecting a city on the shores of the Ambracian Gulf, which city he called by the appropriate name of Nicopolis. It was supplied with the usual complement of public edifices; a gymnasium and a stadium were built in a sacred grove in the suburb; another sanctuary stood on the sacred hill of Apollo, which surmounted the city. It was admitted by the Emperor’s desire into the Amphictyonic council, and was made a Roman colony. Sacred games were instituted, accompanied by a sacrifice and a festival, equal in dignity to the four great games of Greece. Coins of the city were struck: and in commemoration of a favourable omen which had presented itself on the morning of the day of battle, a group of bronze statues, representing an ass and his driver,[6] were placed, among other dedications, in the temple of Apollo Actius.

Such were the forward-looking expedients of the conqueror to perpetuate his fame;—and what has been the result?

“Look, where the second Cæsar’s trophies rose,

Now,—like the hands that made them, withering.”[7]

A long succession of ruined edifices, in one part converted into a sheep-pen. In fact, before four centuries had elapsed, a contemporaneous author tells us that the town of Nicopolis had fallen into lamentable decay. The palaces of the nobles were rent; the aqueducts crushed; everything was smothered with dust and rubbish.—The bronze statues of Eutyches and Nicon, after being removed first to Rome, and then to adorn the Hippodrome at Constantinople, were at last melted down by the barbarous Latins on their capture of the city in A.D. 1204. All is gone of Nicopolis except the coins. The coins may be seen in the cabinet of the numismatist, by time as yet uninjured; and we find upon one of them the head of Augustus himself with the description of Κτίστης or founder, and the appropriate figure of Victory holding a garland in her extended right hand.

In connection with this city of Nicopolis, we may mention the fact that one of the most important transactions in Colonel Leake s diplomatic career—namely, a conference with the celebrated Albanian Vezír, Ali Pasha, which led to the ratification of a peace with the Porte in 1808—took place on the sea-beach, near the ruins of the ancient aqueduct of the city, on a stormy night in the winter of 1807. The crafty Vezír, in order to throw dust into the eyes of the French consul, who was watching the proceedings with much jealousy, had previously got up a sort of scene in his presence,—receiving an English messenger, whom he had himself instructed to ask for permission to purchase provisions, with affected sternness,—haughtily refusing to grant his request,—and declaring that the two nations were still at war;—although he had already made with Colonel Leake a private arrangement to give him the meeting that same evening on the beach. As the day declined, the weather became so threatening that the captain of Colonel Leake’s ship was afraid to anchor off the coast; and so dark was the night, that had not Ali himself caused muskets to be discharged, the appointed place of rendezvous on the beach could not have been discovered. At length the boat neared the land, and the Vezír was found seated under a little cliff attended by one or two of his suite, and a few guards. Dr Johnson might seem to have anticipated this scene, in his tragedy of Irene, where he describes an interview between the Greek Demetrius and the Vezír Cali in these words:—

“He led me to the shore where Cali sate,
Pensive, and listening to the beating surge.
There, in soft hints and in ambiguous phrase,
With all the diffidence of long experience,

That oft had practised fraud, and oft detected,

The veteran courtier half revealed his project.”[8]

During the two hours the conference between Colonel Leake and the Vezír lasted, the surf rose considerably; and it was not without a good drenching from the rain and the sea, and some difficulty also in finding the ship, which they could hardly have done without the aid of the lightning, that the boat returned on board. The ship then stood away from the coast.[9]

But to return to our subject. Every one who feels a thirst for knowledge, must value coins as the medium of acquiring knowledge: every one who has an eye for grace and beauty, must value them as presenting unrivalled specimens of grace and beauty: every one who is susceptible of the charms of fancy, must love to study the hidden meaning of those imaginative devices, which sometimes, as Addison says, contain as much poetry as a canto of Spenser. Let not the study be condemned as dry and crabbed, for Petrarch was a numismatist. Let it not be condemned as connected with only a bygone and obsolete school of art, for Raffaelle and Rubens, Canova, Flaxman, Thorwaldsen, and Chantrey, delighted to refresh their powers by it. Condemn it not as beneath the notice of the philosopher, for Newton and Clarendon were among its votaries. Say not that men of active pursuits can find no time for it, when you hear of the collections of Wren, Mead, and Hunter.

There were numismatists among the ancient Romans. Admirers and collectors, as they were, of the other productions of Greek art, we should conclude that they were admirers and collectors of Greek coins also, even if we had no direct evidence upon the subject. Suetonius, however, expressly informs us that the Emperor Augustus was accustomed—probably at the Saturnalia—to distribute among his guests a variety of valuable and interesting gifts, and, among the rest, pieces of money—not modern money, but of ancient date—not Roman, but foreign; and some of it the coin of ancient kings. May we not recognise in this description the beautiful coins of Greece and her colonies—the coins of Syracuse and of Tarentum—of the Seleucidæ and other Asiatic kings—of the kings of Macedonia, Epirus, and Thrace? A facetious friend of ours professes to enrol Horace also in the list of numismatists; and we have often smiled at the mock solemnity with which he argues his point. He holds, for instance, that the passage,

“Nullus argento color est avaris

Abdito terris”—

refers, not as we have been taught to interpret it, to the unwrought silver lying hidden as yet in the mine, but to those choice productions of ancient art—Syracusan medallions, for instance, or the rarer tetradrachms of the Seleucidæ—which blush unseen in their subterranean lurking-places, and are kept out of our cabinets by that churlish miser the earth. And he holds that the poet very consistently, in the same ode, assigns the regal diadem, and the laurel crown of virtue, not to the man who is simply master enough of himself not to covet his neighbour’s money-bags,

“Quisquis ingentes oculo irretorto

Spectat acervos,”

but rather to the noble self-denial of that numismatist, who can pass from the contemplation of the well-stored cabinet of his rival without one sidelong glance of envy.

And in that well-known passage where Horace says, in a rather boastful strain, that the fame of his lyric poetry will be more durable than bronze, our friend observes that if the poet alluded to the statues of bronze which met his eye at every turn in the city of Rome, it did not follow that his lyric fame would be of any long duration; for of all articles of bronze the statue was doomed to the earliest destruction, and but few, in comparison with the number of marble statues, have come down to our time. Many a graceful figure which Horace had seen and admired in the palace of Mecænas, for instance, ere many centuries had elapsed was melted down by greedy plunderers, and played its part a second time in the brazen caldron of the housewife. But the medal of bronze survives the wear and tear of centuries full a score. The medal it is,

“Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens
Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis
Annorum series, et fuga temporum.”

Our observation has been drawn by some modern writers to the supposed existence of a sacred character or quality in the coin of the ancients. It is the opinion of the most experienced numismatists that the Greek coin was invested with a character of sanctity, arising from the head, or figure, or symbol of some deity which it usually bore; that the ἐικών or image upon it was really and truly an idol. We believe that such a notion prevailed, to a certain extent, both among the Greeks and the Romans. Not that we regard the worship of Juno Moneta as a case in point. We think that the worship of Juno Moneta was the worship of a deity who was supposed to have admonished the Romans that there are other things in the world much better worth attending to than money, and that money would not be wanting to them, so long as the weapons they fought with were the arms of justice. At the same time, there was indubitably a reverence paid to the coin, even down to the Roman times, for the sake of its religious symbol or device. The people of Aspendus, in Pamphylia, professed to hold in such reverence the effigy of the Emperor Tiberius upon his coin, that they found a certain fellow-citizen guilty of impiety, simply on the ground of his having administered a little wholesome chastisement to a refractory slave who happened to have at the time one such coin in his pocket.

It has been thought that the practice which prevailed among the Greeks, of placing a piece of coin in the mouth of the corpse, originated in this notion of its sanctity, inasmuch as it was supposed to insure the protection of the deity, whoever it might be, to whom the coin was attached by the symbol it bore. But we must confess that, for our own part, we still cling to the old story of the fee required by the Stygian ferryman. Hercules informs Bacchus, in the Ranæ of Aristophanes, when he is meditating a visit to the shades below, that he will arrive at a wide unfathomable lake, and that an old man who attends for the purpose will ferry him and his companion across it, on receiving the fee of two oboli. Lucian, too, has a joke about Charon’s complaining that, in consequence of the slackness of his trade, he cannot raise money enough to supply the necessary repairs for his boat. The mouth was so commonly used as a purse by the Greek in his lifetime, that we can scarcely wonder at this method being adopted for his carrying money into the other world with him when dead. Colonel Leake mentions the discovery of a coin of Motya in the mouth of a skeleton in the island of Ithaca, in a tomb of the first century before Christ.

At the same time, although we believe that the myth of Charon was more closely connected with this practice in the minds of the common people than any other consideration, we doubt not that the sanctity of the coin was also taken into account. We find that notion of sanctity prevailing, not only among the Greeks and Romans, but among other nations, to a considerable extent. The Mohammedan coin bears invariably a passage from the Koran, or some other religious text, quite sufficient to insure its reverential treatment by the faithful Mussulman; and we read in Marsden’s Numismata Orientalia of a certain class of very rare gold coins of ancient date, to which the Hindoos avowedly paid religious worship. Of this coin the Rajah of Tanjore was so fortunate as to possess two specimens.

Whether the sect of gold-worshippers is yet extinct is a question which we must leave moralists to settle among themselves. It has been remarked by an accomplished scholar and excellent numismatist,[10] that “gold has been worshipped in all ages without hypocrisy.” That there were many in ancient times who held the coin in reverence for the sake of an indwelling sanctity connected with the symbolic representations which it bore, we fully believe; and that there may be some in modern times who hold it in reverence,—ἀισχρου κέρδους χάριν,—we are by no means disposed to deny.

There is no doubt that pieces of antique coin have been frequently carried in the purse or in the pocket as a sort of charm or amulet; but we question whether this notion of their supernatural power has any connection with the supposed sanctity of the legends or symbols with which they are impressed. We should ascribe it rather to the same feeling which induces some old women, and young ones too, to carry a crooked sixpence in their purse—the charm being supposed to reside, not in any device or legend of the coin, but simply in its curvilinear shape. So in the cases we have just alluded to, the charm lies in the mystery of the coin’s unknown and ancient origin—“omne ignotum pro magnifico est.” Stukeley tells us that, in the neighbourhood of one of the ancient Roman sites which he visited in his “Iter Curiosum,” Roman coins were known among the peasantry by the appellation of “swine pennies,” from the fact of their being often turned up by that indefatigable excavator in his search after something more succulent. To the mighty Cæsars this was truly a degradation. But at Dorchester he found the same coins known by the name, assigned with more semblance of respect, of “Dorn pennies,” after some mythical king Dor, whom tradition states to have once resided there. The rustic antiquary is wont to labour under a sad confusion of ideas. The Roman he confounds perpetually with the Roman Catholic. We remember ourselves—after visiting a sort of bi-linguar monument near Hadleigh in Suffolk, which marks the spot of the martyrdom of Dr Rowland Taylor, under Queen Mary—to have asked a passer-by whether a certain antiquated mansion by the road-side had ever been inhabited within his recollection; to which we received the oracular reply that, to the best of our rustic friend’s belief, it had never been inhabited since the Romans occupied it, in the days of Dr Taylor!

This, however, is rather a digression. We learn from Trebellius Pollio that, in the fourth century, the coins of Alexander the Great were supposed to insure prosperity to any person who was prudent enough to carry one of them constantly about his person; and we find this, and all other such notions, strongly condemned by Chrysostom. An Italian traveller tells us that, in 1599, the silver coins found in the fields in a certain district in the island of Crete were called by the people after the name of St Helen; and that the story went that this saint, being in want of money, had made a number of coins of brass, endowing them, at the same time, with such miraculous properties, that the brass, in passing into the hands of another person, was at once changed into silver; and, moreover, that any such silver coin being held fast in the hand, will cure the falling-sickness. Mr Pashley, who visited Crete in 1830, found that the possession of an ancient coin is looked upon as a sovereign charm against maladies of the eyes. In the year 1366, the discovery made by some children at play of a number of ancient coins, at Tourves, near Marseilles, threw the whole community of the district into a state of alarm and consternation. The coins were some that had been struck at Marseilles at that early period when, under the name of Massalia, it ranked among the most thriving colonies of ancient Greece. They bore on the one side a head of Apollo, and on the other a circle divided into quadrants. In the chronicles of Provence, where this discovery is recorded, they are described as bearing on the one side a Saracen’s head, and on the other side a cross. This was interpreted as bearing some portentous allusion to the Crusades. And the devout writer intimates that, while one part of the community look upon it as an omen of good, and the other part as an omen of evil, Heaven only knows how it will turn out.

We believe that some persons, sedulously devoted to other branches of the study of classical antiquity, are deterred from availing themselves of the aid of coins, by a fear of being imposed upon by forgeries. This is an easy, but an idle mode of putting aside that which we have not courage to investigate. We shall add a few remarks upon the subject.

In the first place, we shall venture to ask these anti-numismatic sceptics, whether they think we ought to cease to read and to admire the dramas of Shakespeare, because it is questionable whether one or two of those which pass under his name were really of his composition?—or, whether we shall shut our eyes before all pictures which pass under the names of the Old Masters, because spurious ones have been palmed off upon the self-dubbed connoisseur?—or whether all autographs of illustrious men are to be condemned as trash, because Ireland attempted to impose upon the public with some that were not genuine?—or whether all currency is to come to an end, because clever knaves have succeeded in counterfeiting it? Everything, in short, which is valuable, offers, in proportion to its value, a temptation to ingenious and unscrupulous men to show their cleverness by imposing upon the world with an imitation of it. The Holy Scripture itself has not escaped.

And after all, in regard to coins as well as in regard to the other subjects which we have mentioned, although forgers may be clever, detectors are clever also. The numismatic phalanx of investigators are more than a match for the “falsarii.” The skill of Cavino, Gambello, and Cellini, has been met with equal skill on the part of the numismatist. The eye that has been accustomed to wander over a well-selected cabinet acquires a power of ready discrimination,—a power difficult to teach by theory, but not so difficult to gain by practice. Solitary instances may occur of a solitary numismatist fondly persuading himself that some clever forgery which he possesses is a genuine coin, but we would not give much for his chance of beguiling others into the same belief. Unwilling he may be to have the “gratissimus error” extracted from his own mind, but he never will succeed in engrafting it upon others. Never does the eye of man exert so much jealous vigilance as when it is employed upon the coin of a rival numismatist claiming to be genuine upon insufficient grounds, The House of Lords sitting upon a claim of some peerage in abeyance is nothing to it. We apprehend that scarcely an instance is on record of a forged coin having enjoyed for any length of time, unquestioned, the honours of a genuine one. Nor do we think that there are many instances of a forger’s attempting to falsify history. He generally aims at making his invention tally with historical fact as closely as he can. And if his inventive powers are not at all brought into exercise, but he simply produces a coin which is a fac-simile or reproduction of a genuine one, for purposes of study that fac-simile will be equally available with the genuine coin, and no further harm is done than the abstraction of a few shillings more than its value from the pocket of the unwitting purchaser.

At the same time we would not let the forger go unpunished. Though the evil actually done be small, the intention is bad. We would have him tried by a jury of numismatists. Or if the offence should have been committed in a country where the power of punishing the offence resides in one magistrate, we should say that that one magistrate ought to be a numismatist. It is said that a distinguished archæologist who possessed this power in virtue of his office as Her Majesty’s consul at Bagdad, very recently exercised it by directing that a Jew “falsarius” should be bastinadoed. We applaud his Excellency’s most righteous judgment. The man who had counterfeited the famous sequins of Venice, and had aggravated his crime by doing it badly,—

“Che male aggiusto ’l conio di Vinegia,”

is represented by Dante as worthy of an especial notice among those sinners against laws divine and moral with whom he has peopled the shades of his Inferno.

Seriously, however, we think that any clever work of art is worthy of being preserved, and none the less for its having taken in some who set themselves up as judges. Even in Pliny’s time a counterfeit denarius of superior workmanship was sometimes thought cheap at the price of sundry genuine denarii. The tasteful device of Cellini, or of some cunning artist of Padua, must not be thrown to the dogs, merely because it was produced with the intention of rivalling the work of ancient artists, and of testing the acumen of the cognoscenti. Those figures of Cellini, for instance, which some one brought and exhibited to the artist himself as antiques, and respecting which the nobleman who was their proprietor declared, when he saw a smile playing upon the conscious visage of Cellini, that there had not lived a man for these thousand years who could have wrought such;—would not those figures have been worth preserving? And in like manner a coin which, by the excellence of its workmanship, has raised a doubt whether it may not have been really of ancient origin, ought by no means to be treated with contempt, even though it proves to be modern.

The learned work of Colonel Leake, now before us, has supplied a desideratum in the archæological literature of our country. It is the first work of the kind upon Greek coins which has been published by an Englishman, and those of our readers who are acquainted with his character will agree that no Englishman could have been found to do it so well as Colonel Leake. The vast amount of knowledge which he has been laying up for more than half a century, in regard to the literature, the mythology, the political and social history, and the geography of ancient Greece, supplies an infinity of streams which flow over the pages of his work in the form of notes. No longer shall we blush under the well-grounded reproach that all the standard works upon Greek coinage are written by foreigners. Already, indeed, we observe that Professor L. Müller, in his Numismatique d’Alexandre, just published at Copenhagen, has made ample use of Colonel Leake’s volume, which must necessarily become a text-book in this branch of Greek archæology. For the convenience of those who may consult it, not only is every ordinary variety of index supplied to the coins themselves, but we observe that, in an appendix, an index is added to the valuable information contained in the notes. We observe, also, in the appendix, a very interesting and learned dissertation upon the weights of Greek coins, in which Colonel Leake traces the Attic didrachmon—which seems to have been a sort of standard or unit in the monetary scales of Persia and Lydia, as well as of the cities and colonies of Greece—to Phœnicia, and from Phœnicia to Egypt. It would scarcely be in accordance with our usual practice to enter into the more erudite part of this important subject, and we shall therefore conclude our remarks by making one reference to the work, in order to show how successful its author has been in availing himself of the light which a coin may throw upon the more obscure portions of ancient geography.

In Colonel Leake’s collection there is a coin, recently brought to light, of a people called the Orthians, bearing the Thessalian type of a horse issuing from a rocky cavern, in allusion to the story that Neptune produced the horse originally by a stroke of his trident upon a Thessalian rock. Now a city, called “Orthe,” is mentioned by Homer in the second book of the Iliad.[11] With regard to the site of this city, there was a difference of opinion among geographers even in Strabo’s time; the majority seem to have identified it with the acropolis of a more modern city, which at that time was known by the name of Phalanna. But inasmuch as there are coins now extant of Phalanna, and of a date contemporaneous with that of Colonel Leake’s coin of Orthe, it is evident that Phalanna and Orthe were two separate and distinct places. The appearance, therefore, of this previously unknown coin of Orthe corrects an error which prevailed among geographers as far back as the time of Strabo. It shows that Phalanna and Orthe were not the same place. Out of the five cities mentioned by Homer in this passage, Strabo had well ascertained the position of three; and Colonel Leake is now enabled to fix the probable position of the fourth. In reference to such facts as this, Colonel Leake observes in his preface that they have an important bearing upon the great question as to the origin of the Homeric poems.

“It seems impossible,” he says, “for any impartial reader of the Iliad, who is not seeking for arguments in favour of a preconceived theory; who visits the scene of the poem; and who, when making himself acquainted with the Dramatis Personæ in the second book, identifies the sites of their cities, and thus finds the accuracy of Homer confirmed by existing evidence,—to believe that no such city as Troy ever existed, and that the Trojan war is a mere poetic invention; this, too, in defiance of the traditions of all antiquity, and the belief of intelligent historians, who lived more than two thousand years nearer the event than ourselves. The Iliad differs not from any other poetical history or historical romance, unless it be in the great length of time which appears to have elapsed between the events and the poem; but which time was employed by an intelligent people in improving and perfecting their language and poetry—in committing, by the latter, past occurrences to memory; and the principal subjects of which, therefore, could not have been any other than religious and historical.”

The study of coins has been very much facilitated by recent improvements in the art of electrotype, which now enables the collector to obtain perfect copies of the rarer and more costly specimens, and to render them as useful to art and literature as the originals themselves. For purposes of reference we have a noble collection in the National Museum, as well as another which, although of much more limited extent, is nearer to ourselves, and therefore more accessible to students on this side of the Tweed, at Glasgow. In the concluding paragraph of his preface, Colonel Leake mentions these two collections in connection with each other; and with that paragraph we shall also conclude our remarks upon his valuable work.

“Augmented as our National Collection has been by the bequest of Mr Payne Knight, by the purchase of the Bargon Collection, and by similar acquisitions on the dispersion of the Devonshire, Thomas, and Pembroke cabinets, it now rivals most of those on the Continent. With the addition of the Hunterian at Glasgow, which the Trustees of the British Museum have now, at the end of eighty or ninety years, once more the opportunity of acquiring, with the assistance of Government, it would be the richest in Europe.”

TICKLER AMONG THE THIEVES!
EXTRACT FROM AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, WITH A PREFATORY NOTICE.

