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diff --git a/1464-0.txt b/1464-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7c1bb3 --- /dev/null +++ b/1464-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2772 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Contributions to All the Year Round, by +Charles Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Contributions to All the Year Round + + +Author: Charles Dickens + + + +Release Date: August 20, 2019 [eBook #1464] +[This file was first posted on July 16, 1998] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTRIBUTIONS TO ALL THE YEAR +ROUND*** + + +Transcribed from the 1912 Gresham Publishing Company edition (_Works of +Charles Dickens_, _Volume_ 19) by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + + + CONTRIBUTIONS + TO + _All The Year Round_ + + + BY + CHARLES DICKENS + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +Announcement in _Household Words_ of the Approaching 475 +Publication of _All The Year Round_ (May 28, 1859) +The Poor Man and his Beer (April 30, 1859) 477 +Five New Points of Criminal Law (September 24, 1859) 485 +Leigh Hunt: A Remonstrance (December 24, 1859) 485 +The Tattlesnivel Bleater (December 31, 1859) 487 +The Young Man from the Country (March 1, 1862) 497 +An Enlightened Clergyman (March 8, 1862) 502 +Rather a Strong Dose (March 21, 1863) 504 +The Martyr Medium (April 4, 1863) 510 +The Late Mr. Stanfield (June 1, 1867) 516 +A Slight Question of Fact (February 13, 1869) 518 +Landor’s Life (July 24, 1869) 519 +Address which Appeared Shortly previous to the Completion 526 +of the Twentieth Volume (1868) intimating a New Series of +_All The Year Round_ + + + + +ANNOUNCEMENT IN “HOUSEHOLD WORDS” OF THE APPROACHING PUBLICATION OF “ALL +THE YEAR ROUND” + + +AFTER the appearance of the present concluding Number of _Household +Words_, this publication will merge into the new weekly publication, _All +the Year Round_, and the title, _Household Words_, will form a part of +the title-page of _All the Year Round_. + +The Prospectus of the latter Journal describes it in these words: + + “ADDRESS + +“Nine years of _Household Words_, are the best practical assurance that +can be offered to the public, of the spirit and objects of _All the Year +Round_. + +“In transferring myself, and my strongest energies, from the publication +that is about to be discontinued, to the publication that is about to be +begun, I have the happiness of taking with me the staff of writers with +whom I have laboured, and all the literary and business co-operation that +can make my work a pleasure. In some important respects, I am now free +greatly to advance on past arrangements. Those, I leave to testify for +themselves in due course. + +“That fusion of the graces of the imagination with the realities of life, +which is vital to the welfare of any community, and for which I have +striven from week to week as honestly as I could during the last nine +years, will continue to be striven for “all the year round”. The old +weekly cares and duties become things of the Past, merely to be assumed, +with an increased love for them and brighter hopes springing out of them, +in the Present and the Future. + +“I look, and plan, for a very much wider circle of readers, and yet again +for a steadily expanding circle of readers, in the projects I hope to +carry through “all the year round”. And I feel confident that this +expectation will be realized, if it deserve realization. + +“The task of my new journal is set, and it will steadily try to work the +task out. Its pages shall show to what good purpose their motto is +remembered in them, and with how much of fidelity and earnestness they +tell + + “the story of our lives from year to year. + + “CHARLES DICKENS.” + +Since this was issued, the Journal itself has come into existence, and +has spoken for itself five weeks. Its fifth Number is published to-day, +and its circulation, moderately stated, trebles that now relinquished in +_Household Words_. + +In referring our readers, henceforth, to _All the Year Round_, we can but +assure them afresh, of our unwearying and faithful service, in what is at +once the work and the chief pleasure of our life. Through all that we +are doing, and through all that we design to do, our aim is to do our +best in sincerity of purpose, and true devotion of spirit. + +We do not for a moment suppose that we may lean on the character of these +pages, and rest contented at the point where they stop. We see in that +point but a starting-place for our new journey; and on that journey, with +new prospects opening out before us everywhere, we joyfully proceed, +entreating our readers—without any of the pain of leave-taking incidental +to most journeys—to bear us company All the year round. + +_Saturday_, _May_ 28, 1859. + + + + +THE POOR MAN AND HIS BEER + + +MY friend Philosewers and I, contemplating a farm-labourer the other day, +who was drinking his mug of beer on a settle at a roadside ale-house +door, we fell to humming the fag-end of an old ditty, of which the poor +man and his beer, and the sin of parting them, form the doleful burden. +Philosewers then mentioned to me that a friend of his in an agricultural +county—say a Hertfordshire friend—had, for two years last past, +endeavoured to reconcile the poor man and his beer to public morality, by +making it a point of honour between himself and the poor man that the +latter should use his beer and not abuse it. Interested in an effort of +so unobtrusive and unspeechifying a nature, “O Philosewers,” said I, +after the manner of the dreary sages in Eastern apologues, “Show me, I +pray, the man who deems that temperance can be attained without a medal, +an oration, a banner, and a denunciation of half the world, and who has +at once the head and heart to set about it!” + +Philosewers expressing, in reply, his willingness to gratify the dreary +sage, an appointment was made for the purpose. And on the day fixed, I, +the Dreary one, accompanied by Philosewers, went down Nor’-West per +railway, in search of temperate temperance. It was a thunderous day; and +the clouds were so immoderately watery, and so very much disposed to sour +all the beer in Hertfordshire, that they seemed to have taken the pledge. + +But, the sun burst forth gaily in the afternoon, and gilded the old +gables, and old mullioned windows, and old weathercock and old +clock-face, of the quaint old house which is the dwelling of the man we +sought. How shall I describe him? As one of the most famous practical +chemists of the age? That designation will do as well as another—better, +perhaps, than most others. And his name? Friar Bacon. + +“Though, take notice, Philosewers,” said I, behind my hand, “that the +first Friar Bacon had not that handsome lady-wife beside him. Wherein, O +Philosewers, he was a chemist, wretched and forlorn, compared with his +successor. Young Romeo bade the holy father Lawrence hang up philosophy, +unless philosophy could make a Juliet. Chemistry would infallibly be +hanged if its life were staked on making anything half so pleasant as +this Juliet.” The gentle Philosewers smiled assent. + +The foregoing whisper from myself, the Dreary one, tickled the ear of +Philosewers, as we walked on the trim garden terrace before dinner, among +the early leaves and blossoms; two peacocks, apparently in very tight new +boots, occasionally crossing the gravel at a distance. The sun, shining +through the old house-windows, now and then flashed out some brilliant +piece of colour from bright hangings within, or upon the old oak +panelling; similarly, Friar Bacon, as we paced to and fro, revealed +little glimpses of his good work. + +“It is not much,” said he. “It is no wonderful thing. There used to be +a great deal of drunkenness here, and I wanted to make it better if I +could. The people are very ignorant, and have been much neglected, and I +wanted to make _that_ better, if I could. My utmost object was, to help +them to a little self-government and a little homely pleasure. I only +show the way to better things, and advise them. I never act for them; I +never interfere; above all, I never patronise.” + +I had said to Philosewers as we came along Nor’-West that patronage was +one of the curses of England; I appeared to rise in the estimation of +Philosewers when thus confirmed. + +“And so,” said Friar Bacon, “I established my Allotment-club, and my +pig-clubs, and those little Concerts by the ladies of my own family, of +which we have the last of the season this evening. They are a great +success, for the people here are amazingly fond of music. But there is +the early dinner-bell, and I have no need to talk of my endeavours when +you will soon see them in their working dress”. + +Dinner done, behold the Friar, Philosewers, and myself the Dreary one, +walking, at six o’clock, across the fields, to the “Club-house.” + +As we swung open the last field-gate and entered the Allotment-grounds, +many members were already on their way to the Club, which stands in the +midst of the allotments. Who could help thinking of the wonderful +contrast between these club-men and the club-men of St. James’s Street, +or Pall Mall, in London! Look at yonder prematurely old man, doubled up +with work, and leaning on a rude stick more crooked than himself, slowly +trudging to the club-house, in a shapeless hat like an Italian +harlequin’s, or an old brown-paper bag, leathern leggings, and dull green +smock-frock, looking as though duck-weed had accumulated on it—the result +of its stagnant life—or as if it were a vegetable production, originally +meant to blow into something better, but stopped somehow. Compare him +with Old Cousin Feenix, ambling along St. James’s Street, got up in the +style of a couple of generations ago, and with a head of hair, a +complexion, and a set of teeth, profoundly impossible to be believed in +by the widest stretch of human credulity. Can they both be men and +brothers? Verily they are. And although Cousin Feenix has lived so fast +that he will die at Baden-Baden, and although this club-man in the frock +has lived, ever since he came to man’s estate, on nine shillings a week, +and is sure to die in the Union if he die in bed, yet he brought as much +into the world as Cousin Feenix, and will take as much out—more, for more +of him is real. + +A pretty, simple building, the club-house, with a rustic colonnade +outside, under which the members can sit on wet evenings, looking at the +patches of ground they cultivate for themselves; within, a +well-ventilated room, large and lofty, cheerful pavement of coloured +tiles, a bar for serving out the beer, good supply of forms and chairs, +and a brave big chimney-corner, where the fire burns cheerfully. +Adjoining this room, another: + +“Built for a reading-room,” said Friar Bacon; “but not much used—yet.” + +The dreary sage, looking in through the window, perceiving a fixed +reading-desk within, and inquiring its use: + +“I have Service there,” said Friar Bacon. “They never went anywhere to +hear prayers, and of course it would be hopeless to help them to be +happier and better, if they had no religious feeling at all.” + +“The whole place is very pretty.” Thus the sage. + +“I am glad you think so. I built it for the holders of the +Allotment-grounds, and gave it them: only requiring them to manage it by +a committee of their own appointing, and never to get drunk there. They +never have got drunk there.” + +“Yet they have their beer freely?” + +“O yes. As much as they choose to buy. The club gets its beer direct +from the brewer, by the barrel. So they get it good; at once much +cheaper, and much better, than at the public-house. The members take it +in turns to be steward, and serve out the beer: if a man should decline +to serve when his turn came, he would pay a fine of twopence. The +steward lasts, as long as the barrel lasts. When there is a new barrel, +there is a new steward.” + +“What a noble fire is roaring up that chimney!” + +“Yes, a capital fire. Every member pays a halfpenny a week.” + +“Every member must be the holder of an Allotment-garden?” + +“Yes; for which he pays five shillings a year. The Allotments you see +about us, occupy some sixteen or eighteen acres, and each garden is as +large as experience shows one man to be able to manage. You see how +admirably they are tilled, and how much they get off them. They are +always working in them in their spare hours; and when a man wants a mug +of beer, instead of going off to the village and the public-house, he +puts down his spade or his hoe, comes to the club-house and gets it, and +goes back to his work. When he has done work, he likes to have his beer +at the club, still, and to sit and look at his little crops as they +thrive.” + +“They seem to manage the club very well.” + +“Perfectly well. Here are their own rules. They made them. I never +interfere with them, except to advise them when they ask me.” + + + +RULES AND REGULATIONS +MADE BY THE COMMITTEE + + + From the 21st September, 1857 + + _One half-penny per week to be paid to the club by each member_ + +1.—Each member to draw the beer in order, according to the number of his +allotment; on failing, a forfeit of twopence to be paid to the club. + +2.—The member that draws the beer to pay for the same, and bring his +ticket up receipted when the subscriptions are paid; on failing to do so, +a penalty of sixpence to be forfeited and paid to the club. + +3.—The subscriptions and forfeits to be paid at the club-room on the last +Saturday night of each month. + +4.—The subscriptions and forfeits to be cleared up every quarter; if not, +a penalty of sixpence to be paid to the club. + +5.—The member that draws the beer to be at the club-room by six o’clock +every evening, and stay till ten; but in the event of no member being +there, he may leave at nine; on failing so to attend, a penalty of +sixpence to be paid to the club. + +6.—Any member giving beer to a stranger in this club-room, excepting to +his wife or family, shall be liable to the penalty of one shilling. + +7.—Any member lifting his hand to strike another in this club-room shall +be liable to the penalty of sixpence. + +8.—Any member swearing in this club-room shall be liable to a penalty of +twopence each time. + +9.—Any member selling beer shall be expelled from the club. + +10.—Any member wishing to give up his allotment, may apply to the +committee, and they shall value the crop and the condition of the ground. +The amount of the valuation shall be paid by the succeeding tenant, who +shall be allowed to enter on any part of the allotment which is uncropped +at the time of notice of the leaving tenant. + +11.—Any member not keeping his allotment-garden clear from seed-weeds, or +otherwise injuring his neighbours, may be turned out of his garden by the +votes of two-thirds of the committee, one month’s notice being given to +him. + +12.