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diff --git a/1464-h/1464-h.htm b/1464-h/1464-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2bb4c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/1464-h/1464-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3016 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Contributions to All the Year Round, by Charles Dickens</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .5em; + text-decoration: none;} + span.red { color: red; } + body {background-color: #ffffc0; } + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +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: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTRIBUTIONS TO ALL THE YEAR +ROUND*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1912 Gresham Publishing Company edition +(<i>Works of Charles Dickens</i>, <i>Volume</i> 19) by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/cover.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/cover.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>CONTRIBUTIONS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO</span><br /> +<i>All The Year Round</i></h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +CHARLES DICKENS</p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Announcement in <i>Household Words</i> of the Approaching +Publication of <i>All The Year Round</i> (May 28, 1859)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page475">475</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Poor Man and his Beer (April 30, 1859)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page477">477</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Five New Points of Criminal Law (September 24, 1859)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page485">485</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Leigh Hunt: A Remonstrance (December 24, 1859)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page485">485</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Tattlesnivel Bleater (December 31, 1859)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page487">487</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Young Man from the Country (March 1, 1862)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page497">497</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>An Enlightened Clergyman (March 8, 1862)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page502">502</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Rather a Strong Dose (March 21, 1863)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page504">504</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Martyr Medium (April 4, 1863)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page510">510</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Late Mr. Stanfield (June 1, 1867)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page516">516</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>A Slight Question of Fact (February 13, 1869)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page518">518</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Landor’s Life (July 24, 1869)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page519">519</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Address which Appeared Shortly previous to the Completion +of the Twentieth Volume (1868) intimating a New Series of <i>All +The Year Round</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page526">526</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page475"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +475</span>ANNOUNCEMENT IN “HOUSEHOLD WORDS” OF THE +APPROACHING PUBLICATION OF “ALL THE YEAR ROUND”</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">After</span> the appearance of the present +concluding Number of <i>Household Words</i>, this publication +will merge into the new weekly publication, <i>All the Year +Round</i>, and the title, <i>Household Words</i>, will form a +part of the title-page of <i>All the Year Round</i>.</p> +<p>The Prospectus of the latter Journal describes it in these +words:</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“ADDRESS</p> +<p>“Nine years of <i>Household Words</i>, are the best +practical assurance that can be offered to the public, of the +spirit and objects of <i>All the Year Round</i>.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“the story of our lives from +year to year.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“CHARLES DICKENS.”</p> +<p>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 <i>Household +Words</i>.</p> +<p>In referring our readers, henceforth, to <i>All the Year +Round</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><i>Saturday</i>, <i>May</i> 28, 1859.</p> +<h2><a name="page477"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 477</span>THE +POOR MAN AND HIS BEER</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">My</span> 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!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <i>that</i> 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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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”.</p> +<p>Dinner done, behold the Friar, Philosewers, and myself the +Dreary one, walking, at six o’clock, across the fields, to +the “Club-house.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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:</p> +<p>“Built for a reading-room,” said Friar Bacon; +“but not much used—yet.”</p> +<p>The dreary sage, looking in through the window, perceiving a +fixed reading-desk within, and inquiring its use:</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“The whole place is very pretty.” Thus the +sage.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Yet they have their beer freely?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“What a noble fire is roaring up that +chimney!”</p> +<p>“Yes, a capital fire. Every member pays a +halfpenny a week.”</p> +<p>“Every member must be the holder of an +Allotment-garden?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“They seem to manage the club very well.”</p> +<p>“Perfectly well. Here are their own rules. +They made them. I never interfere with them, except to +advise them when they ask me.”</p> +<h3>RULES AND REGULATIONS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">MADE BY THE COMMITTEE</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center">From the 21st September, 1857</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>One half-penny per week to be +paid to the club by each member</i></p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>3.—The subscriptions and forfeits to be paid at the +club-room on the last Saturday night of each month.</p> +<p>4.—The subscriptions and forfeits to be cleared up every +quarter; if not, a penalty of sixpence to be paid to the +club.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>7.—Any member lifting his hand to strike another in this +club-room shall be liable to the penalty of sixpence.</p> +<p>8.—Any member swearing in this club-room shall be liable +to a penalty of twopence each time.</p> +<p>9.—Any member selling beer shall be expelled from the +club.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>12.