Poor Tickler! The thing happened in this wise.—But, by the way, before coming to that, it may not be amiss to give the reader some idea who Tickler is:—to wit, a very Skye of Skyes, with a mouth the roof whereof is dark as midnight: his glittering eyes are black as jet; his ears short, his legs none of the longest, but his body is: his tail is a triumph, when fairly spread out; and as for the strength with which it is attached to his body, you may hold him up by the aforesaid tail as long as you can—with one hand. Then his hair is pepper-and-salt in hue, long and curly, and—if I may so speak (though no one but myself and the family will know exactly what I mean by it)—with a kind of silken wiriness. And as for cleanliness, why, he is washed thoroughly every Friday morning, and carefully combed afterwards; and the recurring day of that jobation (to use a word of his own) he is as perfectly acquainted with as the gentleman who performs the operation, and has come, in process of time, even to like the thing: witness how he jumps into the tub of warm water of his own accord, alike in winter and summer, with a kind of alacrity. He makes no fuss about it, except that sometimes, when the soapy water gets into his eyes, they wink at you in silent suffering, which he unconsciously aggravates, instead of alleviating, by putting up his wet paw to rub them! Through this operation he has gone for now nearly twelve years, and a sweeter dog there is not than Tickler. I may indeed almost say as much in respect of his temper, which is excellent whenever he has everything his own way. I have reflected a good deal on the dog’s idiosyncrasy, and think I now know it well. ’Tis tinctured by a warm regard for himself, with respect to the good things of this life; he says, reasonably enough, that if there are good things to be had, he cannot think why he should not try to get them, and like them, since he is formed for the purpose, if he can get them; and as for huge or little hungry dogs in the street, of the plebeian order, he does not dislike to see them enjoying themselves, by way of giving a zest, as it were, to starvation,—if he have no fancy himself for what they have routed out of the gutter. He says he thinks they must often be sore driven; for he has sometimes seen a gaunt dog crunching a dirty bone till he has actually almost eaten it! I am sure Tickler is not without feeling; for one day he was sitting on a chair, with his paws resting on the top of it, near the window, in a warm dining-room, on a blighting day in February—the dust-laden wind without seeming to cut both man and beast to the very bone: and at the foot of our steps there had presumed to sit a dirty half-starved cur, shivering miserably in every muscle, but uttering no sound—neither whine nor bark.

“He starved, and made no sign!”

Was it necessary for that lout of a fellow that passed, to kick the unoffending brute (which did not belong to him) from our steps, it showing, however, no resentment, but simply sitting and shivering a foot or two farther on? Then Tickler (who is of patrician descent), whose eyes had been for some time fixed wistfully upon his plebeian brother, could hold his peace no longer, but gave a loud, fierce, little bark, jumped down from his chair, and fawned whiningly on me; and when I took two nice chicken-bones from his plate under the sofa, and called the forlorn victim of man’s chance brutality into the hall, and gave him the bones, which he was for a while too cold, and also timid, to eat for fear of another kick,—Tickler stood by, not only without growl or bark, though he knew the victuals were his, but very complacently wagging his tail. He had pity for his poor brother, who seemed such a wretched little outcast! And as for the poor voracious creature before him, crouching guiltily as if he had done wrong in enjoying himself, we could hardly find it in our hearts to put him out again into the street. If he could have carried away sixpence to a tripe-shop, he should have had it to get a complete feast for once in his life. I think the incident made a deep impression on Tickler; for when he returned into the dining-room, he went again to the window, and sate for some time looking through it wistfully, and whining; and then jumped down, went under the sofa, and lay there for upwards of two hours, sighing several times, and without touching his victuals.

But, on proper occasions, Tickler could show a proper spirit. We have a cat; and if there be any force in the new saying, the right cat in the right place, Tickler was the dog to insist on its being observed; for if ever poor Tom presumed to steal up-stairs out of the kitchen (which, it must be owned, was his proper place), there was no end of uproar on the part of Tickler; though Tom would sometimes turn round, on his way down stairs, and, curving up his back, and showing his teeth, glare at his little tyrant with an expression that was perfectly fiendish; and tended, moreover, effectually to keep the right dog in the right place, viz. the dining-room, to which he would on these occasions retreat in good order, perhaps, not without needless delay. Thus Tickler had a notion of fitness.

He was also of a very contemplative character, shown by his long sittings on the chair nearest one of the windows—in fact, always the lefthand side window. He would sit on the chair, with his fore-paws resting on the top of it, and his mouth between them, calmly surveying so much of human nature as passed before our windows. It would have been strange, indeed, if he could have lived so long with us,—growing up with our children, and growing old alas! with ourselves,—without having endeared himself to us all in a hundred different ways, and becoming thoroughly familiar with our ways and habits. Can any one persuade me that the little fellow did not know 6.30 P.M. o’clock, at which hour I pretty regularly returned to dinner, when he used always to take his seat on his chair a quarter of an hour before that time, with his jet-black nose and watchful eyes pointed in the direction in which I always came; and when I approached the steps, he would leap down and bark like mad, till the dining-room door was opened,—and then the front door? And how he jumped up against my legs, when I entered, and scampered wildly to and fro! I know he liked me, and “no mistake,” as the Great Duke said. But besides this, I am morally certain that he always knew the Sunday morning. Even as early as breakfast-time, he was grave and restrained, looking as though he knew that there was something or other in the wind; and when we severally went out, he made no indecent and clamorous attempts to accompany any of us, but lay looking solemnly at us, as we respectively took our departure—and as soon as we had all gone, he invariably went up to his bed, which was under our own, never stirring till we returned; and who shall tell what he was thinking of on such occasions? Did he sleep, dream? That he does dream, no one knows better than I; for he talks—I beg pardon, barks—in his sleep almost every night, often waking me from my own dreams. But what has particularly pleased me in Tickler is, that when I sit up after everybody else is gone to bed, he has, for years, voluntarily remained with me, however long I may remain. I wheel an easy-chair (my wife’s) towards the fire as soon as we are left alone, he waiting for it quite as a matter of course, and jumping into it, immediately turning round, slowly and thoughtfully, three or four times, and then settling down into what he at length, I presume, conceives to be a comfortable position—his mouth resting on his paws, and his eyes fixed on me, till he falls asleep, with one eye open. Bless his little soul (for something of that sort he assuredly has)—how well I recollect one night, soon after Madame and the young ones had retired, taking out of my pocket a hard-hearted and insulting letter received during the day—laying it down after reading it, with a sigh, and then gazing affectionately at my faithful Tickler, whose watchful eyes were fixed all the while on me! Ay, my little friend! this would try your temper; but dogs are mercifully spared such anxieties, although you have your own sensibilities! In a long series of years, I have sate up many hours engaged on my great work, in seventeen folio volumes, entitled, The Essence of Everything from the Beginning; and if it please Heaven to spare my life to finish it, I undertake that it shall finish the reader. Well, it has been such a comfort to me, night after night, every now and then to watch Tickler watching me, as I cannot describe; and I do believe he has contributed, whether consciously or unconsciously, to divers fine ideas of mine—at least I think them fine, and tranquilly await the judgment of the critics, or such of them as shall survive to see my great work, and, above all, survive the reading of it. How snug he has made me feel, with my huge easy-chair exactly opposite his smaller one (which is my wife’s till she goes to bed), my table and one or two chairs covered with books, the crimson curtain drawn close, and the fire crackling briskly; many and many a time have I been inwardly tickled by seeing and hear him dreaming, his breathing quickened, and his bark short and eager, but suppressed. I am certain that he sometimes has nightmare! How pleasantly we used thus to keep one another company in the winter nights! When my work was over, often not till two and even three o’clock in the morning, Tickler had notice thereof by the act of shutting up my desk, till which moment he never stirred; but that done, and before I had extinguished my candles, he descended from his chair in a leisurely way, and yawned and stretched himself; I often holding him up by his tail, just to let him feel that all was right, and that he was really awake. Then we both crept up-stairs to bed, as quietly as possible, lest we should disturb the sleeping folk. And if I should happen to have to go down stairs again to look at a book, or bring up my watch left on the table, Tickler seemed to feel it his duty to get out of his snug bed, and come pattering softly down stairs at my heels.

He was almost as vivacious as ever, though twelve summers had passed over him at the period of that serious adventure which is presently to be laid before the admiring reader. But no amount of vitality has sufficed to prevent Mr Tickler’s face getting white; so that, when he is in his lively humours, he suggests to my mind the funny face of a frolicsome little elderly man, or a dog who had plunged his nose into a flour-bag. I took him with me last autumn to a place which I described, but without specifying, as may be seen in the October and November numbers of Maga,[12] and the trip did him a world of good. Do you recollect something that befell me there? viz., that I lost him for a while, to my grievous discomfiture and painful exertion—finding at last that the sweet little rogue was not lost at all, but squatting comfortably on our drawing-room sofa? How little I dreamed, however, that this might be deemed the shadow cast before, of a coming event—a loss of Tickler!! in right earnest? Only the very midnight before this startling occurrence he was sitting in his old place, about twelve o’clock, opposite to me and the table, whereon lay a portion of the stupendous accumulation of MSS., through which I was patiently distilling off The Essence of Everything. I got up from my seat and yawned with a sense of weariness, when he did the very same thing, and thereby attracted my attention to him. So I sate down beside him, and, tickling his ears, said, “Ah, you little runaway! A pretty wild-goose chase you led me at——!” on which he wagged his tail, and smiled: but no one can tell a dog’s smile that has not studied his countenance as I have Tickler’s. The next morning I lost him in right earnest—in dreary earnest! He left our house at 10 A.M. on Monday the 4th December, in company with a steady middle-aged servant, almost as much attached to him as we were ourselves, and who had come down on an errand to me—but having left with Tickler, he arrived at the place where I pass most of my day-time, without his better half. “I thought,” said I, on my arrival, and finding him sitting in the ante-room, “that you were to bring Tickler with you, for a walk?”

“So I did, sir, but I’ve lost un, sir, I’m afraid,” he replied stolidly.

“Lost Tickler!” I echoed in consternation.

“Yes, sir. Missed un in a moment, like, and couldn’t vind un anywhere!”

“Why, when did you leave our house, sir?”

“Just as the clock struck ten.”

“And now it’s not quite half-past!! What upon earth were you about not to stop and look for him?”—Suffice it to say, that he described himself as having suddenly missed Tickler, who had been following as usual close at his heels, when at only two streets’ distance from our house,—had consumed five minutes in looking for un—and then came quietly down without him, to me! He said he thought the dog might have returned home “of his-self! as he had done at ——!” I was disposed for a while to entertain a very particular view of this strange transaction, but in the mean time sternly despatched the delinquent back, at top speed, to acquaint our family with the loss of Tickler; and also sent a trusty messenger after him, in the forlorn hope that Tickler might have returned home “of his-self.” Nothing of the kind; he was gone, poor little fellow, in earnest: and as he wore his collar, with my name and address in full engraved thereon, it was plain that unless he quickly made his appearance, he must have experienced the professional attentions of a very vigilant class of London practitioners. Every member of my family spent the rest of the day in scouring the neighbourhood, especially the more dubious (i. e., discreditable or suspicious) portions—but in vain. Our baker, whom Tickler used to visit on business every day, saw him walking past the shopwindow, alone, and at a leisurely pace, within about ten minutes of the time of my servant’s missing him—but supposed, as a matter of course, that he was in attendance upon some member of the family! Inquiries were made of all our tradespeople—only to be answered by exclamations—“What! Tickler gone? poor little thing, we loved him like a child!” “He can’t be far away—you’ll be sure to see him by nighttime, in particular as he had his collar with his master’s name;” “and, ma’am,” added one more sagacious than the rest, in a mysterious whisper—“if you don’t—why, in course! he’s been stole!” “He was the hamiablest of dogs—so petecler well bred!” “Oh, you see, Miss! he’ll be sure to come back!” Then we betook ourselves to the Police Station; where the courteous inspector, having listened to us, said, with a quiet oracular air, “He’s not far away; he’s taken of course for the reward, and as he had his collar on, they know where to find you when they choose. Is he an old or young dog?” “He’s in his thirteenth year!” “Oh, then, you’ll have him back very soon; the dog-stealers are knowing fellows, and he won’t do. But take my advice—advertise him in to-morrow’s Times, and offer only one pound reward, and be sure to add, no further reward will be offered.” This we did; and the next morning appeared the following public indication of our calamity, drawn up by my own masterly pen, and all out of my own head: “Dog Lost. One Sovereign Reward. On Monday the 4th inst., between —— and ——, a pepper-and-salt Skye terrier, answering to the name of Tickler. Collar round his neck with,” &c. “inscribed on it. To be brought to that address. No further reward will be offered.” Having dropped this our little line into the huge water of the Times advertisement sheet, we awaited a nibble with such patience as we could command. But we got no nibble at all, and very dull our house seemed, without our merry and sagacious little Skye friend. Why, there was not a room in the house, or a chair or sofa in it, that did not remind us of him; and as for my wife’s little easy-chair opposite mine, when she had gone to bed, and was no longer succeeded by Tickler, I wheeled it into the corner of the room, and did not write at my Essence with anything like my former satisfaction or spirit. The advertisement in the Times had explained our disaster to all our friends; and no one called on us that did not ask, “Well, any news of Tickler?” or say, “Poor little fellow, how you must miss him!” At length an exceedingly knowing person came, and said, “Have you been to ——’s? You can’t do anything without him; he knows all the respectable dog-stealers in London, and enjoys their confidence.” So my wife and daughter went to him the next day; and following his advice (given after a minutely accurate description of Tickler), I inserted in the particular newspaper which he said was likely to be read by the parties concerned, the following advertisement, which no false modesty shall prevent my owning to be, in my opinion, a choice morsel of expressive pithiness: “Tickler.—One sovereign reward, and no more, will be paid for the recovery of a pepper-and-salt Skye Terrier, answers to the above name, and lost near ——, on Monday the 4th instant. Had on a collar, with the words,” &c. &c. “In its 13th year, and many teeth gone. To be brought to the above address.” It grieved me thus to publish to the world poor Tickler’s age and infirmities; but needs must, when a certain Jehu drives:—and the way in which I vindicated my advertisement against the reclamations of all Tickler’s friends was the following: If I show the thieves that I am quite wide awake to the poor little dog’s age and infirmities, it may certainly be no news to those gentlemen, so experienced in those matters, but will, peradventure, add force to the three pregnant words in italics in the above advertisement, “and no more.” The more candid of my opponents said that there was something in this; but they held that I had, nevertheless, greatly hurt Tickler’s feelings, if ever he came to hear of it. The more long-headed of my friends went so far as to say, besides, that it was, after all, a toss-up whether I ever got him again!

Now comes a remarkable occurrence, and the reader may depend upon its being told him exactly as it occurred, viz., that on my returning to dinner, one day, a strange Skye terrier presented himself to me, on entering our dining-room. He had followed home two young ladies in the neighbourhood, who took him to be our dog, of the loss of whom they had heard. So they brought him to us; and on our saying that it was not Tickler, they left, followed by the stranger, but refused to allow him to enter their house. Now it was a blighty December afternoon, and this poor Waif and Stray sate outside their door shivering in the cold: so our servants got leave to bring the poor thing into our house, to be taken care of as a sort of locum-tenens of poor Tickler. The Stranger behaved so well, and had so many nice little tricks, that we all were satisfied he was a gentleman’s or lady’s dog, and we began, in spite of ourselves, to like him very fast: for his face reminded us of Tickler a good deal; but on a more narrow investigation of Stranger’s pretensions to our affections, it was discovered that he was not thorough-bred, as testified by the mottled roof of his mouth; and also in respect of his configuration, he seemed not like a canine homogeneity, but as it were two dogs joined together—or rather a Skye terrier’s head stuck on a rolled-up door-mat. Still we liked him, and called him Snap, to which distinguished name he soon learned to answer, to our considerable satisfaction, especially in respect of the younger folk. Still, he was by no means Tickler; and besides this, suppose any of us took him out for a walk, and the owner should claim his or her own in a disagreeable kind of way? and threaten to do by us as we should have been quite ready to do by those whom we believed to have been unconscientiously possessed of Tickler? These were delicate matters; and as they impinged on the dividing line between civil and criminal responsibility, what more natural or praiseworthy than that we should have recourse to our old friends at the Police Station? Those to whom we appealed, however, in this our little quandary, seemed qualified to be Under-Secretaries of State, in respect of a prodigious apparent sense of responsibility, and a certain flatulent incertitude. They humm’d and ha’d, and finally said that we had better do as we thought best, for that we must be too respectable to be supposed to be dog-stealers; however, they said they would send some one to us in the evening “to give us directions.” But by that time the following state of things had come to pass.

“O, papa!” said one of my children, on my knocking at the door in the evening, “news of Tickler!” “News of Tickler? Pho!” I exclaimed, half hopefully, however. “But there really is!—A man came here at six o’clock, and says that he really thinks he has heard of a dog that must be ours!”

“Did he, indeed? Why?”

“He says that, from what people have told him, the dog he found some time ago wandering about the suburbs, must most likely be ours! But he’ll call again at half-past seven o’clock.” So, in short, and in due time, we sate down to dinner; I indulging in sundry surmises concerning the probability of our mysterious friend paying us his promised visit. And while we sate at table, the following titillating story was told us, as touching the subject of dogs, then uppermost in our thoughts.

A certain celebrated painter of animals as they never were painted before, and may never be painted again, had painted the portrait of a splendid Newfoundland dog, but he strayed or was stolen as he was returning from his last sitting. His owner was inconsolable; but, knowing the distinguished artist’s large and intimate acquaintance with persons who confidentially concern themselves with other people’s dogs, repaired to him for advice, and authorised him of the magnificent palette to offer ten pounds reward for the recovery of the missing favourite. The artist soon put himself into communication with one of his private friends, who asked him what kind of dog it was? “Why,” says the artist, “look here; this is his picture: should you know him again?” The fellow gazed at the vividly faithful representation for a minute or two intently, and then said, “I thinks I’se got him now; I shall know him if I see him. But what’s the tip?” “Ten pounds.” “Werry ansome, indeed, and worth a little trouble; but such a prime hanimal as that ’ere will cost a deal of trouble to get hold on, such uncommon care is taked on ’em by them as has got ’em. Howse’er, I’ll do my best;” and again he glued his eyes on the pictured dog, and then withdrew. A month elapsed without tidings of the missing Ten Pounder; but at length, in the dusk of the evening, the great artist was summoned into his painting-room, and there found his confidential agent. “Well, Bill,” quoth the former, “any news about the dog? I have given it up.” “O no, don’t, sir,” was the reply, with a wink. “I do rally b’lieve I’ve got him at last. But is the tip all safe still, and no mistake?” “Ay—have it anyway you like.” “It an’t a check” asked his astute companion. “No—a ten-pound note, two fives, or sovereigns.” “Well—and no questions an’t to be asked? lest I should get any friends into trouble?” “Only you bring the dog, my man, and you take the money, and all’s done for ever. Honour!” “Well, sir, where that word’s said by a gent, there’s an end of everything; so the dog will be here in half-an-hour’s time, and a pretty business I’ve had to find him.” Half-an-hour’s lapse saw this little stroke of business complete, and dog and cash exchanged. “Well now, my man,” said the artist, “and it’s all over, though I said I wouldn’t ask you a question, I can’t help it, merely out of curiosity. I give you my honour that I have no other motive, and will take no steps at all, in consequence of what you may tell me. Did I ever deceive you?” “No, sir, you never did.” “Well—do you know who stole him?” “Quite sure you won’t do nothing if I tell you?” “Honour—honour!” “Well, sir, I was the chap as prigg’d him.” “You!”—echoed the artist with expanded eyes, uplifted hands, and a great start. “Yes, me, sir. I took’d the dog, and no mistake.” “Whew!—Well—but now I’m more curious still to know why you chose to be so long out of your money—your ten pounds? Why not have brought him back in a few days and got your £10 at once?” “’Cos, sir, you see, I sold un to another party for seven pounds, who took such a liking to the creature, that I hadn’t the heart to steal un from him, till he’d had a week or two’s comfort out on him; but as soon as he had, I know’d how to prig the dog. I, as could do it once, could do it twice—and now you’ve got what you want; but it sartinly sounds coorious, don’t it?” “Why you consummate scamp,” quoth the artist, almost splitting with laughter—“you’ve got seventeen pounds out of the dog!!” “Yes, sir, that’s the figure, exact,” replied the stolid Man of Dogs. “Well, but, you impudent vagabond—if you could prig a dog, as you say, once, and twice, you may thrice——” “Well, sir, so I may—but this here dog will be looked arter unkimmin close now, and I shan’t run no risk.” “Well, honour among thieves—eh?” “Quite correct, sir,” quoth κυνοκλεπτης.

We were laughing at this story, as we sate at dinner, when a single knock came to the front door—and in a trice our servant, the unhappy cause of all our sorrows, whisked out of the room, opened the Hall door, and after a hasty colloquy returned. “He’s come, sir!—the man about Tickler, sir,” said he, re-entering the room, excitedly. In a trice I was in the Hall, followed by my two sons and the servant. My visitor stood, his cap squared in his hands, in the angle formed by the side of the Hall and the door.

“Well, my man, do you really know anything about my dog?”

“Why, sir,” he answered, very respectfully, “I think I do; it must be the same dog.”

“What sort of a dog is it?”

“A Hile of Skye terrier, sir—pepper-and-salt, and rather white about the mouth, and a many teeth gone.”

“Well; but does he answer to the name of Tickler?”