—Any member carelessly breaking a mug, is to pay the cost of replacing +the same. + + * * * * * + +I was soliciting the attention of Philosewers to some old old bonnets +hanging in the Allotment-gardens to frighten the birds, and the fashion +of which I should think would terrify a French bird to death at any +distance, when Philosewers solicited my attention to the scrapers at the +club-house door. The amount of the soil of England which every member +brought there on his feet, was indeed surprising; and even I, who am +professedly a salad-eater, could have grown a salad for my dinner, in the +earth on any member’s frock or hat. + +“Now,” said Friar Bacon, looking at his watch, “for the Pig-clubs!” + +The dreary Sage entreated explanation. + +“Why, a pig is so very valuable to a poor labouring man, and it is so +very difficult for him at this time of the year to get money enough to +buy one, that I lend him a pound for the purpose. But, I do it in this +way. I leave such of the club members as choose it and desire it, to +form themselves into parties of five. To every man in each company of +five, I lend a pound, to buy a pig. But, each man of the five becomes +bound for every other man, as to the repayment of his money. +Consequently, they look after one another, and pick out their partners +with care; selecting men in whom they have confidence.” + +“They repay the money, I suppose, when the pig is fattened, killed, and +sold?” + +“Yes. Then they repay the money. And they do repay it. I had one man, +last year, who was a little tardy (he was in the habit of going to the +public-house); but even he did pay. It is an immense Advantage to one of +these poor fellows to have a pig. The pig consumes the refuse from the +man’s cottage and allotment-garden, and the pig’s refuse enriches the +man’s garden besides. The pig is the poor man’s friend. Come into the +club-house again.” + +The poor man’s friend. Yes. I have often wondered who really was the +poor man’s friend among a great number of competitors, and I now clearly +perceive him to be the pig. _He_ never makes any flourishes about the +poor man. _He_ never gammons the poor man—except to his manifest +advantage in the article of bacon. _He_ never comes down to this house, +or goes down to his constituents. He openly declares to the poor man, “I +want my sty because I am a Pig. I desire to have as much to eat as you +can by any means stuff me with, because I am a Pig.” _He_ never gives +the poor man a sovereign for bringing up a family. _He_ never grunts the +poor man’s name in vain. And when he dies in the odour of Porkity, he +cuts up, a highly useful creature and a blessing to the poor man, from +the ring in his snout to the curl in his tail. Which of the poor man’s +other friends can say as much? Where is the M.P. who means Mere Pork? + +The dreary Sage had glided into these reflections, when he found himself +sitting by the club-house fire, surrounded by green smock-frocks and +shapeless hats: with Friar Bacon lively, busy, and expert, at a little +table near him. + +“Now, then, come. The first five!” said Friar Bacon. “Where are you?” + +“Order!” cried a merry-faced little man, who had brought his young +daughter with him to see life, and who always modestly hid his face in +his beer-mug after he had thus assisted the business. + +“John Nightingale, William Thrush, Joseph Blackbird, Cecil Robin, and +Thomas Linnet!” cried Friar Bacon. + +“Here, sir!” and “Here, sir!” And Linnet, Robin, Blackbird, Thrush, and +Nightingale, stood confessed. + +We, the undersigned, declare, in effect, by this written paper, that each +of us is responsible for the repayment of this pig-money by each of the +other. “Sure you understand, Nightingale?” + +“Ees, sur.” + +“Can you write your name, Nightingale?” + +“Na, sur.” + +Nightingale’s eye upon his name, as Friar Bacon wrote it, was a sight to +consider in after years. Rather incredulous was Nightingale, with a hand +at the corner of his mouth, and his head on one side, as to those +drawings really meaning him. Doubtful was Nightingale whether any virtue +had gone out of him in that committal to paper. Meditative was +Nightingale as to what would come of young Nightingale’s growing up to +the acquisition of that art. Suspended was the interest of Nightingale, +when his name was done—as if he thought the letters were only sown, to +come up presently in some other form. Prodigious, and wrong-handed was +the cross made by Nightingale on much encouragement—the strokes directed +from him instead of towards him; and most patient and sweet-humoured was +the smile of Nightingale as he stepped back into a general laugh. + +“Order!” cried the little man. Immediately disappearing into his mug. + +“Ralph Mangel, Roger Wurzel, Edward Vetches, Matthew Carrot, and Charles +Taters!” said Friar Bacon. + +“All here, sir.” + +“You understand it, Mangel?” + +“Iss, sir, I unnerstaans it.” + +“Can you write your name, Mangel?” + +“Iss, sir.” + +Breathless interest. A dense background of smock-frocks accumulated +behind Mangel, and many eyes in it looked doubtfully at Friar Bacon, as +who should say, “Can he really though?” Mangel put down his hat, retired +a little to get a good look at the paper, wetted his right hand +thoroughly by drawing it slowly across his mouth, approached the paper +with great determination, flattened it, sat down at it, and got well to +his work. Circuitous and sea-serpent-like, were the movements of the +tongue of Mangel while he formed the letters; elevated were the eyebrows +of Mangel and sidelong the eyes, as, with his left whisker reposing on +his left arm, they followed his performance; many were the misgivings of +Mangel, and slow was his retrospective meditation touching the junction +of the letter p with h; something too active was the big forefinger of +Mangel in its propensity to rub out without proved cause. At last, long +and deep was the breath drawn by Mangel when he laid down the pen; long +and deep the wondering breath drawn by the background—as if they had +watched his walking across the rapids of Niagara, on stilts, and now +cried, “He has done it!” + + [Picture: Forming the Pig-clubs] + +But, Mangel was an honest man, if ever honest man lived. “T’owt to be a +hell, sir,” said he, contemplating his work, “and I ha’ made a t on ’t.” + +The over-fraught bosoms of the background found relief in a roar of +laughter. + +“Or—DER!” cried the little man. “CHEER!” And after that second word, +came forth from his mug no more. + +Several other clubs signed, and received their money. Very few could +write their names; all who could not, pleaded that they could not, more +or less sorrowfully, and always with a shake of the head, and in a lower +voice than their natural speaking voice. Crosses could be made standing; +signatures must be sat down to. There was no exception to this rule. +Meantime, the various club-members smoked, drank their beer, and talked +together quite unrestrained. They all wore their hats, except when they +went up to Friar Bacon’s table. The merry-faced little man offered his +beer, with a natural good-fellowship, both to the Dreary one and +Philosewers. Both partook of it with thanks. + +“Seven o’clock!” said Friar Bacon. “And now we better get across to the +concert, men, for the music will be beginning.” + +The concert was in Friar Bacon’s laboratory; a large building near at +hand, in an open field. The bettermost people of the village and +neighbourhood were in a gallery on one side, and, in a gallery opposite +the orchestra. The whole space below was filled with the labouring +people and their families, to the number of five or six hundred. We had +been obliged to turn away two hundred to-night, Friar Bacon said, for +want of room—and that, not counting the boys, of whom we had taken in +only a few picked ones, by reason of the boys, as a class, being given to +too fervent a custom of applauding with their boot-heels. + +The performers were the ladies of Friar Bacon’s family, and two +gentlemen; one of them, who presided, a Doctor of Music. A piano was the +only instrument. Among the vocal pieces, we had a negro melody +(rapturously encored), the Indian Drum, and the Village Blacksmith; +neither did we want for fashionable Italian, having _Ah! non giunge_, and +_Mi manca la voce_. Our success was splendid; our good-humoured, +unaffected, and modest bearing, a pattern. As to the audience, they were +far more polite and far more pleased than at the Opera; they were +faultless. Thus for barely an hour the concert lasted, with thousands of +great bottles looking on from the walls, containing the results of Friar +Bacon’s Million and one experiments in agricultural chemistry; and +containing too, no doubt, a variety of materials with which the Friar +could have blown us all through the roof at five minutes’ notice. + +God save the Queen being done, the good Friar stepped forward and said a +few words, more particularly concerning two points; firstly, that +Saturday half-holiday, which it would be kind in farmers to grant; +secondly, the additional Allotment-grounds we were going to establish, in +consequence of the happy success of the system, but which we could not +guarantee should entitle the holders to be members of the club, because +the present members must consider and settle that question for +themselves: a bargain between man and man being always a bargain, and we +having made over the club to them as the original Allotment-men. This +was loudly applauded, and so, with contented and affectionate cheering, +it was all over. + +As Philosewers, and I the Dreary, posted back to London, looking up at +the moon and discussing it as a world preparing for the habitation of +responsible creatures, we expatiated on the honour due to men in this +world of ours who try to prepare it for a higher course, and to leave the +race who live and die upon it better than they found them. + + + + +FIVE NEW POINTS OF CRIMINAL LAW + + +THE existing Criminal Law has been found in trials for Murder, to be so +exceedingly hasty, unfair, and oppressive—in a word, to be so very +objectionable to the amiable persons accused of that thoughtless act—that +it is, we understand, the intention of the Government to bring in a Bill +for its amendment. We have been favoured with an outline of its probable +provisions. + +It will be grounded on the profound principle that the real offender is +the Murdered Person; but for whose obstinate persistency in being +murdered, the interesting fellow-creature to be tried could not have got +into trouble. + +Its leading enactments may be expected to resolve themselves under the +following heads: + +1. There shall be no judge. Strong representations have been made by +highly popular culprits that the presence of this obtrusive character is +prejudicial to their best interests. The Court will be composed of a +political gentleman, sitting in a secluded room commanding a view of St. +James’s Park, who has already more to do than any human creature can, by +any stretch of the human imagination, be supposed capable of doing. + +2. The jury to consist of Five Thousand Five Hundred and Fifty-five +Volunteers. + +3. The jury to be strictly prohibited from seeing either the accused or +the witnesses. They are not to be sworn. They are on no account to hear +the evidence. They are to receive it, or such representations of it, as +may happen to fall in their way; and they will constantly write letters +about it to all the Papers. + +4. Supposing the trial to be a trial for Murder by poisoning, and +supposing the hypothetical case, or the evidence, for the prosecution to +charge the administration of two poisons, say Arsenic and Antimony; and +supposing the taint of Arsenic in the body to be possible but not +probable, and the presence of Antimony in the body, to be an absolute +certainty; it will then become the duty of the jury to confine their +attention solely to the Arsenic, and entirely to dismiss the Antimony +from their minds. + +5. The symptoms preceding the death of the real offender (or Murdered +Person) being described in evidence by medical practitioners who saw +them, other medical practitioners who never saw them shall be required to +state whether they are inconsistent with certain known diseases—but, +_they shall never be asked whether they are not exactly consistent with +the administration of Poison_. To illustrate this enactment in the +proposed Bill by a case:—A raging mad dog is seen to run into the house +where Z lives alone, foaming at the mouth. Z and the mad dog are for +some time left together in that house under proved circumstances, +irresistibly leading to the conclusion that Z has been bitten by the dog. +Z is afterwards found lying on his bed in a state of hydrophobia, and +with the marks of the dog’s teeth. Now, the symptoms of that disease +being identical with those of another disease called Tetanus, which might +supervene on Z’s running a rusty nail into a certain part of his foot, +medical practitioners who never saw Z, shall bear testimony to that +abstract fact, and it shall then be incumbent on the Registrar-General to +certify that Z died of a rusty nail. + +It is hoped that these alterations in the present mode of procedure will +not only be quite satisfactory to the accused person (which is the first +great consideration), but will also tend, in a tolerable degree, to the +welfare and safety of society. For it is not sought in this moderate and +prudent measure to be wholly denied that it is an inconvenience to +Society to be poisoned overmuch. + + + + +LEIGH HUNT: A REMONSTRANCE + + +“THE sense of beauty and gentleness, of moral beauty and faithful +gentleness, grew upon him as the clear evening closed in. When he went +to visit his relative at Putney, he still carried with him his work, and +the books he more immediately wanted. Although his bodily powers had +been giving way, his most conspicuous qualities, his memory for books, +and his affection remained; and when his hair was white, when his ample +chest had grown slender, when the very proportion of his height had +visibly lessened, his step was still ready, and his dark eyes brightened +at every happy expression, and at every thought of kindness. His death +was simply exhaustion; he broke off his work to lie down and repose. So +gentle was the final approach, that he scarcely recognised it till the +very last, and then it came without terrors. His physical suffering had +not been severe; at the latest hour he said that his only uneasiness was +failing breath. And that failing breath was used to express his sense of +the inexhaustible kindness he had received from the family who had been +so unexpectedly made his nurses,—to draw from one of his sons, by minute, +eager, and searching questions, all that he could learn about the latest +vicissitudes and growing hopes of Italy,—to ask the friends and children +around him for news of those whom he loved,—and to send love and messages +to the absent who loved him.” + + * * * * * + +Thus, with a manly simplicity and filial affection, writes the eldest son +of Leigh Hunt in recording his father’s death. These are the closing +words of a new edition of _The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_, published by +Messrs. Smith and Elder, of Cornhill, revised by that son, and enriched +with an introductory chapter of remarkable beauty and tenderness. The +son’s first presentation of his father to the reader, “rather tall, +straight as an arrow, looking slenderer than he really was; his hair +black and shining, and slightly inclined to wave; his head high, his +forehead straight and white, his eyes black and sparkling, his general +complexion dark; in his whole carriage and manner an extraordinary degree +of life,” completes the picture. It is the picture of the flourishing +and fading away of man that is born of a woman and hath but a short time +to live. + +In his presentation of his father’s moral nature and intellectual +qualities, Mr. Hunt is no less faithful and no less touching. Those who +knew Leigh Hunt, will see the bright face and hear the musical voice +again, when he is recalled to them in this passage: “Even at seasons of +the greatest depression in his fortunes, he always attracted many +visitors, but still not so much for any repute that attended him as for +his personal qualities. Few men were more attractive, in society, +whether in a large company or over the fireside. His manners were +peculiarly animated; his conversation, varied, ranging over a great field +of subjects, was moved and called forth by the response of his companion, +be that companion philosopher or student, sage or boy, man or woman; and +he was equally ready for the most lively topics or for the gravest +reflections—his expression easily adapting itself to the tone of his +companion’s mind. With much freedom of manners, he combined a +spontaneous courtesy that never failed, and a considerateness derived +from a ceaseless kindness of heart that invariably fascinated even +strangers.” Or in this: “His animation, his sympathy with what was gay +and pleasurable; his avowed doctrine of cultivating cheerfulness, were +manifest on the surface, and could be appreciated by those who knew him +in society, most probably even exaggerated as salient traits, on which he +himself insisted _with a sort of gay and ostentatious wilfulness_.” + +The last words describe one of the most captivating peculiarities of a +most original and engaging man, better than any other words could. The +reader is besought to observe them, for a reason that shall presently be +given. Lastly: “The anxiety to recognise the right of others, the +tendency to ‘refine’, which was noted by an early school companion, and +the propensity to elaborate every thought, made him, along with the +direct argument by which he sustained his own conviction, recognise and +almost admit all that might be said on the opposite side”. For these +reasons, and for others suggested with equal felicity, and with equal +fidelity, the son writes of the father, “It is most desirable that his +qualities should be known as they were; for such deficiencies as he had +are the honest explanation of his mistakes; while, as the reader may see +from his writings and his conduct, they are not, as the faults of which +he was accused would be, incompatible with the noblest faculties both of +head and heart. To know Leigh Hunt as he was, was to hold him in +reverence and love.” + +These quotations are made here, with a special object. It is not, that +the personal testimony of one who knew Leigh Hunt well, may be borne to +their truthfulness. It is not, that it may be recorded in these pages, +as in his son’s introductory chapter, that his life was of the most +amiable and domestic kind, that