—Any member carelessly breaking a mug, is to pay the +cost of replacing the same.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Now,” said Friar Bacon, looking at his watch, +“for the Pig-clubs!”</p> +<p>The dreary Sage entreated explanation.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“They repay the money, I suppose, when the pig is +fattened, killed, and sold?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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. <i>He</i> never makes any flourishes about the poor +man. <i>He</i> never gammons the poor man—except to +his manifest advantage in the article of bacon. <i>He</i> +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.” <i>He</i> never gives the poor man a sovereign +for bringing up a family. <i>He</i> 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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Now, then, come. The first five!” said +Friar Bacon. “Where are you?”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“John Nightingale, William Thrush, Joseph Blackbird, +Cecil Robin, and Thomas Linnet!” cried Friar Bacon.</p> +<p>“Here, sir!” and “Here, sir!” +And Linnet, Robin, Blackbird, Thrush, and Nightingale, stood +confessed.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“Ees, sur.”</p> +<p>“Can you write your name, Nightingale?”</p> +<p>“Na, sur.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Order!” cried the little man. Immediately +disappearing into his mug.</p> +<p>“Ralph Mangel, Roger Wurzel, Edward Vetches, Matthew +Carrot, and Charles Taters!” said Friar Bacon.</p> +<p>“All here, sir.”</p> +<p>“You understand it, Mangel?”</p> +<p>“Iss, sir, I unnerstaans it.”</p> +<p>“Can you write your name, Mangel?”</p> +<p>“Iss, sir.”</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p482b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Forming the Pig-clubs" +title= +"Forming the Pig-clubs" + src="images/p482s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>The over-fraught bosoms of the background found relief in a +roar of laughter.</p> +<p>“Or—<span class="GutSmall">DER</span>!” +cried the little man. “<span +class="smcap">Cheer</span>!” And after that second +word, came forth from his mug no more.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Seven o’clock!” said Friar Bacon. +“And now we better get across to the concert, men, for the +music will be beginning.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Ah! non giunge</i>, and <i>Mi +manca la voce</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2><a name="page485"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 485</span>FIVE +NEW POINTS OF CRIMINAL LAW</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Its leading enactments may be expected to resolve themselves +under the following heads:</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>2. The jury to consist of Five Thousand Five Hundred and +Fifty-five Volunteers.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <i>they shall never be +asked whether they are not exactly consistent with the +administration of Poison</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2><a name="page487"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +487</span>LEIGH HUNT: A REMONSTRANCE</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">The</span> 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.”</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>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 +<i>The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>with a sort of +gay and ostentatious wilfulness</i>.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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—</p> +<blockquote><p>Not only we, the latest seed of Time,<br /> +New men, that in the flying of a wheel<br /> +Cry down the past, not only we, that prate<br /> +Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is, that a duty may be done in the most direct way +possible. An act of plain, clear duty.</p> +<p>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 +<i>Bleak House</i>”. 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.</p> +<p>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:</p> +<p>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 <i>speak</i> 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”.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2><a name="page490"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 490</span>THE +TATTLESNIVEL BLEATER</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> 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).</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <span +class="smcap">The Tattlesnivel Bleater</span>, 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.</p> +<p>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 <span class="smcap">London Correspondent of the +Tattlesnivel Bleater</span>.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <i>does</i> his Royal Highness the Prince of +Wales ultimately go to the top of the Great Pyramid? +<i>Does</i> 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? <i>Because +the conspirators against the Bleater’s London Correspondent +have stepped in with their dark machinations</i>. 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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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) “‘<span class="GutSmall">NOTHING WILL +EVER INDUCE HIM, TO ACCEPT A SEAT IN A CABINET OF WHICH +PALMERSTON IS THE CHIEF</span>.’ 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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Now, sir, on both these points Tattlesnivel demands in accents +of Thunder, Where is the Attorney General? Why +doesn’t the <i>Times</i> 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!</p> +<h2><a name="page497"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 497</span>THE +YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY</h2> +<p>A <span class="smcap">song</span> 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 <i>American Notes</i>, was published by “a +Young Man from the Country”, who had just seen and left +it.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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:</p> +<blockquote><p>“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.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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:</p> +<blockquote><p>“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?</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Towards the end of his book, the Young Man from the Country +thus expressed himself concerning its people:</p> +<blockquote><p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“‘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 <i>is</i> 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?’</p> +<p>“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.’</p> +<p>“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.’</p> +<p>“But the foul growth of America has a more tangled root +than this; and it strikes its fibres, deep in its licentious +Press.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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.