“Can’t say, sir, really. Haven’t seen him myself, sir; only my friend as found him wandering about, a good way off.”

“What! haven’t you seen the advertisement in which he’s called Tickler?” Here was a moment’s embarrassing pause.

“No, sir, can’t say I have; but maybe my friend has.”

“Why, do you mean to say that you’ve never heard him called Tickler?”

“I never see’d him, sir; and never heard the name Tickler.”

“What! not in the advertisement?” At this moment a heavy single knock at the door, against which I was leaning, made me start. I opened it, and a policeman stood there. “Is the inspector come, sir?” he asked. My friend in the corner was instantly aghast, and seemed in the act of squeezing himself into the wall (to avoid being seen by the grizzly visitor), his eyes fixed on me with an expression I shall not soon forget.

“No; and you may tell him he need not come now. I am much obliged to you both; but I now don’t want to part with the dog.” The policeman bowed, descended the steps, and I shut the door. This visit had been paid us in consequence of our application to the station-house for advice how to dispose of Snap. My visitor had grown considerably whiter than so much as was visible of his shirt!

“Don’t be under any apprehension, my man,” said I, with a smile; “it is certainly one of the oddest coincidences I ever saw; but I pledge my word to you that it is purely accidental, and in no way relates to you or my own dog.”

“O no,” he exclaimed, with yet a scared and distrustful look; “in coorse you knew it couldn’t consarn me anyhow, ’cause I an’t done nothing wrong, I know; but it sartinly looked werry peticlar funny, didn’t it now, sir?” wiping his forehead; “but when a gent gives his word, I believe him, sir.”

“Well, but about my dog; you’ve never seen him?”

“Never set these blessed eyes on him yet, sir.”

“Come, come, my man,” I said, good-naturedly, “I have acted honourably by you, and do you so with me. I pledge my word that no harm shall come to you through me. Now tell me—you have seen Tickler!” I added, so suddenly that I took him off his guard.

“Well, sir, you speak so werry ansome—I have seen the dog, and I an’t no manner of doubt it’s your’n.”

“His collar on.”

“Oh, he han’t got any collar on now—least wise, when I picked him up.”

“Why, I thought you told me your friend picked him up?”

“Did I indeed? Well pra’ps he did—but there an’t no collar.”

“Well, as to the Reward—you saw the advertisement offered only a sovereign?”

“O, yes sir, that’s quite correct—” forgetting that he had not seen it—“but I expect to be paid for my two walks up here to-night, sir, beside.”

“And what do you expect? I’ll give you half-a-crown.”

“O, no, that won’t do,” he interrupted me peremptorily—“I always has a five-shilling tip.”

“Always!!”

“Yes, sir—quite regular—ahem!” he suddenly stopped, as though he had caught a glimmering of having committed himself.

“Let the dog die then, sir,” I said sternly, opening the door for him.

“Very well, poor thing!—if it’s your’n, which I’m sartin it is.”

“Well, I suppose I must pay it you!—That will be £1, 5s.?”

“Quite correct sir—and if you’ll let your man come with me, I’ll give him the dog, after he’s given me the money.”

“But the dog must be present before he gives you the money.”

“O, yes, sir—all right—but all’s quite honour in such things as these.”

“How soon will the dog be here?”

“In less than an hour, sir.” With this I directed all three—my two sons and the servant, to put on their greatcoats, and accompany him; first whispering a hint to leave watches behind. After they had been gone five minutes, the servant returned, saying that the man had advised him not to go, as three beside himself looked so suspicious-like, and might prevent us getting the dog. My two sons accompanied their honourable companion till he had got them into Drury Lane! And there he dodged them about, up and down, and in and out of court after court, and alley after alley, till they had reached a very little dirty public-house, into the parlour of which their guide conducted his two companions. Such a parlour! about six feet square, and reeking with odours of gin and tobacco smoke. Another gentleman was sitting there, who had just been discharged out of prison, he said—“And it wasn’t unlikely he might be in again soon, for something or other—for he must live!” He was giving a very lively account of prison life, when my son’s companion returned—after a ten minutes’ absence—with—Tickler! the true identical dear old Tickler, and no mistake whatever about it! But—instead of rushing up to his former patrons and playfellows, he came into the room timidly, and, strange to say, seemed disposed to make the acquaintance of two cats who were in the room, and who seemed quite at home with a dog. When called by his name, he hardly noticed it, and seemed to have forgotten my sons, or to feel no particular interest in them! The money having been given, my sons took poor Tickler in their arms for safety’s sake, quitted the vilest neighbourhood they had ever been in, and carried him nearly all the way home—which he reached in half-an-hour’s time. We were on the look-out at the windows for the poor little fellow—and the moment we saw him, I rushed to the door and opened it, just as Tickler came up the steps; but there stood Snap also—having run up suddenly from the kitchen, whither he had been relegated by my orders, to prevent his encountering Tickler—who, however, immediately spoke to his locum-tenens in a quiet friendly way. Then the latter was carried down bodily into the kitchen, and Tickler whisked into his old quarters in the dining-room. We resolved to take matters very quietly, having been told that dogs had been known to die of joyful excitement under such circumstances. So we all took our seats, eyeing his movements. He ran rapidly to and fro about the room—under the sofa, the tables, the sideboard, as if his scent were gradually reviving old recollections and associations. Then he began to moan, or whine, piteously, but in a very low tone; and finding a little bone which had been left by Snap, he seized on it ravenously. On this we ordered him up a little meat; and, in the mean time, he stood up against each of our chairs, moaning while he looked into our faces, and trembling. “Tickler! Tickler! dear old Tickler, how are you?” quoth I, gently; on which he trembled, looked sorrowfully in my face, and wagged his tail slowly. To aid him in recollecting himself, I resorted to one of my old habits with him—viz. lifting him up gently by his fore-paws; but I almost let him fall again, with concern; for the poor little fellow seemed not half his former weight! And when I felt his backbone, how sharp and bare it was!

“Poor Tickler! what have they been doing with you?” said I. His whine told of starvation. He seemed indeed perfectly blighted: and when we all went up to bed, I following after a little interval with Tickler, it gave me pain to observe the want of his old elasticity in going up-stairs. He was evidently thin and weak. The next day I was anxious to hear his adventures; but I knew that he felt embarrassed if required to speak in the presence of any one beside myself: so I waited till I had a favourable opportunity, which occurred on the next night but one. About an hour after all except myself had ascended to their respective dormitories, and when I was busy distilling off The Essence of Everything, Tickler, who had been lying curled round himself, so to speak, in his usual fashion, suddenly rose, shook himself, and in a sitting posture, thus addressed me.

—But his adventures (for I had asked him to tell them to me) were far too interesting and affecting for me to give them to the world at large, before affording him an opportunity of hearing me read them to him for his correction. That I shall do, and then let the reader form his own judgment—next month:—but I feel it a point of honour to impress upon the reader that he is to make no attempt to identify persons or localities!

[To be concluded in our next.]

THE DRAMA.

Sir Andrew Agnew may have been a very good man, but he never said more than one good thing—if even that is original. In one of his letters he characterises the wit of the three kingdoms as follows: The Scotch play upon the feelings, the Irish play upon ideas, the English play upon words. The distribution is clever and very plausible, if not altogether true. It is correct enough, we believe, as far as regards the Scotch. There is little wit, but a great deal of humour in their fun; and wherever there is wit, almost always it manifests itself in union with strong feeling of some kind—is at one time sarcastic, at another time profane. A Scotchman seldom indulges in pure wit—takes no especial interest in a purely intellectual, or a purely auricular surprise. His logical habits unfit him for that confusion of ideas which Sir Andrew attributes to the Irish, and disincline him for that confusion of words which he attributes to the English jesters. It is with reference to these last that his division is most at fault, and it is also at fault with regard to the Irish. An immense number of Hibernian witticisms, it is true, are to be classed with those Yankee and negro sayings, of which the point depends on a singular confusion of ideas, and of which the following may be taken as typical examples: “Pompey and Cæsar very much like, ’specially Pompey;”—“Uncle was so tall that he had to mount a ladder every day to put on his hat.” A practical instance of the same kind is the story of the Irishman who cut a great hole in his door for the sow to pass through, and a little one beside it for the sucking-pigs. But this very confusion of ideas is so apt to express itself in a contradiction of terms, that the wit for which Paddy is celebrated all over the world is known as an Irish bull; and an Irish bull is as much a verbal play as an English pun. The difference between them may be stated thus loosely: In a bull, the double meanings are incompatible and contradictory; in a pun, they blend together, and do not interfere with each other, except in the way of curious comparison or odd contrast. Now, although perhaps no people have such an inveterate habit of punning and quibbling as the English, it is not true that this is the great characteristic of their wit. With all the reputation which they have on the Continent for melancholy, with all that tone of sadness which pervades their poetry, no people have ever displayed such a hearty enjoyment of fun as the English, and no other comedy has such a wide range as theirs. It contains every variety of humour and every variety of wit. And however much we may despise puns, they have often been used as the expression of profoundest feeling by men of the largest grasp. Shakespeare is an example; his range of comicality is greater than that of any other writer in the language, and he puts puns into the mouths of his heroes and heroines, even in the moment of maddest passion. Thomas Fuller is another instance of a man of deep sympathies and earnest views, who gave expression to these sentiments in what we are accustomed to regard as the most trivial and equivocal of forms.

But while Sir Andrew Agnew’s definition of English wit is extremely partial, it has certainly at this season of the year the appearance of conveying the whole truth. The puns are as thick in a Christmas pantomime as plums in a Christmas pudding. They come out at this time of the year as naturally as berries on the holly; and whoever means to enjoy the season must accept it all, quips and quibbles, puns and buns, the light fantastic toe at night, and the headache next morning. Of what avail is it to shake one’s head over the mince-pies, to tell that young savage, Mr Tommy, that he has eaten too many raisins, to look dismal over another glass of champagne? It is all right; digestion will come in its own good time; and what is the use of Christmas if one cannot once in a year dismiss all thoughts of the doctor and his senna? What is the use of Christmas, too, if theatrical managers cannot for once in a year snap their fingers at the critic and his nauseous doses? On boxing-night comes the pantomime, all paint and spangles, scenery and machinery, fooling and pulling about; it is the reign of good-humour; clown grins from ear to ear; pantaloon takes all the buffets he gets with the greatest pleasure; while the manager is as obstreperous as the one, and the critics are as delighted with his hard hits as the other. The fact is, and there is no denying it, that the pantomime, and all that it includes of burlesque and extravaganza, is at present the great glory of the British drama. The drama has all gone to pot (the paint-pot), and out of it has arisen rollicking pantomime, even as out of the caldron of Medea, what went in an old ram came out a young lamb. That this young lamb is the pride of the British stage at the present time, will be evident to any one who enters a theatre. No chance of getting a seat, even in the larger houses, if you happen to be half-an-hour late. And not only are the houses crammed, the audience is different from the usual audiences. There is a prim old lady, with a pursed-up mouth, in the boxes, whose presence is accounted for by the fact that there are two fairies at her side, who are as much in love with Clown as ever Titania was with Bottom. Everybody who looks at the stalls knows that the bald-headed old gentleman with the capacious waistcoat is “the father of a family,” even were there no long lines of children on either side of him. And will it be believed that through the curtain of the private box there is peering, with his ivory opera-glass to his eyes, that long-faced Grimshaw, who never enters a theatre—never—and who never perpetrated a joke but once, when he quite seriously compared the pit to the pit of Acheron, and wondered that when people saw written up, “The way to the pit,” they did not take fright, and vow never again to enter a playhouse? Everybody goes to the pantomime. It is the only successful effort of the British drama. Tragedy has become so very tragic that she has cut her own throat; comedy has been so very comical that she has choked herself with laughing; and burlesque comes up like a demon through the trap to supply the place of the one, pantomime comes tumbling in head-over-heels to supply the place of the other. Every one has his day: Shakespeare has gone out; Planché has come in. Let no one accuse us of treason to “the divine William,” as Dumas calls him, when we say that Planché is a kind of Shakespeare. He is precisely such a Shakespeare as entered into Dr Johnson’s imagination when he said, “A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.”

It must be confessed that although most of Mr Planché’s extravaganzas are published, there is not one of them that is readable. They are meant to be acted, not read. Effervescing from the mouth of the performers, and eked out with look and gesture, scenic effect and musical rubadub, the galleries make a vociferous noise, and the boxes make a magnificent show of teeth. Now it is some pun which has been lying in wait from the beginning of the scene, now some extraordinary rhyme which seemed as difficult to match as Cinderella’s glass slipper, now an allusion to the events of the day, now the sudden falling into slang in the midst of some high-flown language.

“But Cupid is a downy cove
Wot it takes a deal to hinder;
For if you shuts him out o’ the door,
Vy, he’ll valk in at the vinder.”

Nobody cares to read such verse, but, sung by Robson, it brings down the House. As a specimen of the wit, it is difficult to make a selection worthy of Planché from his latest pieces at the Olympic; but take the following from the Prince of Happy Land, which he has repeated in a weaker form in the Yellow Dwarf. The princess is to choose a husband out of ten suitors.

“Duchess.   ——You’d not refuse

Ten sovereigns in succession?

Princess.                   Yes, indeed,

If they’re bad sovereigns, madam.

Duchess.                        Bad ones!—Read,

Grand duke, the list of their illustrious names,

Sent in with all their portraits—

Duke.                            In such frames!—

It is impossible to find ten finer!

First, here’s the Emperor of Chelsea China.

Princess. A China husband!

Floretta.                  Off with him, I’d break.

Duke. The King of Chess.

Princess.                A king one cannot take.

Duke. The Doge of Tennis.

Floretta.                 A sly doge, no doubt.

Princess. And much too prone to racket, sir, about.

Duke. The Dey of All-jeers.

Princess.                   Hey-day! that’s all joke.

Duke. The Sultan Meer-schaum.

Princess.                     Meer-shams end in smoke.

Duke. The Rajah Ram Jam Juggle Jib a hoy.

Princess. The name’s enough—

Floretta.                     I wish his lady joy.

Duke. Ali Kampain, the Shah of—

Princess.                        Pshaw! pooh! pooh!

Duke. The Khan of Creamo Tartar.

Princess.                        Cannot do.

Duke. The Prince of Orange Marmalade.

Princess.                             Too sweet.

Duke. The Duke of Mangel Wurzel.

Princess.                        Must be Beet.”

What a riot of words! what an amount of subtlety is here expended to no purpose in stultifying the dictionary, and giving to words every possible meaning but the right one. In this noble art, however, Mr Planché is excelled by some of his disciples, and in the parody of Shylock—the Jerusalem Harty-Joke—written by Mr Talfourd for Robson, the system of punning has been carried to the limit of endurance. Let any one read the following address of Gratiano to Nerissa, and attempt if he can to make any meaning out of the puns, or see the fun of continually violating the rules of the language merely to help a failing rhyme.

“The pangs of Cupid I the first time knows-em;

His bows and arrows pierced my harrowed bo-sum.

Let’s off to-night—there’s no chance of diskivery.

With me, dear, put up, and don’t stand at livery.

Blush not that I’m a flunky, I implores;
Let not my plushes be the cause of yours.
You to the eyes—but, though more difficulter,

I to the knees plush as the knee plush ultra.”

Take another specimen, and then, as Mr Talfourd says, we shall bid “a-Jew” to Shylock. Remember, too, that we are quoting the best bits.

“Shylock. Jessica! my own flesh and blood revolted?

I locked her in.

Tubal.         And she herself has bolted!

Shylock. I always wondered why she eyed the men so!

What’s the dog’s Christian name?

Tubal.                         I think Lorenzo.

She’s got the start of us, and bolted right off.

Shylock. Heavy the day that first the sun the light off!

Offer rewards! Use every means to save her.

Let be but catch—I’ll lather the young shaver.

My only heiress folks will say in mock,

Fled like the timid hair from a Shy lock.

Take with you, though, unthinking girl, my curse.

Tubal. She’s taken something more.

Shylock.                           What’s that?

Tubal.                                          Your purse.

Shylock. You cannot mean she’s robbed her poor old father?

Tubal. I hate strong language, but I fancy—rather.

Shylock. Unfeeling child! who’s left her sire to sigh

Without or tie or prop, or property.”

This is what the fast young men of London call brilliant writing. All this meaningless clatter of words, to produce which requires little more skill than to clash the cymbals in the orchestra, there are crowds of young fellows about the theatres who would give a great deal if they had the brains to emulate. It is out of such slender materials that Robson works up his effects, making the glitter pass for gold, the trash for truth, the bad grammar for good sense, and the abortive pun for pointed wit. Give us good puns by all means, if there is nothing better to be had, and we shall laugh at them; but save us from word-torture as incomprehensible, dull, and valueless as the anagrams which used to puzzle and amuse our ancestors.

Cease your funning;
Force of punning
Ne’er shall Maga’s laugh trepan;

at least such punning as we have quoted. If we are asked to define legitimate punning, take an example from Punch, who sums up his metaphysics in the following queries and answers:—“What is matter? Never mind.—What is mind? No matter.”

If any one wishes a defence of punning, we must refer him to the Germans, and especially to Herman Ulrici, who thus discourses on the quibbles of our great English dramatist: “If, then, we go back to the origin of this verbal play, and further reflect that Shakespeare never kept up this game of rejoinder and antithesis emptily and unmeaningly, but that with him it has always some meaning, and not unfrequently a most profound significance, we shall see good reason for the whole representation being pervaded by it. For in this discrepancy between the indicated matter and its indication, and the appropriateness of the same or similar words to express wholly different objects, we have the revelation of the deep fundamental and original disagreement between human life and its true idea; as well as the inadequacy of human cognition and knowledge of which language is the expression, for the wide range of objective truth and reality, and consequently of the weakness entailed upon man’s noblest intellectual power by the Fall and the first lie.” So that puns are the result of the Fall, and the fruit of the forbidden tree. Horrible thought for Mr ‘A Beckett—puns impossible in paradise! Without, however, going to the profundities of Ulrici, we have to point out the propriety of this style of wit in the peculiar species of drama which it adorns. A pun is on a small scale what parody is on a large. Accept the burlesque drama wholesale, and there is no reason why one should object to the quibbling in detail. It is consistent throughout.

The Olympic is the theatre in which Planché appears to the greatest advantage—the intensity of which Robson is capable, giving a force to the representation with which all the brilliance and gaiety of the old Lyceum spectacle are not to be compared. It is one of the two best theatres in London, in which one is always sure of good and finished acting—the wayward humours of Robson being in fine contrast with the sustained art of Wigan. Than the latter there is not a more accomplished actor on the stage; he really acts; and it is a high intellectual treat, which one does not often nowadays enjoy, to see how with successive touches he works out a character, or graduates a passion with a delicacy of detail that is not more marvellous than the consistency of tone throughout. As Wigan satisfies the lover of intellectual enjoyment, Robson satisfies the craving for excitement; the one is perfect art, the other perfect nature. Perfect nature in burlesque—impossible! It is possible, however, with Robson. Usually burlesque acting is the most unnatural thing in the world; no single passion or state is represented truly; every word, every tone, every look is false. With Robson, however, every tone is true, every look is nature; it is in the jumble and juxtaposition of details that his burlesque consists, in suddenly passing from the extreme of anger or fear to the extreme of humorous ease, in suddenly relapsing into vulgar slang in mid-volley of the most passionate speech, and all with the most marvellous flexibility of voice and feature. Presto! faster than we can follow him, he has changed from grave to gay, from lively to severe. The Yellow Dwarf of last year was probably his greatest effort, although Prince Richcraft of the present season is not far behind. It has a mad scene which is equal to anything he has ever personated. The story it is needless to recapitulate—it is taken from the collection of Mother Goose. They are all nearly alike. There is sure to be a prince or princess in disguise; a good fairy and a bad one; an army extravagantly armed, murders by the score, magical fruit or something else, a strange discovery, and the prince and princess married at last, in spite of the villain, all his wiles and all his passion. A strange life it is, that pictured in the fairy tales which are worked up into these extravaganzas,—a life in which trap-doors and invisible springs are as essential as patent-leather boots and gibus hats are to us, in which there is always a gutta-percha eagle that comes flying with a necessary key in its claw, and fish are poking their gills out of still lakes with lost rings in their mouths, a purse of gold lies on the ground just when it is wanted, beautiful witches in red-heeled shoes come hobbling down to the footlights; and in the last tableau of all, there are all the fairies in their fairy palace standing pyramidally one above the other. As in the Arabian Nights the characters are always asking each other to tell tales—lives are saved by stories well told—and one gathers that the thread of Arabian existence is one long yarn; so, in the extravaganzas, songs are all the rage,—the enchanter sings his victim to sleep, the princess wins her lover by the charm of her voice,—the lover serenades his mistress; the king must be amused, and his only amusement is “The Ratcatcher’s Daughter.” Music is not only the food of love, but the blue-pill also; and it is the food and the blue-pill of every other feeling as well. There is another characteristic feature of the Arabian Nights which is prominently exhibited in the extravaganzas—the disregard of life. Murder is a mild word for the destructiveness of the kings—they literally massacre all around: it is the dance of death. But let no one confound all this murder and massacre with the similar tendencies in the low gallows-literature of the present time. All the murdering of the fairy tales is counterbalanced by the effect of the slaughter. The victims are scarcely ever killed outright—they are instantly transformed, they start up and fly away in some new shape. The idea of death as annihilation never enters into the fairy tales; all is immortal: murder is but the plucking of a flower that will grow again; the massacre of a village is only a series of dissolving views.