his wants were few, that his way of life +was frugal, that he was a man of small expenses, no ostentations, a +diligent labourer, and a secluded man of letters. It is not, that the +inconsiderate and forgetful may be reminded of his wrongs and sufferings +in the days of the Regency, and of the national disgrace of his +imprisonment. It is not, that their forbearance may be entreated for his +grave, in right of his graceful fancy or his political labours and +endurances, though— + + Not only we, the latest seed of Time, + New men, that in the flying of a wheel + Cry down the past, not only we, that prate + Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well. + +It is, that a duty may be done in the most direct way possible. An act +of plain, clear duty. + +Four or five years ago, the writer of these lines was much pained by +accidentally encountering a printed statement, “that Mr. Leigh Hunt was +the original of Harold Skimpole in _Bleak House_”. The writer of these +lines, is the author of that book. The statement came from America. It +is no disrespect to that country, in which the writer has, perhaps, as +many friends and as true an interest as any man that lives, +good-humouredly to state the fact, that he has, now and then, been the +subject of paragraphs in Transatlantic newspapers, more surprisingly +destitute of all foundation in truth than the wildest delusions of the +wildest lunatics. For reasons born of this experience, he let the thing +go by. + +But, since Mr. Leigh Hunt’s death, the statement has been revived in +England. The delicacy and generosity evinced in its revival, are for the +rather late consideration of its revivers. The fact is this: + +Exactly those graces and charms of manner which are remembered in the +words we have quoted, were remembered by the author of the work of +fiction in question, when he drew the character in question. Above all +other things, that “sort of gay and ostentatious wilfulness” in the +humouring of a subject, which had many a time delighted him, and +impressed him as being unspeakably whimsical and attractive, was the airy +quality he wanted for the man he invented. Partly for this reason, and +partly (he has since often grieved to think) for the pleasure it afforded +him to find that delightful manner reproducing itself under his hand, he +yielded to the temptation of too often making the character _speak_ like +his old friend. He no more thought, God forgive him! that the admired +original would ever be charged with the imaginary vices of the fictitious +creature, than he has himself ever thought of charging the blood of +Desdemona and Othello, on the innocent Academy model who sat for Iago’s +leg in the picture. Even as to the mere occasional manner, he meant to +be so cautious and conscientious, that he privately referred the proof +sheets of the first number of that book to two intimate literary friends +of Leigh Hunt (both still living), and altered the whole of that part of +the text on their discovering too strong a resemblance to his “way”. + +He cannot see the son lay this wreath on the father’s tomb, and leave him +to the possibility of ever thinking that the present words might have +righted the father’s memory and were left unwritten. He cannot know that +his own son may have to explain his father when folly or malice can wound +his heart no more, and leave this task undone. + + + + +THE TATTLESNIVEL BLEATER + + +THE pen is taken in hand on the present occasion, by a private individual +(not wholly unaccustomed to literary composition), for the exposure of a +conspiracy of a most frightful nature; a conspiracy which, like the +deadly Upas-tree of Java, on which the individual produced a poem in his +earlier youth (not wholly devoid of length), which was so flatteringly +received (in circles not wholly unaccustomed to form critical opinions), +that he was recommended to publish it, and would certainly have carried +out the suggestion, but for private considerations (not wholly +unconnected with expense). + +The individual who undertakes the exposure of the gigantic conspiracy now +to be laid bare in all its hideous deformity, is an inhabitant of the +town of Tattlesnivel—a lowly inhabitant, it may be, but one who, as an +Englishman and a man, will ne’er abase his eye before the gaudy and the +mocking throng. + +Tattlesnivel stoops to demand no championship from her sons. On an +occasion in History, our bluff British monarch, our Eighth Royal Harry, +almost went there. And long ere the periodical in which this exposure +will appear, had sprung into being, Tattlesnivel had unfurled that +standard which yet waves upon her battlements. The standard alluded to, +is THE TATTLESNIVEL BLEATER, containing the latest intelligence, and +state of markets, down to the hour of going to press, and presenting a +favourable local medium for advertisers, on a graduated scale of charges, +considerably diminishing in proportion to the guaranteed number of +insertions. + +It were bootless to expatiate on the host of talent engaged in formidable +phalanx to do fealty to the Bleater. Suffice it to select, for present +purposes, one of the most gifted and (but for the wide and deep +ramifications of an un-English conspiracy) most rising, of the men who +are bold Albion’s pride. It were needless, after this preamble, to point +the finger more directly at the LONDON CORRESPONDENT OF THE TATTLESNIVEL +BLEATER. + +On the weekly letters of that Correspondent, on the flexibility of their +English, on the boldness of their grammar, on the originality of their +quotations (never to be found as they are printed, in any book existing), +on the priority of their information, on their intimate acquaintance with +the secret thoughts and unexecuted intentions of men, it would ill become +the humble Tattlesnivellian who traces these words, to dwell. They are +graven in the memory; they are on the Bleater’s file. Let them be +referred to. + +But from the infamous, the dark, the subtle conspiracy which spreads its +baleful roots throughout the land, and of which the Bleater’s London +Correspondent is the one sole subject, it is the purpose of the lowly +Tattlesnivellian who undertakes this revelation, to tear the veil. Nor +will he shrink from his self-imposed labour, Herculean though it be. + +The conspiracy begins in the very Palace of the Sovereign Lady of our +Ocean Isle. Leal and loyal as it is the proud vaunt of the Bleater’s +readers, one and all, to be, the inhabitant who pens this exposure does +not personally impeach, either her Majesty the queen, or the illustrious +Prince Consort. But, some silken-clad smoothers, some purple parasites, +some fawners in frippery, some greedy and begartered ones in gorgeous +garments, he does impeach—ay, and wrathfully! Is it asked on what +grounds? They shall be stated. + +The Bleater’s London Correspondent, in the prosecution of his important +inquiries, goes down to Windsor, sends in his card, has a confidential +interview with her Majesty and the illustrious Prince Consort. For a +time, the restraints of Royalty are thrown aside in the cheerful +conversation of the Bleater’s London Correspondent, in his fund of +information, in his flow of anecdote, in the atmosphere of his genius; +her Majesty brightens, the illustrious Prince Consort thaws, the cares of +State and the conflicts of Party are forgotten, lunch is proposed. Over +that unassuming and domestic table, her Majesty communicates to the +Bleater’s London Correspondent that it is her intention to send his Royal +Highness the Prince of Wales to inspect the top of the Great +Pyramid—thinking it likely to improve his acquaintance with the views of +the people. Her Majesty further communicates that she has made up her +royal mind (and that the Prince Consort has made up his illustrious mind) +to the bestowal of the vacant Garter, let us say on Mr. Roebuck. The +younger Royal children having been introduced at the request of the +Bleater’s London Correspondent, and having been by him closely observed +to present the usual external indications of good health, the happy knot +is severed, with a sigh the Royal bow is once more strung to its full +tension, the Bleater’s London Correspondent returns to London, writes his +letter, and tells the Tattlesnivel Bleater what he knows. All +Tattlesnivel reads it, and knows that he knows it. But, _does_ his Royal +Highness the Prince of Wales ultimately go to the top of the Great +Pyramid? _Does_ Mr. Roebuck ultimately get the Garter? No. Are the +younger Royal children even ultimately found to be well? On the +contrary, they have—and on that very day had—the measles. Why is this? +_Because the conspirators against the Bleater’s London Correspondent have +stepped in with their dark machinations_. Because her Majesty and the +Prince Consort are artfully induced to change their minds, from north to +south, from east to west, immediately after it is known to the +conspirators that they have put themselves in communication with the +Bleater’s London Correspondent. It is now indignantly demanded, by whom +are they so tampered with? It is now indignantly demanded, who took the +responsibility of concealing the indisposition of those Royal children +from their Royal and illustrious parents, and of bringing them down from +their beds, disguised, expressly to confound the London Correspondent of +the Tattlesnivel Bleater? Who are those persons, it is again asked? Let +not rank and favour protect them. Let the traitors be exhibited in the +face of day! + +Lord John Russell is in this conspiracy. Tell us not that his Lordship +is a man of too much spirit and honour. Denunciation is hurled against +him. The proof? The proof is here. + +The Time is panting for an answer to the question, Will Lord John Russell +consent to take office under Lord Palmerston? Good. The London +Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater is in the act of writing his +weekly letter, finds himself rather at a loss to settle this question +finally, leaves off, puts his hat on, goes down to the lobby of the House +of Commons, sends in for Lord John Russell, and has him out. He draws +his arm through his Lordship’s, takes him aside, and says, “John, will +you ever accept office under Palmerston?” His Lordship replies, “I will +not.” The Bleater’s London Correspondent retorts, with the caution such +a man is bound to use, “John, think again; say nothing to me rashly; is +there any temper here?” His Lordship replies, calmly, “None whatever.” +After giving him time for reflection, the Bleater’s London Correspondent +says, “Once more, John, let me put a question to you. Will you ever +accept office under Palmerston?” His Lordship answers (note the exact +expressions), “Nothing shall induce me, ever to accept a seat in a +Cabinet of which Palmerston is the Chief.” They part, the London +Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater finishes his letter, and—always +being withheld by motives of delicacy, from plainly divulging his means +of getting accurate information on every subject, at first hand—puts in +it, this passage: “Lord John Russell is spoken of, by blunderers, for +Foreign Affairs; but I have the best reasons for assuring your readers, +that” (giving prominence to the exact expressions, it will be observed) +“‘NOTHING WILL EVER INDUCE HIM, TO ACCEPT A SEAT IN A CABINET OF WHICH +PALMERSTON IS THE CHIEF.’ On this you may implicitly rely.” What +happens? On the very day of the publication of that number of the +Bleater—the malignity of the conspirators being even manifested in the +selection of the day—Lord John Russell takes the Foreign Office! Comment +were superfluous. + +The people of Tattlesnivel will be told, have been told, that Lord John +Russell is a man of his word. He may be, on some occasions; but, when +overshadowed by this dark and enormous growth of conspiracy, Tattlesnivel +knows him to be otherwise. “I happen to be certain, deriving my +information from a source which cannot be doubted to be authentic,” wrote +the London Correspondent of the Bleater, within the last year, “that Lord +John Russell bitterly regrets having made that explicit speech of last +Monday.” These are not roundabout phrases; these are plain words. What +does Lord John Russell (apparently by accident), within eight-and-forty +hours after their diffusion over the civilised globe? Rises in his place +in Parliament, and unblushingly declares that if the occasion could arise +five hundred times, for his making that very speech, he would make it +five hundred times! Is there no conspiracy here? And is this +combination against one who would be always right if he were not proved +always wrong, to be endured in a country that boasts of its freedom and +its fairness? + +But, the Tattlesnivellian who now raises his voice against intolerable +oppression, may be told that, after all, this is a political conspiracy. +He may be told, forsooth, that Mr. Disraeli’s being in it, that Lord +Derby’s being in it, that Mr. Bright’s being in it, that every Home, +Foreign, and Colonial Secretary’s being in it, that every ministry’s and +every opposition’s being in it, are but proofs that men will do in +politics what they would do in nothing else. Is this the plea? If so, +the rejoinder is, that the mighty conspiracy includes the whole circle of +Artists of all kinds, and comprehends all degrees of men, down to the +worst criminal and the hangman who ends his career. For, all these are +intimately known to the London Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater, +and all these deceive him. + +Sir, put it to the proof. There is the Bleater on the file—documentary +evidence. Weeks, months, before the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, the +Bleater’s London Correspondent knows the subjects of all the leading +pictures, knows what the painters first meant to do, knows what they +afterwards substituted for what they first meant to do, knows what they +ought to do and won’t do, knows what they ought not to do and will do, +knows to a letter from whom they have commissions, knows to a shilling +how much they are to be paid. Now, no sooner is each studio clear of the +remarkable man to whom each studio-occupant has revealed himself as he +does not reveal himself to his nearest and dearest bosom friend, than +conspiracy and fraud begin. Alfred the Great becomes the Fairy Queen; +Moses viewing the Promised Land, turns out to be Moses going to the Fair; +Portrait of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, is transformed, as if +by irreverent enchantment of the dissenting interest, into A Favourite +Terrier, or Cattle Grazing; and the most extraordinary work of art in the +list described by the Bleater, is coolly sponged out altogether, and +asserted never to have had existence at all, even in the most shadow +thoughts of its executant! This is vile enough, but this is not all. +Picture-buyers then come forth from their secret positions, and creep +into their places in the assassin-multitude of conspirators. Mr. Baring, +after expressly telling the Bleater’s London Correspondent that he had +bought No. 39 for one thousand guineas, gives it up to somebody unknown +for a couple of hundred pounds; the Marquis of Lansdowne pretends to have +no knowledge whatever of the commissions to which the London +Correspondent of the Bleater swore him, but allows a Railway Contractor +to cut him out for half the money. Similar examples might be multiplied. +Shame, shame, on these men! Is this England? + +Sir, look again at Literature. The Bleater’s London Correspondent is not +merely acquainted with all the eminent writers, but is in possession of +the secrets of their souls. He is versed in their hidden meanings and +references, sees their manuscripts before publication, and knows the +subjects and titles of their books when they are not begun. How dare +those writers turn upon the eminent man and depart from every intention +they have confided to him? How do they justify themselves in entirely +altering their manuscripts, changing their titles, and abandoning their +subjects? Will they deny, in the face of Tattlesnivel, that they do so? +If they have such hardihood, let the file of the Bleater strike them +dumb. By their fruits they shall be known. Let their works be compared +with the anticipatory letters of the Bleater’s London Correspondent, and +their falsehood and deceit will become manifest as the sun; it will be +seen that they do nothing which they stand pledged to the Bleater’s +London Correspondent to do; it will be seen that they are among the +blackest parties in this black and base conspiracy. This will become +apparent, sir, not only as to their public proceedings but as to their +private affairs. The outraged Tattlesnivellian who now drags this +infamous combination into the face of day, charges those