</p> +<h2><a name="page502"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 502</span>AN +ENLIGHTENED CLERGYMAN</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">At</span> 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!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">Stowmarket Vicarage</span>, <i>Feb.</i> 25, +1861.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">T. S. <span +class="smcap">Coles</span>.</p> +<p>To Mr. J. Gudgeon.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is really necessary to explain that this is not a bad +joke. It is simply a bad fact.</p> +<h2><a name="page504"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +504</span>RATHER A STRONG DOSE</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Doctor John Campbell</span>, the +minister of the Tabernacle Chapel, Finsbury, and editor of the +<i>British Banner</i>, etc., with that massive vigour which +distinguishes his style,” did, we are informed by Mr. +Howitt, “deliver a verdict in the <i>Banner</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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”.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>Gentleman’s Magazine</i>, 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”.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>him</i> +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 <i>know</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <span +class="smcap">God</span> 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 +<i>not</i> 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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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 <i>too</i> “full, +out-gushing, unstinted, and absorbing”.</p> +<h2><a name="page510"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 510</span>THE +MARTYR MEDIUM</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">After</span> 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.</p> +<p>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).</p> +<p>Mr. Home’s book is entitled <i>Incidents in My +Life</i>. 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.</p> +<h3>1. <span class="smcap">Mr. Home is Supernaturally +Nursed</span></h3> +<p>“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.”</p> +<h3>2. <span class="smcap">Disrespectful Conduct of Mr. +Home’s Aunt nevertheless</span></h3> +<p>“In her uncontrollable anger she seized a chair and +threw it at me.”</p> +<h3>3. <span class="smcap">Punishment of Mr. Home’s +Aunt</span></h3> +<p>“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.”</p> +<h3>4. <span class="smcap">Triumphant Effect of this Discipline +on Mr. Home’s Aunt</span></h3> +<p>“And she felt it a duty that I should leave her house, +and which I did.”</p> +<h3>5. <span class="smcap">Mr. Home’s +Mission</span></h3> +<p>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 <i>his</i> life.</p> +<h3>6. <span class="smcap">Modest Success of Mr. +Home’s Mission</span></h3> +<p>“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.”</p> +<h3>7. <span class="smcap">What the First Composers say of +the Spirit-Music, to Mr. Home</span></h3> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3>8. <span class="smcap">Mr. Home’s Miraculous +Infant</span></h3> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3>9. <span class="smcap">Cagliostro’s Spirit calls +on Mr. Home</span></h3> +<p>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”.</p> +<h3>10. <span class="smcap">Oracular state of Mr. +Home</span></h3> +<p>“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.’”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3>11. <span class="smcap">The Testimony of Mr. +Home’s Boots</span></h3> +<p>“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.”</p> +<h3>12. <span class="smcap">The uncombative Nature of Mr. +Home</span></h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, “<i>which we have planted and it is growing</i>, +<i>so that it is no delusion</i>, <i>no fairy money turned into +dross or leaves</i>”—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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<h2><a name="page516"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 516</span>THE +LATE MR. STANFIELD</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Every</span> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>It is superfluous to record that the painter of “The +Battle of Trafalgar”, of the “<i>Victory</i> 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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2><a name="page518"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 518</span>A +SLIGHT QUESTION OF FACT</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> 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.</p> +<p>Some few weeks ago, our contemporary, the <i>Pall Mall +Gazette</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2><a name="page519"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +519</span>LANDOR’S LIFE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Prefixed</span> to the second volume of +Mr. Forster’s admirable biography of Walter Savage Landor, +<a name="citation519"></a><a href="#footnote519" +class="citation">[519]</a> 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.</p> +<p>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”.</p> +<p>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 <i>Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Mr. Forster writes of Landor’s character thus:</p> +<blockquote><p>“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.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of his works, thus:</p> +<blockquote><p>“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.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Mr. Boythorn—if he may again be quoted—said of his +adversary, Sir Leicester Dedlock: “That fellow is, <i>and +his father was</i>, <i>and his grandfather was</i>, 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!”</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <span class="GutSmall">WAS</span> +agreeable—to every one but <i>me</i>!”</p> +<p>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”.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2><a name="page526"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +526</span>ADDRESS WHICH APPEARED SHORTLY PREVIOUS TO THE +COMPLETION OF THE TWENTIETH VOLUME (1868), INTIMATING A NEW +SERIES OF “ALL THE YEAR ROUND”</h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">beg</span> 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 <i>All the Year +Round</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">CHARLES DICKENS.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTE</h2> +<p><a name="footnote519"></a><a href="#citation519" +class="footnote">[519]</a> <i>Walter Savage Landor</i>: a +Biography, by John Forster, 2 vols. Chapman and Hall.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTRIBUTIONS TO ALL THE YEAR +ROUND***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1464-h.htm or 1464-h.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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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