The Olympic is the only theatre without a harlequinade attached to its fairy tale. For tricks of clown and pantaloon one naturally travels to Covent Garden and the adjacent theatres. Who shall describe all the nonsense and merriment that passes current in these temples of the Muse? Puns, puns, nothing but puns—and such rough practical joking as the youth of England delights in! What an immense deal of laughter they manage to get out of that part of the body in which angels are said to be deficient. It is kicked, pins are stuck into it as into a convenient pin-cushion; Clown puts a live lobster into his comprehensive pockets, and jumps up with fearful grimaces. Then what pulling of noses; how they are flattened, how they are lengthened, how they are blackened with soot, how they are filled with snuff till the poor member sneezes and bleeds! And how the little fellows in the boxes laugh and crow over the practical jokes! It is such rare fun to see Clown stumble over a baby, and crush its head like a pancake, and double it up into the cradle. O glorious to see a shopkeeper’s window smashed, and his coat torn off his back; to see Clown burning the potatoes and licking the roast, and throwing carrots and turnips about the stage; to see Pantaloon pitched into the pot, and turning out a plum-pudding; to see Clown’s head cut off, and the body running headless about the stage, the head crying out for the body,—glued on to the shoulder, and so happily united that Clown takes a leap through a window, and tumbles back as well as ever through the grating below; to see the sucking-pig running about, and given to the nurse instead of her lost child; to see Clown for all his iniquities put into a great gun, with lots of powder, and shot to perdition, next hanging like a caitiff from the top of the theatre, and suddenly flopping down on the devoted heads of first and second fiddle in the orchestra. Hip, hip! away, you little wicked-eyed younkers, and when you go home put the poker in the fire, Master Jacky, turn in your small toes, and with your redhot plaything burn holes in the tails of papa’s coat, while Sarah Jane dances about in all the ecstasy of Columbine.

There is not much interest in going minutely over the theatres, and recording all the peculiarities of treatment. At Covent Garden the preliminary burlesque is the best subject that can be imagined— Ye Belle Alliance, but it is very poorly treated. The most remarkable thing about the pantomime is the curtain. What is that, most gentle reader? An immense advertisement sheet, in which Mechi, and Moses, and Madame Tussaud, and all the notorious puffers, dazzle the eye of the spectators, with magic strops and wonders of cheapness, until the curtain rises on the usual trickery of the evening. “Shilling razors”—“Whiskers in five minutes”—“Baking powder”—“Who’s your glover?”—“Look to your legs”—“Gentlemen’s hair dyed in half-an-hour, ladies’ in an hour”—“Caspiato, or the folding bonnet; to fold in a box two inches deep”—“The Teflis silk umbrella,” and all the chicanery of Sheffield and Brummagem wares;—these are the objects of contemplation that, as a kind of mercantile prelude, in which the auctioneer’s hammer and the chinking of coin are the principal instruments, are intended to prepare the mind for the more honest arts of harlequin and pantaloon. Let us go to Drury Lane, the lessee of which is a man who seems anxious to be regarded as the English Barnum, and who probably, like his American prototype, would accept it as the greatest of compliments were we to describe him as the most perfect humbug in London. Jenny Lind, the Feejee mermaid, and the woolly horse, were all the same to Barnum. The African twins, Vauxhall Gardens, the cage of lions, Charles Mathews, or Miss Glyn—it is all the same to E. T. Smith. His great guns for the present are Charles Mathews and Tom Matthews. The Great Gun-Trick, of which the former is the life and soul, appearing as Professor Mathews, the wizard of the S.S.W. by S., is a really clever little piece, happy in idea, brilliant in execution, and worthy of all its success. The pantomime, Hey, diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, is all fiddlededee. Tom Matthews, the clown, plays the deuce with the tea and the pale ale, and when Jim and Jerry go to the public-house hard by, with the name of Tom Matthews above it, and his picture as merry-andrew above that, don’t they expect to see a red-and-white face peeping from the back shop, and wonder what sort of a man Mr Clown is at home, and what sort of fourpenny he can recommend? Pass down the Strand to the Adelphi. There is an audience on the most friendly terms with the performers, an unsophisticated audience, that roars and screams, and thoroughly enjoys. When Wright takes off his hat, how they laugh; when he puts it on a chair, how they scream; when he sits on it, what convulsions! The peculiarity of the pantomime here is, that Madame Celeste appears as harlequin. She goes through the performance with marvellous agility, but, on the whole, one could wish that in this case the cap of harlequin had really the power of rendering the wearer invisible. At the Haymarket, Mr Buckstone has turned his attention to entomology, and given us The Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast. He has succeeded in overcoming our antipathy to insects, in teaching us to endure wasps, negotiate with fleas, hobanob with spiders, and flirt with flies. If the Haymarket is entomological, Sadler’s Wells is decidedly feline, and the Princess’s partly feline, partly canine, partly ornithological. The latter is without doubt the best pantomime of the year—the best in idea, the best put upon the stage. It is impossible to give an idea of it without going more into detail than we can afford. The introduction is supposed to take place partly in the land of birds and partly in the isle of beasts; the canaries and humming-birds are afraid of the cats, and the story of the Maid and the Magpie is interweaved with the hopes and fears of the bright-plumed birds and the gigantic grimalkins, that play and roll over each other like veritable kittens on the hearth-rug. Then, in the harlequinade, we have the pas des parachutes by the young ladies, who come upon the stage—how? dropping from the clouds; the gymnastic feats of Mr Tanner’s wonderful dogs, who poise themselves on barrels and dance on their heads as nimbly as clown in the sawdust of the circus; and best of all, the representation of the banquet in Henry VIII. by a troop of children, the little bluff King Hal making love to a diminutive Anne Bulleyn, a miniature Queen Kate scratching the face and tearing the eyes of her maid of honour in a way that would have shocked Shakespeare not less than Dr Watts, who declares that little hands were never made for such a purpose.

The Princess’s Theatre ought to produce the best pantomime, for it is the theatre of all others which pays most attention to stage effect; and it would be strange, if, eclipsing all others in the illustration of the Shakespearean drama, it should be behindhand in the representation of its pantomime. It is no vulgar brilliance of scenery, no clap-trap effects of green, red, and gold without meaning, that Mr Charles Kean introduces to his audience. There is always something striking, something to remember, something wholly original and highly suggestive, sometimes even poetical, in his scenic effect. Take the angel tableau in Faust and Marguerite, which is substantially the same as in the dying vision of Queen Katherine, what a fine solemn effect it had in feeling, how pure and beautiful it looked as a picture, and, last of all, how cleverly managed as a mere mechanical contrivance—the angels sliding down without any visible support. Or take the banquet scene in Henry VIII.; there was a marvellous originality in the point of view from which the banquet-hall was seen. It was represented slanting up the stage, so that the spectators were supposed to stand, not at the end, but at the corner of it. There is a picture in the window of every printshop, in which the Duke of Wellington is represented feasting his Waterloo comrades, and which is drawn from a similar point of view. Make the slant greater, cut the table off in the middle by the side-scenes or the picture-frame, and we have the suggestion of a room of illimitable extent. Compare this imaginative mode of suggesting a great space, with the vulgar method adopted in Drury Lane, where, in the absurd procession of idols that ended Fitzball’s Egyptian monster of a play, the stage was thrown open to the back wall, and one looked at a stream of cats, rats, and crocodiles, coming down a small street. The scenery and upholstery of Mr Charles Kean, it is true, are very much decried by certain writers, and are continually brought forward as evidences of the low estate of the drama. These writers, however, seem to speak with a personal feeling against the manager of the Princess’s, and with very little knowledge of the history of the drama. And on these two points, the present low estate of the theatre and Mr Kean’s share in that degradation, we have a few remarks to make. Praise it or blame it—the tendency to scenic illustration is the characteristic of the British theatre in its latest development, and rightly to understand its intention, is rightly to comprehend the position of our modern drama.

With regard to the present decline of the drama, we must point out that in its entire history there never has been a time when it has not been exposed to the severest condemnation which our language is capable of expressing. It has always been giving up the ghost, always dead, or worthy of death. Shakespeare began to write for the stage in 1589. Exactly ten years before was published the earliest diatribe against the stage, at least the earliest of importance:—“The School of Abuse: containing a pleasant invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and suchlike Caterpillars of a Commonwealth: setting up the flag of defiance to their mischievous exercise, and overthrowing their bulwarks, by profane writers, natural reason, and common experience: a discourse as pleasant for gentlemen that favour learning, as profitable for all that will follow virtue. By Stephen Gosson.” After Gosson came Philip Stubbes, then Rankins, then Rainolds; then Histriomastin, the play: and many years afterwards, the still more celebrated Histriomastin of William Prynne, which took the author seven years to compose, and four years more to pass through the press. These attacks were levelled against the licentiousness of the stage; had in view the suppression, rather than the reformation, of the theatres; and were so far successful that for a period of years, in which the drama suffered greater comparative injury than has ever since or was ever before inflicted on it, the acting of plays was entirely prohibited. So great was the injury inflicted that from this time forward—from the reopening of the playhouses under Charles II. to the present hour—the cry has never ceased to be heard that the British drama is either dead or dying. All manner of changes have been rung upon it. At one time, amid the unparalleled licentiousness of Wycherley and Congreve, Vanbrugh and Farquhar, when a hard heart was the best flint for wit to sparkle from, and a hardened conscience the best steel to make it sparkle, the conclusion was drawn quite logically that artistic degradation is the inevitable accompaniment of such moral debasement, the sensual inhuman spirit tending to destroy that power of sympathy which is the fountainhead of dramatic inspiration. Then when the Italian opera came into vogue, and the fashionables of London turned a ready ear to the poetry of an unknown language, it was declared (by Sir Richard Steele, if we remember rightly, or at all events in the epilogue to one of his plays) that the English, who had eschewed Popery in religion, were hankering after Popery in wit; and loud and many were the warnings raised against the growing apostasy. Again, when the vein of native talent seemed to have been exhausted, and almost every piece that could boast of the slightest success had a plot borrowed from the Spanish, and sentiment borrowed from the French, refugee characters and the refuse of foreign wit, how bitterly was it lamented that so wealthy an heiress, and so beautiful, as the muse of the British drama, having squandered her dowry and prostituted her gifts to ignoble ends, should thus at length be driven forth in penury to live on alien charity, and perhaps, like another Jane Shore, to end a wretched existence begging on the highways and byways of literature? At a later period, the ignominious demise of the British muse was expected with still greater certainty, when the play-wrights seemed to have forgotten even the art of forging clever imitations, seemed to have lost even the Spartan talent of clever plagiarism, and their highest achievements were avowedly translated from Kotzebue and other Germans. And afterwards, when some of the poets who adorned the early part of the present century—Coleridge, Maturin, Milman—surrounding as it were the deathbed of the old lady, did their best to keep her in life, critical doctors shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders as if the labour were useless, and but a prolonging of the last inevitable agonies of a toothless, palsied, miserable old beldame, that had better die than live. She has not yet given up the ghost, however, nor is likely to do so in a hurry. Nevertheless the symptoms of dissatisfaction, so far from being silenced, are more frequent and doleful than ever, and are now directed not only against the dramatists, but also against the actors, there being no doubt that, to whatever cause it may be owing (probably it is very much due to that commonly assigned, the abolition of theatrical monopoly, which has distributed amongst a number of companies the histrionic talent formerly concentrated in two), it is extremely difficult to secure for a comedy, and almost impossible to secure for the highest tragedy, a strong and thoroughly good cast, so that from the protagonist down to the meanest performer every part is well fitted, and the result on the stage, with all the accompaniments of costume, scenery, and music, is a perfect whole, a true work of art. When, partly on this account—namely, the inefficiency of the actors—but partly also through a tendency which is inherent in all art, Mr Macready and other managers after him paid extraordinary attention to the dressing of the stage, so that cases have occurred, on the representation of a new piece, of the audience calling before the curtain, not the author who planned the whole of it, not the manager who brought it effectually to light, not the actors who stood forward as the chief interpreters of the play, but the scenic artist who, with his paint-pots and his Dutch foil, his muslin waterfalls and his paper moons, wrought in the gorgeous background,—dire were the denunciations hurled against those who seemed bent on transforming the theatre into a prodigious panoramic peep-show, to which the dialogue of the players has about the same merely accessory relation as the music of the orchestra. And these last are the most frequent cries, now that Mr Charles Kean has so far outstript his predecessors as almost to create an epoch in the history of the stage, by the production of spectacles which, for splendour and truth of representation, could, some years ago, have hardly been deemed possible. On the production of Sardanapalus, it was said that he had turned his theatre into a Gallery of Illustration, and that, properly read, his playbills invited the public to witness, not the Drama of Sardanapalus, but the Diorama of Nineveh.

Now, suppose that this, and worse than all this, is true—granting that the stage is in the worst state possible, let us compare the denunciations now directed against it with the description that Gifford gives of a period which we are accustomed to look back upon us a kind of golden age. It may be instructive to quote the passage, as a warning to those who may be disposed to howl too lugubriously over the fancied ruin of the drama. In the preface to the Mæviad, published in 1795, he writes as follows: “I know not if the stage has been so low, since the days of Gammer Gurton, as at this hour. It seems as if all the blockheads in the kingdom had started up, and exclaimed with one voice, ‘Come, let us write for the theatres.’ In this there is nothing, perhaps, altogether new; the striking and peculiar novelty of the times seems to be, that ALL they write is received. Of the three parties concerned in this business, the writers and the managers seem the least culpable. If the town will feed on husks, extraordinary pains need not be taken to find them anything more palatable. But what shall we say of the people? The lower orders are so brutified by the lamentable follies of O’Keefe, and Cobbe, and Pilon, and I know not who—Sardi venales, each worse than the other—that they have lost all relish for simplicity and genuine humour; nay, ignorance itself, unless it be gross and glaring, cannot hope for ‘their most sweet voices.’ And the higher ranks are so mawkishly mild that they take with a placid simper whatever comes before them; or, if they now and then experience a slight fit of disgust, have not resolution enough to express it, but sit yawning and gaping in each other’s faces for a little encouragement in their culpable forbearance.” Then, in a note to the Baviad, he speaks of a deep even lower than the bathos of O’Keefe. On referring to Morton, Reynolds, and Holcroft—to “Morton’s catchword,” to Reynolds’ “flippant trash,” and to “Holcroft’s Shug-lane cant”—he asks, “Will future ages believe that this facetious triumvirate should think nothing more to be necessary to the construction of a play than an eternal repetition of some contemptible vulgarity, such as ‘That’s your sort!’ ‘Hey, damme!’ ‘What’s to pay!’ ‘Keep moving!’ &c. They will: for they will have blockheads of their own, who will found their claims to celebrity on similar follies. What, however, they will never credit is, that these drivellings of idiotism, these catchwords, should actually preserve their respective authors from being hooted off the stage. No, they will not believe that an English audience could be so besotted, so brutified, as to receive such senseless exclamations with bursts of laughter, with peals of applause. I cannot believe it myself, though I have witnessed it. Haud credo—if I may reverse the good father’s position—haud credo, quia possibile est.” And not to quote further, let us but cite his description of the tragedy of the time:

“From first to last

Your joy is fustian, and your grief bombast;

Rhetoric has banished reason; kings and queens

Vent in hyperboles their royal spleens;

Guardsmen in metaphors express their hopes;

And ‘maidens, in white linen,’ howl in tropes.”

Terribly severe is all this—terrible for its truth. Gifford was not the man to write mincingly. Nor ought we, at the present day, to write mincingly of the iniquities and stupidities of the stage. But the fact is, that whatever be the shortcomings of the British stage at the present moment, and however much it may deserve the denunciations of criticism, it is incumbent on us to dwell on those indications of promise which are too much overlooked, rather than on the enormous deficiencies which are patent to every observer. Let us see whether the illustrative tendency of the time may not have its bright side as well as a dark, and may not have a higher purpose than spectacular effect.

It would indeed be a great mistake to imagine, that in the production of King Henry VIII., and the other dramas that went before it, the principal object of Mr Charles Kean was simply to place upon the stage a dazzling spectacle, and that his success as a manager has been due to a correct appreciation of the public taste in this matter. Were this the case, there would be nothing special in his managerial career. Brilliant spectacle is nothing new in the history of the theatre—and the history of the English theatre. In the days of James I., some of the stage properties were so very splendid, that we have read of certain lieges who were afraid lest the double-gilt magnificence of the tragedy-kings should cast the majesty of the real sovereign into shade, and so endanger the crown. However absurd and chimerical, what could be more gorgeous than the masques and pageants which were so common in those days? Our extravaganzas (counterparts, to a certain extent, of the ancient masque), although they are more appropriate in costume, and altogether more matter of fact, are not nearly so garish. Where, nowadays, shall we find a queen willing to act like Queen Anne of Denmark—she and the ladies of her court acting the negresses in Ben Jonson’s masque of Blackness? Such magnificence Mr Charles Kean assuredly cannot rival, and his claim to originality is not founded on the gorgeousness of the spectacle which he has placed before the footlights: he claims the praise of historical accuracy. It will be remembered how, in the playbill of his Macbeth—a curiosity in its way—he cited the authority of Diodorus Siculus, Pliny, Strabo, Xiphilin, Snorre, Ducange, and the Eyrbiggia Saga—(not bad for a playbill, the Eyrbiggia Saga!)—and in the not less remarkable programme of Sardanapalus, he lays so great a stress on the virtues of antiquarian research and historical fidelity, as not only to speak of his having learnt that scenic illustration, if it have the weight of authority, may adorn and add dignity to the noble works of genius; and to assert that in decoration of every kind, whether scenic or otherwise, he has, in the first instance, aimed at truth, with the grand object of conveying to the stage an accurate portraiture and a living picture of a bygone age; but also to point it out as a note-worthy fact that, until the present moment, it has been impossible to render Lord Byron’s tragedy of Sardanapalus upon the stage with proper dramatic effect, because until now we have known nothing of Assyrian architecture and costume; so that, according to this view, it is not enough to have for such plays an architecture and costume artistically correct—they must also be historically genuine. This magnifying of historical truth, this drifting from the open and trackless sea of fiction to the terra firma and unalterable landmarks of fact—a strong tendency to REALISM, is the chief characteristic of Mr Kean’s management. And it is observable not merely in his mode of placing a drama upon the stage, but in his own style of acting. Look at Louis XI.—look at Cardinal Wolsey, remarkable for the specification of little traits and details that serve to realise the character as much as possible in that style which has been called pre-Raphaelite.

Nor is this tendency peculiar to the management of the Princess’s Theatre. It is manifested in various ways on nearly every stage throughout the country, sometimes absurdly enough. A provincial theatre announces a grand chivalric spectacle, “with seven hundred pounds’ worth of real armour!” A New York theatre announces that the School for Scandal will be produced with magnificent carpets, mirrors, and genuine silver plate! Whittington and his Cat is produced with a real rat amongst the crowds of sham ones, only the sense of reality is destroyed by the terrier that plays the cat, forgetting his catskin and beginning to yelp. One of the City theatres, in announcing the Hertfordshire Tragedy, set forth that the very gig in which Thurtell drove his victim to be murdered, and the very table on which the pork-chops were afterwards devoured, would form part of the stage properties—being expressly engaged for this theatre. In contrast with such inane realism, one had considerable satisfaction in gazing on the dog which Launcelot Gobbo, in Mr Talfourd’s travesty of Shylock, so triumphantly led about—a toy-spaniel on wheels. It is perhaps unfair to quote in such a connection the latest vagary of this realistic tendency—a curious bit of pre-Raphaelitism—on the part of Messrs Tom Taylor and Charles Reade, who, intending in the King’s Rival to produce as complete a picture as possible of the times of Charles II.—with its wit and wantonness, courtesies, familiarities, periwigs, Mr Pepys, and Spring Gardens—actually brought Major Wildman on the stage, in shirt and breeches, wet and torn, and abominably plague-stricken, all the people flying from the unsightly wretch as from an Afrit of the horrible Kaf, or a Goul of the bottomless pit. And so, for the sake of presenting a picture of perfect accuracy, these authors chose to turn the theatre into a Chamber of Horrors. And since this pre-Raphaelitism, or an antiquarianism worse than pre-Raphaelitism, is the order of the day, we are sometimes surprised that none of the managers has seized upon that one of Shakespeare’s plays in which, of all others, there is room for the display of historical ingenuity, and all the originality of research. We allude to the Tempest, and hope they will make use of the idea, when we point out that as, according to Mr Kean, it was impossible to represent the Sardanapalus of Lord Byron upon the stage until Mr Layard made his discoveries at Nineveh; so, until about fifty years ago, when Mr Malone’s Essay on the Tempest was published, it was impossible to produce that play adequately in any theatre. The Rev. Joseph Hunter has attempted to identify the abode of Prospero with Lampedusa, an island half-way between Malta and the African coast, grounding his opinion upon this amongst other facts, that Lampedusa furnishes the Maltese with firewood, and Prospero sends Caliban forth to collect firewood! This, however, is but child’s-play to the labour of Malone, who not only succeeds in identifying the island with the Bermudas, but actually discovers the identical tempest that gives its name to the play—“the dreadful hurricane that dispersed the fleet of Sir George Somers and Sir Thomas Gates, in July 1609, on their passage with a large supply of provisions and men for the infant colony in Virginia, by which the Admiral ship, as it was called, having those commanders on board [‘some noble creatures’], was separated from the rest of the fleet, and wrecked on the Island of Bermuda.” Then come the incidental phrases descriptive of the storm that identify it with the Tempest—“Admiral ship parted from the rest of the fleet”—“they resolved to shut up the hatches”—“take leave of each other”—“ship struck upon a rock”—“most luckily thrown up between two, as upright as if she had been on the stocks”—“arrived in safety without the loss of a man”—“Bermodes”—“Isle of Devils”—“enchanted place”—“sea-monster in shape like a man”—“richest, pleasantest, most healthful place ever seen.” What a splendid hit Mr Kean or Mr Phelps would make if only some possible Mr Layard could be found who should go and excavate the cell of Prospero! Why not? Is there not perfect truth in what Mr Charles Mathews says:—“In France the dramatic authors have free permission to distort history ingeniously, on condition of being gay and witty. In England, provided we are true to history, we have free permission to be dull and tiresome.”