literary persons +with making away with their property, imposing on the Income Tax +Commissioners, keeping false books, and entering into sham contracts. He +accuses them on the unimpeachable faith of the London Correspondent of +the Tattlesnivel Bleater. With whose evidence they will find it +impossible to reconcile their own account of any transaction of their +lives. + +The national character is degenerating under the influence of the +ramifications of this tremendous conspiracy. Forgery is committed, +constantly. A person of note—any sort of person of note—dies. The +Bleater’s London Correspondent knows what his circumstances are, what his +savings are (if any), who his creditors are, all about his children and +relations, and (in general, before his body is cold) describes his will. +Is that will ever proved? Never! Some other will is substituted; the +real instrument, destroyed. And this (as has been before observed), is +England. + +Who are the workmen and artificers, enrolled upon the books of this +treacherous league? From what funds are they paid, and with what +ceremonies are they sworn to secrecy? Are there none such? Observe what +follows. A little time ago the Bleater’s London Correspondent had this +passage: “Boddleboy is pianoforte playing at St. Januarius’s Gallery, +with pretty tolerable success! He clears three hundred pounds per night. +Not bad this!!” The builder of St. Januarius’s Gallery (plunged to the +throat in the conspiracy) met with this piece of news, and observed, with +characteristic coarseness, “that the Bleater’s London Correspondent was a +Blind Ass”. Being pressed by a man of spirit to give his reasons for +this extraordinary statement, he declared that the Gallery, crammed to +suffocation, would not hold two hundred pounds, and that its expenses +were, probably, at least half what it did hold. The man of spirit +(himself a Tattlesnivellian) had the Gallery measured within a week from +that hour, and it would not hold two hundred pounds! Now, can the +poorest capacity doubt that it had been altered in the meantime? + +And so the conspiracy extends, through every grade of society, down to +the condemned criminal in prison, the hangman, and the Ordinary. Every +famous murderer within the last ten years has desecrated his last moments +by falsifying his confidences imparted specially to the London +Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater; on every such occasion, Mr. +Calcraft has followed the degrading example; and the reverend Ordinary, +forgetful of his cloth, and mindful only (it would seem, alas!) of the +conspiracy, has committed himself to some account or other of the +criminal’s demeanour and conversation, which has been diametrically +opposed to the exclusive information of the London Correspondent of the +Bleater. And this (as has been before observed) is Merry England! + +A man of true genius, however, is not easily defeated. The Bleater’s +London Correspondent, probably beginning to suspect the existence of a +plot against him, has recently fallen on a new style, which, as being +very difficult to countermine, may necessitate the organisation of a new +conspiracy. One of his masterly letters, lately, disclosed the adoption +of this style—which was remarked with profound sensation throughout +Tattlesnivel—in the following passage: “Mentioning literary small talk, I +may tell you that some new and extraordinary rumours are afloat +concerning the conversations I have previously mentioned, alleged to have +taken place in the first floor front (situated over the street door), of +Mr. X. Ameter (the poet so well known to your readers), in which, X. +Ameter’s great uncle, his second son, his butcher, and a corpulent +gentleman with one eye universally respected at Kensington, are said not +to have been on the most friendly footing; I forbear, however, to pursue +the subject further, this week, my informant not being able to supply me +with exact particulars.” + +But, enough, sir. The inhabitant of Tattlesnivel who has taken pen in +hand to expose this odious association of unprincipled men against a +shining (local) character, turns from it with disgust and contempt. Let +him in few words strip the remaining flimsy covering from the nude object +of the conspirators, and his loathsome task is ended. + +Sir, that object, he contends, is evidently twofold. First, to exhibit +the London Correspondent of the Tattlesnivel Bleater in the light of a +mischievous Blockhead who, by hiring himself out to tell what he cannot +possibly know, is as great a public nuisance as a Blockhead in a corner +can be. Second, to suggest to the men of Tattlesnivel that it does not +improve their town to have so much Dry Rubbish shot there. + +Now, sir, on both these points Tattlesnivel demands in accents of +Thunder, Where is the Attorney General? Why doesn’t the _Times_ take it +up? (Is the latter in the conspiracy? It never adopts his views, or +quotes him, and incessantly contradicts him.) Tattlesnivel, sir, +remembering that our forefathers contended with the Norman at Hastings, +and bled at a variety of other places that will readily occur to you, +demands that its birthright shall not be bartered away for a mess of +pottage. Have a care, sir, have a care! Or Tattlesnivel (its idle +Rifles piled in its scouted streets) may be seen ere long, advancing with +its Bleater to the foot of the Throne, and demanding redress for this +conspiracy, from the orbed and sceptred hands of Majesty itself! + + + + +THE YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY + + +A SONG of the hour, now in course of being sung and whistled in every +street, the other day reminded the writer of these words—as he chanced to +pass a fag-end of the song for the twentieth time in a short London +walk—that twenty years ago, a little book on the United States, entitled +_American Notes_, was published by “a Young Man from the Country”, who +had just seen and left it. + +This Young Man from the Country fell into a deal of trouble, by reason of +having taken the liberty to believe that he perceived in America downward +popular tendencies for which his young enthusiasm had been anything but +prepared. It was in vain for the Young Man to offer in extenuation of +his belief that no stranger could have set foot on those shores with a +feeling of livelier interest in the country, and stronger faith in it, +than he. Those were the days when the Tories had made their Ashburton +Treaty, and when Whigs and Radicals must have no theory disturbed. All +three parties waylaid and mauled the Young Man from the Country, and +showed that he knew nothing about the country. + +As the Young Man from the Country had observed in the Preface to his +little book, that he “could bide his time”, he took all this in silent +part for eight years. Publishing then, a cheap edition of his book, he +made no stronger protest than the following: + + “My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the + influences and tendencies which I distrusted in America, have any + existence but in my imagination. They can examine for themselves + whether there has been anything in the public career of that country + during these past eight years, or whether there is anything in its + present position, at home or abroad, which suggests that those + influences and tendencies really do exist. As they find the fact, + they will judge me. If they discern any evidences of wrong-going, in + any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that I had + reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such thing, they will + consider me altogether mistaken. I have nothing to defend, or to + explain away. The truth is the truth; and neither childish + absurdities, nor unscrupulous contradictions, can make it otherwise. + The earth would still move round the sun, though the whole Catholic + Church said No.” + +Twelve more years having since passed away, it may now, at last, be +simply just towards the Young Man from the Country, to compare what he +originally wrote, with recent events and their plain motive powers. +Treating of the House of Representatives at Washington, he wrote thus: + + “Did I recognise in this assembly, a body of men, who, applying + themselves in a new world to correct some of the falsehoods and vices + of the old, purified the avenues to Public Life, paved the dirty ways + to Place and Power, debated and made laws for the Common Good, and + had no party but their Country? + + “I saw in them, the wheels that move the meanest perversion of + virtuous Political Machinery that the worst tools ever wrought. + Despicable trickery at elections; under-handed tamperings with public + officers; cowardly attacks upon opponents, with scurrilous newspapers + for shields, and hired pens for daggers; shameful trucklings to + mercenary knaves, whose claim to be considered, is, that every day + and week they sow new crops of ruin with their venal types, which are + the dragon’s teeth of yore, in everything but sharpness; aidings and + abettings of every bad inclination in the popular mind, and artful + suppressions of all its good influences: such things as these, and in + a word, Dishonest Faction in its most depraved and most unblushing + form, stared out from every corner of the crowded hall. + + “Did I see among them, the intelligence and refinement: the true, + honest, patriotic heart of America? Here and there, were drops of + its blood and life, but they scarcely coloured the stream of + desperate adventurers which sets that way for profit and for pay. It + is the game of these men, and of their profligate organs, to make the + strife of politics so fierce and brutal, and so destructive of all + self-respect in worthy men, that sensitive and delicate-minded + persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they, be left to + battle out their selfish views unchecked. And thus this lowest of + all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in other countries would, + from their intelligence and station, most aspire to make the laws, do + here recoil the farthest from that degradation. + + “That there are, among the representatives of the people in both + Houses, and among all parties, some men of high character and great + abilities, I need not say. The foremost among those politicians who + are known in Europe, have been already described, and I see no reason + to depart from the rule I have laid down for my guidance, of + abstaining from all mention of individuals. It will be sufficient to + add, that to the most favourable accounts that have been written of + them, I fully and most heartily subscribe; and that personal + intercourse and free communication have bred within me, not the + result predicted in the very doubtful proverb, but increased + admiration and respect.” + +Towards the end of his book, the Young Man from the Country thus +expressed himself concerning its people: + + “They are, by nature, frank, brave, cordial, hospitable, and + affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to enhance their + warmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm; and it is the possession of + these latter qualities in a most remarkable degree, which renders an + educated American one of the most endearing and most generous of + friends. I never was so won upon, as by this class; never yielded up + my full confidence and esteem so readily and pleasurably, as to them; + never can make again, in half a year, so many friends for whom I seem + to entertain the regard of half a life. + + “These qualities are natural, I implicitly believe, to the whole + people. That they are, however, sadly sapped and blighted in their + growth among the mass; and that there are influences at work which + endanger them still more, and give but little present promise of + their healthy restoration; is a truth that ought to be told. + + “It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself + mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its + wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blemish in the + popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable + brood of evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the American citizen + plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently + dispassionate to perceive the ruin it works; and will often adduce + it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great sagacity + and acuteness of the people, and their superior shrewdness and + independence. + + “‘You carry,’ says the stranger, ‘this jealousy and distrust into + every transaction of public life. By repelling worthy men from your + legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates for the + suffrage, who, in their every act, disgrace your Institutions and + your people’s choice. It has rendered you so fickle, and so given to + change, that your inconstancy has passed into a proverb; for you no + sooner set up an idol firmly, than you are sure to pull it down and + dash it into fragments: and this, because directly you reward a + benefactor, or a public-servant, you distrust him, merely because he + _is_ rewarded; and immediately apply yourselves to find out, either + that you have been too bountiful in your acknowledgments, or he + remiss in his deserts. Any man who attains a high place among you, + from the President downwards, may date his downfall from that moment; + for any printed lie that any notorious villain pens, although it + militate directly against the character and conduct of a life, + appeals at once to your distrust, and is believed. You will strain + at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and confidence, however fairly + won and well deserved; but you will swallow a whole caravan of + camels, if they be laden with unworthy doubts and mean suspicions. + Is this well, think you, or likely to elevate the character of the + governors or the governed, among you?’ + + “The answer is invariably the same: ‘There’s freedom of opinion here, + you know. Every man thinks for himself, and we are not to be easily + overreached. That’s how our people come to be suspicious.’ + + “Another prominent feature is the love of ‘smart’ dealing: which + gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a + defalcation, public and private; and enables many a knave to hold his + head up with the best, who well deserves a halter: though it has not + been without its retributive operation, for this smartness has done + more in a few years to impair the public credit, and to cripple the + public resources, than dull honesty, however rash, could have + effected in a century. The merits of a broken speculation, or a + bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are not gauged by its or + his observance of the golden rule, ‘Do as you would be done by’, but + are considered with reference to their smartness. I recollect, on + both occasions of our passing that ill-fated Cairo on the + Mississippi, remarking on the bad effects such gross deceits must + have when they exploded, in generating a want of confidence abroad, + and discouraging foreign investment: but I was given to understand + that this was a very smart scheme by which a deal of money had been + made: and that its smartest feature was, that they forgot these + things abroad, in a very short time, and speculated again, as freely + as ever. The following dialogue I have held a hundred times: ‘Is it + not a very disgraceful circumstance that such a man as So-and-so + should be acquiring a large property by the most infamous and odious + means, and notwithstanding all the crimes of which he has been + guilty, should be tolerated and abetted by your citizens? He is a + public nuisance, is he not?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘A convicted liar?’ ‘Yes, + sir.’ ‘He has been kicked, and cuffed, and caned?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ + ‘And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and profligate?’ ‘Yes, + sir.’ ‘In the name of wonder, then, what is his merit?’ ‘Well, sir, + he is a smart man.’ + + “But the foul growth of America has a more tangled root than this; + and it strikes its fibres, deep in its licentious Press. + + “Schools may he erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils be + taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands; + colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be + diffused, and advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through the + land with giant strides; but while the newspaper press of America is + in, or near, its present abject state, high moral improvement in that + country is hopeless. Year by year, it must and will go back; year by + year, the tone of public opinion must sink lower down; year by year, + the Congress and the Senate must become of less account before all + decent men; and year by year, the memory of the Great Fathers of the + Revolution must be outraged more and more, in the bad life of their + degenerate child. + + “Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there + are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and credit. + From personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen connected with + publications of this class, I have derived both pleasure and profit. + But the name of these is Few, and of the others Legion; and the + influence of the good, is powerless to counteract the moral poison of + the bad. + + “Among the gentry of America; among the well-informed and moderate; + in the learned professions; at the bar and on the bench; there is, as + there can be, but one opinion, in reference to the vicious character + of these infamous journals. It is sometimes contended—I will not say + strangely, for it is natural to seek excuses for such a disgrace—that + their influence is not so great as a visitor would suppose. I must + be pardoned for saying that there is no warrant for this plea, and + that every fact and circumstance tends directly to the opposite + conclusion. + + “When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or character, can + climb to any public distinction, no matter what, in America, without + first grovelling down upon the earth, and bending the knee before + this monster of depravity; when any private excellence is safe from + its attacks; when any social confidence is left unbroken by it; or + any tie of social decency and honour is held in the least regard; + when any man in that Free Country has freedom of opinion, and + presumes to think for himself, and speak for himself, without humble + reference to a censorship which, for its rampant ignorance and base + dishonesty, he utterly loaths and despises in his heart; when those + who most acutely feel its infamy and the reproach it casts upon the + nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare to set their + heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of all men: then, I + will believe that its influence is lessening, and men are returning + to their manly senses. But while that Press has its evil eye in + every house, and its black hand in every appointment in the state, + from a president to a postman; while, with ribald slander for its + only stock in trade, it is the standard literature of an enormous + class, who must find their reading in a newspaper, or they will not + read at all; so long must its odium be upon the country’s head, and + so long must the evil it works, be plainly visible in the Republic.” + +The foregoing was written in the year eighteen hundred and forty-two. It +rests with the reader to decide whether it has received any confirmation, +or assumed any colour of truth, in or about the year eighteen hundred and +sixty-two. + + + + +AN ENLIGHTENED CLERGYMAN + + +AT various places in Suffolk (as elsewhere) penny readings take place +“for the instruction and amusement of the lower classes”. There is a +little town in Suffolk called Eye, where the subject of one of these +readings was a tale (by Mr. Wilkie Collins) from the last Christmas +Number of this Journal, entitled “Picking up Waifs at Sea”. It appears +that the Eye gentility was shocked by the introduction of this rude piece +among the taste and musical glasses of that important town, on which the +eyes of Europe are notoriously always fixed. In particular, the feelings +of the vicar’s family were outraged; and a Local Organ (say, the +Tattlesnivel Bleater) consequently doomed the said piece to everlasting +oblivion, as being of an “injurious tendency!” + +When this fearful fact came to the knowledge of the unhappy writer of the +doomed tale in question, he covered his face with his robe, previous to +dying decently under the sharp steel of the ecclesiastical gentility of +the terrible town of Eye. But the discovery that he was not alone in his +gloomy glory, revived him, and he still lives. + +For, at Stowmarket, in the aforesaid county of Suffolk, at another of +those penny readings, it was announced that a certain juvenile sketch, +culled from a volume of sketches (by Boz) and entitled “The Bloomsbury +Christening”, would be read. Hereupon, the clergyman of that place took +heart and pen, and addressed the following terrific epistle to a +gentleman bearing the very appropriate name of Gudgeon: + + STOWMARKET VICARAGE, _Feb._ 25, 1861. + + SIR,—My attention has been directed to a piece called “The Bloomsbury + Christening” which you propose to read this evening. Without + presuming to claim any interference in the arrangement of the + readings, I would suggest to you whether you have on this occasion + sufficiently considered the character of the composition you have + selected. I quite appreciate the laudable motive of the promoters of + the readings to raise the moral tone amongst the working class of the + town and to direct this taste in a familiar and pleasant manner. + “The Bloomsbury Christening” cannot possibly do this. It trifles + with a sacred ordinance, and the language and style, instead of + improving the taste, has a direct tendency to lower it. + + I appeal to your right feeling whether it is desirable to give + publicity to that which must shock several of your audience, and + create a smile amongst others, to be indulged in only by violating + the conscientious scruples of their neighbours. + + The ordinance which is here exposed to ridicule is one which is much + misunderstood and neglected amongst many families belonging to the + Church of England, and the mode in which it is treated in this + chapter cannot fail to appear as giving a sanction to, or at least + excusing, such neglect. + + Although you are pledged to the public to give this subject, yet I + cannot but believe that they would fully justify your substitution of + it for another did they know the circumstances. An abridgment would + only lessen the evil in a degree, as it is not only the style of the + writing but the subject itself which is objectionable. + + Excuse me for troubling you, but I felt that, in common with + yourself, I have a grave responsibility in the matter, and I am most + truly yours, + + T. S. COLES. + + To Mr. J. Gudgeon. + +It is really necessary to explain that this is not a bad joke. It is +simply a bad fact. + + + + +RATHER A STRONG DOSE + + +“DOCTOR JOHN CAMPBELL, the minister of the Tabernacle Chapel, Finsbury, +and editor of the _British Banner_, etc., with that massive vigour which +distinguishes his style,” did, we are informed by Mr. Howitt, “deliver a +verdict in the _Banner_, for November, 1852,” of great importance and +favour to the Table-rapping cause. We are not informed whether the +Public, sitting in judgment on the question, reserved any point in this +great verdict for subsequent consideration; but the verdict would seem to +have been regarded by a perverse generation as not quite final, inasmuch +as Mr. Howitt finds it necessary to re-open the case, a round ten years +afterwards, in nine hundred and sixty-two stiff octavo pages, published +by Messrs. Longman and Company. + +Mr. Howitt is in such a bristling temper on the Supernatural subject, +that we will not take the great liberty of arguing any point with him. +But—with the view of assisting him to make converts—we will inform our +readers, on his conclusive authority, what they are required to believe; +premising what may rather astonish them in connexion with their views of +a certain historical trifle, called The Reformation, that their present +state of unbelief is all the fault of Protestantism, and that “it is high +time, therefore, to protest against Protestantism”. + +They will please to believe, by way of an easy beginning, all the stories +of good and evil demons, ghosts, prophecies, communication with spirits, +and practice of magic, that ever obtained, or are said to have ever +obtained, in the North, in the South, in the East, in the West, from the +earliest and darkest ages, as to which we have any hazy intelligence, +real or supposititious, down to the yet unfinished displacement of the +red men in North America. They will please to believe that nothing in +this wise was changed by the fulfilment of our Saviour’s mission upon +earth; and further, that what Saint Paul did, can be done again, and has +been done again. As this is not much to begin with, they will throw in +at this point rejection of Faraday and Brewster, and “poor Paley”, and +implicit acceptance of those shining lights, the Reverend Charles +Beecher, and the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher (“one of the most vigorous +and eloquent preachers of America”), and the Reverend Adin Ballou. + +Having thus cleared the way for a healthy exercise of faith, our +advancing readers will next proceed especially to believe in the old +story of the Drummer of Tedworth, in the inspiration of George Fox, in +“the spiritualism, prophecies, and provision” of Huntington the +coal-porter (him who prayed for the leather breeches which miraculously +fitted him), and even in the Cock Lane Ghost. They will please wind up, +before fetching their breath, with believing that there is a close +analogy between rejection of any such plain and proved facts as those +contained in the whole foregoing catalogue, and the opposition +encountered by the inventors of railways, lighting by gas, microscopes +and telescopes, and vaccination. This stinging consideration they will +always carry rankling in their remorseful hearts as they advance. + +As touching the Cock Lane Ghost, our conscience-stricken readers will +please particularly to reproach themselves for having ever supposed that +important spiritual manifestation to have been a gross imposture which +was thoroughly detected. They will please to believe that Dr. Johnson +believed in it, and that, in Mr. Howitt’s words, he “appears to have had +excellent reasons for his belief”. With a view to this end, the faithful +will be so good as to obliterate from their Boswells the following +passage: “Many of my readers, I am convinced, are to this hour under an +impression that Johnson was thus foolishly deceived. It will therefore +surprise them a good deal when they are informed upon undoubted authority +that Johnson was one of those by whom the imposture was detected. The +story had become so popular, that he thought it should be investigated, +and in this research he was assisted by the Rev. Dr. Douglas, now Bishop +of Salisbury, the great detector of impostures”—and therefore +tremendously obnoxious to Mr. Howitt—“who informs me that after the +gentlemen who went and examined into the evidence were satisfied of its +falsity, Johnson wrote in their presence an account of it, which was +published in the newspapers and _Gentleman’s Magazine_, and undeceived +the world”. But as there will still remain another highly inconvenient +passage in the Boswells of the true believers, they must likewise be at +the trouble of cancelling the following also, referring to a later time: +“He (Johnson) expressed great indignation at the imposture of the Cock +Lane Ghost, and related with much satisfaction how he had assisted in +detecting the cheat, and had published an account of it in the +newspapers”. + +They will next believe (if they be, in the words of Captain Bobadil, “so +generously minded”) in the transatlantic trance-speakers “who professed +to speak from direct inspiration”, Mrs. Cora Hatch, Mrs. Henderson, and +Miss Emma Hardinge; and they will believe in those eminent ladies having +“spoken on Sundays to five hundred thousand hearers”—small audiences, by +the way, compared with the intelligent concourse recently assembled in +the city of New York, to do honour to the Nuptials of General the +Honourable T. Barnum Thumb. At about this stage of their spiritual +education they may take the opportunity of believing in “letters from a +distinguished gentleman of New York, in which the frequent appearance of +the gentleman’s deceased wife and of Dr. Franklin, to him and other +well-known friends, are unquestionably unequalled in the annals of the +marvellous”. Why these modest appearances should seem at all out of the +common way to Mr. Howitt (who would be in a state of flaming indignation +if we thought them so), we could not imagine, until we found on reading +further, “it is solemnly stated that the witnesses have not only seen but +touched these spirits, and handled the clothes and hair of Franklin”. +Without presuming to go Mr. Howitt’s length of considering this by any +means a marvellous experience, we yet venture to confess that it has +awakened in our mind many interesting speculations touching the present +whereabout in space, of the spirits of Mr. Howitt’s own departed boots +and hats. + +The next articles of belief are Belief in the moderate figures of “thirty +thousand media in the United States in 1853”; and in two million five +hundred thousand spiritualists in the same country of composed minds, in +1855, “professing to have arrived at their convictions of spiritual +communication from personal experience”; and in “an average rate of +increase of three hundred thousand per annum”, still in the same country +of calm philosophers. Belief in spiritual knockings, in all manner of +American places, and, among others, in the house of “a Doctor Phelps at +Stratford, Connecticut, a man of the highest character for intelligence”, +says Mr. Howitt, and to whom we willingly concede the possession of far +higher intelligence than was displayed by his spiritual knocker, in +“frequently cutting to pieces the clothes of one of his boys”, and in +breaking “seventy-one panes of glass”—unless, indeed, the knocker, when +in the body, was connected with the tailoring and glazing interests. +Belief in immaterial performers playing (in the dark though: they are +obstinate about its being in the dark) on material instruments of wood, +catgut, brass, tin, and parchment. Your belief is further requested in +“the Kentucky Jerks”. The spiritual achievements thus euphoniously +denominated “appear”, says Mr. Howitt, “to have been of a very disorderly +kind”. It appears that a certain Mr. Doke, a Presbyterian clergyman, +“was first seized by the jerks”, and the jerks laid hold of Mr. Doke in +that unclerical way and with that scant respect for his cloth, that they +“twitched him about in a most extraordinary manner, often when in the +pulpit, and caused him to shout aloud, and run out of the pulpit into the +woods, screaming like a madman. When the fit was over, he returned +calmly to his pulpit and finished the service.” The congregation having +waited, we presume, and edified themselves with the distant bellowings of +Doke in the woods, until he came back again, a little warm and hoarse, +but otherwise in fine condition. “People were often seized at hotels, +and at table would, on lifting a glass to drink, jerk the liquor to the +ceiling; ladies would at the breakfast-table suddenly be compelled to +throw aloft their coffee, and frequently break the cup and saucer.” A +certain venturesome clergyman vowed that he would preach down the Jerks, +“but he was seized in the midst of his attempt, and made so ridiculous +that he withdrew himself from further notice”—an example much to be +commended. That same favoured land of America has been particularly +favoured in the development of “innumerable mediums”, and Mr. Howitt +orders you to believe in Daniel Dunglas Home, Andrew Davis Jackson, and +Thomas L. Harris, as “the three most remarkable, or most familiar, on +this side of the Atlantic”. Concerning Mr. Home, the articles of belief +(besides removal of furniture) are, That through him raps have been given +and communications made from deceased friends. That “his hand has been +seized by spirit influence, and rapid communications written out, of a +surprising character to those to whom they were addressed”. That at his +bidding, “spirit hands have appeared which have been seen, felt, and +recognised frequently, by persons present, as those of deceased friends”. +That he has been frequently lifted up and carried, floating “as it were” +through a room, near the ceiling. That in America, “all these phenomena +have displayed themselves in greater force than here”—which we have not +the slightest doubt of. That he is “the planter of spiritualism all over +Europe”. That “by circumstances that no man could have devised, he +became the guest of the Emperor of the French, of the King of Holland, of +the Czar of Russia, and of many lesser princes”. That he returned from +“this unpremeditated missionary tour”, “endowed with competence”; but not +before, “at the Tuileries, on one occasion when the emperor, empress, a +distinguished lady, and himself only were sitting at table, a hand +appeared, took up a pen, and wrote, in a strong and well-known character, +the word Napoleon. The hand was then successively presented to the +several personages of the party to kiss.” The stout believer, having +disposed of Mr. Home, and rested a little, will then proceed to believe +in Andrew Davis Jackson, or Andrew Jackson Davis (Mr. Howitt, having no +Medium at hand to settle this difference and reveal the right name of the +seer, calls him by both names), who merely “beheld all the essential +natures of things, saw the interior of men and animals, as perfectly as +their exterior; and described them in language so correct, that the most +able technologists could not surpass him. He pointed out the proper +remedies for all the complaints, and the shops where they were to be +obtained”;—in the latter respect appearing to hail from an advertising +circle, as we conceive. It was also in this gentleman’s limited +department to “see the metals in the earth”, and to have “the most +distant regions and their various productions present before him”. +Having despatched this tough case, the believer will pass on to Thomas L. +Harris, and will swallow _him_ easily, together with “whole epics” of his +composition; a certain work “of scarcely less than Miltonic grandeur”, +called The Lyric of the Golden Age—a lyric pretty nigh as long as one of +Mr. Howitt’s volumes—dictated by Mr. (not Mrs.) Harris to the publisher +in ninety-four hours; and several extempore sermons, possessing the +remarkably lucid property of being “full, unforced, out-gushing, +unstinted, and absorbing”. The candidate for examination in pure belief, +will then pass on to the spirit-photography department; this, again, will +be found in so-favoured America, under the superintendence of Medium +Mumler, a photographer of Boston: who was “astonished” (though, on Mr. +Howitt’s showing, he surely ought not to have been) “on taking a +photograph of himself, to find also by his side the figure of a young +girl, which he immediately recognised as that of a deceased relative. +The circumstance made a great excitement. Numbers of persons rushed to +his rooms, and many have found deceased friends photographed with +themselves.” (Perhaps Mr. Mumler, too, may become “endowed with +competence” in time. Who knows?) Finally, the true believers in the +gospel according to Howitt, have, besides, but to pin their faith on +“ladies who see spirits habitually”, on ladies who _know_ they have a +tendency to soar in the air on sufficient provocation, and on a few other +gnats to be taken after their camels, and they shall be pronounced by Mr. +Howitt not of the stereotyped class of minds, and not partakers of “the +astonishing ignorance of the press”, and shall receive a first-class +certificate of merit. + +But before they pass through this portal into the Temple of Serene +Wisdom, we, halting blind and helpless on the steps, beg to suggest to +them what they must at once and for ever disbelieve. They must +disbelieve that in the dark times, when very few were versed in what are +now the mere recreations of Science, and when those few formed a +priesthood-class apart, any marvels were wrought by the aid of concave +mirrors and a knowledge of the properties of certain odours and gases, +although the self-same marvels could be reproduced before their eyes at +the Polytechnic Institution, Regent Street, London, any day in the year. +They must by no means believe that Conjuring and Ventriloquism are old +trades. They must disbelieve all Philosophical Transactions containing +the records of painful and careful inquiry into now familiar disorders of +the senses of seeing and hearing, and into the wonders of somnambulism, +epilepsy, hysteria, miasmatic influence, vegetable poisons derived by +whole communities from corrupted air, diseased imitation, and moral +infection. They must disbelieve all such awkward leading cases as the +case of the Woodstock Commissioners and their man, and the case of the +Identity of the Stockwell Ghost, with the maid-servant. They must +disbelieve the vanishing of champion haunted houses (except, indeed, out +of Mr. Howitt’s book), represented to have been closed and ruined for +years, before one day’s inquiry by four gentlemen associated with this +journal, and one hour’s reference to the Local Rate-books. They must +disbelieve all possibility of a human creature on the last verge of the +dark bridge from Life to Death, being mysteriously able, in occasional +cases, so to influence the mind of one very near and dear, as vividly to +impress that mind with some disturbed sense of the solemn change +impending. They must disbelieve the possibility of the lawful existence +of a class of intellects which, humbly conscious of the illimitable power +of GOD and of their own weakness and ignorance, never deny that He can +cause the souls of the dead to revisit the earth, or that He may have +caused the souls of the dead to revisit the earth, or that He can cause +any awful or wondrous thing to be; but to deny the likelihood of +apparitions or spirits coming here upon the stupidest of bootless +errands, and producing credentials tantamount to a solicitation of our +vote and interest and next proxy, to get them into the Asylum for Idiots. +They must disbelieve the right of Christian people who do _not_ protest +against Protestantism, but who hold it to be a barrier against the +darkest superstitions that can enslave the soul, to guard with jealousy +all approaches tending down to Cock Lane Ghosts and suchlike infamous +swindles, widely degrading when widely believed in; and they must +disbelieve that such people have the right to know, and that it is their +duty to know, wonder-workers by their fruits, and to test miracle-mongers +by the tests of probability, analogy, and common sense. They must +disbelieve all rational explanations of thoroughly proved experiences +(only) which appear supernatural, derived from the average experience and +study of the visible world. They must disbelieve the speciality of the +Master and the Disciples, and that it is a monstrosity to test the +wonders of show-folk by the same touchstone. Lastly, they must +disbelieve that one of the best accredited chapters in the history of +mankind is the chapter that records the astonishing deceits continually +practised, with no object or purpose but the distorted pleasure of +deceiving. + +We have summed up a few—not nearly all—of the articles of belief and +disbelief to which Mr. Howitt most arrogantly demands an implicit +adherence. To uphold these, he uses a book as a Clown in a Pantomime +does, and knocks everybody on the head with it who comes in his way. +Moreover, he is an angrier personage than the Clown, and does not +experimentally try the effect of his red-hot poker on your shins, but +straightway runs you through the body and soul with it. He is always +raging to tell you that if you are not Howitt, you are Atheist and +Anti-Christ. He is the sans-culotte of the Spiritual Revolution, and +will not hear of your accepting this point and rejecting that;—down your +throat with them all, one and indivisible, at the point of the pike; No +Liberty, Totality, Fraternity, or Death! + +Without presuming to question that “it is high time to protest against +Protestantism” on such very substantial grounds as Mr. Howitt sets forth, +we do presume to think that it is high time to protest against Mr. +Howitt’s spiritualism, as being a little in excess of the peculiar merit +of Thomas L. Harris’s sermons, and somewhat _too_ “full, out-gushing, +unstinted, and absorbing”. + + + + +THE MARTYR MEDIUM + + +“AFTER the valets, the master!” is Mr. Fechter’s rallying cry in the +picturesque romantic drama which attracts all London to the Lyceum +Theatre. After the worshippers and puffers of Mr. Daniel Dunglas Home, +the spirit medium, comes Mr. Daniel Dunglas Home himself, in one volume. +And we must, for the honour of Literature, plainly express our great +surprise and regret that he comes arm-in-arm with such good company as +Messrs. Longman and Company. + +We have already summed up Mr. Home’s demands on the public capacity of +swallowing, as sounded through the war-denouncing trumpet of Mr. Howitt, +and it is not our intention to revive the strain as performed by Mr. Home +on his own melodious instrument. We notice, by the way, that in that +part of the Fantasia where the hand of the first Napoleon is supposed to +be reproduced, recognised, and kissed, at the Tuileries, Mr. Home subdues +the florid effects one might have expected after Mr. Howitt’s execution, +and brays in an extremely general manner. And yet we observe Mr. Home to +be in other things very reliant on Mr. Howitt, of whom he entertains as +gratifying an opinion as Mr. Howitt entertains of him: dwelling on his +“deep researches into this subject”, and of his “great work now ready for +the press”, and of his “eloquent and forcible” advocacy, and eke of his +“elaborate and almost exhaustive work”, which Mr. Home trusts will be +“extensively read”. But, indeed, it would seem to be the most reliable +characteristic of the Dear Spirits, though very capricious in other +particulars, that they always form their circles into what may be +described, in worldly terms, as A Mutual Admiration and Complimentation +Company (Limited). + +Mr. Home’s book is entitled _Incidents in My Life_. We will extract a +dozen sample passages from it, as variations on and phrases of harmony +in, the general strain for the Trumpet, which we have promised not to +repeat. + + + +1. MR. HOME IS SUPERNATURALLY NURSED + + +“I cannot remember when first I became subject to the curious phenomena +which have now for so long attended me, but my aunt and others have told +me that when I was a baby my cradle was frequently rocked, as if some +kind guardian spirit was attending me in my slumbers.” + + + +2. DISRESPECTFUL CONDUCT OF MR. HOME’S AUNT NEVERTHELESS + + +“In her uncontrollable anger she seized a chair and threw it at me.” + + + +3. PUNISHMENT OF MR. HOME’S AUNT + + +“Upon one occasion as the table was being thus moved about of itself, my +aunt brought the family Bible, and placing it on the table, said, ‘There, +that will soon drive the devils away’; but to her astonishment the table +only moved in a more lively manner, as if pleased to bear such a burden.” +(We believe this is constantly observed in pulpits and church reading +desks, which are invariably lively.) “Seeing this she was greatly +incensed, and determined to stop it, she angrily placed her whole weight +on the table, and was actually lifted up with it bodily from the floor.” + + + +4. TRIUMPHANT EFFECT OF THIS DISCIPLINE ON MR. HOME’S AUNT + + +“And she felt it a duty that I should leave her house, and which I did.” + + + +5. MR. HOME’S MISSION + + +It was communicated to him by the spirit of his mother, in the following +terms: “Daniel, fear not, my child, God is with you, and who shall be +against you? Seek to do good: be truthful and truth-loving, and you will +prosper, my child. Yours is a glorious mission—you will convince the +infidel, cure the sick, and console the weeping.” It is a coincidence +that another eminent man, with several missions, heard a voice from the +Heavens blessing him, when he also was a youth, and saying, “You will be +rewarded, my son, in time”. This Medium was the celebrated Baron +Munchausen, who relates the experience in the opening of the second +chapter of the incidents in _his_ life. + + + +6. MODEST SUCCESS OF MR. HOME’S MISSION + + +“Certainly these phenomena, whether from God or from the devil, have in +ten years caused more converts to the great truths of immortality and +angel communion, with all that flows from these great facts, than all the +sects in Christendom have made during the same period.” + + + +7. WHAT THE FIRST COMPOSERS SAY OF THE SPIRIT-MUSIC, TO MR. HOME + + +“As to the music, it has been my good fortune to be on intimate terms +with some of the first composers of the day, and more than one of them +have said of such as they have heard, that it is such music as only +angels could make, and no man could write it.” + +These “first composers” are not more particularly named. We shall +therefore be happy to receive and file at the office of this Journal, the +testimonials in the foregoing terms of Dr. Sterndale Bennett, Mr. Balfe, +Mr. Macfarren, Mr. Benedict, Mr. Vincent Wallace, Signor Costa, M. Auber, +M. Gounod, Signor Rossini, and Signor Verdi. We shall also feel obliged +to Mr. Alfred Mellon, who is no doubt constantly studying this wonderful +music, under the Medium’s auspices, if he will note on paper, from +memory, say a single sheet of the same. Signor Giulio Regondi will then +perform it, as correctly as a mere mortal can, on the Accordion, at the +next ensuing concert of the Philharmonic Society; on which occasion the +before-mentioned testimonials will be conspicuously displayed in the +front of the orchestra. + + + +8. MR. HOME’S MIRACULOUS INFANT + + +“On the 26th April, old style, or 8th May, according to our style, at +seven in the evening, and as the snow was fast falling, our little boy +was born at the town house, situate on the Gagarines Quay, in St. +Petersburg, where we were still staying. A few hours after his birth, +his mother, the nurse, and I heard for several hours the warbling of a +bird as if singing over him. Also that night, and for two or three +nights afterwards, a bright starlike light, which was clearly visible +from the partial darkness of the room, in which there was only a +night-lamp burning, appeared several times directly I over its head, +where it remained for some moments, and then slowly moved in the +direction of the door, where it disappeared. This was also seen by each +of us at the same time. The light was more condensed than those which +have been so often seen in my presence upon previous and subsequent +occasions. It was brighter and more distinctly globular. I do not +believe that it came through my mediumship, but rather through that of +the child, who has manifested on several occasions the presence of the +gift. I do not like to allude to such a matter, but as there are more +strange things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of, even in my +philosophy, I do not feel myself at liberty to omit stating, that during +the latter part of my wife’s pregnancy, we thought it better that she +should not join in Séances, because it was found that whenever the +rappings occurred in the room, a simultaneous movement of the child was +distinctly felt, perfectly in unison with the sounds. When there were +three sounds, three movements were felt, and so on, and when five sounds +were heard, which is generally the call for the alphabet, she felt the +five internal movements, and she would frequently, when we were mistaken +in the latter, correct us from what the child indicated.” + +We should ask pardon of our readers for sullying our paper with this +nauseous matter, if without it they could adequately understand what Mr. +Home’s book is. + + + +9. CAGLIOSTRO’S SPIRIT CALLS ON MR. HOME + + +Prudently avoiding the disagreeable question of his giving himself, both +in this state of existence and in his spiritual circle, a name to which +he never had any pretensions whatever, and likewise prudently suppressing +any reference to his amiable weakness as a swindler and an infamous +trafficker in his own wife, the guileless Mr. Balsamo delivered, in a +“distinct voice”, this distinct celestial utterance—unquestionably +punctuated in a supernatural manner: “My power was that of a mesmerist, +but all-misunderstood by those about me, my biographers have even done me +injustice, but I care not for the untruths of earth”. + + + +10. ORACULAR STATE OF MR. HOME + + +“After various manifestations, Mr. Home went into the trance, and +addressing a person present, said, ‘You ask what good are such trivial +manifestations, such as rapping, table-moving, etc.? God is a better +judge than we are what is fitted for humanity, immense results may spring +from trivial things. The steam from a kettle is a small thing, but look +at the locomotive! The electric spark from the back of a cat is a small +thing, but see the wonders of electricity! The raps are small things, +but their results will lead you to the Spirit-World, and to eternity! +Why should great results spring from such small causes? Christ was born +in a manger, he was not born a King. When you tell me why he was born in +a manger, I will tell you why these manifestations, so trivial, so +undignified as they appear to you, have been appointed to convince the +world of the truth of spiritualism.’” + +Wonderful! Clearly direct Inspiration!