Now, if some of the phrases which we have been using, have been used correctly; if we have been right in speaking of the pre-Raphaelitism and realism of the theatre, it will be evident that the question as to the present state of the drama, in particular, resolves itself into a much wider question as to the present state of art generally. And the fact is, that the more narrowly we examine the sister arts, the more nearly do we find that they assimilate. In the pictorial art we find the same symptoms of disintegration and decay as in the dramatic; in both, we find the same elements of promise. Look at the walls of our exhibition-rooms, and behold the inanities that figure there, contemporary with the inanities of the theatre. This picture either displays as little action as a modern tragedy, or its action is as spasmodic as an Adelphi melodrama. In how many of these pictures do we find the artists compensating for bad drawing with gaudy colour, hiding vacancy of expression in a blaze of light, feebleness of passion in a tornado of shadows, and blundering perspective, aerial and linear, in a mist as convenient as the clouds by which the gods of Homer saved their heroes from the lances of the enemy? The very faults we find in the theatre! Eternal mannerism, staginess, mimicry, trickery, grimacing, catchwords, red lights and blue lights, and the name of the perruquier mentioned in the playbills in large letters! In how many pictures of naked legs in the last Exhibition, did you not recognise the calves of the gallant grenadier who is now fighting the battles of his country? That beard, that turban; we think we have seen the face of that Turkish Jew in at least fifty-seven pictures; and he so haunts us throughout the Exhibition-rooms in a thousand intolerable disguises—his long nose here, and his cold brown eye there, as if, after using him whole as long as possible, the artists at length cut him into little pieces, and made a division of his remains, that really it would be a pleasure to know that such had been his actual fate. It is the very vice of the stage, where we find Mr A—— (who plays the villains), or Mr B—— (who plays the enamoured young gentleman), or Mr C—— (who does the comic), eternally playing themselves, and through every possible transformation presenting us with the same legs and arms, and expressive nose and cracked voice. Whether on the boards or on the canvass, incapacity and commonplace issue in virtually the same results. And it so happens that if one were asked what are the most striking, the most note-worthy, or the most notorious peculiarities, at this moment, of our picture-galleries on the one hand, or of the theatres on the other, one must inevitably fix upon the pre-Raphaelitism of the one, and the Revivalism of the other, and recognise them as twins. Only it must be remembered that the pre-Raphaelitism of the picture-galleries is but one of the forms, although the most peculiar form, in which the tendency to realism is manifested. It is manifested not less determinately in the prominence given to portraiture—portraits of “men, women, and Herveys,” portraits of dogs, portraits of horses, portraits of prize oxen and pigs, and dead game, and black-faced ewes. The colouring which Gibson gives to his statues is a move in the same direction. And the tendency is symbolised and strengthened by the photographic art which has sprung up within the last few years, and promises, whether for good or for evil, to exercise so much influence on every easel throughout the country.

To come to the point then: What is the meaning of all this realism? If, with all the multiform absurdities in which it is manifested, it must nevertheless be admitted that all or most of the symptoms of vitality in the imitative arts are at the present moment expressed in this manner, what is the value of it?

The fact is, that whenever this tendency to realism is manifested with more than ordinary force (we were going to say, virulence), it is a most critical symptom. It is distinctive of what the old physicians would have called two separate climacterics in the history of art. It marks the infancy and the old age of art—the rise and the fall. It is just as in the individual man—at first in childhood, and at last in second childhood, he worships the real, and refuses to accept what he cannot believe in as absolutely and historically true. “But is it true?” inquires the child; “is it a fact?” says the old man. The precise difference between the realism of infancy and that of age is another matter to which we shall afterwards have to refer: at present we have only to do with their generic identity. And as the individual man is in almost every respect a miniature of the race, so we find this generic realism characteristic of at once the beginning and the end of art. In the middle space it culminates towards the pure azure of the ideal.

We are not sure, however, that this doctrine as to the periods of realism, evident as it would seem to be, will obtain the immediate acceptance of every reader: we are not sure, because the counter-view has more than once already been put forward—and by some of the critics in the present century has been maintained with great vigour, that art displays most imagination in its infancy, and that—as at once a proof and illustration of the fact—we find its most ancient works to be the best. While the doctrine, as commonly advanced, seems to make this wide and sweeping generalisation, it is of course more cautiously worded, so as to apply chiefly to poetry—epical and lyrical: as applied to the dramatic or imitative arts, there is such a mass of evidence against it, that it could safely be advanced only by implication. But it is not true even with reference to the narrative poet—call him what men will—bard, aoidos, minstrel, maker, minnesinger, scald. For observe, that the point in dispute is not whether the most ancient poets are the best; grant for a moment that they are: but wherein lies their distinguishing excellence? are they more imaginative than later ones? Nothing of the kind: the imaginative poets belong to what a geologist would call the pleiocene formation—a much later epoch. The elder bards are remarkable above all things for their truthfulness, their minute observation, their naturalness, their reality. Life, the present life in the present world, was to them an overwhelming reality, and they had no inclination, little need, to imagine a new world, and go and live in it. A most wonderful imagination they certainly displayed, but they were quite unconscious of the gift: they did not imagine, like Edmund Spenser or John Keats, for the sake of imagining; they did not dream for the mere pleasure of dreaming. Their pleasure in dreaming was a sub-conscious pleasure. Truth was the grand and ostensible object; and if the facts which they proposed to discover and describe were often mere fancies, still they were not recognised as fancies. A mere imagination they would have regarded as a mere lie. The so-called facts for which, in modern phrase, they were indebted to imagination, they professed to have received from reason, from memory, from inspiration, from veritable supernatural vision, always from a credible source. And here, indeed, lies the strength of the argument which refers the origin of verse to the requirements of memory, so that versification was in its first intention but a system of mnemonics. Right or wrong, that theory has been endorsed by illustrious names; and it must be admitted even by an opponent, that the whole tone of the elder poetry speaks in its favour. There is a tone of sincerity in the elder poets, as if they could not play with their subject, and as if upon them all had been bestowed the gift which a fairy is said to have bestowed upon Thomas of Ercildoune—the tongue that could not lie, the tongue that could not feign. They never seem to be telling tales; they are relating histories. They do not attempt to tickle the imagination; they are committing important and interesting facts to memory. And this also is the reason why the rhyming chroniclers—say Robert de Brunne, or Robert of Gloucester, who were nothing but rhymers—were nevertheless regarded as true poets. They narrated history in numerous verse: what more did those who were truly called poets profess to do? These latter made their narratives more interesting, but it was not recognised that the narratives were of a different kind. Psychological analysis had not yet penetrated so far as to discern imagination in the true poet, and none in the rhyming chronicler. It had not yet discovered that the office of the poet is more than this—viz., to tell what he knows faithfully, pleasingly, and in verse. Credibility was deemed the first virtue of the poet, the primrose of the poetical flora. What if their world be all or half unreal?—still they believed it to be real. As it is long before the poor mortals who have been snatched away to Elfland discover that all the splendour which surrounds them is but a dream, that the gold is dross, and the diamonds glass, and the brocades worsted, and the velvets cotton, and all unreality; even so the poets of a country (children kidnapped from a better world) do not all at once discover that the world they live in is wholly unreal, wholly ideal. They are, at first, the most extreme of realists.

It thus appears that even in poetry the early period is remarkable for its realism. The poets do not begin with sublimated fancies in the highest heaven of invention. The ascent of Mont Blanc is quite a modern feat. All that old Provençal minstrelsy—sirvente and chanson—murmurs at the foot of the Alps. And if this be true of poetry, it is much more true of the imitative arts—the drama, painting, and sculpture. If sculpture perished in the realism of Roman portraiture, it began with the realism of Egyptian mummy—inglorious attempt to preserve the real thing. The same law holds in painting. In his work on the North American Indians, Mr Catlin describes a little incident which furnishes a very good illustration of how a savage regards painting, and how the art in its infancy would infallibly be treated. In taking the likeness of one of these Indians, Mr Catlin proceeded to paint the shadow of the nose, to the no small bewilderment of the onlookers, who immediately found fault with the dark patch. He pointed out the shadow of the nose which it was intended to represent; but no—they were unable to understand; it was an injury to the countenance of their medicine-man; there must be no shadow, and without shadow the picture was painted. They insisted on his painting reality, not appearance. We find the counterpart of this in the old medieval pictures—all so shadowless. The feeling for shadow stole very gradually over the artistic mind. And in many other details one might note how the painter, in the early dawn of the art, seeks to represent the object before him, not as it appears to his eye at one particular moment, but as it is, or as he knows it to be, in reality. He knows, for example, that a hand is the flattened extremity of the arm, ending in five points; in his pictures, accordingly, the hand is invariably spread out with the unmistakable digits—one, two, three, four, five—always five. And we do not know that there is anything in the history of art more remarkable than the contrast between our present mode of regarding a picture, and that which we find current in the olden times. We regard a picture as a picture—a representation—a memory—an imagination. Three hundred years ago, it was the established formula of praise to say that it was a reality—the thing itself. One might still go farther back and recall the anecdotes told of the old Greek painters—of the horse neighing to the picture of a horse by Apelles, and the curious test which Zeuxis applied to one of his pictures, the birds coming to eat the grapes, which were thus shown to be well painted, but unterrified by the figure of the man who carried the grapes, which was thus shown to be badly painted.[13] And we might quote whole pages from Vasari to show how an artist and a critic of the cinque cento looked upon a work of art. We will quote but one or two sentences: “Every touch of the pencil,” says Vasari of one of Raphael’s Madonnas—“every touch of the pencil in the heads, hands, and feet of this work, has produced such effect that the parts seem rather to be of the living flesh than the mere colours of the painter.” Again, with reference to musical instruments in a picture of St Cecilia, he says, that they “lie scattered around her; and these do not seem to be merely painted, but might be taken for the real objects represented.” Yet again he says, “It may indeed with truth be declared that the paintings of other masters are properly to be called paintings, but those of Raphael may well be designated the life itself, for the flesh trembles, the breathing is made obvious to sight, the pulses in his figures are beating, and life is in its utmost animation through all his works.” Here we find still in force the old feeling after realism which is characteristic of the earliest period of art, and we find it coincident with a style of painting that more and more daily tended towards conventional treatment and idealisations—until at length, in course of time, ideality, having reached its highest point, passed into allegory, and in these allegories too often took the one venturesome step from the sublime to the ridiculous, so that we can scarcely regard Goldsmith as indulging in caricature when he described the painting of the Wakefield family, with Mrs Primrose as Venus, and the worthy doctor in a gown and bands presenting her with his books on the Whistonian controversy; Olivia, an amazon, dressed in a green Joseph; Sophia, a shepherdess, with plenty of sheep; and poor Moses with a hat and white feather. Let any one who doubts this turn to Rubens’ allegories descriptive of the life and reign of Marie de Medici, where naked young gentlemen appear at court beside ladies overladen with dress, where the caduceus fraternises with the crosier, and the queen grasps indifferently a thyrsus or a sceptre; where Mercury stands unabashed by the legate of the pope, his winged hat in delightful contrast with the red hat of the cardinal; and where one can hardly tell which is more terrible, the lion raging on earth, or the lion gloriously rampant amongst the signs of the Zodiac. And if now, against such bewildering allegory and algebraic generalisations, the caricature of ideality, we find the present generation of artists protesting with perhaps too much vehemence, and all more or less in one way or another—sometimes soberly, sometimes extravagantly—returning again to realism, what are we to say? Is it the art of painting sinking into dotage, or the art of painting renewing its youth? Certainly, whatever faults have been attributed to the realists of our time, we are not aware that they have ever been charged with the sin of paralytic senility.

The charge of senility might be brought with far more appropriateness against the drama in its present state, although, even as applied to the drama, one cannot choose but indulge the belief that it is too severe. If we detect at one and the same time a tendency to excessive realism in the drama, and in the pictorial and plastic arts, it is difficult to believe that what, with all its extravagance, is symptomatic of youth and progress in the one, should be symptomatic only of decrepitude and ruin in the other. These arts are so nearly allied that one might almost say they rise and fall together. At all events, their history is the same, and runs the same cycles. We have spoken of the realism out of which painting and sculpture spring. Like painting and sculpture, the drama springs out of realism the most extreme: it springs out of lyricism. The lyric, strictly speaking, and in its fundamental idea, is an expression of the real feelings of the singer himself: he is not a lyrist, but a dramatist, who gives expression to the supposed feelings of other people. The true lyrist sings because he cannot help singing—a dirge because he is sad, an elegy because he mourns the loss of a friend, pœans because he is joyful, sapphics because he is in love, anacreontics because he has tasted the pleasures of wine. And so with every lyrical art; it is the irrepressible ebullition of a genuine feeling. Take dancing, for example. The ballet, as every one understands, is not natural dancing; the ballet-dancers are not true children of Terpsichore (she is their step-mother, if you like). Every one understands that in its central idea dancing is the expression of a real, not an assumed feeling on the part of the dancer: he dances for joy—he dances because the music excites him to motion. Music is, in fact, the redeeming principle of dancing on the stage and for show: without music it would be meaningless. The orchestra furnishes to the apprehension of every spectator a sufficient reason for the evolutions of the dancer, so that the dancing is but the visible incarnation of the melody. And music in this way preserves, to a certain extent, the lyrical character of the ballet, all the gyrations and saltations of which appear to be the natural consequences of a genuine feeling, which has been created by the music, and which the spectators have in common with the corps de ballet, and therefore know to be real. Thus, even when it mounts the stage, the lyrical art must authenticate itself; even in assuming a dramatic form, the lyric must attempt to establish its own veracity in the highest and strictest sense—its own reality.

Now it is out of such realism that the drama by every natural process arises. And we are not theorising when we say this. It is a well-known fact, that the Greek drama—the tragedy not less than the comedy—sprung out of the Dionysiac festivals, and the drunken dithyrambic revelry of its songs and dances; and there is no theory in the world that can half so well illustrate the relation of the lyric proper to the drama proper, as the history of the rise of the histrionic art in Greece. There the ancient worshippers sang their choral odes to the great Dionysus—Dionysus, not merely the god of wine, but the very vital principle of nature. They hymned his praises with extraordinary fervour—with such enthusiasm, in fact, that they passed beyond the merely lyrical expression of admiration and devotion into the dramatic imitation of his traditional exploits. As the god of Nature, he was the god of endless transformations, and these enthusiastic revellers not only sang the glories and the eclipses of the changing year, but in the height of the inflamed zeal which carried them away, enacted in their own persons, and according to certain typical traditions of Satyrs and Fauns, Dryads and Hamadryads, the stupendous mysteries of physical mutation. They assumed the goatlike appearance of Satyrs; they dashed about like woodland nymphs; Pan became innumerable; Silenus appeared in a thousand reflections. It is utterly prosaic to speak of these hirsute appendages, multitudinous horns, leaves covering the face, the manifold strange disguises assumed by the populace, as if they were the mere masks and dominoes of a modern revel. They were much more than masks and dominoes. They were the poetical costume of the characters with which, in all the heat and flush of wine, the worshippers identified themselves. It was an extravagant fanaticism by which, in celebrating the joys and the sorrows of Dionysus, they passed out of themselves, ceased to sing of the god as far away, and of his history as belonging to the olden time, and suddenly became there and then that which they celebrated;—an extravagance to which a parallel may be found even in some of the phases of the Christian religion, as amongst not a few of the extremer Protestant fanatics, and notably in Catholic countries amongst the mystics—the Estatica, rising beyond the lyrical mood of adoration and enraptured gazing, suddenly stretching forth her arms and limbs until they become cruciform, and so standing entranced and dramatised, until actually, by a peculiarly subtle sympathy, which the physiologists regard as not inexplicable, the stigmata may be traced on the hands and feet. And so it ever happens that the dramatic is evolved out of the lyrical—the assumed out of the real—the representative impersonation out of the genuine sentiment. It is an historic fact that the drama, with its myriad personalities, is generated from the lyric, as the colours of the prism form a ray of pure light; and that, as for example in the Greek Æschylus, and the English Marlowe, it is in its earliest development imbued with lyricism. In other words, it is at first essentially Realistic.

But here arises a question to which we have already referred. If the imitative arts begin with realisation, and end in realisation, what is the difference between the beginning and the end? What is the difference between the child looking up in your face, and saying, “But is it true?” and the old man asking, “Is it a fact?” We must beg pardon if we attempt to answer that question by help of a little psychology.

The Scottish philosophers talk a great deal about the fundamental beliefs of the human mind, one of the most important of these being our belief in the uniformity of nature. Granted—that we have a general belief in the constancy of nature, and in this faith expect that the future shall be as the past. But with the usual meagreness of the elder Scottish psychologists, and with an absence of scientific precision that is also too frequent, they stated the law very loosely: they stated the law, not as we find it aboriginal in the human mind, but as we find it corrected by experience. In its aboriginal form, the belief may be stated thus: whatever is, must be, and could not have been otherwise—whatever happens, happens of necessity. A child accepts every event in this simple faith, and it is often exceedingly difficult to convince the little soul that what has happened once, may not and will not happen again. Experience comes with years, and corrects the stringency of the law; the idea of accident enters, and while a general belief in the constancy of nature still remains, it no longer usurps the throne of absolute law. Perhaps the process goes even further, until at length, in the mind’s dotage, certainty is banished from our expectations, the muse of history becomes the most incredible of Cassandras, and the whole world lies dead before us and around us, with men and women rattling over it like dice from a dice-box. And here we detect precisely the difference between the realism of childhood and poetry, and the realism of dotage and prose. The child in everything perceives the element of necessity; the old man perceives only the element of contingency. In particulars, the child perceives the universal; the old man perceives in particulars only the particular. This makes all the difference between prose and poetry. In the intermediate space between infancy and dotage, dissatisfied with the real, we create an ideal world, where all is necessary and universal. There is nothing true in history, says Horace Walpole, save the names and the dates; and so we pass into fiction, where the names and the dates are the only things that are not true. But at the two poles the ideal is forgotten. At the one—namely, in the youth of men or of nations—the real supplies its place, being viewed in that generality, necessity, eternity—call it what you will—which is the condition of the ideal. At the other—namely, in the decline of individuals or of nations—the real is all in all; and it is nothing but the real, just as in the case of Peter Bell,—

“A primrose by the river’s brim,
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.”

It will be observed that, in contrasting the two poles of realism, we have not made any allusion to the absence or the presence of imagination; and this because the word is so liable to misconception. But if we are correct in distinguishing the realism of youth from the realism of senility, by saying that in the one case every circumstance is recognised as a necessity, every detail is viewed as eternally and universally true, while in the other all is more or less regarded as chance-work, which might or might not have been—what is this but saying, that in the one case facts appeal to the imagination, in the other merely to sense? It is the imagination that magnifies insular facts into continental truths, and immortalises momentary feelings by raising them into eternal laws. The Imagination is, par excellence, the faculty of generalisation—a fact which the psychologists commonly overlook. It indeed always regards the concrete, always regards the individual; and that is the great fact which the psychologists are accustomed to dwell upon, while at the same time they overlook the principal characteristic of imagination, which is this, that it never regards the individual merely as an individual, nor the concrete merely as a concrete; it regards the individual as representative of a species, and the concrete as a type of something more general. The imagination is to our other faculties what Cuvier or Owen is to other men. Give to Professor Owen a single bone—even the single bone of an extinct animal, and he will determine the size and position of every other bone, and the entire structure of the bird or beast. Give to the imagination a single fact, and it has the same marvellous significance, and myriads of other facts link on to it by the most inevitable obligation. And it is because in this temper the youthful mind seizes upon facts, that even when it clings to them far more tenaciously, and dwells upon them far more minutely than superannuated minds do, its realism has a worth and a hopefulness to which any other kind of realism can make no pretensions. The realism of dotage is gossip—merest gossip. The lace in a Dutch portrait—every thread and loop painted, what is it but old wives’ gossip? Compare this uninteresting imitation of point lace, velvets, and silks and satins, with the young Titian painting in the eye of one of his figures the reflection of a window. This is the realism of a boy, that is the realism of old women.