—And yet, perhaps, hardly worth +the trouble of going “into the trance” for, either. Amazing as the +revelation is, we seem to have heard something like it from more than one +personage who was wide awake. A quack doctor, in an open barouche +(attended by a barrel-organ and two footmen in brass helmets), delivered +just such another address within our hearing, outside a gate of Paris, +not two months ago. + + + +11. THE TESTIMONY OF MR. HOME’S BOOTS + + +“The lady of the house turned to me and said abruptly, ‘Why, you are +sitting in the air’; and on looking, we found that the chair remained in +its place, but that I was elevated two or three inches above it, and my +feet not touching the floor. This may show how utterly unconscious I am +at times to the sensation of levitation. As is usual, when I had not got +above the level of the heads of those about me, and when they change +their position much—as they frequently do in looking wistfully at such a +phenomenon—I came down again, but not till I had remained so raised about +half a minute from the time of its being first seen. I was now impressed +to leave the table, and was soon carried to the lofty ceiling. The Count +de B— left his place at the table, and coming under where I was, said, +‘Now, young Home, come and let me touch your feet.’ I told him I had no +volition in the matter, but perhaps the spirits would kindly allow me to +come down to him. They did so, by floating me down to him, and my feet +were soon in his outstretched hands. He seized my boots, and now I was +again elevated, he holding tightly, and pulling at my feet, till the +boots I wore, which had elastic sides, came off and remained in his +hands.” + + + +12. THE UNCOMBATIVE NATURE OF MR. HOME + + +As there is a maudlin complaint in this book, about men of Science being +hard upon “the ‘Orphan’ Home”, and as the “gentle and uncombative nature” +of this Medium in a martyred point of view is pathetically commented on +by the anonymous literary friend who supplies him with an introduction +and appendix—rather at odds with Mr. Howitt, who is so mightily +triumphant about the same Martyr’s reception by crowned heads, and about +the competence he has become endowed with—we cull from Mr. Home’s book +one or two little illustrative flowers. Sir David Brewster (a pestilent +unbeliever) “has come before the public in few matters which have brought +more shame upon him than his conduct and assertions on this occasion, in +which he manifested not only a disregard for truth, but also a disloyalty +to scientific observation, and to the use of his own eyesight and natural +faculties”. The same unhappy Sir David Brewster’s “character may be the +better known, not only for his untruthful dealing with this subject, but +also in his own domain of science in which the same unfaithfulness to +truth will be seen to be the characteristic of his mind”. Again, he “is +really not a man over whom victory is any honour”. Again, “not only he, +but Professor Faraday have had time and ample leisure to regret that they +should have so foolishly pledged themselves”, etc. A Faraday a fool in +the sight of a Home! That unjust judge and whited wall, Lord Brougham, +has his share of this Martyr Medium’s uncombativeness. “In order that he +might not be compelled to deny Sir David’s statements, he found it +necessary that he should be silent, and I have some reason to complain +that his Lordship preferred sacrificing me to his desire not to immolate +his friend.” M. Arago also came off with very doubtful honours from a +wrestle with the uncombative Martyr; who is perfectly clear (and so are +we, let us add) that scientific men are not the men for his purpose. Of +course, he is the butt of “utter and acknowledged ignorance”, and of “the +most gross and foolish statements”, and of “the unjust and dishonest”, +and of “the press-gang”, and of crowds of other alien and combative +adjectives, participles, and substantives. + +Nothing is without its use, and even this odious book may do some +service. Not because it coolly claims for the writer and his disciples +such powers as were wielded by the Saviour and the Apostles; not because +it sees no difference between twelve table rappers in these days, and +“twelve fishermen” in those; not because it appeals for precedents to +statements extracted from the most ignorant and wretched of mankind, by +cruel torture, and constantly withdrawn when the torture was withdrawn; +not because it sets forth such a strange confusion of ideas as is +presented by one of the faithful when, writing of a certain sprig of +geranium handed by an invisible hand, he adds in ecstasies, “_which we +have planted and it is growing_, _so that it is no delusion_, _no fairy +money turned into dross or leaves_”—as if it followed that the conjuror’s +half-crowns really did become invisible and in that state fly, because he +afterwards cuts them out of a real orange; or as if the conjuror’s +pigeon, being after the discharge of his gun, a real live pigeon +fluttering on the target, must therefore conclusively be a pigeon, fired, +whole, living and unshattered, out of the gun!—not because of the +exposure of any of these weaknesses, or a thousand such, are these moving +incidents in the life of the Martyr Medium, and similar productions, +likely to prove useful, but because of their uniform abuse of those who +go to test the reality of these alleged phenomena, and who come away +incredulous. There is an old homely proverb concerning pitch and its +adhesive character, which we hope this significant circumstance may +impress on many minds. The writer of these lines has lately heard +overmuch touching young men of promise in the imaginative arts, “towards +whom” Martyr Mediums assisting at evening parties feel themselves +“drawn”. It may be a hint to such young men to stick to their own +drawing, as being of a much better kind, and to leave Martyr Mediums +alone in their glory. + +As there is a good deal in these books about “lying spirits”, we will +conclude by putting a hypothetical case. Supposing that a Medium (Martyr +or otherwise) were established for a time in the house of an English +gentleman abroad; say, somewhere in Italy. Supposing that the more +marvellous the Medium became, the more suspicious of him the lady of the +house became. Supposing that the lady, her distrust once aroused, were +particularly struck by the Medium’s exhibiting a persistent desire to +commit her, somehow or other, to the disclosure of the manner of the +death, to him unknown, of a certain person. Supposing that she at length +resolved to test the Medium on this head, and, therefore, on a certain +evening mentioned a wholly supposititious manner of death (which was not +the real manner of death, nor anything at all like it) within the range +of his listening ears. And supposing that a spirit presently afterwards +rapped out its presence, claiming to be the spirit of that deceased +person, and claiming to have departed this life in that supposititious +way. Would that be a lying spirit? Or would it he a something else, +tainting all that Medium’s statements and suppressions, even if they were +not in themselves of a manifestly outrageous character? + + + + +THE LATE MR. STANFIELD + + +EVERY Artist, be he writer, painter, musician, or actor, must bear his +private sorrows as he best can, and must separate them from the exercise +of his public pursuit. But it sometimes happens, in compensation, that +his private loss of a dear friend represents a loss on the part of the +whole community. Then he may, without obtrusion of his individuality, +step forth to lay his little wreath upon that dear friend’s grave. + +On Saturday, the eighteenth of this present month, Clarkson Stanfield +died. On the afternoon of that day, England lost the great marine +painter of whom she will be boastful ages hence; the National Historian +of her speciality, the Sea; the man famous in all countries for his +marvellous rendering of the waves that break upon her shores, of her +ships and seamen, of her coasts and skies, of her storms and sunshine, of +the many marvels of the deep. He who holds the oceans in the hollow of +His hand had given, associated with them, wonderful gifts into his +keeping; he had used them well through threescore and fourteen years; +and, on the afternoon of that spring day, relinquished them for ever. + +It is superfluous to record that the painter of “The Battle of +Trafalgar”, of the “_Victory_ being towed into Gibraltar with the body of +Nelson on Board”, of “The Morning after the Wreck”, of “The Abandoned”, +of fifty more such works, died in his seventy-fourth year, “Mr.” +Stanfield.—He was an Englishman. + +Those grand pictures will proclaim his powers while paint and canvas +last. But the writer of these words had been his friend for thirty +years; and when, a short week or two before his death, he laid that once +so skilful hand upon the writer’s breast and told him they would meet +again, “but not here”, the thoughts of the latter turned, for the time, +so little to his noble genius, and so much to his noble nature! + +He was the soul of frankness, generosity, and simplicity. The most +genial, the most affectionate, the most loving, and the most lovable of +men. Success had never for an instant spoiled him. His interest in the +Theatre as an Institution—the best picturesqueness of which may be said +to be wholly due to him—was faithful to the last. His belief in a Play, +his delight in one, the ease with which it moved him to tears or to +laughter, were most remarkable evidences of the heart he must have put +into his old theatrical work, and of the thorough purpose and sincerity +with which it must have been done. The writer was very intimately +associated with him in some amateur plays; and day after day, and night +after night, there were the same unquenchable freshness, enthusiasm, and +impressibility in him, though broken in health, even then. + +No Artist can ever have stood by his art with a quieter dignity than he +always did. Nothing would have induced him to lay it at the feet of any +human creature. To fawn, or to toady, or to do undeserved homage to any +one, was an absolute impossibility with him. And yet his character was +so nicely balanced that he was the last man in the world to be suspected +of self-assertion, and his modesty was one of his most special qualities. + +He was a charitable, religious, gentle, truly good man. A genuine man, +incapable of pretence or of concealment. He had been a sailor once; and +all the best characteristics that are popularly attributed to sailors, +being his, and being in him refined by the influences of his Art, formed +a whole not likely to be often seen. There is no smile that the writer +can recall, like his; no manner so naturally confiding and so cheerfully +engaging. When the writer saw him for the last time on earth, the smile +and the manner shone out once through the weakness, still: the bright +unchanging Soul within the altered face and form. + +No man was ever held in higher respect by his friends, and yet his +intimate friends invariably addressed him and spoke of him by a pet name. +It may need, perhaps, the writer’s memory and associations to find in +this a touching expression of his winning character, his playful smile, +and pleasant ways. “You know Mrs. Inchbald’s story, Nature and Art?” +wrote Thomas Hood, once, in a letter: “What a fine Edition of Nature and +Art is Stanfield!” + +Gone! And many and many a dear old day gone with him! But their +memories remain. And his memory will not soon fade out, for he has set +his mark upon the restless waters, and his fame will long be sounded in +the roar of the sea. + + + + +A SLIGHT QUESTION OF FACT + + +IT is never well for the public interest that the originator of any +social reform should be soon forgotten. Further, it is neither wholesome +nor right (being neither generous nor just) that the merit of his work +should be gradually transferred elsewhere. + +Some few weeks ago, our contemporary, the _Pall Mall Gazette_, in certain +strictures on our Theatres which we are very far indeed from challenging, +remarked on the first effectual discouragement of an outrage upon decency +which the lobbies and upper-boxes of even our best Theatres habitually +paraded within the last twenty or thirty years. From those remarks it +might appear as though no such Manager of Covent Garden or Drury Lane as +Mr. Macready had ever existed. + +It is a fact beyond all possibility of question, that Mr. Macready, on +assuming the management of Covent Garden Theatre in 1837, did instantly +set himself, regardless of precedent and custom down to that hour +obtaining, rigidly to suppress this shameful thing, and did rigidly +suppress and crush it during his whole management of that theatre, and +during his whole subsequent management of Drury Lane. That he did so, as +certainly without favour as without fear; that he did so, against his own +immediate interests; that he did so, against vexations and oppositions +which might have cooled the ardour of a less earnest man, or a less +devoted artist; can be better known to no one than the writer of the +present words, whose name stands at the head of these pages. + + + + +LANDOR’S LIFE + + +PREFIXED to the second volume of Mr. Forster’s admirable biography of +Walter Savage Landor, {519} is an engraving from a portrait of that +remarkable man when seventy-seven years of age, by Boxall. The writer of +these lines can testify that the original picture is a singularly good +likeness, the result of close and subtle observation on the part of the +painter; but, for this very reason, the engraving gives a most inadequate +idea of the merit of the picture and the character of the man. + +From the engraving, the arms and hands are omitted. In the picture, they +are, as they were in nature, indispensable to a correct reading of the +vigorous face. The arms were very peculiar. They were rather short, and +were curiously restrained and checked in their action at the elbows; in +the action of the hands, even when separately clenched, there was the +same kind of pause, and a noticeable tendency to relaxation on the part +of the thumb. Let the face be never so intense or fierce, there was a +commentary of gentleness in the hands, essential to be taken along with +it. Like Hamlet, Landor would speak daggers, but use none. In the +expression of his hands, though angrily closed, there was always +gentleness and tenderness; just as when they were open, and the handsome +old gentleman would wave them with a little courtly flourish that sat +well upon him, as he recalled some classic compliment that he had +rendered to some reigning Beauty, there was a chivalrous grace about them +such as pervades his softer verses. Thus the fictitious Mr. Boythorn (to +whom we may refer without impropriety in this connexion, as Mr. Forster +does) declaims “with unimaginable energy” the while his bird is “perched +upon his thumb”, and he “softly smooths its feathers with his +forefinger”. + +From the spirit of Mr. Forster’s Biography these characteristic hands are +never omitted, and hence (apart from its literary merits) its great +value. As the same masterly writer’s _Life and Times of Oliver +Goldsmith_ is a generous and yet conscientious picture of a period, so +this is a not less generous and yet conscientious picture of one life; of +a life, with all its aspirations, achievements, and disappointments; all +its capabilities, opportunities, and irretrievable mistakes. It is +essentially a sad book, and herein lies proof of its truth and worth. +The life of almost any man possessing great gifts, would be a sad book to +himself; and this book enables us not only to see its subject, but to be +its subject, if we will. + +Mr. Forster is of opinion that “Landor’s fame very surely awaits him”. +This point admitted or doubted, the value of the book remains the same. +It needs not to know his works (otherwise than through his biographer’s +exposition), it needs not to have known himself, to find a deep interest +in these pages. More or less of their warning is in every conscience; +and some admiration of a fine genius, and of a great, wild, generous +nature, incapable of mean self-extenuation or dissimulation—if unhappily +incapable of self-repression too—should be in every breast. “There may +be still living many persons”, Walter Landor’s brother, Robert, writes to +Mr. Forster of this book, “who would contradict any narrative of yours in +which the best qualities were remembered, the worst forgotten.” Mr. +Forster’s comment is: “I had not waited for this appeal to resolve, that, +if this memoir were written at all, it should contain, as far as might +lie within my power, a fair statement of the truth”. And this eloquent +passage of truth immediately follows: “Few of his infirmities are without +something kindly or generous about them; and we are not long in +discovering there is nothing so wildly incredible that he will not +himself in perfect good faith believe. When he published his first book +of poems on quitting Oxford, the profits were to be reserved for a +distressed clergyman. When he published his Latin poems, the poor of +Leipzig were to have the sum they realised. When his comedy was ready to +be acted, a Spaniard who had sheltered him at Castro was to be made +richer by it. When he competed for the prize of the Academy of +Stockholm, it was to go to the poor of Sweden. If nobody got anything +from any one of these enterprises, the fault at all events was not his. +With his extraordinary power of forgetting disappointments, he was +prepared at each successive failure to start afresh, as if each had been +a triumph. I shall have to delineate this peculiarity as strongly in the +last half as in the first half of his life, and it was certainly an +amiable one. He was ready at all times to set aside, out of his own +possessions, something for somebody who might please him for the time; +and when frailties of temper and tongue are noted, this other +eccentricity should not be omitted. He desired eagerly the love as well +as the good opinion of those whom for the time he esteemed, and no one +was more affectionate while under such influences. It is not a small +virtue to feel such genuine pleasure, as he always did in giving and +receiving pleasure. His generosity, too, was bestowed chiefly on those +who could make small acknowledgment in thanks and no return in kind.” + +Some of his earlier contemporaries may have thought him a vain man. Most +assuredly he was not, in the common acceptation of the term. A vain man +has little or no admiration to bestow upon competitors. Landor had an +inexhaustible fund. He thought well of his writings, or he would not +have preserved them. He said and wrote that he thought well of them, +because that was his mind about them, and he said and wrote his mind. He +was one of the few men of whom you might always know the whole: of whom +you might always know the worst, as well as the best. He had no +reservations or duplicities. “No, by Heaven!” he would say (“with +unimaginable energy”), if any good adjective were coupled with him which +he did not deserve: “I am nothing of the kind. I wish I were; but I +don’t deserve the attribute, and I never did, and I never shall!” His +intense consciousness of himself never led to his poorly excusing +himself, and seldom to his violently asserting himself. When he told +some little story of his bygone social experiences, in Florence, or where +not, as he was fond of doing, it took the innocent form of making all the +interlocutors, Landors. It was observable, too, that they always called +him “Mr. Landor”—rather ceremoniously and submissively. There was a +certain “Caro Pádre Abáte Marina”—invariably so addressed in these +anecdotes—who figured through a great many of them, and who always +expressed himself in this deferential tone. + +Mr. Forster writes of Landor’s character thus: + + “A man must be judged, at first, by what he says and does. But with + him such extravagance as I have referred to was little more than the + habitual indulgence (on such themes) of passionate feelings and + language, indecent indeed but utterly purposeless; the mere explosion + of wrath provoked by tyranny or cruelty; the irregularities of an + overheated steam-engine too weak for its own vapour. It is very + certain that no one could detest oppression more truly than Landor + did in all seasons and times; and if no one expressed that scorn, + that abhorrence of tyranny and fraud, more hastily or more + intemperately, all his fire and fury signified really little else + than ill-temper too easily provoked. Not to justify or excuse such + language, but to explain it, this consideration is urged. If not + uniformly placable, Landor was always compassionate. He was + tender-hearted rather than bloody-minded at all times, and upon only + the most partial acquaintance with his writings could other opinion + be formed. A completer knowledge of them would satisfy any one that + he had as little real disposition to kill a king as to kill a mouse. + In fact there is not a more marked peculiarity in his genius than the + union with its strength of a most uncommon gentleness, and in the + personal ways of the man this was equally manifest.”—Vol. i. p. 496. + +Of his works, thus: + + “Though his mind was cast in the antique mould, it had opened itself + to every kind of impression through a long and varied life; he has + written with equal excellence in both poetry and prose, which can + hardly be said of any of his contemporaries; and perhaps the single + epithet by which his books would be best described is that reserved + exclusively for books not characterised only by genius, but also by + special individuality. They are unique. Having possessed them, we + should miss them. Their place would be supplied by no others. They + have that about them, moreover, which renders it almost certain that + they will frequently be resorted to in future time. There are none + in the language more quotable. Even where impulsiveness and want of + patience have left them most fragmentary, this rich compensation is + offered to the reader. There is hardly a conceivable subject, in + life or literature, which they do not illustrate by striking + aphorisms, by concise and profound observations, by wisdom ever + applicable to the deeds of men, and by wit as available for their + enjoyment. Nor, above all, will there anywhere be found a more + pervading passion for liberty, a fiercer hatred of the base, a wider + sympathy with the wronged and the oppressed, or help more ready at + all times for those who fight at odds and disadvantage against the + powerful and the fortunate, than in the writings of Walter Savage + Landor.”—Last page of second volume. + +The impression was strong upon the present writer’s mind, as on Mr. +Forster’s, during years of close friendship with the subject of this +biography, that his animosities were chiefly referable to the singular +inability in him to dissociate other people’s ways of thinking from his +own. He had, to the last, a ludicrous grievance (both Mr. Forster and +the writer have often amused themselves with it) against a good-natured +nobleman, doubtless perfectly unconscious of having ever given him +offence. The offence was, that on the occasion of some dinner party in +another nobleman’s house, many years before, this innocent lord (then a +commoner) had passed in to dinner, through some door, before him, as he +himself was about to pass in through that same door with a lady on his +arm. Now, Landor was a gentleman of most scrupulous politeness, and in +his carriage of himself towards ladies there was a certain mixture of +stateliness and deference, belonging to quite another time, and, as Mr. +Pepys would observe, “mighty pretty to see”. If he could by any effort +imagine himself committing such a high crime and misdemeanour as that in +question, he could only imagine himself as doing it of a set purpose, +under the sting of some vast injury, to inflict a great affront. A +deliberately designed affront on the part of another man, it therefore +remained to the end of his days. The manner in which, as time went on, +he permeated the unfortunate lord’s ancestry with this offence, was +whimsically characteristic of Landor. The writer remembers very well +when only the individual himself was held responsible in the story for +the breach of good breeding; but in another ten years or so, it began to +appear that his father had always been remarkable for ill manners; and in +yet another ten years or so, his grandfather developed into quite a +prodigy of coarse behaviour. + +Mr. Boythorn—if he may again be quoted—said of his adversary, Sir +Leicester Dedlock: “That fellow is, _and his father was_, _and his +grandfather was_, the most stiff-necked, arrogant, imbecile, pig-headed +numskull, ever, by some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any +station of life but a walking-stick’s!” + +The strength of some of Mr. Landor’s most captivating kind qualities was +traceable to the same source. Knowing how keenly he himself would feel +the being at any small social disadvantage, or the being unconsciously +placed in any ridiculous light, he was wonderfully considerate of shy +people, or of such as might be below the level of his usual conversation, +or otherwise out of their element. The writer once observed him in the +keenest distress of mind in behalf of a modest young stranger who came +into a drawing-room with a glove on his head. An expressive commentary +on this sympathetic condition, and on the delicacy with which he advanced +to the young stranger’s rescue, was afterwards furnished by himself at a +friendly dinner at Gore House, when it was the most delightful of houses. +His dress—say, his cravat or shirt-collar—had become slightly disarranged +on a hot evening, and Count D’Orsay laughingly called his attention to +the circumstance as we rose from table. Landor became flushed, and +greatly agitated: “My dear Count D’Orsay, I thank you! My dear Count +D’Orsay, I thank you from my soul for pointing out to me the abominable +condition to which I am reduced! If I had entered the Drawing-room, and +presented myself before Lady Blessington in so absurd a light, I would +have instantly gone home, put a pistol to my head, and blown my brains +out!” + +Mr. Forster tells a similar story of his keeping a company waiting +dinner, through losing his way; and of his seeing no remedy for that +breach of politeness but cutting his throat, or drowning himself, unless +a countryman whom he met could direct him by a short road to the house +where the party were assembled. Surely these are expressive notes on the +gravity and reality of his explosive inclinations to kill kings! + +His manner towards boys was charming, and the earnestness of his wish to +be on equal terms with them and to win their confidence was quite +touching. Few, reading Mr. Forster’s book, can fall to see in this, his +pensive remembrance of that “studious wilful boy at once shy and +impetuous”, who had not many intimacies at Rugby, but who was “generally +popular and respected, and used his influence often to save the younger +boys from undue harshness or violence”. The impulsive yearnings of his +passionate heart towards his own boy, on their meeting at Bath, after +years of separation, likewise burn through this phase of his character. + +But a more spiritual, softened, and unselfish aspect of it, was to +derived from his respectful belief in happiness which he himself had +missed. His marriage had not been a felicitous one—it may be fairly +assumed for either side—but no trace of bitterness or distrust concerning +other marriages was in his mind. He was never more serene than in the +midst of a domestic circle, and was invariably remarkable for a perfectly +benignant interest in young couples and young lovers. That, in his +ever-fresh fancy, he conceived in this association innumerable histories +of himself involving far more unlikely events that never happened than +Isaac D’Israeli ever imagined, is hardly to be doubted; but as to this +part of his real history he was mute, or revealed his nobleness in an +impulse to be generously just. We verge on delicate ground, but a slight +remembrance rises in the writer which can grate nowhere. Mr. Forster +relates how a certain friend, being in Florence, sent him home a leaf +from the garden of his old house at Fiesole. That friend had first asked +him what he should send him home, and he had stipulated for this +gift—found by Mr. Forster among his papers after his death. The friend, +on coming back to England, related to Landor that he had been much +embarrassed, on going in search of the leaf, by his driver’s suddenly +stopping his horses in a narrow lane, and presenting him (the friend) to +“La Signora Landora”. The lady was walking alone on a bright +Italian-winter-day; and the man, having been told to drive to the Villa +Landora, inferred that he must be conveying a guest or visitor. “I +pulled off my hat,” said the friend, “apologised for the coachman’s +mistake, and drove on. The lady was walking with a rapid and firm step, +had bright eyes, a fine fresh colour, and looked animated and agreeable.” +Landor checked off each clause of the description, with a stately nod of +more than ready assent, and replied, with all his tremendous energy +concentrated into the sentence: “And the Lord forbid that I should do +otherwise than declare that she always WAS agreeable—to every one but +_me_!” + +Mr. Forster step by step builds up the evidence on which he writes this +life and states this character. In like manner, he gives the evidence +for his high estimation of Landor’s works, and—it may be added—for their +recompense against some neglect, in finding so sympathetic, acute, and +devoted a champion. Nothing in the book is more remarkable than his +examination of each of Landor’s successive pieces of writing, his +delicate discernment of their beauties, and his strong desire to impart +his own perceptions in this wise to the great audience that is yet to +come. It rarely befalls an author to have such a commentator: to become +the subject of so much artistic skill and knowledge, combined with such +infinite and loving pains. Alike as a piece of Biography, and as a +commentary upon the beauties of a great writer, the book is a massive +book; as the man and the writer were massive too. Sometimes, when the +balance held by Mr. Forster has seemed for a moment to turn a little +heavily against the infirmities of temperament of a grand old friend, we +have felt something of a shock; but we have not once been able to gainsay +the justice of the scales. This feeling, too, has only fluttered out of +the detail, here or there, and has vanished before the whole. We fully +agree with Mr. Forster that “judgment has been passed”—as it should +be—“with an equal desire to be only just on all the qualities of his +temperament which affected necessarily not his own life only. But, now +that the story is told, no one will have difficulty in striking the +balance between its good and ill; and what was really imperishable in +Landor’s genius will not be treasured less, or less understood, for the +more perfect knowledge of his character”. + +Mr. Forster’s second volume gives a facsimile of Landor’s writing at +seventy-five. It may be interesting to those who are curious in +calligraphy, to know that its resemblance to the recent handwriting of +that great genius, M. Victor Hugo, is singularly strong. + +In a military burial-ground in India, the name of Walter Landor is +associated with the present writer’s over the grave of a young officer. +No name could stand there, more inseparably associated in the writer’s +mind with the dignity of generosity: with a noble scorn of all +littleness, all cruelty, oppression, fraud, and false pretence. + + + + +ADDRESS WHICH APPEARED SHORTLY PREVIOUS TO THE COMPLETION OF THE +TWENTIETH VOLUME (1868), INTIMATING A NEW SERIES OF “ALL THE YEAR ROUND” + + +I BEG to announce to the readers of this Journal, that on the completion +of the Twentieth Volume on the Twenty-eighth of November, in the present +year, I shall commence an entirely New Series of _All the Year Round_. +The change is not only due to the convenience of the public (with which a +set of such books, extending beyond twenty large volumes, would be quite +incompatible), but is also resolved upon for the purpose of effecting +some desirable improvements in respect of type, paper, and size of page, +which could not otherwise be made. To the Literature of the New Series +it would not become me to refer, beyond glancing at the pages of this +Journal, and of its predecessor, through a score of years; inasmuch as my +regular fellow-labourers and I will be at our old posts, in company with +those younger comrades, whom I have had the pleasure of enrolling from +time to time, and whose number it is always one of my pleasantest +editorial duties to enlarge. + +As it is better that every kind of work honestly undertaken and +discharged, should speak for itself than be spoken for, I will only +remark further on one intended omission in the New Series. The Extra +Christmas Number has now been so extensively, and regularly, and often +imitated, that it is in very great danger of becoming tiresome. I have +therefore resolved (though I cannot add, willingly) to abolish it, at the +highest tide of its success. + + CHARLES DICKENS. + + + + +FOOTNOTE + + +{519} _Walter Savage Landor_: a Biography, by John Forster, 2 vols. +Chapman and Hall. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTRIBUTIONS TO ALL THE YEAR +ROUND*** + + +******* This file should be named 1464-0.txt or 1464-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/6/1464 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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