The drift of our argument will now be apparent. We have shown that the distinguishing feature of the modern drama is its tendency to Realism, and that it exhibits this tendency at present in common with the other imitative arts. We have also shown that the tendency to realism is characteristic of art in two periods of its history—namely, its rise and its decline; and we have endeavoured to explain the difference between the realism that characterises the rise of art, and the realism that marks its decadence. Then here arises the question of questions: To which period does the realism that signalises at present the imitative arts in general, and the dramatic art in particular, belong? Is it the realism of progress, or the realism of decay? It is the most difficult question of all; at least, it is the question to which it is most difficult in our present circumstances to give a very decided answer. Having stated the law and summed up the evidence, we should certainly be glad to shift to a jury the responsibility of pronouncing an absolute verdict as to the question of fact. The difficulty of pronouncing such a verdict is easily accounted for. In a period which is one of revival and not of imitation, it is most natural that we should find the two kinds of realism more or less blending together—the literalness of an exhausted epoch, and the faithfulness of a regenerated life. And amid all the pre-Raphaelitism of the stage and of the picture-galleries, it is nothing wonderful that we should find much to condemn, much of that literalness which is unworthy and imbecile. When, to quote an extreme instance—when Thurtell’s gig, with “some of the real water from the pond,” is exhibited on the boards of the Surrey Theatre, it is such another exhibition as we find in the degradation of the Roman drama—a degradation, by the way, which old Thomas Heywood describes as amongst the highest honours of the drama. There is so much naïveté in his description that we shall quote it:—

“Julius Cæsar himself, for his pleasure, became an actor, being in shape, state, voice, judgment, and all other occurrents, exterior and interior, excellent. Amongst many other parts acted by him in person, it is recorded of him that, with general applause in his own theatre, he played Hercules Furens; and, amongst many other arguments of his completeness, excellence, and extraordinary care in his action, it is thus reported of him: Being in the depth of a passion, one of his servants (as his part then fell out) presenting Lychas, who before had from Dejanira brought him the poisoned shirt, dipt in the blood of the centaur Nessus, he, in the middest of his torture and fury, finding this Lychas hid in a remote corner (appointed him to creep into of purpose), although he was, as our tragedians use, but seemingly to kill him by some false imagined wound, yet was Cæsar so carried away with the violence of his practised fury, and by the perfect shape of the madness of Hercules to which he had fashioned all his active spirits, that he slew him dead at his foot, and after swung him, terque quaterque (as the poet says) about his head. It was the manner of their emperors in those days, in their public tragedies, to choose out the fittest amongst such as for capital offences were condemned to die, and employ them in such parts as were to be killed in the tragedy, who of themselves would make suit rather to die with resolution, and by the hands of such princely actors, than otherwise to suffer a shameful and most detestable end.”

And this, which honest old Heywood is willing to commend because done by an emperor, is in fact, parvis componere magna, the exact parallel to the incident already mentioned—the rat-killing in the pantomime of Whittington and his Cat. It is parallel also, in a certain degree, to one of Mr Phelps’s early extravagances, who, in his determination to adhere to the text of Shakespeare, actually ended Macbeth by the exhibition of the traitor’s head—“Reenter Macduff, with Macbeth’s head on a pole.” One is inclined to believe that had he not been himself the Macbeth of the evening, he would have made arrangements to exhibit the veritable head of the actor who performed the part.

But while it is impossible to deny the existence of such a baneful realism, is this all? and does there not predominate at the same time a far more healthy tendency? Are not Mr Charles Kean’s revivals of King John and Macbeth—are not Mr Phelps’s revivals, notwithstanding his early vagary—of this kind? Is not, for example, the historic fidelity with which Macbeth is represented in the Princess’s Theatre, something entirely different in kind from that species of realism which in the soliloquy,

“Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle towards my hand?”

actually exhibited a dagger hanging in the air? There can be very little doubt of it; and it may be said generally that the realism displayed is most frequently of the earnest and healthy sort. If any misgiving should arise with regard to this in the case of the drama, one has a right to refer to the realism manifested at the very same time in the kindred art of painting, and if not entirely to interpret the one by the other, still to regard the analogy as of great importance. There are many of us who cannot admire pre-Raphaelitism, with all its extravagance and presumption, but at all events we do not regard its faults as the results of mental paralysis. They are the faults of youth, not of age—of the pleasant springtime which the pre-Raphaelites love to paint, when the leaves come forth in all their delicacy, almost diaphonous against the light, so that we trace the tender veins and fibres in all their minute windings—not of the yellowing autumn, when again all nature comes before us with excessive minuteness of detail, but the detail of faded leaves and the curious reticulation of their skeletons.

Right or wrong, it is at least more pleasant to look thus hopefully on the future of the drama than to fold one’s hands, shrug one’s shoulders, and give up all as lost. The drama! they say—fiddlesticks! the drama has all gone to the opera. Very well: and why should not the drama go to the opera? the music will do it no harm—on the contrary, a great deal of good. It is quite true that the opera, or, to speak more generally, the musical tendencies of the present time, act to the hurt of the existing theatres; but pity the man who ventures to dream that the fortunes of the British drama are to be identified with the fortunes of the present theatres, as at present conducted. On the contrary, it would probably be no great misfortune to the British drama, if, with one or two exceptions, they were all burnt to the ground; and however adverse to the drama the present musical taste may appear to be, it is not so really, but full of promise, if the dramatists would only see and use the opportunity. What is the use of running down illustration, dioramas, and concerts? Would it not be better for the dramatists to write up to them? The British drama has at the present moment two special haunts—the theatre and the concert-hall. It is needless for the dramatic authors to complain that their pieces are damned. Who cares for their pieces? All they have to say has no relation to our present habitudes and thoughts. If they will write for the theatres, let them write something worthy of illustration, and be as realistic in their writing as Mr Kean is in his acting, and in his stage appointments. And let them invade the concert-halls, where a new drama is springing up for the amusement of those who cannot away with the theatre.

Their position in the theatre at present is not good, is not creditable to them as a body, although we are far from looking on it with despair, and are far from saying that Othello’s occupation is gone. It may be worth our while to recognise clearly the position which the drama has always occupied in this country.

“Shikspur? Shikspur? who wrote it?” says Kitty, in High Life below Stairs, when the worshipful Lady Bab asks her if she had never read Shikspur. There are perhaps not many Mrs Kitties of the present day who would give a similar answer. But although the name of the great dramatist has become a household word amongst us, and his works are perhaps better known than those of any other writer in the language, he is known rather as an author to be read than as a dramatist whose plays are to be witnessed. It is not to be denied that upon the great majority of the British people, and especially of the middle classes, the theatre has had little or no influence. It is utterly ignored by them. From the days of Elizabeth and James, when the mayor and aldermen of London did what they could to discountenance the drama, and to oust Shakespeare and Burbage from the Blackfriars’ Theatre, up to this present hour, the playhouses, frequented by the aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy of education, and the players honoured as “His Majesty’s Servants,” or, “The Lord Chamberlain’s Company,” have been regarded with suspicion by the sober citizens of the middle class. When the theatres rose into importance, the Puritans rose into importance, and the former have never recovered from the denunciations of the latter. These denunciations, it is true, were often most intemperate, and based on the most ridiculous grounds (as when Gosson denounced the acting of women’s parts by boys as the sin which brought the fiery judgment of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah), yet when in so many of the plays of the period, and still more of the profligate reign of the second Charles, we find profanity, obscenity, and hardness of heart presented as the most brilliant of qualities, it is nothing wonderful that the commonalty should have been estranged. From the memory of those impurities the theatre has never entirely recovered, and there are multitudes among us nowadays who regard it as little better than a lazaretto. It has indeed been very much altered, so that in every respectable theatre he must be nearly as squeamish as those Americans who are said by Sam Slick to have put trousers on the legs of their pianofortes, who is offended with what he sees or hears: and yet still the old repugnance remains; as if, like the man who had the devil cast out of him, the people regard it as a house swept and garnished only to receive seven other devils worse than before. The fact is, that it is not enough to introduce a negative morality into the theatres: it is not enough that the old devil should have been smoked out, and the house swept and garnished, if we find no positive substitute. It is a genuine and noble substitute that is wanted, not electroplate, nor nickel silver. The most offensive part of stage morality at present is its hypocrisy. We should infinitely prefer seeing the downright licentiousness of Etherege and Sedley to the sham sentiment and the canting virtues that sometimes take the place of it on the modern stage—we mean especially in the afterpieces. The former is an open enemy, the other a disguised one. And until we have true poetry in the sentiment, and true chivalry in the action, and that reverence which is implied in poetry and chivalry, it is not likely that the English people, as a whole, will ever look to the theatres. At present, the greater number of dramatic writers seem to expend their energies in the most ephemeral manner. The burlesques and pantomimes, we have said, are about the best things produced on the British stage. They are often very amusing, and display a strange prodigality of power—but power all run to seed. The wit consists of punning; the humour consists of practical jokes, horrible grimace, and elaborate buffoonery; the dialogue is in the vernacular of the London taverns and caves of harmony;[14] the plot is not simply improbable, it is impossible and incomprehensible; the characters are little better than marionettes, and their sentiments the sentiments of puppets. Of course there are exceptions, and brilliant ones they are. Bulwer Lytton, Sheridan Knowles, Douglas Jerrold, Charles Reade, and a few others, have shown what they can do in a more serious vein. But, as a whole, the dramatic literature of the day is, as it has ever been since the Restoration, more remarkable for quantity than quality. Few persons out of London, and not many even in London, are well acquainted with that literature, the extent of its surface, the multiplicity of its currents, its utter shallowness, and the incredible mud that lies at the bottom of it; and were we to attempt a very slight analysis of its contents, run up a few statistics, give one or two extracts, and, in a word, describe it in its proper colours, a tale would probably be unfolded which would not only somewhat astonish those who, living in the provinces, seldom or never enter a theatre, and are thus blessedly ignorant of the carrion fare on which metropolitan playgoers fatten at half-price, but would also make some of those who frequent the dramatic temple not a little ashamed that afterpieces which are unreadable for their insipidity,[15] disgusting for their bad taste, and still worse, contemptible, although not so much for their licentiousness as for the cant and tremendous humbug of their hypocritical moralities, should have power, in the hands of a clever actor, to charm the purer sensibilities of their nature to sleep, so that, as if glamour had been cast in their eyes, trickery and tinsel pass for reality, falsehood appears to be true, evil good, and ugliness beautiful. In such a state of things it is not likely that the theatre should achieve a popularity which it has never enjoyed; and certainly its entire spirit must be revolutionised ere it can find a large welcome in the heart of the nation. Read the modern novelists and read the modern dramatists, and observe the difference of tone. There is in the common run of modern dramas—whether tragedy, comedy, or farce—such an utter absence of noble purpose, that not a whole army of claqueurs could ever succeed in establishing their popularity.

The fact is, the Muse of the British drama seems at this moment inclined to vacate the theatres, and to take up her abode in the halls and concert-rooms. Like the old fairies of the story-books, who, disgusted with the treatment they receive in one family, go and bestow their favours on the household next door, the dramatic Muse—a very old fairy indeed—is tired of the position assigned to her in the theatres. What is that? On the ceiling, gracefully gyrating round the gaselier, are the four lightly-draped muses of the theatre, with dagger, and mask, and harp, and castanets in hand, while certain naked amorini carry festoons of flowers before them, and from every jutty, frieze, and coign of vantage on the cornice, horned satyrs and ivy-crowned bacchantes leer out with astonishment. The Muse of the British drama is tired of dancing over the gaselier, dancing over our heads, and wishes to come down to our hearts, and so she enters the music-halls and concert-rooms, where she patronises two distinct classes of entertainments, the one more strictly lyrical, the other more strictly dramatic.

With regard to the more musical kind of entertainment, it must have been observed, that while songs and ballads, and instrumentation have a large sphere assigned to them, the operatic airs are day by day assuming more and more importance. It is quite true that a cavatina sung in a concert-room is very different from the same cavatina sung on the stage. The singing in a concert-room is like the singing of statues—so expressionless. We would rather not look at a concert-singer—one who is merely a concert-singer. Goethe makes the same remark with respect to singers generally. They remind one of the ludicrous story which the monks report of St Benedict,—that he was heard singing psalms two or three weeks before he was born, and saw the light of day. You hear these singers singing long before their faces are born, long before they attain the life of expression. Exceptions of course there are occasionally, and chiefly when a duet, a trio, or a quartette is to be sung. And it requires only an operatic singer, whose reputation as prima donna or primo tenore will excuse such a liberty, to throw a truly dramatic expression into the solos, for the practice to become general. Why should not some attempt be made by those who can, to escape from the starched formality of the concert-room—to forget that they are in dress boots and white gloves—and to impart somewhat of the animation of the theatre into the pieces of music which they hold so affectionately in their hands, because it saves their hands from even the inclination to gesticulate? And with glee and madrigal unions in every town, why do not the dramatists see their opportunity, and infuse somewhat more of the dramatic element into those part songs, out of which in time a little drama might arise? Everything has its insignificant beginnings, and, discreetly managed, the incoherence of our concerts might gradually be developed into the organic unity of the drama. It is coming to this, in fact. The music-halls are becoming theatres under a new and unobjectionable name.

With regard to the more dramatic entertainments that are so popular in those public halls, the new life is still more apparent. We do not simply refer to dramatic readings, although these too have a vast influence—an influence as superior to that of the Elgin marbles in the British Museum, to which we once heard the plays of Shakespeare irreverently compared, as the spell of the Ladye of Branksome, who could raise the spirits to her bidding, was to the power of William of Deloraine, who lifted the massy tombstone, and fetched the mystic book from the coffin of the departed wizard; an influence, too, as superior to that of the rhapsodists who travelled through the cities of Greece reciting the lays of Homer (for they recited these lays in detached fragments), as the palace of Aladdin, built in a night, is superior to the single brick that Scholasticos carried about with him as a specimen of the house which he wanted to sell. It is needless to dwell, however, upon this influence, important and ennobling though it be, because its tendency is to keep alive the memory of the past; and we wish rather to indicate the new life that is stirring. Albert Smith’s Ascent of Mont Blanc is the best specimen of a class of entertainments that are now very popular—perhaps the most popular of all, and which, when further and duly developed, promise to rival the present theatres. Mr Albert Smith goes to Mont Blanc, returns, gets Mr Beverley to paint the scenes through which he travelled, and enlivens those scenes by the description and impersonation of what he saw and heard. We have no doubt that Mr Smith’s entertainment is far more amusing, far more intellectual, and ten thousand times more artistic, than anything of the kind which England could furnish in the thirteenth or fourteenth century; and he will not resent the comparison if we say that he reminds us of the holy palmers and pilgrims who, in those crusading centuries, returned from Palestine, and with the aid of rude pictures—“the city of Jerusalem, with towers and pinnacles,—Old Tobye’s House,—A Fyrmament with a fyry cloud, and a double cloud,”—attempted in miracle plays and mysteries to convey an idea of the scenes they themselves had witnessed in the Holy Land, or of the events which in the olden time had been enacted there, and so laid the foundations of a theatre that ultimately grew into the fair proportions of the Elizabethan drama, as the rude earthwork which Romulus in the Palilia founded on the Palatine, grew in greatness and in pride, until it embraced the seven hills, a city of palaces and the marble mistress of the world. We might have run the comparison still more closely, if we had not forgotten for the moment Mr Smith’s Eastern Travels and Overland Route. No matter. In these entertainments we find a certain resemblance to the miracle plays out of which the modern drama was developed; and do we not also find a certain nineteenth century likeness of the ancient moralities, in these life-dramas, death-dramas, and devil-dramas, in which our young poets delight to sow their wild oats; giving us all manner of caprices for imagination, hysterics for passion, revolting descriptions for the sublime, soliloquy for dialogue, and dialogue for action? Yea, verily, and out of all these elements we are not without hope that a drama may yet arise more worthy of fame than that which at present exists. But again, we repeat, no more Shakespearean imitations, and legitimate suicide; let the dramatists be wise in their generation, accept the tendencies of the time, and think the thoughts and wear the dress of this year 1856.

LESSONS FROM THE WAR.

The glimpse of peace just afforded us is almost as startling as the news of battle, so general has been the impression that the war must inevitably continue. Peace on such satisfactory grounds as are probable will descend on the heated nation like dew. Those who, after sending forth their sons, brothers, lovers, to the war, have been steeling themselves in the Spartan school, scarcely daring to hope again to see their soldier alive and unwounded, trying to believe that if they see him no more they will lament for him only with the chastened grief due to him who falls in arms, will have all their sternness melted in their breasts to warm soft hope. The soldier himself, shivering on those desolate Crimean plains before an invisible foe, and casting many a prolonged mental glance to the homes of England, will see the red glories of the anticipated campaign contrasted vividly with the cool fresh tints of peace—peace, a word to him suggestive hitherto of dim and dubious delights, once his, but perhaps to be his no more, and only to be dwelt on for a few short moments when some echo from England had quenched the ever-present din of arms. And, to touch on lower though yet more wide-spreading interests, there are many to whom the sordid thought, that they will no more be called on to contribute the share of expense which, in one form or another, was exacted from them by the war, will bring more pleasure than any accession of glory to England. For ourselves, peace on the basis of unconditional acceptance by Russia of the terms dictated by Austria, will leave us nothing to regret. But, turning for a space from this newer topic, let us glance at the position in which these chances of peace have found us, and speak, as it is still sound policy to speak, as though there were certain to be war in the coming year.

Like one who struggles in a fog through a quagmire, England has passed through the late campaign. Advancing a few paces, plunging waist deep, pausing in bewilderment, tenfold increased by the clamour of the volunteer guides who throng officiously to the brink, and, if often supported, yet also sometimes encumbered, by the companion-hand linked in hers, she has attained a temporary halting-place. Myriad-voiced instructions, mostly resolving themselves into the simple and valuable injunction to “go in and win,” were, up to Russia’s acceptance of the proposals, still echoing from all points of the compass—many a lantern, trustworthy as an ignis fatuus, glimmered through the surrounding mist. Disregarding for a time the well-meant attentions of these numerous advisers, we may attempt to throw on the devious track of the past some light uncoloured by the tints of party-spirit or of popular feeling, and so try to obtain some guidance for the future.

Glancing at the past year, we see the British army in new and strange alliance with its foe of centuries. Its leaders were either untried men, or men from whom, as previous trial had shown, nothing very remarkable was to be expected. Under such circumstances, the army was required to satisfy the expectations, not merely of a sovereign or a government, but a people. Accepting it as inevitable that the people will, in the absence of a strong government, virtually charge themselves with the conduct of the war, let us at least attempt to infuse into the collective wisdom of the nation the elements of deliberation, wholesome doubt, and self-restraint. To speak either of the pity or the scorn with which the more thoughtful and comprehensive order of spirits view a whole people, who claim to be the heirs of vast experience and civilisation, blindly clamouring after some blind leader at every turn of affairs, might answer no other purpose than to excite popular hostility. Yet to know that many of those to whom the nation cannot refuse its respect view with contempt, regret, or compassion the ordinary expression of popular opinion—to know that its most positive enunciations are held as akin to the sagacity of Dogberry and Verges—to know that the angels may well be deemed to weep at the consequences of its fantasies—might excite, even in the most determined advocate of the might, majesty, and power of the people, some obscure sensation of self-distrust and shame.

After for many years regarding their army either with indifference or dislike, and systematically confining it within the narrowest limits possible, the English people, at the outbreak of the war, dismissed their troops to the scene of action with such boastful applause as would have been unbecoming if offered by a nation which had made military glory its chief aim, to a veteran army habituated to victory. Anticipations were raised which it would be nearly impossible to realise, and to fall short of which would be disgrace. Forty years before, a small English army, composed of marvellous troops led by a marvellous man, had stemmed the progress of Napoleon, achieving exploits which, though meeting at the time with much detraction, eventually raised our soldiers to the first rank in the estimation of the world. Since then, public attention had been turned to totally different matters with great success; and we had distinguished ourselves by so many achievements in science and art, and had become so accustomed to lead the way in the pursuits of peace, that for any power to presume to dispute our supremacy was regarded as an impertinence calling for a chastisement, the promptness and weight of which it would be absurd to doubt.

Hitherto our object had been to attain a military establishment which should offer no shadow of offence to the most enthusiastic admirer of liberty, or the most ardent votary of progress. When with this object it was found desirable to combine the totally different one of possessing an irresistible force in war, some error was apparent in the result of the process; and the first impulse of our philosophic and reasoning nation was anger—at first directed on no one in particular, but after a time on all concerned in the conduct of the war, without any other distinction of persons than that arising from the respective shares borne in its administration, and consequent amount of presumed criminality. By some unknown process of logic, it was concluded that a sweeping change in the conductors of the war would restore our credit as a military power, and that a general and minister or two officially buried would be as the dragon’s teeth, from whence heroes would spring. Accordingly, some were dismissed, and some abused, pour encourager les autres.

Public attention was now riveted closely on the war, to the absolute exclusion of all other topics. Intelligence of all kinds was eagerly demanded; and those whose business it is to supply the want, could, with all their efforts, scarcely write up to the demand. Private correspondence from the seat of war was eagerly sought and extensively published, and columns set apart for “Letters from the Camp;” the special correspondence of the daily press was copied into other journals; leading articles in periodicals daily, weekly, and monthly, were founded on the information thus received, and the exaggerated statements were sometimes coloured still more highly; and popular opinion, thus originated and formed, began to exercise so powerful a pressure on the Parliament and the Government, that a glance at its sources becomes especially important.

It is useless to argue the question of whether it is on the whole more advantageous to publish or to suppress intelligence of the projected operations, or the state of the army, since the public curiosity on these heads will continue to be gratified at all hazards. The best means were adopted for obtaining intelligence, and conveying it in a pleasant form. The special correspondents of the newspapers are of course men of great ability. No expense or trouble would be spared to secure writers capable of satisfying the high requirements of the daily press; and their letters from the camp display great literary power. As pictures of life in the field, their correspondence is of the greatest value; as a guide to public opinion on the progress of the war, we may, without offence, consider it far less satisfactory. No one pretends that these gentlemen possessed either any exclusive means of obtaining information, or any aptitude for judging of the nature, progress, and success of the operations they witnessed, beyond that which any intelligent spectator might claim. The language in which they talk of the operations of the campaign is rather a military slang than the technical expression of military art, and resembles the latter only as the work of a poetaster resembles that of a poet. Nothing would be easier than to make a collection of leading articles founded on the information thus derived, and show them to be a mere jumble of absurdity. Yet this was the kind of writing which, by appealing to a circle of readers sufficiently large to constitute the public, exercised an important effect on the administration of the war. Very different was the style of an article which appeared in the Moniteur, descriptive of the conduct of the campaign, the facts of which were supplied apparently from public documents, and which was evidently written by a man of military attainments.

It would be scarcely fair to criticise closely the letters of officers, which, intended only for the perusal of their friends at home, were often, by the indiscretion of those friends, and to the annoyance of the writers, made public. It is a very common and excusable weakness for a man to avail himself, perhaps unconsciously, of a little exaggeration in the incidents he describes, when by so doing he may become a greater hero to the domestic circle; an exaltation which, far from doing harm to any one, forms one of the cases where it is delightful to be imposed on. Each family that has a member serving with the army, sees but one figure in the foreground of every scene of the campaign. In success the figure is a hero, in time of suffering a martyr. Every one likes to appear in the former character; but there were some who, during the most trying period of the campaign, too solicitous for sympathy, gave vent to lamentations which, if fortitude under privation be a virtue, must be considered unsoldierlike and unmanly.

Upon such correspondence were founded the lucubrations of those writers at home who undertook to instruct us on the war; and if military science be necessary to a right understanding of military affairs, they must be admitted to be deficient in an important element. We put the case hypothetically, because, if military science be necessary to a right understanding of military affairs, many of our self-constituted teachers must be convicted of presumptuous absurdity. Men who would never think of interfering with the most obscure country doctor in his treatment of their sick friend—who would trust blindly to their legal adviser in a question threatening character or property—who employ architects to plan their houses, and masons to build them, and, if the structure do not answer their expectations, never think of insinuating that they could have done it better themselves, are all ready to originate or amend the plan of a campaign, to censure those intrusted with its conduct, and to interfere in its most technical particulars. Clergymen, whose warfare has hitherto been waged only with the enemy of mankind, expatiate largely on the best mode of annoying our material foe; doctors abandon the study of the nervous for that of the military system; and Satan’s occupation of finding mischief for idle hands is for the present gone; for every idler thinks himself competent to discuss and advise in a military question. Modest men, diffident of giving opinions even on subjects open to general discussion, may be heard in all companies, praising and condemning with the confidence of the most accomplished critics. All are ready to quote in support of their views the opinions of the most celebrated generals; yet, while mentioning them with the greatest respect, seem to think that excellence in the profession in which they earned their reputation is attainable by the lowest capacity. A certain degree of reserve is generally practised by those who undertake to instruct the public on topics of popular interest, but no man seems to doubt the genuineness of his inspiration on any present, past, or future phase of the war; and in pamphlet, letter, or leader, he hastens to impart his light.

While regarding the pretensions of these tacticians and strategists as about as respectable as those of barber-surgeons in pharmacy, inspired cobblers in religion, or gypsies in divination, we do not think that any amount of study or previous training renders a man’s opinions really valuable, unless he has personally visited the scene of war, and is acquainted with the topographical features of the theatre of operations. Such an acquaintance as we speak of, neither descriptions nor maps can adequately afford. We have known instances where military men of great ability or experience, whose attention had been closely riveted on the conduct of the war, entertained ideas respecting the feasibility of certain operations, which an hour’s glance at the ground would at once have convinced them were erroneous, and which they relinquished after conversing with officers from the Crimea.

Having thus glanced at the unsatisfactory nature of the grounds on which the public form opinions on the war, we may point out some of the errors most strongly persisted in. Up to the present time, referring to the Russian attack on the Turkish outposts before Balaklava, it is constantly asserted that the loss of the Woronzoff road, which the presence of the Russians on the neighbouring ridge of hills rendered too precarious for the transport of convoys, was a principal cause of the subsequent disasters and sufferings of the army. Now the Woronzoff road is nowhere less distant than between three or four miles from Balaklava; and the intervening space is as badly adapted for the construction of a road as any part of the plains or heights,—worse indeed than most; so that, until it is shown that we possessed the means of uniting Balaklava with the Woronzoff road by a practicable road, we cannot be proved to have suffered materially by the presence of the Russians there. Liprandi’s movement, in occupying these hills, is generally regarded as a stroke of generalship, creditable to him, and damaging to the Allies; but it would be difficult to point to any commensurate effect resulting from his movement; while many officers—General Bosquet, we believe, among the rest—considered he had laid himself open to a defeat; and on a subsequent view of the ground, at the reconnaissance made by Omer Pasha in April, regrets were loudly expressed by both French and English that Liprandi should have been permitted to decamp unmolested.[16]

Another delusion which took complete possession of the public was, that Balaklava was constantly in peril, and that the Russians could easily attack it. The map showed a road from thence along the coast towards Yalta, and it was supposed the enemy could approach it in that direction. But this road, narrow, stony, and broken, was naturally very difficult even for field-artillery, and was easily to be rendered totally impracticable; while the right of the intrenchments surrounding Balaklava, crossing this road, with two advanced stockades looking upon a deep and narrow glen on one side, and the sea-cliffs on the other, along which the path wound precariously, rendered a successful attack impossible. Thus Balaklava could only be attacked in front directly down the valley; on entering which, supposing the intrenchments to be won, the enemy would have found themselves in a defile, with steep rocky sides; in their front the harbour, and in their rear the plain stretching to the Tchernaya, across which the Allies, descending in superior force from the plateau, might throw themselves, and so enclose the assailants.

More lately, the public has been persuaded that a direct advance against the Russian position was practicable; and that, if it were deemed unadvisable so to attack the position, it might easily be turned. Consequently, the advance of the French to the Belbek, after the conclusion of the siege, was watched with extreme interest at home, and great disappointment was felt when no result was attained. Yet those on the spot who had viewed the ground could have entertained no expectation of any success—must rather, indeed, have felt satisfaction that the French right, after being so extended, was withdrawn without disaster within the range surrounding the valley of Baidar. For if the reader, taking his map, will trace the line of heights extending from Inkermann by Mackenzie’s Farm to the Belbek, and will then imagine them to terminate at top in a steep perpendicular wall of chalky cliff, supporting the large plateau extending all round to the Belbek valley, on which the Russians were encamped—and will also observe that the one path up the plateau is guarded by the enemy, and the few narrow defiles which penetrate the heights are also held by them—he will have no difficulty in perceiving that to extend the Allied right was to give the enemy an opportunity, instantly perceived from their exalted point of view, of concentrating at the required point a superior force, marching through the defiles, and cutting off, or directly attacking, the French corps operating in advance.

These errors, although mortifying, and rendering the public unreasonably dissatisfied, produced no other ill consequences. But there have been other delusions, as obstinately maintained, the unfortunate results of which are but too visible. Such is the constant comparison to our disadvantage drawn between ourselves and the French. This is obviously a delicate subject to deal with, when an endeavour to be just to ourselves must almost necessarily offend our allies, whose own tact and good feeling have prevented them from adopting even the faintest echo of the depreciatory clamour raised by our countrymen, and would be ill repaid by invidious remarks. Yet surely we may be allowed to remind our readers that, in all the actions in the field during the earlier stage of the campaign, the English bore the brunt of the battle. Without offence, too, we may point to the records of the siege to prove that the French suffered repulses, on more than one occasion, no less sanguinary and discouraging than ours from the Redan: such, for instance, as the attack on the hills known afterwards as the White Works, east of Careening Bay, where our allies were defeated with slaughter, and did not renew the attack. Nor do we see any impolicy in asking what would have been the feeling in England, judging from its expression since, if it had been our batteries, instead of those of the French, which were silenced after a few hours’ fire at the commencement of the siege on the 17th of October? What indignation! what sarcasm! what abuse of our generals, engineers, and artillery! what glowing caustic eulogies of our gallant allies, depicted as maintaining the contest single-handed, and generously continuing their own fire to save their crushed and discomfited coadjutors from total ruin, though the ammunition, so scarce then in the trenches, and so painfully accumulated, was thereby expended without hope of success! Had the reverse of this picture at that time been drawn, it would have been highly impolitic, but perfectly true. And let us also allude to the report, which we believe to be an arrant falsehood, of English soldiers being protected from the first rigours of winter by French uniforms—and to the utter and apparently systematic disregard of all aid conferred by us on our allies—to show the important nature of which, we need only remind our readers of the number of powerful guns, and the vast quantities of ammunition, with which we, at various periods of the siege, furnished the French batteries. Too little stress has also been laid on the superiority we may venture to claim for the fire of our artillery throughout the siege: a superiority always apparent to those who watched the practice of the batteries from commanding points. That the services of our siege-artillery were appreciated by the French, is evident from the published despatch of Sir Richard Dacres, where it is stated that the assistance rendered by our fire was often warmly acknowledged by the French commanders. But where, in press or people, are we to expect the echoes of applause?

Again, to pass from particular instances to a wider field, let us inquire into the grounds of the preference so invariably and strenuously shown for the French military system, as having proved itself very superior to our own. Where, we would ask, is the evidence of this superiority? Has it appeared in the production of great generals? We really believe the French army would be as much puzzled as the English to select a man, young, enterprising, experienced, scientific, and sagacious, to be to it a tower of strength, and an assurance of victory. We know the English regimental officers to be younger than the French, whose system entails the existence of old subalterns and venerable captains: we know that ours are no less gallant than theirs: nor can an instance be pointed out where our discipline has appeared to disadvantage beside theirs. Let us at once record our opinion that no troops in Europe are more subordinate, better disciplined, or better led, than ours—and we will not do the gallant gentlemen who lead them the wrong to suppose that a different education, or a larger infusion from the ranks, would tend to exalt the valour or the morale of our army.

While we at once grant that our commanders have failed to display any great genius in the war, we think the treatment of them by the public altogether unreasonable. Gentlemen stricken in years, who have never in their lives been distinguished for anything in particular, and who have spent half a century in the world without impressing their nearest relations or most intimate friends with the idea that they possess remarkable capacity, far less genius, are suddenly placed in a position demanding a rare union of high qualities. This sudden elevation of course fails to elicit what they never claimed to possess—and men who would have passed most respectably through the more sequestered walks of life, are suddenly covered with obloquy, because they do not exhibit, on their giddy eminence, that mastery over men and circumstances of which few examples are vouchsafed to the world in a century.

To point out how the public has been as indiscriminate and unreasonable in its praise as its censure, would be a more invidious task. But it has frequently happened, that the eulogies showered on some fortunate individual have not been endorsed by the opinion of the army. Reputations, beginning nobody knows how, have taken shape and substance. The mischief of this is, that these will be the men selected for trust in a future emergency. Where there is so little opportunity for individuals to distinguish themselves, chance confers a small prominence on some who, thus lifted from the level of the crowd, become marked men—and to be marked where there is so little competition is to be famous. To us who note this, all history grows a chapter of accidents: we have an uneasy doubt whether Horatius really did keep the bridge, or Leonidas the pass—how much of his fame Coriolanus may owe to aristocratic connection, Scipio to his relation with a forgotten war-minister, or Alcibiades to private interest at the Athenian Horse Guards. Still, it is well to find that the public, with all its disposition to censure, retains the desire to praise; and we are the less disposed to except against its encomiums, because we should be puzzled to show how they might be better directed. The campaign has been singularly barren of opportunity for showing capacity. In most cases some divisions of an invading army possess a certain independence of movement, and their commanders have a field for showing their powers. Advanced guards from these and from the main body are commanded by officers of lower rank, who, in the attack or defence of a farm or a village, in the passage of a difficult stream, in the surprise of a convoy, or the collection of information, have an opportunity of displaying their qualities. But in the advance from Old Fort, the army marched entire across wide open plains, seeing only the retiring skirmishers of the enemy, entering abandoned villages, and passing the different natural obstacles unmolested, except at the Alma. None of the sense of enterprise, and of being engaged in scientific operations, which lends such glow and interest to civilised warfare, animated the troops traversing these desolate regions. Extensive plains, vast fields of coppice, or tumbled masses of hills, unbrightened by spots of culture or signs of human habitation, almost destitute even of roads, spread round the army, which dwindled to insignificance in the large sweep of the monotonous horizon. Then came the eleven months’ siege, when the prescribed daily duty of the trenches left no field open for invention, resource, or sagacity. In such circumstances, military genius remained latent in the army. That it exists we have no doubt; and we should expect in the course of another campaign to see brows, now perchance obscure, wreathed with merited laurels; but whether any truly great general, such as Wellington, Marlborough, or Napoleon is to be found in either army, is a point of which we may well doubt, when we remember how rare such beings are—how happy must be the combination of circumstances which lifts them to the point where they are recognised, and that we live, moreover, in an age when those pre-eminent spirits, which become landmarks for time, seem almost to have ceased their visits to earth.

Meantime it is curious to observe how the nation, uneasy at being baulked of its desire for a leader, proposes to make good the deficiency. Besides the somewhat arbitrary and unpromising plan already alluded to, of seizing upon ordinary men and commanding them to become great by virtue of their position and responsibility, other methods are proposed for eliciting the sparks of genius. The most favourite scheme at present is the education of our officers. Masters are appointed to examine candidates for commissions in different branches of science and literature; and, from the specimens we have seen of the examination papers, we may expect, supposing a reasonable proportion of the questions to be answered, shortly to see some very erudite men in the army, for it appears to us that the heart of the Admirable Crichton would have broke before he had got through a tithe of them. What shadow of a chance would the most accomplished Russian officer have, if opposed to a man who could, offhand, “write a short life of Milton, with dates,” “perform the eudiometric analysis of atmospheric air,” “tell what smoky quartz is,” “give a summary of Cousin’s argument against the philosophy of Locke,” and “draw a map of Britain in the time of the Roman occupation:” which are a few of the achievements demanded of the candidates in August 1855. “What is the origin of Roman satire?” is asked of the military aspirant by the Rev. G. Butler, one of the examiners, who, we should think, possibly became, on the occasion, the origin of some English satire. “Compose,” says another of them, the Rev. C. Trench, “an essay which shall not exceed thirty lines, on the following subject: In what way may England hope to avoid such a conflict with her colonies as led to the American War of Independence?” We hope Mr Labouchere will at once see the propriety of resigning his post to the author of the prize essay on this subject, whose faculty of compendiously settling such knotty points, in thirty lines, would be invaluable in the colonial, or any other department of State. “What is the object,” asks J. D. Morell, Esq., “which Kant proposed to himself in writing the Critick of Pure Reason?” to point out which might possibly have been acceptable to Kant himself. The Rev. R. W. Browne, after demanding an explanation of the terms, “Rhapsodist,” and “Cyclian Poet,” asks, “What are the conditions most favourable to the growth of epic poetry?” the best answer to which we shall be happy to accept as an article for the Magazine, as also the reply to the demand of A. H. Clough, Esq., for “a history of translations into English,” which we will publish in parts. Under these new conditions we are certainly likely to get commanders such as the world never saw before. Fancy the bewilderment of poor old Jomini, prince of strategists, at being required to tell the Rev. G. Butler what he knew “of the military organisation of the Samnites,”—or the perplexity of the Duke of Wellington, when requested by the Rev. Mr Browne to “illustrate from Homer the respect paid to the rites of hospitality.”

The fact is, we do not anticipate from the educational plan, the happy results which seem to be generally looked for, the reasons for which have been given fully in the well-considered article “On the State of the British Army,” in our last Number. We fear that the best of the candidates might still be a poor creature or a prig, perfectly inoffensive, but no more capable of infusing confidence into an army than his grandmother. The spell which is to evoke the coming leader has not yet been framed—he will appear, as heretofore, when time and the hour shall bring him. While we are seeking him with spectacles and lantern, now in this corner, now in that, grasping what we think to be him, but which turns out to be a post, we shall hear in the distance his strong clear voice, dispelling doubt. And O that he were come! What order out of chaos, what confidence out of confusion, what reverential silence out of senseless clamour, what strength, hope, and trust, would attend his victorious steps! Now we know what gratitude is due to him who can wield firmly and gloriously the might of England,—now we know that dukedoms, Strathfieldsayes, garters, and uncounted honours, are all too little to acknowledge our debt to the bold sagacious spirit which can animate and direct our powers, else blind, diffused, and enervate.

We choose this juncture to attempt to instil into the public mind some doubt of its own cherished convictions, because those convictions may at present lead to consequences we would gladly avert. There is an idea abroad that the past campaign leaves us failures to be retrieved, glory to be recovered, and influence to be restored, and that another is necessary to set us once more on our accustomed pinnacle. In vain have we written, if it be not clear that we cannot share the popular feeling of discontent, either at the course of the war, or the prospects of peace. While Russia was stubborn, haughty, and repellant, none raised their voices more loudly than we, for prompt, vigorous, and sustained efforts against the foe. Now that she is willing to treat on bases which will insure to the Allies all the objects they took up arms to attain, we should be false to our own policy and convictions did we desire to continue the war upon the new ground, that fresh victory is necessary to our reputation. There is a vile savour of defeat about the sentiment, ill becoming a nation which has just borne its share in a great and successful feat of arms; and we repudiate it the more scornfully, because we can trace so clearly any loss of prestige we may have sustained, to the false and self-depreciatory outcries of our own ill-informed and ill-judging countrymen.

The plans of that coming campaign, if haply it is still to be, are now being settled by the council sitting in Paris. On the alternatives which present themselves to that council we have cast many an attentive and eager glance. First, with regard to the present theatre of operations, we have long considered an advance from our present position before Sebastopol impossible, partly for reasons already given in speaking of the expectations raised after the capture of the town. To advance from Eupatoria in great force is also probably impracticable, from the want of water in supply sufficiently frequent and copious to satisfy the requirements of a large army. There remains, then, only the Kertch peninsula as a base of operations, to which we must shift the mass of our army. That a campaign from thence would result in the conquest of the Crimean peninsula, we do not doubt. But two considerations arise: First, supposing the Crimea in the hands of the Allies, will not its disposal be a source of embarrassment, far from compensated for by the advantage of possessing it? Secondly, with Sebastopol wrested from her, her fleet destroyed, and her coasts blockaded, is not the Crimea already virtually lost to Russia? As to the first question, often discussed as we have heard it, we have never yet caught even a glimpse of a satisfactory solution. Joint occupation, possession granted to any one of the different powers, all expedients that present themselves, contain difficulties which would render any advantage accruing to us from its being so held, small in the balance. And what would that advantage be, beyond what the footing we have there already gives us? We can maintain a force as easily at Kamiesch as at Perekop, thus preventing Russia from re-occupying the great prize of the campaign, the “standing menace to Turkey;” and as to the loss to our enemy in being deprived of the Crimea, we have frequently expressed our opinion that, in holding territory so distant and difficult of access, she incurs loss far heavier than that of the prestige or dominion which would fall from her with the peninsula. The vast and ruinous efforts which she made before the fall of the city were indeed justified rather by the importance which the possession of Sebastopol had obtained in the negotiations than by its real value; those efforts may have had no small effect in inducing her present concessions; and to continue them would, in our view, be a draining and exhaustive policy.

The war in Asia offers a more alluring field of enterprise and achievement. None of those difficulties beset us at the outset which render the Crimean campaign such an uphill game. To recover Kars, to match our troops against the enemy in the open field, and to force them struggling back upon the Caucasus, forms a brilliant and attractive programme. But has France a sufficient interest in a campaign in Asia to induce her to join in it? Will she not say that British interests are mainly at stake here, and that, to her, Russian progress in Asia is comparatively a matter of indifference? And, if she takes this view, will it suit her to sit idly by, while the British army engrosses all the interest and glory which have such powerful allurements for the soldiers and people of France? But, whether our allies join us in such a campaign, or permit us to prosecute it alone, it is worth while to consider whether the advantages to be gained, either in the shape of positive successes or losses suffered by our adversary, are such as to compensate for the drain our army will suffer in a year of the most favourable and triumphant warfare in Asia.

The third important point open to attack is the fortress of Nicolaieff, the great naval arsenal and dockyard of Russia in the Black Sea. And if we had a voice in the Allied councils, on no point should we speak with more confidence and decision than in positively objecting to another great siege, jointly undertaken. In the first place, the French will always so far outnumber us as to be able to lay claim, and to establish their claim, to a far greater share of the weight, the conduct, and the glory of the enterprise. Then, as before, the English people, growing impatient, probably, at the necessarily slow progress of siege operations, filled, with the wildest expectations, and often doomed to find them disappointed, will once more give vent to their chagrin, by depreciating the exertions of their army; and they will again be suicidally successful in lowering their own military prestige, which this second campaign was to restore.

Having thus reviewed the possible theatres of operation, and weighed the successes to be gained against the sacrifices in achieving them, we have acquired the conviction that there is a method by which we shall more damage our adversary with less injury to ourselves than by any of these enterprises. Leaving an Allied garrison within the lines of Kamiesch, watching and harassing the coasts of the Euxine and the Sea of Azoff with a squadron of light vessels, and aiding the Turks with a large contingent, we would gladly see the Allied powers agreeing to withdraw their forces simultaneously from that distant and now unsatisfactory scene of operations, and to convert the war into a blockade. Deprived of all exercise for her military strength, which would then become to her an encumbrance, debarred from commerce, and incapable of injuring her adversaries, Russia would lie like a huge corpse rotting on the face of Europe—or a Titan chained to a rock, unable to scare away the assailant that rent his vitals.

Already we are beginning to lose sight of the objects with which we commenced the war: not for territorial aggrandisement, not for glory, not for augmentation of influence or prestige, not even for that which seems now to be so generally regarded as desirable, the ruin or deep injury of Russia, but for the security of Turkey against an act of oppression. Surely a war may be carried on fully in earnest without desiring the utter destruction of the foe; and there has been nothing in the course of hostilities to justify such deadly exasperation. Our object, always plain and direct, is not to destroy, but to coerce Russia. If she is now ready to make the required concessions, we can see no just or politic reason for continuing the war; if she be not ready to do so, we think the course we have pointed out the best and safest for obliging her to submit. In either case, we should welcome with joy the gallant army of the Crimea. With such a force ready in these islands for defence or aggression, what power would then dare to act on the presumption that England’s prestige has diminished? Come what come may, though fear of change should perplex the monarchs of Europe, and the elements of discord be loosed, our power would be founded as the rock. Girt by such a fleet as never before floated, and guarded by the best appointed army we ever possessed, we might bid defiance to the world in arms.

And in either case, also, we trust the sharp and heavy lessons of the war will not be lost upon us. To speak at present with due contempt of those advocates of peace and utility, once so loud and confident, now so downcast and bedraggled, would be like painting the lily, or heaping ridicule on Pantaloon. Yet let the present fever once pass, and we fear, unless stimulants are applied, the old lethargy will return. And therefore we say, whether there be peace, or war to obtain peace, let our military power be not only maintained, but augmented. Let us not again be caught asleep, and with our quiver empty. Let those who so strongly insist on placing our army in depreciatory comparison with that of France, study the comparative circumstances of the two armies before the war began. They will find among our neighbours no skeleton of an army, no weak sketch or outline of what should be a cavalry, no neglected or half-equipped artillery, no insufficient medical staff, and no defunct commissariat. Let men who cheerfully pay the premium of fire insurance, to secure themselves against the chance of conflagration, learn to regard as equally thrifty the maintenance of a safeguard against the explosive elements so rife in Europe. Let our army be so modelled and provided in peace, that it may readily assume the proportions of war. And, above all, let us devise some means, more efficient than any we now possess, for recruiting our regiments, and rendering military service more alluring to our population.

Let us also, when peace returns, think and speak of our national achievements during the war, in a tone equally removed from the vainglorious outcry which heralded imaginary successes, and the sullen whimperings which are now heard for a presumed discomfiture. “We may find in these achievements ample reason for congratulation. That the army was few and ill-provided, only augments the glories of Alma and Inkermann. At three thousand miles from home we landed that army on the territory of the greatest military power in Europe, and laid siege to his naval stronghold. Amid the snows of winter and the heats of summer the siege advanced: not for a day, since the army landed, have our guns been silent; not for a day have the waters of the enemy’s coasts been unfurrowed by our keels, bearing ammunition to the batteries and supplies to our troops. On a spot separated from us by the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Euxine, we have maintained our army, more than supplied its losses, poured into the country the largest ordnance and projectiles in steady and enormous profusion. And when these had done their work, when the town for which the Czar disputed with desperate and exhaustive efforts was abandoned in ruins and ashes, a larger force than England ever before possessed, rested for the winter amid those distant regions in comfort and plenty. Such, broadly stated, are among the marvellous exploits which England has achieved in the war.

RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE.[17]

There are few things more difficult to understand and acknowledge than the essentially one and indivisible nature of that puzzling personage, Man, with all his diverse occupations. An ingenious process of mental anatomy, carefully distributing to every pursuit its little bundle of faculties—his head to his business, his heart to his home, and to his religion a vague ethereal principle, which, for want of a better title, we call his soul—seems always to have been a more agreeable idea to the philosophic and speculative, than that bolder presentment of one whole indivisible being, which calls the man to love his Maker “with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his strength, and with all his mind.” We prefer, with instinctive subtilty—for human nature has wiles in its weakness—the easier morality of division; and a hundred distinctions straightway start up for the confusion of the one poor individual creature, who indeed is little able to bear, in any of his occupations, the subtraction of any of his powers. But the issue is that we cheat the world when we only mean to cheat God, and lose the genial and joyous privilege to “do all things heartily,” while we calculate with trembling how much belongs to Religion, and how much to Common Life.

Not to say that Common Life has always borne somewhat of a contemptible aspect to the philosophy of men: asceticism is more than a Romish error—it is a natural delusion as universal as the race; and however dubious we may be about the hermit’s cell and its mortifications, a dainty oratory, calm and secluded, a little world of Thought or of Art, commends itself much to the imagination of the “superior classes” even in these progressive times. Our modern prophets appeal to a select and refined audience, and have nothing to say to the crowd. We have abundant missions to the poor, but few loving assaults upon the common. Strange enough, we are all best satisfied to go out of our way in the service of God and our neighbour—and tasks outré and self-imposed are more pleasant to our perversity at all times than those that lie direct in our path.

Among all the vague big utterances of the day, professing so much and profiting so little, it is pleasant to fall upon anything so manful and truth-telling as the little book whose name stands at the head of our page. And it startles us with a grateful and pleasant surprise to see those magical words of authority upon the homely brown cover of Mr Caird’s sermon, which, doubtless, despite all our independence, have given it entrance to many a house and table where sermons are not generally favoured reading. What is it which has been honoured by “Her Majesty’s Command?” It is not anything addressed by special compliment to Her Majesty; indeed—all honour to the faithful preacher and his royal auditors—one has to turn to that same brown cover before one has the least idea that such a rare and exceptional personage as a Queen was seated among the Aberdeenshire lairds and peasants while Mr Caird expounded the common way of life. A throne is the most singular and isolated of all human positions. To us low down here in life’s protected levels, there is no comprehending that strange, lonely, lofty, imperial existence, which knows no superior, nor within its reach any equal; and when the Sovereign, shut out from lesser friendships, elects into one great friend the vast crowd of her people, one cannot refuse to be moved by the noble simplicity of the expedient. Other monarchs have done it before Queen Victoria, but very few with equal, and none with greater success; and this sermon is a singular present from a Prince to a Nation. A condescending interest in our welfare, and a certain solicitude for public morality, are matter-of-course virtues pertaining to the throne, whoever may be its occupant; but a very different and far deeper sentiment lies in the heart of this distinct reference to our understandings and sympathies, which is the highest testimony of satisfaction that the Queen and her royal husband can give to an address which moved and impressed themselves. We are sufficiently accustomed to the pure and dignified example of our liege lady—sufficiently acquainted with the wise exertions of the Prince for the common weal—to receive both without much demonstration; but there is something in the quiet humility and kindness of this united action which touches the heart of the country.

We honour the preacher, too much absorbed with his greater errand to take advantage of so good an opportunity of paying court to his Sovereign; and it is still more honourable to the royal pair who listened, that it was no disquisition upon their own exalted office—no enthusiastic voice of loyalty, urgent upon the honours due to the crown—nor indeed any discussion whatever of the particular relationship between monarch and people—which moved them to this marked and emphatic satisfaction. The Queen presents to us earnestly, an address in which herself is not distinguished even by a complimentary inference—a lesson unsoftened by the remotest breath of flattery, and without even a “special application.” God save the Queen! We take our princely friend at her word, acknowledging with what a noble honesty she shares with us, bearing her own full part of all the daily duties of common life.

Mr Caird’s sermon strikes at the very heart and root of all our living—it is not a recommendation of good things or good books, or any exclusive manner of existence, but a simple laying open of that great secret which is the very atmosphere and breath of religion. “Neither on this mountain nor at Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth.” This preacher is not content that anything which God has cleansed should be called common or unclean—he will not consent that a tithe of our faculties and emotions, like a tithe of our lands or our riches, should be reserved for God, making careful separation between the profane and the holy. He is willing, as Paul was, that we should have full use of all our powers, which, Heaven knows, are small enough for all that has to be borne and done in this laborious world. Strange argument to quicken those dull toils which even good men call secular and worldly!—strange charm to speed the plough, to guide the ship, to hasten every day’s triumphant labours through its full tale of animated hours! “Whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men.” It is on this great principle of life and labour that the author of this able exposition founds his reasonings, as he shows us how well we may reconcile diligence in business with fervour of spirit, and brighten ordinary occupations with the full force and radiance of godliness. The lesson comes with especial force in these days, when we are beguiled by the most sweet voices of the Ritualist and the Mystic on either side of us, and are much persuaded to a vulgar disparagement of the honest necessary work of this earth. How it may become holy work—and how we ourselves, surrounded by its cares, vexations, and trials, are in reality placed in the most advantageous position for proving and glorifying our Lord and Leader, who had share of all these labours before us, is the burden of this message; and we do not doubt it will show to many men, how much nearer than they suspected, even in their very hands and households, if they will but do it, lies the work of the Lord.

Preachers and religious writers, as a general principle, are strangely timid of permitting to the Church any intercourse, more than necessity compels, with the world; and we fear our good ministers would be sadly disconcerted were they compelled to consider with Paul what it would be right to do, “if any of them that believe not, bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go”—a hypothesis which, however, does not much alarm the Apostle. But Mr Caird, with a singular boldness, takes the very “world itself—the coarse, profane, common world, with its cares and temptations, its rivalries and competitions,” as the true “school for learning the art” of religious living; and is no advocate for theoretical and self-secluding Christianity. “No man,” he says, “can be a thorough proficient in navigation who has never been at sea, though he may learn the theory of it at home. No man can become a soldier by studying books on military tactics in his closet; he must in actual service acquire those habits of coolness, courage, discipline, address, rapid combination, without which the most learned in the theory of strategy or engineering will be but a schoolboy soldier after all.... Tell us not, then, that the man of business, the bustling tradesman, the toil-worn labourer, has little or no time to attend to religion. As well tell us that the pilot, amid the winds and storms, has no leisure to attend to navigation—or the general on the field of battle to the art of war. When will he attend to it? Religion is not a perpetual moping over good books—religion is not even prayer, praise, holy ordinances: these are necessary to religion—no man can be religious without them. But religion, I repeat, is mainly and chiefly the glorifying God amid the duties and trials of the world—the guiding our course amid the adverse winds and currents of temptation by the starlight of duty and the compass of Divine truth—the bearing us manfully, wisely, courageously, for the honour of Christ, our great Leader, in the conflict of life.”

Wise doctrine, bold as it is wise; but how strange is the popular impression which makes cowardice, by some strange magic, a Christian virtue, and holds “he who fights and runs away,” for the spiritual hero. In everything else our hearts rise and swell to trace the brave man’s progress through deaths and perils; but here we count it his best policy to retreat into a corner, to thrust ambitions, powers, and pleasures, tremulously away from him, and “to be religious.” To be religious!—the word itself speaks eloquently of its true meaning—a spirit potent, sweet, and all-pervasive, and not a thing or series of things,—yet notwithstanding how eager we are to do instead of to be, in this most momentous matter. Mr Caird has finely discriminated this life and soul of religion, and the influence which true faith exercises upon everything around it, in his description of how the mind acts on latent principles—how an unexpressed remembrance or anticipation runs through actions and thoughts which have no direct connection with it; and how hopes, of which we were not even thinking, sway and move us, invisible and silent agents in our commonest ways. We recommend this portion of his sermon to all thoughtful readers.

It is not a very usual fortune for sermons in this day—but this one has flashed into the heart of several vexed questions, and surprised many minds into involuntary unanimity—and when we are told that we must fight our battles with our religion, and not for our religion’s sake extend the conflict, it is a great cheer and encouragement to us, heavily labouring in the common road, and unable to choose a more exalted way. Surely Christianity, of all things, has least need to be timid; yet we fear that much pious and well-intentioned training has had the effect of conferring an additional charm upon the world’s blandishments—the charm of forbidden pleasure—rather than of encouraging the neophyte manfully to pass them by. We have been half saddened, half amused, many a time, by a preacher’s terrified denunciation of the irresistible attractions of some theatre or assembly, which in truth was the dullest sham of pleasure-making that ever wearied man; and it is sad to see often an incompleteness and contraction in that life of unmistakable piety which ought to be the broadest, the most genial, and the most fully furnished of all the states of man.

Yes, we are all too apt, unconsciously and by implication—despite its being impracticable under present circumstances, Popery having made it dangerous—to take the life of the eremite, self-contained and contemplative, as the true type of the religious life; and it is strange to hear that we ourselves, astray among the noise of cities, or bearing the burdens of the soil, should be more fit exemplars of God’s service than any soul secluded in church or temple, and safe from the vulgar dangers of the world. Yet no one will be bold enough to say that Mr Caird has not established his position, and few serious minds can refuse to respond to this serious and powerful call upon them.

This sermon is admirably clear and simple in its diction, as well as weighty in its matter; there is little of the passion and vehemence of oratory, but a great deal of power, subdued and held within control; and the grave plain language of the preacher is luminous and dignified, worthy of the theme. We are indebted to Mr Caird for a manly exposition of what is possible to common people in everyday existence—triumphs of faith and principle beyond the reach of those who fly from the combat and the agony,—and grateful to his Royal hearers for sending to us all a lesson which makes no distinctions among us, either of wise and unwise, or of great and small.

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh.

1. Labour: its Rights, Difficulties, Dignity, and Consolations. An Address delivered to the Mechanics’ Institute at Hull. By Samuel Warren, D.C.L., Q.C., Recorder of Hull.

2. The law of France takes a different view of such labour-contracts for life, prohibiting them on the ground that they are in reality not conducive to, but subversive of personal liberty.

3. “One of those combinations,” says Mr Warren, “was bound together by this oath (so atrocious that were it not on record in the authentic ‘debates’ of the day, I would not cite it):—‘I, A. B., do voluntarily swear, in the awful presence of Almighty God, and before these witnesses, that I will execute with zeal and sincerity, as far as in me lies, every task and injunction which the majority of my brethren shall impose on me, in furtherance of our common welfare; as,—the chastisement of nobs, the assassination of oppressive and tyrannical masters, or the demolition of shops that shall be deemed incorrigible: and also that I will cheerfully contribute to the support of such of my brethren as shall lose their work in consequence of their exertions against tyranny, or shall renounce work in resistance to a reduction of wages.’”

4. “To make her clergy fit ministrants of that priestcraft which is its certain fruit, the Romish system draws after it the enforced celibacy of their order, and so their separation from all the purifying and humanising influences which God’s holy ordinance of marriage sheds over a married priesthood; and, lastly, through the ever-encroaching presence, amidst the sanctities of family life, of one thus invested with a character of supernatural holiness, whom all are bound to make the official depositary of every secret, and who is cognisant of every real or suspected infirmity of his devotee, and so (unavoidably) of those who have shared with him in the sins he has from time to time confessed, it dissolves the most sacred ties by which God has bound society together,—introducing another, and how often an adverse counsel between father and child, between the mother and her daughter, between the husband and the wife of his bosom.”—Bishop of Oxford’s Sermon on the 5th of November 1855.

5. Numismata Hellenica. A Catalogue of Greek Coins, collected by William Martin Leake, F.R.S., one of the Vice-Presidents of the Royal Society of Literature. With Notes, a Map, and Index. London, 1854.

6. A peasant, driving an ass, met Octavianus as he came out of his tent at daybreak; and being asked his name, he replied, “Eutyches”—And your ass’s name?—“Nicon.”

7. Childe Harold, ii. 45.

8. Irene, Act i. scene 1.

9. Leake’s Northern Greece, iv. 46.

10. Admiral Smyth, in his Cabinet of Roman Imperial Medals.

11. Iliad, ii. 739.

12. “An Old Contributor at the Sea-side,” Nos. CCCCLXXX. and CCCCLXXXI.

13. Here, by the way, let us cite in a foot-note a description of statuary from the Golden Ass of Apuleius. It illustrates the mode of regarding sculpture in a very realistic period. It is a description of the entrance-hall to Byrrhœna’s house. “Conversing in this way, we had proceeded but a few paces ere we arrived at Byrrhœna’s house. The hall was most beautiful, and had statues of the Goddess of Victory, raised on pillars which stood at the four corners. The wings of the figures were expanded; their dewy feet seemed to brush the surface of a rolling sphere, although it moved not; and they looked not as if they were attached to it, but hovered in the air. A statue of Diana, in Parian marble, occupied a level space in the middle of the enclosure. The figure was singularly beautiful: the garments of the goddess were blown back by the wind; she seemed in the act of running directly towards you as you entered, and awed you by the majesty of her godlike form. Dogs supported the goddess on either side, and these too were of marble. Their eyes were fierce and threatening, their ears erect, their nostrils open, their jaws agape to devour; and had any barking been heard in the neighbourhood, you would have thought it proceeded from their marble throats. A thing, also, in which the excellent sculptor had given proof of the most consummate art, was this, that the fore-feet of the dogs, uplifted to their chests, were in the act of running, while the hind feet pressed the ground. At the back of the goddess stood a rock wrought to resemble a grotto, overgrown with moss, grass, leaves, and brushwood, with vines and shrubs here and there; and the reflection of the statue gleamed from the polished marble within the grotto. Over the extreme edge of the rock hung apples and grapes, most exquisitely wrought, and in which art, rivalling nature, had so counterfeited their originals that you would have thought they might be gathered for eating, when fragrant autumn had breathed upon them the tints of maturity. And if, leaning forward, you had beheld the streamlets, which gently rippled as they ran beneath the feet of the goddess, you would have thought that, like clusters of grapes which hang from the vine, they too resembled real life in the faculty of motion.

14. It is curious to see the amount of fun which these writers extract from every little peculiarity of Cockney speech. There is an insane use of the relative pronoun, which is of immense service. We cannot remember a good quotation from the play-writers, but here is one from Thackeray:—

“Gallant gents and lovely ladies,
List a tail vich late befel,
Vich I heard it, bein on duty
At the Pleace Hoffice, Clerkenwell.
Praps you know the Fondling Chapel,
Vere the little children sings:
(Lor! I likes to hear on Sundies
Them there pooty little things!)
In the street there lived a housemaid,
If you particklarly ask me where—
Vy it vas at four-and-twenty,
Guilford Street, by Brunswick Square.
Vich her name was Eliza Davis,
And she went to fetch the beer:
In the street she met a party
As was quite surprised to see her.
Vich he was a British sailor
For to judge him by his look:
Tarry jacket, canvass trowsies
Ha-la Mr T. P. Cooke.”

15. The Corsican Brothers is not an afterpiece, but to show what kind of writing is allowed to pass in even so successful a melodrama, let me quote a single speech: “At all events, you heard what I said to my servants; the house as well as they is at your command; use it, then, as if it were your own, and consider yourself as sincerely welcomed by the mother as you will be by the son as soon as he comes in.”

16. In proof that such an impression existed, we may quote an extract from a private letter of our correspondent, Lieutenant-Colonel Hamley, to ourselves, dated Camp, 7th December 1854:—“I think Liprandi’s army might have been not merely routed, but annihilated, any time during the last month till the bad weather set in, having placed itself in a perilous position; and of the two attacks on the fortress the French is, or ought to be, the true one—ours merely auxiliary; but it would be indiscreet to say so. But the campaign once finished, all such subjects will be open to discussion.”—Ed.

17. Religion in Common Life: a Sermon, preached in Crathie Church, before Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Albert. By the Rev. John Caird, of Errol. Published by Her Majesty’s Command.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

2. Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter.

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Table of Contents

- BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCCCLXXXIV. FEBRUARY 1856. Vol. LXXIX.

- CONTENTS.

- MODERN LIGHT LITERATURE—POETRY.

- A MILITARY ADVENTURE IN THE PYRENEES. BY A PENINSULAR MEDALLIST. CONCLUSION.

- CHAPTER XIII.

- CHAPTER XIV.

- CHAPTER XV.

- CHAPTER XVI.

- CHAPTER XVII.

- CHAPTER XVIII.

- CHAPTER XIX.

- CHAPTER XX.

- CHAPTER XXI.

- CHAPTER XXII., AND LAST.

- THE WONDROUS AGE.

- PUBLIC LECTURES—MR WARREN ON LABOUR.[1]

- TOUCHING OXFORD. A LETTER TO PROFESSOR NEBEL.

- THE ANCIENT COINS OF GREECE.[5]

- TICKLER AMONG THE THIEVES! EXTRACT FROM AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, WITH A PREFATORY NOTICE.

- THE DRAMA.

- LESSONS FROM THE WAR.

- RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE.[17]

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE