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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18853-8.txt b/18853-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..85e7b8a --- /dev/null +++ b/18853-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2471 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 + Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Robert Chambers + William Chambers + +Release Date: July 17, 2006 [EBook #18853] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL + + CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S + INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c. + + + No. 438. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d._ + + + + +PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. + + +From the time of King Solomon downwards, laughter has been the subject +of pretty general abuse. Even the laughers themselves sometimes +vituperate the cachinnation they indulge in, and many of them + + ----'laugh in such a sort, + As if they mocked themselves, and scorned the spirit + That could be moved to laugh at anything.' + +The general notion is, that laughter is childish, and unworthy the +gravity of adult life. Grown men, we say, have more to do than to +laugh; and the wiser sort of them leave such an unseemly contortion of +the muscles to babes and blockheads. + +We have a suspicion that there is something wrong here--that the world +is mistaken not only in its reasonings, but its facts. To assign +laughter to an early period of life, is to go contrary to observation +and experience. There is not so grave an animal in this world as the +human baby. It will weep, when it has got the length of tears, by the +pailful; it will clench its fists, distort its face into a hideous +expression of anguish, and scream itself into convulsions. It has not +yet come up to a laugh. The little savage must be educated by +circumstances, and tamed by the contact of civilisation, before it +rises to the greater functions of its being. Nay, we have sometimes +received the idea from its choked and tuneless screams, that _they_ +were imperfect attempts at laughter. It feels enjoyment as well as +pain, but has only one way of expressing both. + +Then, look at the baby when it has turned into a little boy or girl, +and come up in some degree to the cachinnation. The laughter is still +only rudimental: it is not genuine laughter. It expresses triumph, +scorn, passion--anything but a feeling of natural amusement. It is +provoked by misfortune, by bodily infirmities, by the writhings of +agonised animals; and it indicates either a sense of power or a +selfish feeling of exemption from suffering. The 'light-hearted laugh +of children!' What a mistake! Observe the gravity of their sports. +They are masters or mistresses, with the care of a family upon their +hands; and they take especial delight in correcting their children +with severity. They are washer-women, housemaids, cooks; soldiers, +policemen, postmen; coach, horsemen, and horses, by turns; and in all +these characters they scour, sweep, fry, fight, pursue, carry, whirl, +ride, and are ridden, without changing a muscle. + +At the games of the young people there is much shouting, argument, +vituperation--but no laughter. A game is a serious business with a +boy, and he derives from it excitement, but no amusement. If he laughs +at all, it is at something quite distinct from the purpose of the +sport: for instance, when one of his comrades has his nose broken by +the ball, or when the feet of another make off from him on the ice, +and he comes down upon his back like a thunderbolt. On such occasions, +the laugh of a boy puts us in mind of the laugh of a hyæna: it is, in +fact, the broken, asthmatic roar of a beast of prey. + +It would thus appear that the common charge brought against laughter, +of being something babyish, or childish, or boyish--something properly +appertaining to early life--is unfounded. But we of course must not be +understood to speak of what is technically called giggling, which +proceeds more from a looseness of the structures than from any +sensation of amusement. Many young persons are continually on the +giggle till their muscles strengthen; and indeed, when a company of +them are met together, the affection, aggravated by emulation, +acquires the loudness of laughter, when it may be likened, in +Scripture phrase, to the crackling of thorns. What we mean is a +regular guffaw; that explosion of high spirits, and the feeling of +joyous excitement, which is commonly written ha! ha! ha! This is +altogether unknown in babyhood; in boyhood, it exists only in its +rudiments; and it does not reach its full development till adolescence +ripens into manhood. + +This train of thought was suggested to us a few evenings ago, by the +conduct of a party of eight or ten individuals, who meet periodically +for the purpose of philosophical inquiry. Their subject is a very +grave one. Their object is to mould into a science that which as yet +is only a vague, formless, and obscure department of knowledge; and +they proceed in the most cautious manner from point to point, from +axiom to axiom--debating at every step, and coming to no decision +without unanimous conviction. Some are professors of the university, +devoted to abstruse studies; some are clergymen; and some authors and +artists. Now, at the meeting in question--which we take merely as an +example, for all are alike--when the hour struck which terminates +their proceedings for the evening, the jaded philosophers retired to +the refreshment-room; and here a scene of remarkable contrast +occurred. Instead of a single deep, low, earnest voice, alternating +with a profound silence, an absolute roar of merriment began, with the +suddenness of an explosion of gunpowder. Jests, bon-mots, anecdotes, +barbarous plays upon words--the more atrocious the better--flew round +the table; and a joyous and almost continuous ha! ha! ha! made the +ceiling ring. This, we venture to say it, _was_ laughter--genuine, +unmistakable laughter, proceeding from no sense of triumph, from no +self-gratulation, and mingled with no bad feeling of any kind. It was +a spontaneous effort of nature, coming from the head as well as the +heart: an unbending of the bow, a reaction from study, which study +alone could occasion, and which could occur only in adult life. + +There are some people who cannot laugh, but these are not necessarily +either morose or stupid. They may laugh in their heart, and with their +eyes, although by some unlucky fatality, they have not the gift of +oral cachinnation. Such persons are to be pitied; for laughter in +grown people is a substitute devised by nature for the screams and +shouts of boyhood, by which the lungs are strengthened and the health +preserved. As the intellect ripens, that shouting ceases, and we learn +to laugh as we learn to reason. The society we have mentioned studied +the harder the more they laughed, and they laughed the more the harder +they studied. Each, of course, to be of use, must be in its own place. +A laugh in the midst of the study would have been a profanation; a +grave look in the midst of the merriment would have been an insult to +the good sense of the company. + +If there are some people who cannot laugh, there are others who will +not. It is not, however, that they are ashamed of being grown men, and +want to go back to babyhood, for by some extraordinary perversity, +they fancy unalterable gravity to be the distinguishing characteristic +of wisdom. In a merry company, they present the appearance of a Red +Indian whitewashed, and look on at the strange ways of their +neighbours without betraying even the faintest spark of sympathy or +intelligence. These are children of a larger growth, and have not yet +acquired sense enough to laugh. Like the savage, they are afraid of +compromising their dignity, or, to use their own words, of making +fools of themselves. For our part, we never see a man afraid of making +a fool of himself at the right season, without setting him down as a +fool ready made. + +A woman has no natural grace more bewitching than a sweet laugh. It is +like the sound of flutes on the water. It leaps from her heart in a +clear, sparkling rill; and the heart that hears it feels as if bathed +in the cool, exhilarating spring. Have you ever pursued an unseen +fugitive through the trees, led on by her fairy laugh; now here, now +there--now lost, now found? We have. And we are pursuing that +wandering voice to this day. Sometimes it comes to us in the midst of +care, or sorrow, or irksome business; and then we turn away, and +listen, and hear it ringing through the room like a silver bell, with +power to scare away the ill spirits of the mind. How much we owe to +that sweet laugh! It turns the prose of our life into poetry; it +flings showers of sunshine over the darksome wood in which we are +travelling; it touches with light even our sleep, which is no more the +image of death, but gemmed with dreams that are the shadows of +immortality. + +But our song, like Dibdin's, 'means more than it says;' for a man, as +we have stated, may laugh, and yet the cachinnation be wanting. His +heart laughs, and his eyes are filled with that kindly, sympathetic +smile which inspires friendship and confidence. On the sympathy +within, these external phenomena depend; and this sympathy it is which +keeps societies of men together, and is the true freemasonry of the +good and wise. It is an imperfect sympathy that grants only +sympathetic tears: we must join in the mirth as well as melancholy of +our neighbours. If our countrymen laughed more, they would not only be +happier, but better; and if philanthropists would provide amusements +for the people, they would be saved the trouble and expense of their +fruitless war against public-houses. This is an indisputable +proposition. The French and Italians, with wine growing at their +doors, and spirits almost as cheap as beer in England, are sober +nations. How comes this? The laugh will answer that leaps up from +group after group--the dance on the village-green--the family dinner +under the trees--the thousand merry-meetings that invigorate industry, +by serving as a relief to the business of life. Without these, +business is care; and it is from care, not from amusement, men fly to +the bottle. + +The common mistake is to associate the idea of amusement with error of +every kind; and this piece of moral asceticism is given forth as true +wisdom, and, from sheer want of examination, is very generally +received as such. A place of amusement concentrates a crowd, and +whatever excesses may be committed, being confined to a small space, +stand more prominently forward than at other times. This is all. The +excesses are really fewer--far fewer--in proportion to the number +assembled, than if no gathering had taken place. How can it be +otherwise? The amusement is itself the excitement which the wearied +heart longs for; it is the reaction which nature seeks; and in the +comparatively few instances of a coarser intoxication being +superadded, we see only the craving of depraved habit--a habit +engendered, in all probability, by the _want_ of amusement. + +No, good friends, let us laugh sometimes, if you love us. A dangerous +character is of another kidney, as Cæsar knew to his cost:-- + + 'He loves no plays, + As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music; + Seldom he laughs;' + +and when he does, it is on the wrong side of his mouth. + +Let us be wiser. Let us laugh in fitting time and place, silently or +aloud, each after his nature. Let us enjoy an innocent reaction rather +than a guilty one, since reaction there must be. The bow that is +always bent loses its elasticity, and becomes useless. + + + + +MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.[1] + + +The authoress of _Woman in the Nineteenth Century_, known also in this +country by her _Papers on Literature and Art_, occupied among her own +people a station as notable as that of De Staël among the French, or +of Rahel von Ense in Germany. Mystic and transcendental as she was, +her writings teem with proof of original power, and are the expression +of a thoughtful and energetic, if also a wayward and undisciplined, +mind. One of the two compilers of these Memoirs (Emerson and W. H. +Channing) observes, that his first impression of her was that of a +'Yankee Corinna;' and such is not unlikely to be the last impression +of ordinary readers, ourselves among the number. In a letter, dated +1841, we find her saying: 'I feel all Italy glowing beneath the Saxon +crust'--an apt illustration of her mental structure and tone of +sentiment, compounded of New Worldedness, as represented by Margaret +Fuller, and of the feelings of Southern Europe, as embodied in the +Marchesa Ossoli. Without at this time pausing to review her literary +position, and her influence upon contemporary minds, we proceed to +draw from these interesting, but frequently eccentric and +extravagantly worded Memoirs, a sketch of her remarkable life-history. + +Margaret Fuller was born at Cambridge-Port, Massachusetts, in May +1810. Her father was a shrewd, practical, hard-headed lawyer, whose +love for his wife 'was the green spot on which he stood apart from the +commonplaces of a mere bread-winning, bread-bestowing existence.' That +wife is described as a fair and flower-like nature, bound by one law +with the blue sky, the dew, and the frolic birds. 'Of all persons whom +I have known, she had in her most of the angelic--of that spontaneous +love for every living thing, for man, and beast, and tree, which +restores the Golden Age.'[2] Mr Fuller, in undertaking the education +of his daughter, committed the common error of excessive +stimulation--thinking to gain time by forwarding the intellect as +early as possible. He was himself a scholar, and hoped to make her the +heir of all he knew, and of as much more as might be elsewhere +attained. He was a severe and exacting disciplinarian, and permanently +marred the nervous system of his child by the system he adopted of +requiring her to recite her tasks on his return home at night, which +was frequently very late. Hence a premature development of the brain, +which, while it made her a youthful prodigy by day--one such youthful +prodigy, it has been justly said, is often the pest of a whole +neighbourhood--rendered her the nightly victim of spectral illusions, +somnambulism, &c.; checked her growth; and eventually brought on +continual headaches, weakness, and various nervous affections. As soon +as the light was removed from her chamber at night, this ill-tended +girl was haunted by colossal faces, that advanced slowly towards her, +the eyes dilating, and each feature swelling loathsomely as they came; +till at last, when they were about to close upon her, she started up +with a shriek, which drove them away, but only to return when she lay +down again. 'No wonder the child arose and walked in her sleep, +moaning all over the house, till once, when they heard her, and came +and waked her, and she told what she had dreamed, her father sharply +bade her "leave off thinking of such nonsense, or she would be +crazy"--never knowing that he was himself the cause of all these +horrors of the night.' Her home seems to have been deficient in the +charms and associations appropriate to childhood. Finding no relief +from without, her already overexcited mind was driven for refuge from +itself to the world of books. She tells us she was taught Latin and +English grammar at the same time; in Latin, which she began to read at +six years old, her father, and subsequently a tutor, trained her to a +high degree of precision, expecting her to understand the mechanism of +the language thoroughly, and to translate it tersely and +unhesitatingly, with the definite clearness of one perfectly _au fait_ +in the philosophy of the classics. Thus she became imbued with an +abiding interest in the genius of old Rome--'the power of will, the +dignity of a fixed purpose'--where man takes a 'noble bronze in camps +and battle-fields,' his brow well furrowed by the 'wrinkles of +council,' and his eye 'cutting its way like the sword;' and thence she +loved to escape, at Ovid's behest, to the enchanted gardens of the +Greek mythology, to the gods and nymphs born of the sunbeam, the wave, +the shadows on the hill--delighted to realise in those Greek forms the +faith of a refined and intense childhood. Reading was now to her a +habit and a passion. Its only rival attraction was the 'dear little +garden' behind the house, where the best hours of her lonely +child-life were spent. Within the house, everything, she says, was +socially utilitarian; her books told of a proud world, but in another +temper were the teachings of the little garden, where her thoughts +could lie callow in the nest, and only be fed and kept warm, not +called to fly or sing before the time. A range of blue hills, at about +twelve miles' distance, allured her to reverie, and bred within her +thoughts _not_ too deep for tears. The books which exercised most +power over her at this period were Shakspeare, Cervantes, and +Molière--all three students of the 'natural history of man,' and +inspired by fact, not fancy; reconstructing the world from materials +which they collected on every side, not spinning from the desires of +their own special natures; and accordingly teaching her, their +open-eyed disciple, to distrust all invention which is not based on a +wide experience, but, as she confesses, also doing her harm, since the +child, fed with meat instead of milk, becomes too soon mature. For a +few months, this bookish life was interrupted, or varied, by the +presence of an English lady, whom Margaret invested with ideal +perfections as her 'first friend,' and whom she worshipped as a star +from the east--a morning-star; and at whose departure she fell into a +profound depression. Her father sought to dispel this rooted +melancholy, by sending her to school--a destiny from which her whole +nature revolted, as something alien to its innermost being and +cherished associations. To school, however, she went, and at first +captivated, and then scandalised her fellow-pupils by her strange +ways. Now, she surprised them by her physical faculty of rivalling the +spinning dervishes of the East--now, by declaiming verses, and acting +a whole _répertoire_ of parts, both laughter-raising and +tear-compelling--now, by waking in the night, and cheating her +restlessness by inventions that alternately diverted and teased her +companions. She was always devising means to infringe upon the +school-room routine. This involved her at last in a trouble, from +which she was only extricated by the judicious tenderness of her +teacher--the circumstances attending which 'crisis' are detailed at +length in her story of 'Mariana.' + +Her personal appearance at this time, and for some following years, is +described by one of her friends as being that of a blooming girl of a +florid complexion and vigorous health, with a tendency to robustness, +which she unwisely endeavoured to suppress or conceal at the price of +much future suffering. With no pretensions to beauty then, or at any +time, her face was one that attracted, but baffled physiognomical art. +'She escaped the reproach of positive plainness, by her blond and +abundant hair, by her excellent teeth, by her sparkling, busy eyes, +which, though usually half-closed from near-sightedness, shot piercing +glances at those with whom she conversed, and, most of all, by the +very peculiar and graceful carriage of her head and neck.' In +conversation she was already distinguished, though addicted to +'quizzing'--the not unreasonable ground of unpopularity with her +female friends. Emerson alludes to her dangerous reputation for +satire, which, in addition to her great scholarship, made the women +dislike one who despised them, and the men cavil at her as 'carrying +too many guns.' A fragment from a letter in her sixteenth year will +illustrate her pursuits at that period:--'I rise a little before five, +walk an hour, and then practise on the piano till seven, when we +breakfast. Next, I read French--Sismondi's _Literature of Southern +Europe_--till eight; then, two or three lectures in Brown's +_Philosophy_. About half-past nine, I go to Mr Perkins's school, and +study Greek till twelve, when, the school being dismissed, I recite, +go home, and practise again till dinner, at two. Sometimes, if the +conversation is very agreeable, I lounge for half an hour over the +dessert, though rarely so lavish of time. Then, when I can, I read two +hours in Italian, but I am often interrupted. At six, I walk, or take +a drive. Before going to bed, I play or sing, for half an hour or so, +to make all sleepy, and, about eleven, retire to write a little while +in my journal, exercises on what I have read, or a series of +characteristics which I am filling up according to advice.' Greek, +French, Italian, metaphysics, and private authorship--pretty well for +a miss in her teens, and surely a promissory-note on the _bas bleu_ +joint-stock company!--a note which she discharged in full when it +became due. Next year (1826), we find her studying Mme de Staël, +Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and Spanish ballads, 'with great delight.' +Anon she is engrossed with the elder Italian poets, from Berni down to +Pulci and Politian; then with Locke and the ontologists; then with the +_opera omnia_ of Sir William Temple. She pursued at this time no +systematic study, but 'read with the heart, and was learning more +from social experience than from books.' The interval of her life, +between sixteen and twenty-five, is characterised by one of her +biographers as a period of 'preponderating sentimentality, of romance +and dreams, of yearning and of passion.' While residing at Cambridge, +she suffered from profound despondency--conscious of the want of a +home for her heart. A sterner schooling awaited her at Groton, whither +her father removed in 1833. Here he died suddenly of cholera in 1835. +Now she was taught the miserable perplexities of a family that has +lost its head, and was called to tread a path for which, as she says, +she had no skill and no call, except that it must be trodden by some +one, and she alone was ready. In 1836 she went to Boston, to teach +Latin and French in an academy of local repute; and in the ensuing +year she accepted a 'very favourable offer,' to become 'lady-superior' +in an educational institution at Providence, where she seems to have +exercised an influence analogous to that of Dr Arnold at +Rugby--treating her pupils as ladies, and thus making them anxious to +prove that they deserved to be so treated. + +By this time, she had attracted around her many and devoted friends. +Her conversational powers were of a high order, by common consent. Mr +Hedge describes her speech as remarkably fluent and correct; but +deriving its strength not from fluency, choice diction, wit, or +sentiment, but from accuracy of statement, keen discrimination, and a +certain weight of judgment; together with rhetorical finish, it had an +air of spontaneity which made it seem the grace of the moment: so that +he says, 'I do not remember that the vulgar charge of talking "like a +book" was ever fastened upon her, although, by her precision, she +might seem to have incurred it.' The excitement of the presence of +living persons seems to have energised her whole being. 'I need to be +called out,' are her words, 'and never think alone, without imagining +some companion. It is my habit, and bespeaks a second-rate mind.' And +again: 'After all, this writing,' she says in a letter, 'is mighty +dead. Oh, for my dear old Greeks, who talked everything--not to shine +as in the Parisian saloons, but to learn, to teach, to vent the heart, +to clear the head!' Mr Alcott of Boston considered her the most +brilliant talker of the day. Miss Martineau was fascinated by the same +charm. It is thus characterised by the author of _Representative Men_: +'Talent, memory, wit, stern introspection, poetic play, religion, the +finest personal feeling, the aspects of the future, each followed each +in full activity, and left me, I remember, enriched and sometimes +astonished by the gifts of my guest.' Her self-complacency staggered +many at first--as when she spoke, in the quietest manner, of the girls +she had formed, the young men who owed everything to her, the fine +companions she had long ago exhausted. 'I now know,' she has been +heard to say in the coolest style, 'all the people worth knowing in +America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.' Well may Mr +Emerson talk of her letting slip phrases that betrayed the presence of +'a rather mountainous ME.' Such phrases abound in her conversation and +correspondence--mountainous enough to be a hill of offence to the +uninitiated and untranscendental. At anyrate, there was no affectation +in this; she thoroughly believed in her own superiority; her +subscription to _that_ creed was implicit and _ex animo_. Nor do we +detect affectation in her most notable vagaries and crotchets. She +loved the truth, and spoke it out--we were about to write, manfully; +and why not? At heart, she was, to use the words of an intimate and +discerning friend, a right brave and heroic woman--shrinking from no +duty because of feeble nerves. Numerous illustrations of this occur in +the volumes before us. Thus we find her going from a bridal of passing +joyfulness to attend a near relative during a formidable surgical +operation--or drawing five hundred dollars to bestow, on a New-York +'ne'er-do-weel,' half-patriot, half-author, always in such depths of +distress, and with such squadrons of enemies that no charity could +relieve, no intervention save him. + +In 1839, she removed from Groton, with her mother and family, to +Jamaica Plain, a few miles from Boston; and thence, shortly, to +Cambridge and New York. Boston, however, was her _point d'appui_, and +in it she formed acquaintances of every class, the most utilitarian +and the most idealistic. In 1839, she published a translation of +Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann; in 1841, the Letters of +Bettina; in 1843, the _Summer on the Lakes_--a narrative of her tour +to Lake Superior and Michigan. During the same period she was editor +of the _Dial_, since conducted by Emerson and Ripley, and in which +appeared her papers on Goethe and Beethoven, the Rhine, the Romaic +Ballads, John Sterling's Poems, &c. + +Exhausted by continuous exertion in teaching and writing for the +press, Miss Fuller, in 1844, sought refreshment and health in change +of scene; and, desiring rather new employments than cessation from +work, she accepted a liberal offer from Mr Horace Greeley of New York, +to become a regular contributor to the _Tribune_; and for that purpose +to take up her abode in his house, first spending some time in the +Highlands of the Hudson. At New York, she took an active interest, +after Mrs Fry's manner, in the various benevolent institutions, and +especially the prisons on Blackwell's Island. For more than a year she +wrote regularly for the _Tribune_, 'always freshly, vigorously, but +not always clearly.' The notice attracted by her articles insured +fresh hosts of acquaintances, and she became a distinguished character +at Miss Lynch's réunions, and at literary soirées of a similar order. +In 1846, she left her native land--for ever, as the melancholy event +proved--to join Mr and Mrs Spring in a European tour. Her letters home +contain much pleasant gossip about some of the Old-World notabilities. +Thus she records her interviews with Wordsworth in his Rydal retreat, +with Dr Chalmers, Dr Andrew Combe, Mr De Quincey, the Howitts, &c. She +visited Paris in the winter, and became acquainted with Lamennais, +Béranger, Mme Dudevant, and others. Thence, in the spring of 1847, she +went to Italy, where she remained until she embarked in 1850 on board +that doomed ship, the _Elizabeth_. As a resident in Rome, her safety +was seriously imperiled during the French siege of 1849. She was +appointed by the 'Roman Commission for the succour of the wounded,' to +the superintendence of an hospital, and all along took the liveliest +interest in the fortunes of Mazzini and the republic. She was then a +wife and a mother, having been married privately to the Marquis +Ossoli, a Roman, 'of a noble but impoverished house,' whom she +described, in a letter to her mother, as 'not in any respect such a +person as people in general would expect to find with her,' being a +man 'absolutely ignorant of books, and with no enthusiasm of +character,' but endowed with excellent practical sense, a nice sense +of duty, native refinement, and much sweetness of temper. The peculiar +circumstances attending the marriage in that country, and at that +agitated crisis, involved Margaret in numerous afflictions, and taxed +her powers of endurance to the very uttermost. + +She had to suffer compulsory separation from husband and child--the +one in hourly peril of a bloody death, the other neglected and pining +away in the hands of strangers: penury, loneliness, prostrating +sickness, and treachery on the part of those around her, were +meanwhile her own lot in the land of strangers. How this season of +trial affected her character, may be inferred from the remarks of her +friend Mrs Story, then sojourning in Italy, who says, that in Boston +she had regarded Margaret as a person on intellectual stilts, with a +large share of arrogance, and little sweetness of temper; and adds: +'How unlike to this was she now!--so delicate, so simple, confiding, +and affectionate; with a true womanly heart and soul, sensitive and +generous, and, what was to me a still greater surprise, possessed of +so broad a charity, that she could cover with its mantle the faults +and defects of all about her.' Her devotion to her husband, and her +passionate attachment to her little Angelo, were exhibited in the +liveliest colour: the influence she exercised, too, by love and +sympathy, over Italians of every class with whom she came in contact, +appears of a kind more tender, chastened, and womanly than that which +previously characterised her. When the republican cause at Rome left +no hope of present restoration, Margaret found a tranquil refuge in +Florence, devoting her mornings to literary labours, and her evenings +to social intercourse with cultivated natives and a few foreign +visitors, among whom the Brownings occupied a distinguished place. +Greatly straitened in means at this time, the repose she and her +husband enjoyed at Florence, in their small and scantily-furnished +room, seems to have been peculiarly grateful to both. Soon, however, +arrangements were made for their departure to the United States; for +Margaret was heart-weary at the political reaction in Europe, and the +pecuniary expediency of publishing to advantage her chronicles of the +revolution, seconded by a yearning to see her family and friends once +more, constrained to this step. + +From motives of economy, they took passage in a merchantman from +Leghorn, the _Elizabeth_, the expense being one-half what a return by +way of France would have been. The remonstrances of her acquaintance, +founded on the fatigues of a two months' voyage--the comparative +insecurity of such a bark--the exposed position of the cabin (on +deck)--and so on, were not unaided by Margaret's own presentiments. +Ossoli, when a boy, had been told by a fortune-teller, to 'beware of +the sea,' and this was the first ship he had ever set his foot in. In +a letter where she describes herself 'suffering, as never before, all +the horrors of indecision,' his wife expresses a fervent prayer that +it 'may not be my lot to lose my boy at sea, either by unsolaced +illness, or amid the howling waves; or if so, that Ossoli, Angelo, and +I may go together, and that the anguish may be brief.' That '_or if +so_' is affecting--and was realised, except, indeed, that the anguish +was _not_ brief, for it lasted twelve terrible hours--a long communion +face to face with Death! The bark sailed May 17, 1850. Captain Hasty, +'so fine a model of the New-England seaman,' inspired the passengers +with cheerful confidence, and for a few days all went prosperously. +But early in June, Captain Hasty died of confluent small-pox. The +child Angelino caught it, but recovered, and won all hearts by his +playful innocence, loving especially to be walked up and down in the +arms of the steward, who had just such a boy at home waiting his +arrival. On Thursday, July 15, the _Elizabeth_ was off the Jersey +coast: at evening-tide, a breeze sprang up, which by midnight had +become a hurricane. About four o'clock next morning, she struck on +Fire Island beach, and lay at the mercy of the maddened ocean. Mr +Channing's description of the wreck is a most picturesque narrative, +but too long for quotation. Very touching is the sketch of the Ossoli +group, remaining on board after nearly all the passengers and crew had +perished or escaped to land, which was distant only a few hundred +yards--the infant crying passionately, shivering in the wet, till +soothed and lullabied to sleep by his mother, a calm expectant of +death; and Ossoli tranquillising by counsel and prayer their +affrighted handmaid from Italy; all exchanging kindly partings, and +sending messages home, if any should survive to be their bearer. +Though persons were busy gathering into carts, on the shore, whatever +spoil was stranded, no life-boat appeared; and the few remaining on +the wreck were now fain to trust themselves to the rioting surf. +Margaret would not go alone. With her husband and attendant (Celeste), +she was just about to try the planks prepared by four seamen, and the +steward had just taken little Nino in his arms, pledged to save him or +die, 'when a sea struck the forecastle, and the foremast fell, +carrying with it the deck and all upon it. The steward and Angelino +were washed upon the beach, both dead, though warm, some twenty +minutes after. Celeste and Ossoli were caught for a moment by the +rigging, but the next wave swallowed them up. Margaret sank at once. +When last seen, she had been seated at the foot of the foremast, still +clad in her white night-dress, with her hair fallen loose upon her +shoulders.' No trace was found of her manuscript on Italy: her +love-correspondence with Ossoli was the only relic--the last memorial +of that howling hurricane, pitiless sea, wreck on a sand-bar, an idle +life-boat, beach-pirates, and not one friend! + +With the exception of certain sections of laboured, writhing +wordiness, the feverish restlessness and hectic symptoms of which are +but too familiar to persons read in the literature of second-rate +transcendentalism, these volumes comprise a large amount of matter +that will well repay perusal, and portray a character of no ordinary +type--a 'large-brained woman and large-hearted man.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 3 vols. London: Bentley. 1852. + +[2] Mr Fuller's Autobiography, which comprises the first sixty pages +of these Memoirs. + + + + +THE COUNTER-STROKE. + + +Just after breakfast one fine spring morning in 1837, an advertisement +in the _Times_ for a curate caught and fixed my attention. The salary +was sufficiently remunerative for a bachelor, and the parish, as I +personally knew, one of the most pleasantly situated in all +Somersetshire. Having said that, the reader will readily understand +that it could not have been a hundred miles from Taunton. I instantly +wrote, enclosing testimonials, with which the Rev. Mr Townley, the +rector, was so entirely satisfied, that the return-post brought me a +positive engagement, unclogged with the slightest objection to one or +two subsidiary items I had stipulated for, and accompanied by an +invitation to make the rectory my home till I could conveniently suit +myself elsewhere. This was both kind and handsome; and the next day +but one I took coach, with a light heart, for my new destination. It +thus happened that I became acquainted, and in some degree mixed up, +with the train of events it is my present purpose to relate. + +The rector I found to be a stout, portly gentleman, whose years +already reached to between sixty and seventy. So many winters, +although they had plentifully besprinkled his hair with gray, shone +out with ruddy brightness in his still handsome face, and keen, +kindly, bright-hazel eyes; and his voice, hearty and ringing, had not +as yet one quaver of age in it. I met him at breakfast on the morning +after my arrival, and his reception of me was most friendly. We had +spoken together but for a few minutes, when one of the French windows, +that led from the breakfast-room into a shrubbery and flower-garden, +gently opened and admitted a lady, just then, as I afterwards learned, +in her nineteenth spring. I use this term almost unconsciously, for I +cannot even now, in the glowing summer of her life, dissociate her +image from that season of youth and joyousness. She was introduced to +me, with old-fashioned simplicity, as 'My grand-daughter, Agnes +Townley.' It is difficult to look at beauty through other men's eyes, +and, in the present instance, I feel that I should fail miserably in +the endeavour to stamp upon this blank, dead paper, any adequate idea +of the fresh loveliness, the rose-bud beauty of that young girl. I +will merely say, that her perfectly Grecian head, wreathed with wavy +_bandeaux_ of bright hair, undulating with golden light, vividly +brought to my mind Raphael's halo-tinted portraitures of the +Virgin--with this difference, that in place of the holy calm and +resignation of the painting, there was in Agnes Townley a sparkling +youth and life, that even amidst the heat and glare of a crowded +ball-room or of a theatre, irresistibly suggested and recalled the +freshness and perfume of the morning--of a cloudless, rosy morning of +May. And, far higher charm than feature-beauty, however exquisite, a +sweetness of disposition, a kind gentleness of mind and temper, was +evidenced in every line of her face, in every accent of the +low-pitched, silver voice, that breathed through lips made only to +smile. + +Let me own, that I was greatly struck by so remarkable a combination +of rare endowments; and this, I think, the sharp-eyed rector must have +perceived, or he might not perhaps have been so immediately +communicative with respect to the near prospects of his idolised +grandchild, as he was the moment the young lady, after presiding at +the breakfast-table, had withdrawn. + +'We shall have gay doings, Mr Tyrrel, at the rectory shortly,' he +said. 'Next Monday three weeks will, with the blessing of God, be +Agnes Townley's wedding-day.' + +'Wedding-day!' + +'Yes,' rejoined the rector, turning towards and examining some flowers +which Miss Townley had brought in and placed on the table. 'Yes, it +has been for some time settled that Agnes shall on that day be united +in holy wedlock to Mr Arbuthnot.' + +'Mr Arbuthnot of Elm Park?' + +'A great match, is it not, in a worldly point of view?' replied Mr +Townley, with a pleasant smile at the tone of my exclamation. 'And +much better than that: Robert Arbuthnot is a young man of a high and +noble nature, as well as devotedly attached to Agnes. He will, I doubt +not, prove in every respect a husband deserving and worthy of her; and +that from the lips of a doting old grandpapa must be esteemed high +praise. You will see him presently.' + +I did see him often, and quite agreed in the rector's estimate of his +future grandson-in-law. I have not frequently seen a finer-looking +young man--his age was twenty-six; and certainly one of a more +honourable and kindly spirit, of a more genial temper than he, has +never come within my observation. He had drawn a great prize in the +matrimonial lottery, and, I felt, deserved his high fortune. + +They were married at the time agreed upon, and the day was kept not +only at Elm Park, and in its neighbourhood, but throughout 'our' +parish, as a general holiday. And, strangely enough--at least I have +never met with another instance of the kind--it was held by our entire +female community, high as well as low, that the match was a perfectly +equal one, notwithstanding that wealth and high worldly position were +entirely on the bridegroom's side. In fact, that nobody less in the +social scale than the representative of an old territorial family +ought, in the nature of things, to have aspired to the hand of Agnes +Townley, appeared to have been a foregone conclusion with everybody. +This will give the reader a truer and more vivid impression of the +bride, than any words or colours I might use. + +The days, weeks, months of wedded life flew over Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot +without a cloud, save a few dark but transitory ones which I saw now +and then flit over the husband's countenance as the time when he +should become a father drew near, and came to be more and more spoken +of. 'I should not survive her,' said Mr Arbuthnot, one day in reply to +a chance observation of the rector's, 'nor indeed desire to do so.' +The gray-headed man seized and warmly pressed the husband's hand, and +tears of sympathy filled his eyes; yet did he, nevertheless, as in +duty bound, utter grave words on the sinfulness of despair under any +circumstances, and the duty, in all trials, however heavy, of patient +submission to the will of God. But the venerable gentleman spoke in a +hoarse and broken voice, and it was easy to see he _felt_ with Mr +Arbuthnot that the reality of an event, the bare possibility of which +shook them so terribly, were a cross too heavy for human strength to +bear and live. + +It was of course decided that the expected heir or heiress should be +intrusted to a wet-nurse, and a Mrs Danby, the wife of a miller living +not very far from the rectory, was engaged for that purpose. I had +frequently seen the woman; and her name, as the rector and I were one +evening gossipping over our tea, on some subject or other that I +forget, came up. + +'A likely person,' I remarked; 'healthy, very good-looking, and one +might make oath, a true-hearted creature. But there is withal a +timidity, a frightenedness in her manner at times which, if I may +hazard a perhaps uncharitable conjecture, speaks ill for that smart +husband of hers.' + +'You have hit the mark precisely, my dear sir. Danby is a sorry +fellow, and a domestic tyrant to boot. His wife, who is really a good, +but meek-hearted person, lived with us once. How old do you suppose +her to be?' + +'Five-and-twenty perhaps.' + +'Six years more than that. She has a son of the name of Harper by a +former marriage, who is in his tenth year. Anne wasn't a widow long. +Danby was caught by her good looks, and she by the bait of a +well-provided home. Unless, however, her husband gives up his corn +speculations, she will not, I think, have that much longer.' + +'Corn speculations! Surely Danby has no means adequate to indulgence +in such a game as that?' + +'Not he. But about two years ago he bought, on credit, I believe, a +considerable quantity of wheat, and prices happening to fly suddenly +up just then, he made a large profit. This has quite turned his head, +which, by the by, was never, as Cockneys say, quite rightly screwed +on.' The announcement of a visitor interrupted anything further the +rector might have had to say, and I soon afterwards went home. + +A sad accident occurred about a month subsequent to the foregoing +conversation. The rector was out riding upon a usually quiet horse, +which all at once took it into its head to shy at a scarecrow it must +have seen a score of times, and thereby threw its rider. Help was +fortunately at hand, and the reverend gentleman was instantly conveyed +home, when it was found that his left thigh was broken. Thanks, +however, to his temperate habits, it was before long authoritatively +pronounced that, although it would be a considerable time before he +was released from confinement, it was not probable that the lusty +winter of his life would be shortened by what had happened. +Unfortunately, the accident threatened to have evil consequences in +another quarter. Immediately after it occurred, one Matthews, a busy, +thick-headed lout of a butcher, rode furiously off to Elm Park with +the news. Mrs Arbuthnot, who daily looked to be confined, was walking +with her husband upon the lawn in front of the house, when the great +burly blockhead rode up, and blurted out that the rector had been +thrown from his horse, and it was feared killed! + +The shock of such an announcement was of course overwhelming. A few +hours afterwards, Mrs Arbuthnot gave birth to a healthy male-child; +but the young mother's life, assailed by fever, was for many days +utterly despaired of--for weeks held to tremble so evenly in the +balance, that the slightest adverse circumstance might in a moment +turn the scale deathward. At length the black horizon that seemed to +encompass us so hopelessly, lightened, and afforded the lover-husband +a glimpse and hope of his vanished and well-nigh despaired of Eden. +The promise was fulfilled. I was in the library with Mr Arbuthnot +awaiting the physician's morning report, very anxiously expected at +the rectory, when Dr Lindley entered the apartment in evidently +cheerful mood. + +'You have been causelessly alarmed,' he said. 'There is no fear +whatever of a relapse. Weakness only remains, and that we shall +slowly, perhaps, but certainly, remove.' + +A gleam of lightning seemed to flash over Mr Arbuthnot's expressive +countenance. 'Blessed be God!' he exclaimed. 'And how,' he added, +'shall we manage respecting the child? She asks for it incessantly.' + +Mr Arbuthnot's infant son, I should state, had been consigned +immediately after its birth to the care of Mrs Danby, who had herself +been confined, also with a boy, about a fortnight previously. +Scarlatina being prevalent in the neighbourhood, Mrs Danby was hurried +away with the two children to a place near Bath, almost before she was +able to bear the journey. Mr Arbuthnot had not left his wife for an +hour, and consequently had only seen his child for a few minutes just +after it was born. + +'With respect to the child,' replied Dr Lindley, 'I am of opinion that +Mrs Arbuthnot may see it in a day or two. Say the third day from this, +if all goes well. I think we may venture so far; but I will be +present, for any untoward agitation might be perhaps instantly fatal.' +This point provisionally settled, we all three went our several ways: +I to cheer the still suffering rector with the good news. + +The next day but one, Mr Arbuthnot was in exuberant spirits. 'Dr +Lindley's report is even more favourable than we had anticipated,' he +said; 'and I start to-morrow morning, to bring Mrs Danby and the +child'----The postman's subdued but unmistakable knock interrupted +him. 'The nurse,' he added, 'is very attentive and punctual. She +writes almost every day.' A servant entered with a salver heaped with +letters. Mr Arbuthnot tossed them over eagerly, and seizing one, after +glancing at the post-mark, tore it eagerly open, muttering as +he did so: 'It is not the usual handwriting; but from her, no +doubt'----Merciful God!' I impulsively exclaimed, as I suddenly lifted +my eyes to his. 'What is the matter?' A mortal pallor had spread over +Mr Arbuthnot's before animated features, and he was glaring at the +letter in his hand as if a basilisk had suddenly confronted him. +Another moment, and the muscles of his frame appeared to give way +suddenly, and he dropped heavily into the easy-chair from which he had +risen to take the letters. I was terribly alarmed, and first loosening +his neckerchief, for he seemed choking, I said: 'Let me call some +one;' and I turned to reach the bell, when he instantly seized my +arms, and held me with a grip of iron. 'No--no--no!' he hoarsely +gasped; 'water--water!' There was fortunately some on a side-table. I +handed it to him, and he drank eagerly. It appeared to revive him a +little. He thrust the crumpled letter into his pocket, and said in a +low, quick whisper: 'There is some one coming! Not a word, +remember--not a word!' At the same time, he wheeled his chair half +round, so that his back should be towards the servant we heard +approaching. + +'I am sent, sir,' said Mrs Arbuthnot's maid, 'to ask if the post has +arrived.' + +'Yes,' replied Mr Arbuthnot, with wonderful mastery of his voice. +'Tell your mistress I shall be with her almost immediately, and that +her--her son is quite well.' + +'Mr Tyrrel,' he continued, as soon as the servant was out of hearing, +'there is, I think, a liqueur-stand on the sideboard in the large +dining-room. Would you have the kindness to bring it me, +unobserved--mind that--unobserved by any one?' + +I did as he requested; and the instant I placed the liqueur-frame +before him, he seized the brandy _carafe_, and drank with fierce +eagerness. 'For goodness' sake,' I exclaimed, 'consider what you are +about, Mr Arbuthnot: you will make yourself ill.' + +'No, no,' he answered, after finishing his draught, 'It seems scarcely +stronger than water. But I--I am better now. It was a sudden spasm of +the heart; that's all. The letter,' he added, after a long and painful +pause, during which he eyed me, I thought, with a kind of +suspicion--'the letter you saw me open just now, comes from a +relative, an aunt, who is ill, very ill, and wishes to see me +instantly. You understand?' + +I _did_ understand, or at least I feared that I did too well. I, +however, bowed acquiescence; and he presently rose from his chair, and +strode about the apartment in great agitation, until his wife's +bedroom bell rang. He then stopped suddenly short, shook himself, and +looked anxiously at the reflection of his flushed and varying +countenance in the magnificent chimney-glass. + +'I do not look, I think--or, at least shall not, in a darkened +room--odder, more out of the way--that is, more agitated--than one +might, that one _must_ appear, after hearing of the dangerous illness +of--of--an aunt?' + +'You look better, sir, than you did awhile since.' + +'Yes, yes; much better, much better. I am glad to hear you say so. +That was my wife's bell. She is anxious, no doubt, to see me.' + +He left the apartment; was gone perhaps ten minutes; and when he +returned, was a thought less nervous than before. I rose to go. 'Give +my respects,' he said, 'to the good rector; and as an especial +favour,' he added, with strong emphasis, 'let me ask of you not to +mention to a living soul that you saw me so unmanned as I was just +now; that I swallowed brandy. It would appear so strange, so weak, so +ridiculous.' + +I promised not to do so, and almost immediately left the house, very +painfully affected. His son was, I concluded, either dead or dying, +and he was thus bewilderedly casting about for means of keeping the +terrible, perhaps fatal tidings from his wife. I afterwards heard that +he left Elm Park in a postchaise, about two hours after I came away, +unattended by a single servant! + +He was gone three clear days only, at the end of which he returned +with Mrs Danby and--his son--in florid health, too, and one of the +finest babies of its age--about nine weeks only--I had ever seen. Thus +vanished the air-drawn Doubting Castle and Giant Despair which I had +so hastily conjured up! The cause assigned by Mr Arbuthnot for the +agitation I had witnessed, was doubtless the true one; and yet, and +the thought haunted me for months, years afterwards, he opened only +_one_ letter that morning, and had sent a message to his wife that the +child was well! + +Mrs Danby remained at the Park till the little Robert was weaned, and +was then dismissed very munificently rewarded. Year after year rolled +away without bringing Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot any additional little ones, +and no one, therefore, could feel surprised at the enthusiastic love +of the delighted mother for her handsome, nobly-promising boy. But +that which did astonish me, though no one else, for it seemed that I +alone noticed it, was a strange defect of character which began to +develop itself in Mr Arbuthnot. He was positively jealous of his +wife's affection for their own child! Many and many a time have I +remarked, when he thought himself unobserved, an expression of intense +pain flash from his fine, expressive eyes, at any more than usually +fervent manifestation of the young mother's gushing love for her first +and only born! It was altogether a mystery to me, and I as much as +possible forbore to dwell upon the subject. + +Nine years passed away without bringing any material change to the +parties involved in this narrative, except those which time brings +ordinarily in his train. Young Robert Arbuthnot was a healthy, tall, +fine-looking lad of his age; and his great-grandpapa, the rector, +though not suffering under any actual physical or mental infirmity, +had reached a time of life when the announcement that the golden bowl +is broken, or the silver cord is loosed, may indeed be quick and +sudden, but scarcely unexpected. Things had gone well, too, with the +nurse, Mrs Danby, and her husband; well, at least, after a fashion. +The speculative miller must have made good use of the gift to his wife +for her care of little Arbuthnot, for he had built a genteel house +near the mill, always rode a valuable horse, kept, it was said, a +capital table; and all this, as it seemed, by his clever speculations +in corn and flour, for the ordinary business of the mill was almost +entirely neglected. He had no children of his own, but he had +apparently taken, with much cordiality, to his step-son, a fine lad, +now about eighteen years of age. This greatly grieved the boy's +mother, who dreaded above all things that her son should contract the +evil, dissolute habits of his father-in-law. Latterly, she had become +extremely solicitous to procure the lad a permanent situation abroad, +and this Mr Arbuthnot had promised should be effected at the earliest +opportunity. + +Thus stood affairs on the 16th of October 1846. Mr Arbuthnot was +temporarily absent in Ireland, where he possessed large property, and +was making personal inquiries as to the extent of the potato-rot, not +long before announced. The morning's post had brought a letter to his +wife, with the intelligence that he should reach home that very +evening; and as the rectory was on the direct road to Elm Park, and +her husband would be sure to pull up there, Mrs Arbuthnot came with +her son to pass the afternoon there, and in some slight degree +anticipate her husband's arrival. + +About three o'clock, a chief-clerk of one of the Taunton banks rode up +in a gig to the rectory, and asked to see the Rev. Mr Townley, on +pressing and important business. He was ushered into the library, +where the rector and I were at the moment rather busily engaged. The +clerk said he had been to Elm Park, but not finding either Mr +Arbuthnot or his lady there, he had thought that perhaps the Rev. Mr +Townley might be able to pronounce upon the genuineness of a cheque +for L.300, purporting to be drawn on the Taunton Bank by Mr Arbuthnot, +and which Danby the miller had obtained cash for at Bath. He further +added, that the bank had refused payment, and detained the cheque, +believing it to be a forgery. + +'A forgery!' exclaimed the rector, after merely glancing at the +document. 'No question that it is, and a very clumsily executed one, +too. Besides, Mr Arbuthnot is not yet returned from Ireland.' + +This was sufficient; and the messenger, with many apologies for his +intrusion, withdrew, and hastened back to Taunton. We were still +talking over this sad affair, although some hours had elapsed since +the clerk's departure--in fact, candles had been brought in, and we +were every moment expecting Mr Arbuthnot--when the sound of a horse at +a hasty gallop was heard approaching, and presently the pale and +haggard face of Danby shot by the window at which the rector and +myself were standing. The gate-bell was rung almost immediately +afterwards, and but a brief interval passed before 'Mr Danby' was +announced to be in waiting. The servant had hardly gained the passage +with leave to shew him in, when the impatient visitor rushed rudely +into the room in a state of great, and it seemed angry excitement. + +'What, sir, is the meaning of this ill-mannered intrusion?' demanded +the rector sternly. + +'You have pronounced the cheque I paid away at Bath to be a forgery; +and the officers are, I am told, already at my heels. Mr Arbuthnot, +unfortunately, is not at home, and I am come, therefore, to seek +shelter with you.' + +'Shelter with me, sir!' exclaimed the indignant rector, moving, as he +spoke, towards the bell. 'Out of my house you shall go this instant.' + +The fellow placed his hand upon the reverend gentleman's arm, and +looked with his bloodshot eyes keenly in his face. + +'Don't!' said Danby; 'don't, for the sake of yourself and yours! +Don't! I warn you: or, if you like the phrase better, don't, for the +sake of me and _mine_.' + +'Yours, fellow! Your wife, whom you have so long held in cruel bondage +through her fears for her son, has at last shaken off that chain. +James Harper sailed two days ago from Portsmouth for Bombay. I sent +her the news two hours since.' + +'Ha! Is that indeed so?' cried Danby, with an irrepressible start of +alarm. 'Why, then----But no matter: here, luckily, comes Mrs Arbuthnot +_and her son_. All's right! She will, I know, stand bail for me, and, +if need be, acknowledge the genuineness of her husband's cheque.' + +The fellow's insolence was becoming unbearable, and I was about to +seize and thrust him forcibly from the apartment, when the sound of +wheels was heard outside. 'Hold! one moment,' he cried with fierce +vehemence. 'That is probably the officers: I must be brief, then, and +to the purpose. Pray, madam, do not leave the room for your own sake: +as for you, young sir, I _command_ you to remain!' + +'What! what does he mean?' exclaimed Mrs Arbuthnot bewilderedly, and +at the same time clasping her son--who gazed on Danby with kindled +eyes, and angry boyish defiance--tightly to her side. Did the man's +strange words give form and significance to some dark, shadowy, +indistinct doubt that had previously haunted her at times? I judged +so. The rector appeared similarly confused and shaken, and had sunk +nerveless and terrified upon a sofa. + +'You guess dimly, I see, at what I have to say,' resumed Danby with a +malignant sneer. 'Well, hear it, then, once for all, and then, if you +will, give me up to the officers. Some years ago,' he continued, +coldly and steadily--'some years ago, a woman, a nurse, was placed in +charge of two infant children, both boys: one of these was her own; +the other was the son of rich, proud parents. The woman's husband was +a gay, jolly fellow, who much preferred spending money to earning it, +and just then it happened that he was more than usually hard up. One +afternoon, on visiting his wife, who had removed to a distance, he +found that the rich man's child had sickened of the small-pox, and +that there was no chance of its recovery. A letter containing the sad +news was on a table, which he, the husband, took the liberty to open +and read. After some reflection, suggested by what he had heard of the +lady-mother's state of mind, he recopied the letter, for the sake of +embodying in it a certain suggestion. That letter was duly posted, and +the next day brought the rich man almost in a state of distraction; +but his chief and mastering terror was lest the mother of the already +dead infant should hear, in her then precarious state, of what had +happened. The tidings, he was sure, would kill her. Seeing this, the +cunning husband of the nurse suggested that, for the present, his--the +cunning one's--child might be taken to the lady as her own, and that +the truth could be revealed when she was strong enough to bear it. The +rich man fell into the artful trap, and that which the husband of the +nurse had speculated upon, came to pass even beyond his hopes. The +lady grew to idolise her fancied child--she has, fortunately, had no +other--and now, I think, it would really kill her to part with him. +The rich man could not find it in his heart to undeceive his +wife--every year it became more difficult, more impossible to do so; +and very generously, I must say, has he paid in purse for the +forbearance of the nurse's husband. Well now, then, to sum up: the +nurse was Mrs Danby; the rich, weak husband, Mr Arbuthnot; the +substituted child, that handsome boy--_my son!_' + +A wild scream from Mrs Arbuthnot broke the dread silence which had +accompanied this frightful revelation, echoed by an agonised cry, half +tenderness, half rage, from her husband, who had entered the room +unobserved, and now clasped her passionately in his arms. The +carriage-wheels we had heard were his. It was long before I could +recall with calmness the tumult, terror, and confusion of that scene. +Mr Arbuthnot strove to bear his wife from the apartment, but she would +not be forced away, and kept imploring with frenzied vehemence that +Robert--that her boy should not be taken from her. + +'I have no wish to do so--far from it,' said Danby with gleeful +exultation. 'Only folk must be reasonable, and not threaten their +friends with the hulks'---- + +'Give him anything, anything!' broke in the unhappy lady. 'O Robert! +Robert!' she added with a renewed burst of hysterical grief, 'how +could you deceive me so?' + +'I have been punished, Agnes,' he answered in a husky, broken voice, +'for my well-intending but criminal weakness; cruelly punished by the +ever-present consciousness that this discovery must one day or other +be surely made. What do you want?' he after awhile added with +recovering firmness, addressing Danby. + +'The acknowledgment of the little bit of paper in dispute, of course; +and say a genuine one to the same amount.' + +'Yes, yes,' exclaimed Mrs Arbuthnot, still wildly sobbing, and holding +the terrified boy strained in her embrace, as if she feared he might +be wrenched from her by force. 'Anything--pay him anything!' + +At this moment, chancing to look towards the door of the apartment, I +saw that it was partially opened, and that Danby's wife was listening +there. What might that mean? But what of helpful meaning in such a +case could it have? + +'Be it so, love,' said Mr Arbuthnot soothingly. 'Danby, call to-morrow +at the Park. And now, begone at once.' + +'I was thinking,' resumed the rascal with swelling audacity, 'that we +might as well at the same time come to some permanent arrangement upon +black and white. But never mind: I can always put the screw on; +unless, indeed, you get tired of the young gentleman, and in that +case, I doubt not, he will prove a dutiful and affectionate son----Ah, +devil! What do you here? Begone, or I'll murder you! Begone, do you +hear?' + +His wife had entered, and silently confronted him. 'Your threats, evil +man,' replied the woman quietly, 'have no terrors for me now. My son +is beyond your reach. Oh, Mrs Arbuthnot,' she added, turning towards +and addressing that lady, 'believe not'---- + +Her husband sprang at her with the bound of a panther. 'Silence! Go +home, or I'll strangle'----His own utterance was arrested by the +fierce grasp of Mr Arbuthnot, who seized him by the throat, and hurled +him to the further end of the room. 'Speak on, woman; and quick! +quick! What have you to say?' + +'That your son, dearest lady,' she answered, throwing herself at Mrs +Arbuthnot's feet, 'is as truly your own child as ever son born of +woman!' + +That shout of half-fearful triumph seems even now as I write to ring +in my ears! I _felt_ that the woman's words were words of truth, but I +could not see distinctly: the room whirled round, and the lights +danced before my eyes, but I could hear through all the choking +ecstasy of the mother, and the fury of the baffled felon. + +'The letter,' continued Mrs Danby, 'which my husband found and opened, +would have informed you, sir, of the swiftly approaching death of _my_ +child, and that yours had been carefully kept beyond the reach of +contagion. The letter you received was written without my knowledge or +consent. True it is that, terrified by my husband's threats, and in +some measure reconciled to the wicked imposition by knowing that, +after all, the right child would be in his right place, I afterwards +lent myself to Danby's evil purposes. But I chiefly feared for my son, +whom I fully believed he would not have scrupled to make away with in +revenge for my exposing his profitable fraud. I have sinned; I can +hardly hope to be forgiven, but I have now told the sacred truth.' + +All this was uttered by the repentant woman, but at the time it was +almost wholly unheard by those most interested in the statement. They +only comprehended that they were saved--that the child was theirs in +very truth. Great, abundant, but for the moment, bewildering joy! Mr +Arbuthnot--his beautiful young wife--her own true boy (how could she +for a moment have doubted that he was her own true boy!--you might +read that thought through all her tears, thickly as they fell)--the +aged and half-stunned rector, whilst yet Mrs Danby was speaking, were +exclaiming, sobbing in each other's arms, ay, and praising God too, +with broken voices and incoherent words it may be, but certainly with +fervent, pious, grateful hearts. + +When we had time to look about us, it was found that the felon had +disappeared--escaped. It was well, perhaps, that he had; better, that +he has not been heard of since. + + + + +THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE. + + +To all appearance, the abolition of the taxes on the spread of +knowledge through the press is only a matter of time. The principal of +these taxes is the Excise-duty on paper, which, as we have repeatedly +urged, acts most detrimentally on the issue of a cheap class of +publications. The duty next in importance is that which is charged on +advertisements. Our belief is, that a relief from this taxation would +be a prodigious advantage to all departments of trade and commerce, as +well as to various social interests. That the sum of eighteenpence +should be exacted by the state from every person--a poor housemaid, +for example--on advertising for a situation, is, to say the least of +it, inexpressibly shabby. The stamp-duty of one penny on each +newspaper is reckoned to be the third of these taxes on knowledge. +There can be no doubt that this duty is a tax, as applied to those +newspapers which circulate in a locality without going through the +post-office; but, as matters stand, we are inclined to think that much +the larger proportion of newspapers, metropolitan and provincial, +actually are posted, either by the publishers, or by parties sending +their copies to be read at second-hand. It is not quite clear that the +remission of the stamp-duty would be an entire gain; for a postage of +a penny in sending to second, third, and fourth readers--each fresh +hand requiring to adhibit a fresh postage label--might come to a very +much more severe tax than the existing stamp. Much, however, can be +said on both sides; and we desire to let each party state its own +case. + +The _British Quarterly Review_, in an able article on the Newspaper +Stamp and its proposed abolition, argues for that measure on one +particular ground--namely, its certain result in allowing of the +existence of small local papers. The writer says: 'Take the _Leeds +Mercury_, the _Manchester Guardian_, or the _Manchester Examiner_, for +example--all first-class papers, of the largest size allowed by law, +and all giving four-page supplements once a week. In spite of their +immense size, there is not one of these journals which can give a +faithful weekly record of all that is worthy of note in the forty or +fifty towns and villages by which they are surrounded, and through +which these papers circulate. An attempt, indeed, is made to give as +many "Town-Council Meetings," "Board of Guardian Proceedings," +"Temperance Demonstrations," and "Meetings of Rate-payers"--with a due +mixture of change-ringings, friendly anniversaries, elections of +church-wardens, elections of town-councillors, elections of guardians, +offences, accidents, and crimes--as can be crammed, by rapid +abridgment, into a certain number of columns. But after all has been +done in this way that the most skilful and industrious editor, aided +by the most indefatigable sub-editor, can accomplish, or that any +reasonable newspaper reader in any of the smaller towns could possibly +require, there still remains a great number of equally important +events, which are necessarily left unnoticed altogether by the mammoth +journal, for sheer want of space, or given in a form so much abridged +as to render them of little or no value. The people of Oldham are +perhaps waiting with intense anxiety for a long and amusing account of +the "Extraordinary Scene" at the last meeting of the board of poor-law +guardians; or those of Ashton are looking forward with equal interest +to Saturday's paper, for a report of the animated debate in the +town-council on the proposed increase of two policemen for that +borough; or perhaps the news-agents of Rochdale, in anticipation of a +brisk demand, have ordered twice the usual number of papers because of +a church-rate contest, in which the vicar has been beaten by an +overwhelming majority. But the columns of the _Manchester Guardian_, +though nearly double what they were twenty years ago, are not made of +India rubber; and therefore, much as the editor may wish to give all +due latitude to Ashton, Bolton, Bury, Middleton, Oldham, Rochdale, +Stockport, or Wigan news, he is generally forced, by the pressure of +advertisements, or some other equally potent cause, to compress +everything within the narrowest limits. Whatever interest a piece of +district news may possess in its own locality, it must not be allowed +to encroach upon the space belonging to "the general reader," who buys +nine-tenths of every newspaper, and who does not care a farthing for +Rochdale or Ashton news, unless when it happens to be a very horrid +murder, or an exceedingly destructive fire. Were the stamp-duty +abolished, the large town papers would be relieved from all the +drudgery and annoyance attendant upon this department of editorial +work. There would no longer be any necessity for devoting six or eight +closely-printed columns of the paper to local news, which are not read +by one-twentieth part of those who purchase it. Each small town in +Lancashire and Yorkshire, as well as elsewhere, would have its penny +or twopenny newspaper, in which local news, local politics, and local +talent, would have fair play; while large papers, like the _Manchester +Guardian_ or the _Leeds Mercury_, would be greatly improved by the +change. They would be enabled to substitute good readable matter, +literary or political, of which there is always abundance, for the +very dull stuff which they are now obliged to give under the head of +"District News." By this improvement in character, and by the +reduction of price, in such papers as we have named, from 5d. to +3-1/2d., their circulation would be greatly increased, in spite of the +number of penny and twopenny papers which would then supply the demand +for news among that numerous portion of the working-classes who cannot +afford such a luxury at present.' + +Such is a fair statement of certain advantages to be derived from the +abolition of the penny stamp, and the substitution of the penny label. +The advocates of the stamp-duty allege that, while the foregoing line +of argument may be perfectly valid, something, on the contrary, is due +to the advantage of having well-supported metropolitan newspapers as +centres of intelligence. These newspapers, say some of their +publishers, are put to vast expense for early news, foreign and +domestic; such news they at present permit every one freely to copy; +but, if a host of small country papers are to spring up, piracy of +this kind will no longer be tolerated. As newspapers go pretty much on +the principle of giving and taking in the way of intelligence, any +tendency to prosecute on the ground of piracy would, in all +probability, soon cure itself; and, therefore, we would not greatly +rely on this as a reason for maintaining an exclusiveness in the +business of newspaper publication. A more serious argument against the +creation of a host of cheap local papers, is the probable +dissemination of much petty scandal, and matter of a partially +libellous or offensive character; at the least, much bad writing. +Supposing, however, that there is a chance of literature being thus to +a certain extent deteriorated, it will not do to oppose an +improvement, if it be such, from fears of this nature. Should the +matter treated of in small local papers be sometimes of an +objectionable character, the public taste will surely go far towards +its correction; and why should not each provincial town have an +opportunity of educating writers up to the proper degree of literary +accomplishment? It is undeniable, that small towns stand in pressing +need of local channels for advertisements, and here, we think, is +their strongest ground. How much more important, in a town of 5000 +inhabitants, that the principal mercer should have his fresh arrival +of goods advertised in a paper which circulates 500 copies in that +town, than in some county-town journal which sends to it only some +thirty or forty copies! A sale of growing crops must, in like manner, +be much more effectually advertised in a paper which circulates +largely in a small district, than in one which is diffused sparsely +over a large one. All this, indeed, is amply proved by the tendency +which has been shewn of late years, in Scotland at least, to set up +unstamped monthly local papers containing advertisements, and by the +comparative success which these journals have met with. + +Among the arguments for such arrangements as would promote the sale of +newspapers, we see little or no stress laid upon the _educational_, +which to us appears as the very strongest of all. The interest felt in +the occurrences of the passing day is one of the most vigorous of all +intellectual appetences. Give a man ready access to a journal in which +this taste can be gratified, and his intellectual progress is certain. +The utterly uneducated, seeing the pleasure which his fellows derive +from the paper, will desire to learn to read, that he may enjoy the +like pleasure. The man just able to read will be drawn on to reflect +and judge, and in time he will desire intellectual food from books +also. The cheap newspaper thus becomes a most powerful instrument for +nursing the popular mind; and, if we consider how essential it is, +where there are free institutions, that the bulk of the people should +be enlightened, we must see what a great public end is to be served by +this simple means. A place in the apparatus is, we think, rightly +claimed by the small local newspaper, as a kind of A B C, or _first +form_, where the young and untutored mind may be entered by way of +preparation for higher studies. + + + + +THE VEGETATION OF EUROPE. + + +The publication of the volume, the title of which appears below,[3] is +to be regarded as additional evidence that the tendency of science in +the present day is towards wider and more comprehensive +generalisations. Many readers who may be more or less familiar with +certain species or even families of plants, will hardly have prepared +themselves for a view of the phytology of a quarter of the globe, such +as is given in outline in the interesting work now before us. The +subject is one that has been largely investigated within the past +twenty years, as may be seen in the records of the British +Association, in the transactions of learned societies, and in the +writings of numerous observers on the continent. Attempt after attempt +has been made to explain the causes of the variations and effects of +climate, their influence on vegetation, the appearance of certain +floras in localities where they might be least expected, and to +separate the natural and regular from the accidental. Different +countries have been examined and compared with each other, and many of +the differences accounted for; and in Mr Henfrey's volume we have an +acceptable _résumé_ of these various researches. + +It becomes necessary, first of all, to study the influences--whether +general or special--which affect the distribution of vegetation; to +inquire into those freaks or aberrations of nature which favour in one +place the production of plants that will not grow in another, under +apparently similar circumstances; and why similar plants are found in +places widely separated. Oranges will ripen on one side the Alps, but +not on the other; grapes scarcely come to perfection out of doors in +England, while on the other side of the Channel they ripen by +thousands of acres; and several fruits which fail in our northern +counties, are grown without difficulty in Denmark in the open air. +Investigation soon shewed that temperature alone, mere heat and cold, +was insufficient to account for the phenomena; but that moisture and +dryness, the prevalence of certain winds, the chemical and physical +conditions of soil, and the constitution of the plants themselves, +would have to be considered in a proper inquiry into the subject. + +Here we must notice a fact which has proved of essential service in +the study of botanical geography--namely, the discovery 'that there is +some law presiding over the distribution of plants which causes the +appearance of particular species arbitrarily--if we may so say it--in +particular places;' from which, the conclusion has been arrived at, +'that countries have become populated with plants partly by the +spreading of some special kinds from centres within those countries +where they were originally exclusively created; and while these have +spread outward into the neighbouring regions, colonists from like +centres lying in the surrounding countries have invaded and become +intermingled with the indigenous inhabitants.' + +Looking at the effect of climate on vegetation, we find that as we +proceed from the north towards the south, the number and luxuriance of +plants increase in a remarkable degree, and the same result is +observable in altitude as in latitude. 'Step by step,' writes Mr +Henfrey, 'as the land rises in any mountain region, the vegetation +assumes, more and more, a polar character; and in the mountains of the +tropics, a succession of stages has been distinguished, corresponding +in the general peculiarities of the plants which clothe them, to +tracts extending horizontally, in succession, on the sea-level, from +the base of these mountains to the frozen regions within the arctic +and antarctic circles. Increase of elevation is accompanied by an +alteration of climate, bringing with it a set of conditions analogous +to those prevailing at certain distances further from the sun. +Ascending the Peak of Teneriffe, a series of regions are traversed, +one above another, displaying with the approach to the summit a +continually closer approximation in character to the polar regions, +till the traveller who left the palm, the cactus, and the thousand +varied forms of tropical vegetation at the foot, finds himself at last +among the stunted shrubs and scaly lichens, the borderers who hold the +outposts on the limits of the eternal snow.' + +It might be expected that places on the same parallel of latitude +would be equal in temperature; but on tracing out the distribution of +heat over the globe, and laying it down in what are called +_isothermal_ lines on a map, most striking deviations are found to +exist, and the contour of the lines is anything but regular. The line +of greatest cold, for example, which leaves the eastern coast of +Labrador at about the 54th degree of latitude, rises six degrees as it +approaches Greenland, and strikes the coast of Lapland a little above +the 70th degree, or sixteen degrees nearer the pole than at its +starting-point--thus shewing that the northern parts of Europe have a +more genial climate than those of America. The line then curves +fifteen degrees to the south across Siberia, rises again on the +western coast of America, and falls once more as it advances towards +the east. Again, 'the isotherms of Canada pass through Iceland, across +about the middle of Norway and Sweden, St Petersburg and Kamtschatka. +Those of New York through the north of Ireland and England, twelve +degrees further north, North and Central Germany, and the Crimea. That +which leaves the United States at about 36 degrees north latitude, +crosses Southern Europe from the north of Spain to the Adriatic in a +tolerably straight line, some eight degrees further north, and then +falls south again, where the influence of the north-east polar current +is more felt, in Greece and Turkey.' + +But although these are marked as lines of equal heat, it is only in +the average temperature that the equality consists; and it is clear +that a country with 80 degrees of summer heat and 20 of winter cold, +would have a very different climate from another with 60 and 40 as the +highest and lowest degrees of temperature, although the mean of the +two would be the same. And herein we have an explanation of what at +first sight appear to be anomalies: we know, for instance, 'that +plants will flourish perennially in the British isles which are killed +by the frosts of winter in places lying considerably to the south upon +the continent; thus the laurel, that bears our winters steadily in +Ireland and the west of England, and is only affected by very severe +frosts in our eastern counties, is killed by the winters of Berlin, +equally fatal to the myrtle, the fuchsia, and a host of other shrubs +which attain considerable age and size in the western portions of the +British isles. Again, Canada, which lies south of Paris, has the +climate of Drontheim, in Norway; while at New York, lying in the +latitude of Naples, the flowers open simultaneously with those of +Upsala, in Sweden. Moreover, those very countries suffering so severe +a winter's cold, enjoy a summer's heat far exceeding ours, since the +snow lies for months on parts of Germany which yet receive sufficient +heat in summer to ripen the grape and Indian corn.' + +The principal modifying causes are winds and water. Islands, and +countries bordering on the ocean, have a much more equable climate +than those which lie in the interior of continents, and will have a +greater prevalence of moist south-westerly winds. The average annual +quantity of rain in the British islands is from 28 to 30 inches; on +the continent, it is less; the fall in Holland is estimated at 26 +inches, and in Denmark and North Germany, at 20 inches--the greatest +fall occurring in summer and autumn, as in England. Then with respect +to winds, we find those from the west most prevalent over what Mr +Henfrey distinguishes as the north European plain, as is the case in +our country. 'The west wind blows more frequently in England than in +Denmark, more there than in Russia. The predominance is most marked in +summer; in the winter, the easterly winds are almost as frequent as +the westerly upon the continent, which is not true of the British +isles.' Sometimes, however, the south-westerly winds, which bring our +genial April showers, continue to arrive with their watery burden +until late in the summer, to the detriment or destruction of +grain-crops; and yet this same wind, losing its excessive moisture as +it sweeps onward over the continent, is highly favourable to the +husbandman in Southern Russia. The years 1816 and 1817 were cases in +point. + +The meteorology of Russia affords some striking contrasts: the yearly +rain-fall in St Petersburg is 21 inches, 'and the westerly winds are +most prevalent, although not to the same extent as in Western Europe; +they are also predominant in Moscow and Kasan. In the southern +steppes, it is stated that the average of four years has given only 6 +inches fall of rain, occurring in 47 days of the year; but the +irregularity is so great, that single years gave 59, 35, 39, and 53 +rainy days. In 1832-3, twenty months elapsed without rain, and in some +years the quantity is only one-tenth of that which falls in wet years. +In the summer, there is no dew, and the ground dries up and cracks, +the plants withering up: 1841, not considered as a dry year, gave only +8-1/2 inches of rain; but in 1831, one of the wettest, the moisture +interfered with agriculture more than the drought does, saturating the +soil, which rests on a deep impermeable clayey formation.' In April +and May, when the snows melt, the steppe is a vast sea of mud, liable +to be hardened by occasional frosts, until, as the season advances, +myriads of crocuses, tulips, and hyacinths, cover the soil, which +perhaps a few days later will be hidden by north-east snowstorms, or +drenched by gales from the north-west. No rain falls for two months +after the middle of June, the luxuriant herbage withers more rapidly +than it grew, and, except in a few spots near the streams, the steppe +becomes a black, arid waste. Yet in some parts of these regions the +vegetation is extraordinary: 'the wormwoods and thistles grow to a +size unknown in the west of Europe; it is said that the thistle-bush, +found where these abound, is tall enough to hide a Cossack horseman. +The natives call all these rank weeds, useless for pasture, _burian_, +and, with the dry dung of the flocks, this constitutes all the fuel +they possess. One curious plant of the thistle tribe has attracted the +notice of most travellers--the wind-witch, as it is called by the +German colonists, or leap-the-field, as the Russian name may be +translated. It forms a large globular mass of light wiry branches +interlaced together, and in autumn decays off at the root, the upper +part drying up. It is then at the mercy of the autumn blast, and it is +said that thousands may sometimes be seen coursing over the plain, +rolling, dancing, and leaping over the slight inequalities, often +looking at a distance like a troop of wild horses. It is not uncommon +for twenty or thirty to become entangled into a mass, and then roll +away, as Mr Kohl says, "like a huge giant in his seven-league boots." +Thousands of them are annually blown into the Black Sea, and here, +once in contact with water, in an instant lose the fantastic grace +belonging to their dry, unsubstantial texture.' + +Any one who has seen the feather-like seeds of thistles and dandelions +floating about in the air, will have little difficulty in +comprehending the effect of winds on the distribution of vegetation. +Such seeds, as Mr Henfrey observes, might readily be carried across +Europe by a powerful autumn gale, blowing steadily in one direction. +In physiological language, they belong to the _sporadic_, not to the +_endemic_ class, of which a remarkable instance is afforded in the +flea-bane (_Erigeron canadensis_), a plant which, having found its way +to this side the Atlantic only since the discovery of America, is now +a common weed on the continent of Europe. Running streams and ocean +currents also transport seeds from one locality to another. The +gulf-stream, as is well known, carries occasionally branches of trees +to the north coast of Scotland and Norway; and 'Mr Brown found that +six hundred plants collected about the river Zaire, in Africa, +included thirteen species, natives also of Guyana and Brazil. These +species mostly occurred near the mouth of the Zaire, and were of such +kind as produced fruits capable of resisting external agencies for a +long time.' Then, again, the agency of birds, of quadrupeds, and of +man, in the distribution of seeds and plants, is too important to be +overlooked, as Sir Charles Lyell has ably shewn in his _Principles of +Geology_; and there is 'a certain number of plants which seem to +accompany man wherever he goes, and to flourish best in his vicinity. +Thus, the docks, the goosefoots, the nettle, the chickweed, mallows, +and many other common weeds, seem to be universal, though unwelcome +companions to man--dogging his footsteps, affording by their presence, +even in now deserted districts, an almost certain index of the former +residence of human beings on the spot.' + +From an examination of the causes affecting distribution, Mr Henfrey +passes to a survey of the characteristics of the countries of Europe, +from north to south--from the peninsula of Scandinavia to those of +Spain, Italy, and Greece. The remarkable contrast is pointed out +between the climate and cultivation of the east and west sides of the +mountains of Sweden and Norway. Barley ripens as far north as the 70th +degree, in latitudes whose mean temperature is below the +freezing-point; while in Switzerland, corn ceases to ripen at 9 +degrees above the same point, and in the plateaux of South America, at +22-1/2 degrees--a fact which goes to shew, 'that the growth of grain +is much more dependent on the summer temperature than on the annual +mean. The long summer days of the polar regions afford a very brief, +but a comparatively exalted summer heat.' It is, however, only the +barley which ventures so far north: the limit of rye is 67 degrees, of +oats, 65 degrees, of wheat, 64 degrees, on the west side of the +peninsula, and from 1 to 2 degrees less on the east. In Southern +Norway, the spruce-fir ceases to grow beyond the line of 2900 feet +above the sea-level; while in Switzerland, it is commonly met with at +the height of 5500 feet, and in some situations, 7000; shewing that +the influences which affect the growth of grain do not similarly +affect that of trees--proximity of the sea decreases the summer +temperature. Again: 'In Scandinavia the tree-limit is indicated by the +birch; in the Alps, by firs. The two lower mountain zones of the +Alps, the regions of the beech and the chestnut, do not exist in the +Scandinavian mountains. Compared with the climate and tree-limits, the +cultivation of corn does not go so high in the Alps as it does toward +the north; for it ceases about with the beech in the Alps, and grazing +is the regular pursuit in the region of firs; while in Scandinavia, +the beech only goes to 59 degrees, and corn-culture to 70 +degrees--that is, as far as the conifers. Corn succeeds in the latter +under a mean temperature below the freezing-point, while in the Alps +it ceases at 41 degrees Fahrenheit. The cause of this is the hot +though short summer of the north. The Alps have maize and the vine, +which will not grow around the Scandinavian mountains; the meadows are +throughout richer in the Alps, and grazing is therefore much more +extensively pursued.' + +The peculiarities and comparisons afforded by other countries, are not +less interesting than those we have selected, and we might multiply +instances, if space permitted. Enough, however, have been adduced to +shew that the mode of accounting for differences of vegetation is so +far satisfactory, that it appears to be in perfect accordance with +discoverable natural laws; and it is no longer a surprise or mystery +to find plants of Southern Russia and of Asia Minor on the high +table-lands of Spain; or that the effects of an unvarying temperature, +as at Quito, in the table-land of Peru, are to cause the culture of +wheat to cease at the mean temperature of Milan, and woods to +disappear at the mean of Penzance. A few remarks respecting our own +country is all that we can now find room for. + +Including snow-falls, the number of rainy days in Dublin in a year is +208, in London, 178, while in Copenhagen it is not more than 134. The +number of British plants indigenous or naturalised is from 1400 to +1500, comprising mostly the vegetation of Central Europe, but +including specimens from Scandinavia and the Pyrenees. The highest +point at which grain has been known to grow, is 1600 feet above the +sea-level, at the outlet of Loch Collater, in the Highlands. In +Drumochter Pass, an elevation of 1530 feet, potatoes can scarcely be +raised; and from 1000 to 1200 feet is the more common limit of the +cereal and the esculent. On this point a statement is made, which may +be useful to cultivators in the hill districts: it is, that 'the +common brake-fern (_Pteris aquilina_), distributed throughout Britain, +is found to be limited by a line running nearly level with the limit +of cultivation, and thus affords a test, when cultivation may be +absent, where nature does not deny it success. In one sheltered spot +in the woods of Loch-na-gar, it was observed at 1900 feet; and in +another part of the same woods, at 1700 feet; but on the exposed moors +it is very seldom seen beyond 1200 feet, unless in hollows, or on +declivities facing the sun.' + +In accounting for the varieties of plants in Britain, it is assumed +that, during the glacial period, when the tops of our mountains were +mere islands in a great sea, under which lay the greater part of +modern Europe, they were then peopled by the arctic and alpine +species, which now inhabit them. Then came an upheaval; a vast tract +of land rose above the water, without any break, as at present between +England and the continent; and at this period 'there appears to have +been a migration of both plants and animals from east to west, the +descendants of which still constitute the great body of the flora and +fauna of the British lowlands.' Meantime, the elevation of the former +islands into mountain summits, placed them in a temperature suited to +the perpetuation of their vegetation. Then, to account for the +presence of a Spanish flora in the west of Ireland, a bold hypothesis, +started by Professor Edward Forbes, is put forward--'that the west of +Ireland was geologically united with the north of Spain;' admitting +which, there is no difficulty in supposing the plants to have +travelled along the intervening land, which has subsequently +disappeared, and that, owing to climatic changes, the hardier sort of +plants, such as saxifrages and heaths, have alone survived. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] The Vegetation of Europe, its Conditions and Causes. By Arthur +Henfrey, F.L.S. London: John Van Voorst. 1852. + + + + +A HALF-PENNYWORTH OF NAVIGATION. + + +Who's for a cheap ride on what a pleasant writer calls the 'silent +highway?'--silent no longer, since the steamers have taken to plying +above Bridge at a charge which has made the surface of the Thames, +where it runs through the heart of London, populous with life, and +noisy with the clash of paddles and the rush of steam, to say +nothing of the incessant chorus of captains, engine-boys, and +gangway-men--with their 'Ease her,' 'Stop her,' 'Back her,' 'Turn +ahead,' 'Turn astarn,' 'Now, marm, with the bundle, be alive,' 'Heave +ahead there, will you?' &c., all the day long. + +Come this way, my friend; here we are opposite the Adelphi Theatre, +and this is the man who used to be a black man, or else it's another, +who does duty as talking finger-post, and shews you, if you are a +stranger, how you are to get at the half-penny boat. Come, we must +dive down this narrow lane, past the 'Fox under the Hill,' a rather +long and not very sightly, cleanly, smooth, or fragrant thoroughfare; +and here, in this shed-looking office, you must pay your half-penny, +which guarantees you a passage all the way to London Bridge. Look +alive! as the money-taker recommends--the _Bee_, you see, is already +discharging her living cargo, and others are hurrying on board. The +boat won't lose time in turning round--she goes backwards and forwards +as straight as a saw, and carries a rudder at her nose as well as one +at her tail. Never mind these jolting planks, you havn't time to +tumble down--on with you! That's it: here, on this floating-pier, +manufactured from old barges, we may rest a moment, while the boat +discharges her freight, and takes on board the return cargo. You see +the landing-stage or pier is divided into two equal portions; the +people who are leaving the boat have not yet paid their fare; they +will have to disburse their coppers at the office where we paid ours, +there being but one paying-place for the two termini. + +'Tis a motley company, you see, which comes and goes by the half-penny +boat. Here is a Temple barrister, with his red-taped brief under his +arm, and at his heels follows a plasterer, and a tiler's labourer with +a six-foot chimney-pot upon his shoulders. There goes a +foreigner--foreigners like to have things cheap--with a bushy black +beard and a pale face, moustached and whiskered to the eyes, and +puffing a volume of smoke from his invisible mouth; and there is a +washer-woman, with a basket of clothes weighing a hundredweight. +Yonder young fellow, with the dripping sack on his back, is staggering +under a load of oysters from Billingsgate, and he has got to wash them +and sell them for three a penny, and see them swallowed one at a time, +before his work will be done for the day--and behind him is a comely +lassie, with a monster oil-glazed sarcophagus-looking milliner's +basket, carrying home a couple of bonnets to a customer. See! there is +lame Jack, who sweeps the crossing in the borough, followed by a lady +with her 'six years' darling of a pigmy size,' whom she calls 'Little +Popps,' both hurrying home to dinner after a morning's shopping. All +these, and a hundred others of equally varied description, go off on +the landing-stage, whence they will have to pay their obolus to the +Charon of the Thames ere they are swallowed up in the living tide that +rolls along the Strand from morn to night. + +Now, if we mean to go, we had better get on board, for in another +minute the deck will be covered, and we shall not find room to stand. +That's right; make sure of a seat while you may! How they swarm on +board, and what a choice sample they present of the mixed multitude of +London! The deck is literally jammed with every variety of the +pedestrian population--red-breasted soldiers from the barracks, +glazed-hatted policemen from the station, Irish labourers and their +wives, errand-boys with notes and packages, orange-girls with empty +baskets, working-men out for a mouthful of air, and idle boys out for +a 'spree'--men with burdens to carry, and men with hardly a rag to +cover them; unctuous Jews, jabbering Frenchmen, and drowsy-looking +Germans--on they flock, squeezing through the gangway, or clambering +over the bulwarks, while the little vessel rolls and lurches till the +water laves the planks on which you stand. In three minutes from her +arrival she has discharged her old cargo, and is crammed to +overflowing with a new one. 'Back, there: overloaded already!' roars +the captain. 'Let go; turn ahead; go on!'--and fiz! away we go, +leaving full half of the intending voyagers to wait for the next boat, +which, however, will not be long in coming. + +'Bless me, how we roll about from side to side!' says an anxious old +lady. 'Is anything the matter with the boat, that it wabbles so?' + +'Only a little krank, marm; it's all right,' says the person +addressed. + +'It's all right, of course,' says another, glancing at the nervous +lady, 'whether we goes up or whether we goes down, so long as we gets +along. The _Cricket_ blowed herself up, and the _Ant_ got tired on it, +and laid down to rest herself at the bottom t'other day. Howasever, a +steamer never blows up nor goes to the bottom but once, and, please +God, 't aint goin' to be this time.' + +While the old lady, unsatisfied with this genuine specimen of Cockney +philosophy, is vowing that if she once gets safe on shore, she will +never again set foot in a half-penny boat, we are already at Waterloo +Bridge. Duck goes the funnel, and we dart under the noble arch, and +catch a passing view of Somerset House. The handsome structure runs +away in our rear; the Chinese Junk, with its tawdry flags, scuttles +after it; we catch a momentary glimpse of Temple Gardens, lying in the +sunlight, where half-a-dozen children are playing on the grass; then +comes Whitefriars, the old Alsatia, the sanctuary of blackguard +ruffianism in bygone times; then there is a smell of gas, and a vision +of enormous gasometers; and then down goes the funnel again, and +Blackfriars Bridge jumps over us. On we go, now at the top of our +speed, past the dingy brick warehouses that lie under the shadow of St +Paul's, whose black dome looks down upon us as we scud along. Then +Southwark Bridge, with its Cyclopean masses of gloomy metal, disdains +to return the slightest response to the fussy splashing we make, as we +shoot impudently through. Then come more wharfs and warehouses, as we +glide past, while our pace slackens, and we stop gently within a +stone's-throw of London Bridge, at Dyers' Hall, where we are bundled +out of the boat with as little ceremony as we were bundled in, and +with as little, indeed, as it has ever been the custom to use since +ceremony was invented--which, in matters of business, is a very +useless thing. + +And now, my friend, you have accomplished a half-penny voyage; and +without being a conjuror, you can see how it is that this cheap +navigation is so much encouraged. In the first place, it is cheaper +than shoe-leather, leaving fatigue out of the question; it saves a +good two miles of walking, and that is no trifle, especially under a +heavy burden, or in slippery weather. In the second place, it may be +said to be often cheaper than dirt, seeing that the soil and injury to +clothing which it saves by avoiding a two miles' scamper through the +muddy ways, would damage the purse of a decent man more than would the +cost of several journeys. These are considerations which the humbler +classes appreciate, and therefore they flock to the cheap boats, and +spend their halfpence to save their pence and their time. This latter +consideration of time-saving it is that brings another class of +customers to the boats. In order that it may be remunerative to the +projectors, every passage must be made with a regular and undeviating +rapidity; and this very necessity becomes in its turn a source of +profit, because it is a recommendation to a better class of business +men and commercial agents, to whom a saving of time is daily a matter +of the utmost importance. Hence the motley mixture of all ranks and +orders that crowd the deck. + +Besides these half-penny boats, there are others which run at double +and quadruple fares; but they carry a different class of passengers, +and run greater distances, stopping at intermediate stations. They are +all remunerative speculations; and they may be said to have created +the traffic by which they thrive. They have driven the watermen's +wherries off the river almost as effectually as the railways have +driven the stage-coaches from the road; but, like them, they have +multiplied the passengers by the thousand, and have awakened the +public to a new sense of the value of the river as a means of transit +from place to place. The demand for safe, cheap, and speedy conveyance +to and from all parts of the river between London Bridge and +Battersea, and beyond, is becoming daily more urgent; and we hear that +it will shortly be met by the launching of a fleet of steam gondolas +constructed on an improved principle, combining accommodation for +enlarged numbers, with appliances calculated to insure at once +security and speed. + + + + +A LONDON NEWSPAPER IN 1667. + + +In a recent number of this Journal (14th February), some particulars +were given relating to a newspaper of a hundred years ago; and the +contrast--sufficiently strong--was shewn between the infant press of +that time and its developed form in our own. We propose now to make +research a century earlier, and to shew in what condition the 'fourth +estate of the realm' appeared in the early part of Charles II.'s +reign. Surely that great power was then in its very infancy and +weakness; and if the subject entered into our plan, it would be both +instructive and entertaining to trace its growth in this country from +the small beginning now before us. + +We have on our table some numbers of the _London Gazette_ of 1667 to +1681; and, so far as we know, this newspaper was the only source of +information to the people of public and passing events. In the +Venetian territory, that republic issued its gazette so early as 1536. +In the days of our own Civil Wars, when matters of the last importance +were continually arising, the English newspaper commenced, each party +having one such organ. Under Cromwell, a more regular journal was +published in 1652; but it was not until Queen Anne's reign that the +_Daily Courant_ appeared each morning, and pioneered that enormous +power of our own day which disseminates perhaps 80,000,000 newspapers +annually throughout the country. + +It would be curious to compare the _London Gazette_ of 1667 with the +_Times_ of 1852. In form, it is slightly larger than one leaf of this +Journal; but in type, and in appearance, it is quite equal to the +newspapers of a hundred years later. It is published 'by authority,' +and contains pithy paragraphs, void of detail and without comment, +under the headings of the different places whence the news is +brought--the first and the last paragraphs being devoted to 'home +news,' the latter dating usually from Whitehall, and supplying the +place of the Court Circular. The first number was probably issued +shortly after the Restoration, as _our_ earliest date is No. 236, from +Thursday, 17th February, to Monday, 20th February 1667. We purpose +making some extracts from these veracious records as they arise; and +first, let us view in familiar guise a historical character, better +known to us by heading charges of cavalry at Naseby--a daring +cavalier, a valiant soldier; though now we see him _en déshabille_, +and only as Prince Rupert, who, poor gentleman, has lost his pet dog! +'Lost,' says the advertisement--'lost on Friday last, about noon, a +light fallow-colored greyhound, with a sore under her jaw, and a scar +on her side; whoever shall give notice of her at Prince Rupert's +apartments in Whitehall, shall be well rewarded for their pains.' The +next month, we find the prince assisting at a launch. 'This day (3 +March), was happily launched at Deptford, in presence of his majesty, +his Royal Highness Prince Rupert, and many persons of the court, a +very large and well-built ship, which is to carry 106 great guns, and +is like to prove a ship of great force and excellent service, called +_Charles the Second_.' + +A little later, we find an account of the visit of 'Madam,' Duchess of +Orleans, and sister to Charles II. Her reception, her return, and her +death, follow quickly one upon another; so sudden, indeed, was her +decease, that her death was not, says history, without suspicion of +poison. 'DOVER, _May 21, 1670_.--The 15 ins., about 6 in the morning, +arrived here Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Orleans, attended, +among other persons of quality, by the Mareshal de Plessis Praslin; +her brother, Bishop of Tournay; Madam de Plessis, the mareshal's son's +lady; and the Countess of Grammont; having the day before, at about +the same hour, embarked with her train upon the men-of-war and several +yachts under the command of the Earl of Sandwich, vice-admiral of +England, &c. + +'The same evening, the court was entertained with a comedy, acted by +his Royal Highnesses servants, who attend here for their diversion.' + +'Yesterday was acted, by the said servants, another comedy, in the +midst whereof Madam and the rest of the ladies were entertained with +an excellent banquet.' + +In the notice of 5th June, Madam embarked on her return to France. On +the 20th, she and the duke arrive at Paris; and on the 25th go to 'St +Clou.' The following is the official notice of her death:-- + +'WHITEHALL.--This day arrived an express from Mr Montague, His +Majesty's ambassador at Paris, with the sad news of the death of +Madam, His Majesty's only sister, to the enfinite grief and affliction +of their Majestys' and Royal Highnesses, as well for the greatness of +this loss as for the suddenness of it. She dyed at St Clou about 4 of +the clock on Munday morning, of a sudden and violent distemper, which +had seized her at 5 of the evening before, and was by her physician +taken for a kind of bilious colic.' + +Confining ourselves to home news, there appears an edict from +Whitehall, commanding the Duke of York's (James II.) absence. +'WHITEHALL, _3 Mar. 1678_.--His Majesty, having thought fit to command +the Duke to absent himself, his Royal Highness and the Duchess took +leave of their majestys, and embarked this morning, intending to pass +into Holland.' But three years afterwards, he must have stood better +with the city, for in 1681 we find the lord mayor and court of +aldermen offering a reward of L.500 for the discovery of the person +who offered an indignity to the picture of his Royal Highness in the +Guildhall, to shew their deep resentment at that 'insolent and +villainous act.' + +The many allusions to Algerines and pirates of all kinds, and the +audacity which seems to mark their acts, are good evidence of the +inefficient state of our navy in King Charles's reign. Witness the +following extract. 'LYME, _April 21, 1679_.--Yesterday, a small vessel +called the _William and Sarah_, bound for Holland from Morlaix, put in +here to avoid two Turks men-of-war, as he very much suspects them to +be, because he saw them chase a small vessell, who likewise escaped +them. It is reported that some of these pyrats have been as high as +the Isle of Wight, and that Sir Robert Robinson met with five of them, +whom he chased into Brest.' There are many accounts of the pirates of +Sally (Salee), and an account of an engagement with one of them by an +old collier, called the _Lisborne Merchant_, on her voyage from London +to Lisbon. The description is almost as formidable as Falstaff's with +his men of buckram, and we should have liked a little confirmatory +evidence beyond the narrator's. All our naval feelings of British +supremacy on the water would be gratified by the gallant conduct of +our trading captain. + +'He had the fortune,' the account declares, 'to be set upon by the +admiral of the _Argur_, of 60 guns, and his consort of 40 guns, the +former with 700 men, and the latter with 500 men. The admiral +immediately boarded the poor merchant, who had only 25 men and 16 +guns, clapping on as many men as they thought sufficient to have +mastered her. But the English entertained them with so much courage, +that they in little time cleared the ship, forcing all the Turks +overboard, with little loss besides that of the master of the ship, +one seaman, a young man who was knockt on the head.' The Turk repeated +his attack, and boarded the merchant; the 'dispute' continues for +about three glasses--the admiral assaults them the third time, but his +men are so terrified, that only 'seaven' durst adventure on board, +whereof six were killed, and the other taken prisoner. 'This done, the +Turks left her to pursue her course, wearing very eminent marks of +that encounter.' + +We are at a loss what to make of this report from Dublin; but perhaps +some more learned authority can explain it: '_Dublin, April 9, +1679_.--This morning the Lord Lieutenant signed a warrant for the +pardon of Lawry, a Scotch man, minister in the county of Fermanagh, +and his five servants, for killing five notorious Tories in that +countrey, wounding two others to death, as is believed, and takeing +the eighth. The parson killed three of them with his own hand; and +while another of the Tories was going to draw the trigger of his gun +to shoot him, his hand was cut off by one of the parson's servants.' +Here, again, is a singular announcement to be published 'by +authority.' 'A warm report having been spred about of some unusual +effects of witchcraft in the province of Daleicarly, near the best +copper-mines in Suedeland, it is said several persons are sent to make +an enquiry in to the matter of fact, with power to proceed to the +punishment of such persons as shall be found guilty.' In another +number, there has been an inquiry among the Jews in Germany, who were +supposed to have sacrificed young children in their ceremonies. + +The slow growth of the newspaper press from these times is very +remarkable. Even so late as sixty years since, a London paper was a +very meagre and timid affair. Before us lies a copy of the _Times_ of +1797, insignificant in size and appearance. The small modicum of news +is entirely foreign: no brilliant leaders, models of composition--no +fearless correction of abuse, or withering sarcasm of folly. The +parliamentary debates are merely alluded to as with permission, and +the simple propositions said to be advanced and seconded, disputed and +amended. How strange is the comparison suggested with the present +aspect of the _Times_, or indeed any of the London daylies! We live in +an age of wonders, and not the least of these is the well-written, +well-filled, and capacious-minded newspapers. + + + + +A SCENE IN BOSTON. + + +A coloured girl, eighteen years of age, a few years ago escaped from +slavery in the South. Through scenes of adventure and peril, almost +more strange than fiction can create, she found her way to Boston. She +obtained employment, secured friends, and became a consistent member +of the Methodist church. She became interested in a very worthy young +man of her own complexion, who was a member of the same church. They +were soon married. Their home, though humble, was the abode of piety +and contentment. Industrious, temperate, and frugal, all their wants +were supplied. Seven years passed away. They had two little boys, one +six, and the other four years of age. These children, the sons of a +free father, but of a mother who had been a slave, by the laws of the +Southern States were doomed to their mother's fate. These Boston boys, +born beneath the shadow of Faneuil Hall, the sons of a free citizen of +Boston, and educated in the Boston Free Schools, were, by the +compromises of the constitution, admitted to be slaves, the property +of a South Carolinian planter. The Boston father had no right to his +own sons. The law, however, had long been considered a dead-letter. +This was not to continue. The Fugitive Slave Law was enacted. It +revived the hopes of the slave-owners. A young, healthy, energetic +mother, with two fine boys, was a rich prize. She would make an +excellent mother. Good men began to say: 'We must enforce this law; it +is one of the compromises of the constitution.' Christian ministers +began to preach: 'The voice of law is the voice of God. There is no +higher rule of duty.' As may be supposed, the poor woman was +panic-stricken. Her friends gathered around her, and trembled for her. +Her husband was absent from home, a seaman on board one of the +Liverpool packets. She was afraid to go out of doors, lest some one +from the South should see her, and recognise her. One day, as she was +going to the grocery for some provisions, her quick anxious eye caught +a glimpse of a man prowling around, whom she immediately recognised as +from the vicinity of her old home of slavery. Almost fainting with +terror, she hastened home, and taking her two children by the hand, +fled to the house of a friend. She and her trembling children were hid +in the garret. In less than an hour after her escape, the officer, +with a writ, came for her arrest. It was a dark and stormy day. The +rain, freezing as it fell, swept in floods through the streets of +Boston. Night came, cold, black, and tempestuous. At midnight, her +friends took her in a hack, and conveyed her, with her children, to +the house of her pastor. Hence, after an hour of weeping, for the +voice of prayer had passed away into the sublimity of unutterable +anguish, they conveyed this mother and her children to one of the +Cunard steamers, which fortunately was to sail for Halifax the next +day. They took them in the gloom of midnight, through the +tempest-swept streets, lest the slave-hunter should meet them. Her +brethren and sisters of the church raised a little money from their +scanty means to pay her passage, and to save her, for a few days, from +starving, after her first arrival in the cold land of strangers. Her +husband soon returned to Boston, to find his home desolate, his wife +and children exiles in a foreign land. These facts need no +word-painting.--_Burritt's Bond of Brotherhood_. + + + + +THE TONGUE OF FIRE. + +BY MRS NEWTON CROSLAND. + + + I hear December's biting blast, + I see the slippery hail-drops fall-- + That shot which frost-sprites laughing cast + In some great Arctic arsenal; + I lean my cheek against the pane, + But start away, it is so chill, + And almost pity tree and plain + For bearing Winter's load of ill. + + The sombre sky hangs dark and low, + It looks a couch where mists are born-- + A throne whence they in clusters flow, + Or by the tempest's wrath are torn. + I turn me to the chamber's Heart, + Low pulsing like a vague desire, + And strike an ebon block apart, + Till up there springs a Tongue of Fire! + + It hath a jovial roaring tone, + Like one rebuking half in jest-- + Yet ah! I wish there could be shewn + The wisdom that it hath exprest-- + Or sinking to a lambent glow, + Its arched and silent cavern seems + A magic glass whereon to shew, + And shape anew, our broken dreams! + + I vow the Fiery Tongue hath caught + Quaint echoes of the passing time; + Thus laughs it at my idle thought, + My longing for a fairer clime: + 'So--so you'd like some southern shore, + To gather flowers the winter through, + As if there were on earth no more + For busy human hands to do! + + * * * * * + + 'And guard your Own!--In this, oh mark + High duty and the world's far fate; + Thou art poor deluged Europe's Ark, + Her fortunes on Thy Safety wait; + And--couching lion at her feet-- + In all her matron graces drest, + Let free Britannia smiling greet + Her radiant Daughter of the West! + + 'The broad Atlantic flows between, + But love can bridge the ends of earth; + Of all the lands my race have seen, + These two the rest are more than worth; + Not for their skies, or fruits, or gold, + But for their sturdy growth of Man, + Who walks erect, and will not hold + His life beneath a tyrant's ban. + + 'Yet do not curl your lips with scorn + That others are not great as ye; + Your fathers fought ere ye were born, + And died that thus it now should be! + I tell ye, spirits walk unseen, + Excepting by the soul's strong sight; + Hampden and Washington, I ween, + Are leaders yet in Freedom's fight!' + + * * * * * + + It ceased; but oh, Its words of fire + Had dropped upon my Northman's heart, + Rebuked a moment's vain desire, + And slain it like a hunter's dart; + Oh, welcome now the slippery hail, + And welcome winter's biting blast, + Ye braced our sires; they still prevail + Who triumphed through the stormy past. + + And as beside the ruddy blaze + We muse or talk of mighty things, + In clarion tone one little phrase + Still through the heart's deep echoes rings: + 'Our Hearths--our Homes--beyond compare!' + Those charmèd circles whence there rise + The steadfast souls that do and dare, + And shape a Nation's destinies! + + There, pile the fagots high--aslant-- + And let them crackle out their hymn; + There is no logic--that I grant-- + In wilful words of woman's whim: + And yet I feel the links that glide + 'Twixt English Hearths and Liberty, + And track how We--our truest pride-- + _First_ sheltered Her Divinity! + +--_Ladies' Companion_. + + * * * * * + +Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. +Also sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D. N. CHAMBERS, 55 West +Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street, +Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to +MAXWELL & CO., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all +applications respecting their insertion must be made. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH *** + +***** This file should be named 18853-8.txt or 18853-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/5/18853/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. 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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 + + +Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 + Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Robert Chambers + William Chambers + +Release Date: July 17, 2006 [EBook #18853] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL</h1> + +<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents">CONTENTS</a></h2> + +<div class="contents"> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#PHILOSOPHY_OF_LAUGHTER"><b>PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#MARGARET_FULLER_OSSOLI"><b>MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_COUNTER-STROKE"><b>THE COUNTER-STROKE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_TAXES_ON_KNOWLEDGE"><b>THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_VEGETATION_OF_EUROPE"><b>THE VEGETATION OF EUROPE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#A_HALF-PENNYWORTH_OF_NAVIGATION"><b>A HALF-PENNYWORTH OF NAVIGATION.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#A_LONDON_NEWSPAPER_IN_1667"><b>A LONDON NEWSPAPER IN 1667.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#A_SCENE_IN_BOSTON"><b>A SCENE IN BOSTON.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_TONGUE_OF_FIRE"><b>THE TONGUE OF FIRE.</b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[pg 321]</a></span></p> + +<img src="images/banner.png" + width="100%" + alt="Banner: Chambers' Edinburgh Journal" /> + +<h4>CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S +INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.</h4> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<table width="100%" + summary="Volume, Date and Price"> +<tr> +<td align="left"><b><span class="sc">No.</span> 438. <span class="sc">New Series.</span></b></td> +<td align="left"><b>SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1852.</b></td> +<td align="right"><b><span class="sc">Price</span> 1½<i>d</i>.</b></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2><a name="PHILOSOPHY_OF_LAUGHTER" id="PHILOSOPHY_OF_LAUGHTER"></a>PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>From the time of King Solomon downwards, laughter has been the subject +of pretty general abuse. Even the laughers themselves sometimes +vituperate the cachinnation they indulge in, and many of them</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">——'laugh in such a sort,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if they mocked themselves, and scorned the spirit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That could be moved to laugh at anything.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The general notion is, that laughter is childish, and unworthy the +gravity of adult life. Grown men, we say, have more to do than to +laugh; and the wiser sort of them leave such an unseemly contortion of +the muscles to babes and blockheads.</p> + +<p>We have a suspicion that there is something wrong here—that the world +is mistaken not only in its reasonings, but its facts. To assign +laughter to an early period of life, is to go contrary to observation +and experience. There is not so grave an animal in this world as the +human baby. It will weep, when it has got the length of tears, by the +pailful; it will clench its fists, distort its face into a hideous +expression of anguish, and scream itself into convulsions. It has not +yet come up to a laugh. The little savage must be educated by +circumstances, and tamed by the contact of civilisation, before it +rises to the greater functions of its being. Nay, we have sometimes +received the idea from its choked and tuneless screams, that <i>they</i> +were imperfect attempts at laughter. It feels enjoyment as well as +pain, but has only one way of expressing both.</p> + +<p>Then, look at the baby when it has turned into a little boy or girl, +and come up in some degree to the cachinnation. The laughter is still +only rudimental: it is not genuine laughter. It expresses triumph, +scorn, passion—anything but a feeling of natural amusement. It is +provoked by misfortune, by bodily infirmities, by the writhings of +agonised animals; and it indicates either a sense of power or a +selfish feeling of exemption from suffering. The 'light-hearted laugh +of children!' What a mistake! Observe the gravity of their sports. +They are masters or mistresses, with the care of a family upon their +hands; and they take especial delight in correcting their children +with severity. They are washer-women, housemaids, cooks; soldiers, +policemen, postmen; coach, horsemen, and horses, by turns; and in all +these characters they scour, sweep, fry, fight, pursue, carry, whirl, +ride, and are ridden, without changing a muscle.</p> + +<p>At the games of the young people there is much shouting, argument, +vituperation—but no laughter. A game is a serious business with a +boy, and he derives from it excitement, but no amusement. If he laughs +at all, it is at something quite distinct from the purpose of the +sport: for instance, when one of his comrades has his nose broken by +the ball, or when the feet of another make off from him on the ice, +and he comes down upon his back like a thunderbolt. On such occasions, +the laugh of a boy puts us in mind of the laugh of a hyæna: it is, in +fact, the broken, asthmatic roar of a beast of prey.</p> + +<p>It would thus appear that the common charge brought against laughter, +of being something babyish, or childish, or boyish—something properly +appertaining to early life—is unfounded. But we of course must not be +understood to speak of what is technically called giggling, which +proceeds more from a looseness of the structures than from any +sensation of amusement. Many young persons are continually on the +giggle till their muscles strengthen; and indeed, when a company of +them are met together, the affection, aggravated by emulation, +acquires the loudness of laughter, when it may be likened, in +Scripture phrase, to the crackling of thorns. What we mean is a +regular guffaw; that explosion of high spirits, and the feeling of +joyous excitement, which is commonly written ha! ha! ha! This is +altogether unknown in babyhood; in boyhood, it exists only in its +rudiments; and it does not reach its full development till adolescence +ripens into manhood.</p> + +<p>This train of thought was suggested to us a few evenings ago, by the +conduct of a party of eight or ten individuals, who meet periodically +for the purpose of philosophical inquiry. Their subject is a very +grave one. Their object is to mould into a science that which as yet +is only a vague, formless, and obscure department of knowledge; and +they proceed in the most cautious manner from point to point, from +axiom to axiom—debating at every step, and coming to no decision +without unanimous conviction. Some are professors of the university, +devoted to abstruse studies; some are clergymen; and some authors and +artists. Now, at the meeting in question—which we take merely as an +example, for all are alike—when the hour struck which terminates +their proceedings for the evening, the jaded philosophers retired to +the refreshment-room; and here a scene of remarkable contrast +occurred. Instead of a single deep, low, earnest voice, alternating +with a profound silence, an absolute roar of merriment began, with the +suddenness of an explosion of gunpowder. Jests, bon-mots, anecdotes, +barbarous plays upon words—the more atrocious the better—flew round +the table; and a joyous and almost continuous ha! ha! ha! made the +ceiling ring. This, we venture to say it, <i>was</i> laughter—genuine, +unmistakable laughter, proceeding from no sense of triumph, from no +self-gratulation, and mingled with no bad feeling of any kind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[pg 322]</a></span> It was +a spontaneous effort of nature, coming from the head as well as the +heart: an unbending of the bow, a reaction from study, which study +alone could occasion, and which could occur only in adult life.</p> + +<p>There are some people who cannot laugh, but these are not necessarily +either morose or stupid. They may laugh in their heart, and with their +eyes, although by some unlucky fatality, they have not the gift of +oral cachinnation. Such persons are to be pitied; for laughter in +grown people is a substitute devised by nature for the screams and +shouts of boyhood, by which the lungs are strengthened and the health +preserved. As the intellect ripens, that shouting ceases, and we learn +to laugh as we learn to reason. The society we have mentioned studied +the harder the more they laughed, and they laughed the more the harder +they studied. Each, of course, to be of use, must be in its own place. +A laugh in the midst of the study would have been a profanation; a +grave look in the midst of the merriment would have been an insult to +the good sense of the company.</p> + +<p>If there are some people who cannot laugh, there are others who will +not. It is not, however, that they are ashamed of being grown men, and +want to go back to babyhood, for by some extraordinary perversity, +they fancy unalterable gravity to be the distinguishing characteristic +of wisdom. In a merry company, they present the appearance of a Red +Indian whitewashed, and look on at the strange ways of their +neighbours without betraying even the faintest spark of sympathy or +intelligence. These are children of a larger growth, and have not yet +acquired sense enough to laugh. Like the savage, they are afraid of +compromising their dignity, or, to use their own words, of making +fools of themselves. For our part, we never see a man afraid of making +a fool of himself at the right season, without setting him down as a +fool ready made.</p> + +<p>A woman has no natural grace more bewitching than a sweet laugh. It is +like the sound of flutes on the water. It leaps from her heart in a +clear, sparkling rill; and the heart that hears it feels as if bathed +in the cool, exhilarating spring. Have you ever pursued an unseen +fugitive through the trees, led on by her fairy laugh; now here, now +there—now lost, now found? We have. And we are pursuing that +wandering voice to this day. Sometimes it comes to us in the midst of +care, or sorrow, or irksome business; and then we turn away, and +listen, and hear it ringing through the room like a silver bell, with +power to scare away the ill spirits of the mind. How much we owe to +that sweet laugh! It turns the prose of our life into poetry; it +flings showers of sunshine over the darksome wood in which we are +travelling; it touches with light even our sleep, which is no more the +image of death, but gemmed with dreams that are the shadows of +immortality.</p> + +<p>But our song, like Dibdin's, 'means more than it says;' for a man, as +we have stated, may laugh, and yet the cachinnation be wanting. His +heart laughs, and his eyes are filled with that kindly, sympathetic +smile which inspires friendship and confidence. On the sympathy +within, these external phenomena depend; and this sympathy it is which +keeps societies of men together, and is the true freemasonry of the +good and wise. It is an imperfect sympathy that grants only +sympathetic tears: we must join in the mirth as well as melancholy of +our neighbours. If our countrymen laughed more, they would not only be +happier, but better; and if philanthropists would provide amusements +for the people, they would be saved the trouble and expense of their +fruitless war against public-houses. This is an indisputable +proposition. The French and Italians, with wine growing at their +doors, and spirits almost as cheap as beer in England, are sober +nations. How comes this? The laugh will answer that leaps up from +group after group—the dance on the village-green—the family dinner +under the trees—the thousand merry-meetings that invigorate industry, +by serving as a relief to the business of life. Without these, +business is care; and it is from care, not from amusement, men fly to +the bottle.</p> + +<p>The common mistake is to associate the idea of amusement with error of +every kind; and this piece of moral asceticism is given forth as true +wisdom, and, from sheer want of examination, is very generally +received as such. A place of amusement concentrates a crowd, and +whatever excesses may be committed, being confined to a small space, +stand more prominently forward than at other times. This is all. The +excesses are really fewer—far fewer—in proportion to the number +assembled, than if no gathering had taken place. How can it be +otherwise? The amusement is itself the excitement which the wearied +heart longs for; it is the reaction which nature seeks; and in the +comparatively few instances of a coarser intoxication being +superadded, we see only the craving of depraved habit—a habit +engendered, in all probability, by the <i>want</i> of amusement.</p> + +<p>No, good friends, let us laugh sometimes, if you love us. A dangerous +character is of another kidney, as Cæsar knew to his cost:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">'He loves no plays,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seldom he laughs;'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and when he does, it is on the wrong side of his mouth.</p> + +<p>Let us be wiser. Let us laugh in fitting time and place, silently or +aloud, each after his nature. Let us enjoy an innocent reaction rather +than a guilty one, since reaction there must be. The bow that is +always bent loses its elasticity, and becomes useless.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="MARGARET_FULLER_OSSOLI" id="MARGARET_FULLER_OSSOLI"></a>MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>The authoress of <i>Woman in the Nineteenth Century</i>, known also in this +country by her <i>Papers on Literature and Art</i>, occupied among her own +people a station as notable as that of De Staël among the French, or +of Rahel von Ense in Germany. Mystic and transcendental as she was, +her writings teem with proof of original power, and are the expression +of a thoughtful and energetic, if also a wayward and undisciplined, +mind. One of the two compilers of these Memoirs (Emerson and W. H. +Channing) observes, that his first impression of her was that of a +'Yankee Corinna;' and such is not unlikely to be the last impression +of ordinary readers, ourselves among the number. In a letter, dated +1841, we find her saying: 'I feel all Italy glowing beneath the Saxon +crust'—an apt illustration of her mental structure and tone of +sentiment, compounded of New Worldedness, as represented by Margaret +Fuller, and of the feelings of Southern Europe, as embodied in the +Marchesa Ossoli. Without at this time pausing to review her literary +position, and her influence upon contemporary minds, we proceed to +draw from these interesting, but frequently eccentric and +extravagantly worded Memoirs, a sketch of her remarkable life-history.</p> + +<p>Margaret Fuller was born at Cambridge-Port, Massachusetts, in May +1810. Her father was a shrewd, practical, hard-headed lawyer, whose +love for his wife 'was the green spot on which he stood apart from the +commonplaces of a mere bread-winning, bread-bestowing existence.' That +wife is described as a fair and flower-like nature, bound by one law +with the blue sky, the dew, and the frolic birds. 'Of all persons whom +I have known, she had in her most of the angelic—of that spontaneous +love for every living thing, for man, and beast, and tree, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[pg 323]</a></span> +restores the Golden Age.'<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Mr Fuller, in undertaking the education +of his daughter, committed the common error of excessive +stimulation—thinking to gain time by forwarding the intellect as +early as possible. He was himself a scholar, and hoped to make her the +heir of all he knew, and of as much more as might be elsewhere +attained. He was a severe and exacting disciplinarian, and permanently +marred the nervous system of his child by the system he adopted of +requiring her to recite her tasks on his return home at night, which +was frequently very late. Hence a premature development of the brain, +which, while it made her a youthful prodigy by day—one such youthful +prodigy, it has been justly said, is often the pest of a whole +neighbourhood—rendered her the nightly victim of spectral illusions, +somnambulism, &c.; checked her growth; and eventually brought on +continual headaches, weakness, and various nervous affections. As soon +as the light was removed from her chamber at night, this ill-tended +girl was haunted by colossal faces, that advanced slowly towards her, +the eyes dilating, and each feature swelling loathsomely as they came; +till at last, when they were about to close upon her, she started up +with a shriek, which drove them away, but only to return when she lay +down again. 'No wonder the child arose and walked in her sleep, +moaning all over the house, till once, when they heard her, and came +and waked her, and she told what she had dreamed, her father sharply +bade her "leave off thinking of such nonsense, or she would be +crazy"—never knowing that he was himself the cause of all these +horrors of the night.' Her home seems to have been deficient in the +charms and associations appropriate to childhood. Finding no relief +from without, her already overexcited mind was driven for refuge from +itself to the world of books. She tells us she was taught Latin and +English grammar at the same time; in Latin, which she began to read at +six years old, her father, and subsequently a tutor, trained her to a +high degree of precision, expecting her to understand the mechanism of +the language thoroughly, and to translate it tersely and +unhesitatingly, with the definite clearness of one perfectly <i>au fait</i> +in the philosophy of the classics. Thus she became imbued with an +abiding interest in the genius of old Rome—'the power of will, the +dignity of a fixed purpose'—where man takes a 'noble bronze in camps +and battle-fields,' his brow well furrowed by the 'wrinkles of +council,' and his eye 'cutting its way like the sword;' and thence she +loved to escape, at Ovid's behest, to the enchanted gardens of the +Greek mythology, to the gods and nymphs born of the sunbeam, the wave, +the shadows on the hill—delighted to realise in those Greek forms the +faith of a refined and intense childhood. Reading was now to her a +habit and a passion. Its only rival attraction was the 'dear little +garden' behind the house, where the best hours of her lonely +child-life were spent. Within the house, everything, she says, was +socially utilitarian; her books told of a proud world, but in another +temper were the teachings of the little garden, where her thoughts +could lie callow in the nest, and only be fed and kept warm, not +called to fly or sing before the time. A range of blue hills, at about +twelve miles' distance, allured her to reverie, and bred within her +thoughts <i>not</i> too deep for tears. The books which exercised most +power over her at this period were Shakspeare, Cervantes, and +Molière—all three students of the 'natural history of man,' and +inspired by fact, not fancy; reconstructing the world from materials +which they collected on every side, not spinning from the desires of +their own special natures; and accordingly teaching her, their +open-eyed disciple, to distrust all invention which is not based on a +wide experience, but, as she confesses, also doing her harm, since the +child, fed with meat instead of milk, becomes too soon mature. For a +few months, this bookish life was interrupted, or varied, by the +presence of an English lady, whom Margaret invested with ideal +perfections as her 'first friend,' and whom she worshipped as a star +from the east—a morning-star; and at whose departure she fell into a +profound depression. Her father sought to dispel this rooted +melancholy, by sending her to school—a destiny from which her whole +nature revolted, as something alien to its innermost being and +cherished associations. To school, however, she went, and at first +captivated, and then scandalised her fellow-pupils by her strange +ways. Now, she surprised them by her physical faculty of rivalling the +spinning dervishes of the East—now, by declaiming verses, and +acting a whole <i>répertoire</i> of parts, both laughter-raising and +tear-compelling—now, by waking in the night, and cheating her +restlessness by inventions that alternately diverted and teased her +companions. She was always devising means to infringe upon the +school-room routine. This involved her at last in a trouble, from +which she was only extricated by the judicious tenderness of her +teacher—the circumstances attending which 'crisis' are detailed at +length in her story of 'Mariana.'</p> + +<p>Her personal appearance at this time, and for some following years, is +described by one of her friends as being that of a blooming girl of a +florid complexion and vigorous health, with a tendency to robustness, +which she unwisely endeavoured to suppress or conceal at the price of +much future suffering. With no pretensions to beauty then, or at any +time, her face was one that attracted, but baffled physiognomical art. +'She escaped the reproach of positive plainness, by her blond and +abundant hair, by her excellent teeth, by her sparkling, busy eyes, +which, though usually half-closed from near-sightedness, shot piercing +glances at those with whom she conversed, and, most of all, by the +very peculiar and graceful carriage of her head and neck.' In +conversation she was already distinguished, though addicted to +'quizzing'—the not unreasonable ground of unpopularity with her +female friends. Emerson alludes to her dangerous reputation for +satire, which, in addition to her great scholarship, made the women +dislike one who despised them, and the men cavil at her as 'carrying +too many guns.' A fragment from a letter in her sixteenth year will +illustrate her pursuits at that period:—'I rise a little before five, +walk an hour, and then practise on the piano till seven, when we +breakfast. Next, I read French—Sismondi's <i>Literature of Southern +Europe</i>—till eight; then, two or three lectures in Brown's +<i>Philosophy</i>. About half-past nine, I go to Mr Perkins's school, and +study Greek till twelve, when, the school being dismissed, I recite, +go home, and practise again till dinner, at two. Sometimes, if the +conversation is very agreeable, I lounge for half an hour over the +dessert, though rarely so lavish of time. Then, when I can, I read two +hours in Italian, but I am often interrupted. At six, I walk, or take +a drive. Before going to bed, I play or sing, for half an hour or so, +to make all sleepy, and, about eleven, retire to write a little while +in my journal, exercises on what I have read, or a series of +characteristics which I am filling up according to advice.' Greek, +French, Italian, metaphysics, and private authorship—pretty well for +a miss in her teens, and surely a promissory-note on the <i>bas bleu</i> +joint-stock company!—a note which she discharged in full when it +became due. Next year (1826), we find her studying M<sup>me</sup> de Staël, +Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and Spanish ballads, 'with great delight.' +Anon she is engrossed with the elder Italian poets, from Berni down to +Pulci and Politian; then with Locke and the ontologists; then with the +<i>opera omnia</i> of Sir William Temple. She pursued at this time no +systematic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[pg 324]</a></span> study, but 'read with the heart, and was learning more +from social experience than from books.' The interval of her life, +between sixteen and twenty-five, is characterised by one of her +biographers as a period of 'preponderating sentimentality, of romance +and dreams, of yearning and of passion.' While residing at Cambridge, +she suffered from profound despondency—conscious of the want of a +home for her heart. A sterner schooling awaited her at Groton, whither +her father removed in 1833. Here he died suddenly of cholera in 1835. +Now she was taught the miserable perplexities of a family that has +lost its head, and was called to tread a path for which, as she says, +she had no skill and no call, except that it must be trodden by some +one, and she alone was ready. In 1836 she went to Boston, to teach +Latin and French in an academy of local repute; and in the ensuing +year she accepted a 'very favourable offer,' to become 'lady-superior' +in an educational institution at Providence, where she seems to have +exercised an influence analogous to that of Dr Arnold at +Rugby—treating her pupils as ladies, and thus making them anxious to +prove that they deserved to be so treated.</p> + +<p>By this time, she had attracted around her many and devoted friends. +Her conversational powers were of a high order, by common consent. Mr +Hedge describes her speech as remarkably fluent and correct; but +deriving its strength not from fluency, choice diction, wit, or +sentiment, but from accuracy of statement, keen discrimination, and a +certain weight of judgment; together with rhetorical finish, it had an +air of spontaneity which made it seem the grace of the moment: so that +he says, 'I do not remember that the vulgar charge of talking "like a +book" was ever fastened upon her, although, by her precision, she +might seem to have incurred it.' The excitement of the presence of +living persons seems to have energised her whole being. 'I need to be +called out,' are her words, 'and never think alone, without imagining +some companion. It is my habit, and bespeaks a second-rate mind.' And +again: 'After all, this writing,' she says in a letter, 'is mighty +dead. Oh, for my dear old Greeks, who talked everything—not to shine +as in the Parisian saloons, but to learn, to teach, to vent the heart, +to clear the head!' Mr Alcott of Boston considered her the most +brilliant talker of the day. Miss Martineau was fascinated by the same +charm. It is thus characterised by the author of <i>Representative Men</i>: +'Talent, memory, wit, stern introspection, poetic play, religion, the +finest personal feeling, the aspects of the future, each followed each +in full activity, and left me, I remember, enriched and sometimes +astonished by the gifts of my guest.' Her self-complacency staggered +many at first—as when she spoke, in the quietest manner, of the girls +she had formed, the young men who owed everything to her, the fine +companions she had long ago exhausted. 'I now know,' she has been +heard to say in the coolest style, 'all the people worth knowing in +America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.' Well may Mr +Emerson talk of her letting slip phrases that betrayed the presence of +'a rather mountainous <span class="smcap lowercase">ME</span>.' Such phrases abound in her conversation and +correspondence—mountainous enough to be a hill of offence to the +uninitiated and untranscendental. At anyrate, there was no affectation +in this; she thoroughly believed in her own superiority; her +subscription to <i>that</i> creed was implicit and <i>ex animo</i>. Nor do we +detect affectation in her most notable vagaries and crotchets. She +loved the truth, and spoke it out—we were about to write, manfully; +and why not? At heart, she was, to use the words of an intimate and +discerning friend, a right brave and heroic woman—shrinking from no +duty because of feeble nerves. Numerous illustrations of this occur in +the volumes before us. Thus we find her going from a bridal of passing +joyfulness to attend a near relative during a formidable surgical +operation—or drawing five hundred dollars to bestow, on a New-York +'ne'er-do-weel,' half-patriot, half-author, always in such depths of +distress, and with such squadrons of enemies that no charity could +relieve, no intervention save him.</p> + +<p>In 1839, she removed from Groton, with her mother and family, to +Jamaica Plain, a few miles from Boston; and thence, shortly, to +Cambridge and New York. Boston, however, was her <i>point d'appui</i>, and +in it she formed acquaintances of every class, the most utilitarian +and the most idealistic. In 1839, she published a translation of +Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann; in 1841, the Letters of +Bettina; in 1843, the <i>Summer on the Lakes</i>—a narrative of her tour +to Lake Superior and Michigan. During the same period she was editor +of the <i>Dial</i>, since conducted by Emerson and Ripley, and in which +appeared her papers on Goethe and Beethoven, the Rhine, the Romaic +Ballads, John Sterling's Poems, &c.</p> + +<p>Exhausted by continuous exertion in teaching and writing for the +press, Miss Fuller, in 1844, sought refreshment and health in change +of scene; and, desiring rather new employments than cessation from +work, she accepted a liberal offer from Mr Horace Greeley of New York, +to become a regular contributor to the <i>Tribune</i>; and for that purpose +to take up her abode in his house, first spending some time in the +Highlands of the Hudson. At New York, she took an active interest, +after Mrs Fry's manner, in the various benevolent institutions, and +especially the prisons on Blackwell's Island. For more than a year she +wrote regularly for the <i>Tribune</i>, 'always freshly, vigorously, but +not always clearly.' The notice attracted by her articles insured +fresh hosts of acquaintances, and she became a distinguished character +at Miss Lynch's réunions, and at literary soirées of a similar order. +In 1846, she left her native land—for ever, as the melancholy event +proved—to join Mr and Mrs Spring in a European tour. Her letters home +contain much pleasant gossip about some of the Old-World notabilities. +Thus she records her interviews with Wordsworth in his Rydal retreat, +with Dr Chalmers, Dr Andrew Combe, Mr De Quincey, the Howitts, &c. She +visited Paris in the winter, and became acquainted with Lamennais, +Béranger, M<sup>me</sup> Dudevant, and others. Thence, in the spring of 1847, +she went to Italy, where she remained until she embarked in 1850 on +board that doomed ship, the <i>Elizabeth</i>. As a resident in Rome, her +safety was seriously imperiled during the French siege of 1849. She +was appointed by the 'Roman Commission for the succour of the +wounded,' to the superintendence of an hospital, and all along took +the liveliest interest in the fortunes of Mazzini and the republic. +She was then a wife and a mother, having been married privately to the +Marquis Ossoli, a Roman, 'of a noble but impoverished house,' whom she +described, in a letter to her mother, as 'not in any respect such a +person as people in general would expect to find with her,' being a +man 'absolutely ignorant of books, and with no enthusiasm of +character,' but endowed with excellent practical sense, a nice sense +of duty, native refinement, and much sweetness of temper. The peculiar +circumstances attending the marriage in that country, and at that +agitated crisis, involved Margaret in numerous afflictions, and taxed +her powers of endurance to the very uttermost.</p> + +<p>She had to suffer compulsory separation from husband and child—the +one in hourly peril of a bloody death, the other neglected and pining +away in the hands of strangers: penury, loneliness, prostrating +sickness, and treachery on the part of those around her, were +meanwhile her own lot in the land of strangers. How this season of +trial affected her character, may be inferred from the remarks of her +friend Mrs Story, then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[pg 325]</a></span> sojourning in Italy, who says, that in Boston +she had regarded Margaret as a person on intellectual stilts, with a +large share of arrogance, and little sweetness of temper; and adds: +'How unlike to this was she now!—so delicate, so simple, confiding, +and affectionate; with a true womanly heart and soul, sensitive and +generous, and, what was to me a still greater surprise, possessed of +so broad a charity, that she could cover with its mantle the faults +and defects of all about her.' Her devotion to her husband, and her +passionate attachment to her little Angelo, were exhibited in the +liveliest colour: the influence she exercised, too, by love and +sympathy, over Italians of every class with whom she came in contact, +appears of a kind more tender, chastened, and womanly than that which +previously characterised her. When the republican cause at Rome left +no hope of present restoration, Margaret found a tranquil refuge in +Florence, devoting her mornings to literary labours, and her evenings +to social intercourse with cultivated natives and a few foreign +visitors, among whom the Brownings occupied a distinguished place. +Greatly straitened in means at this time, the repose she and her +husband enjoyed at Florence, in their small and scantily-furnished +room, seems to have been peculiarly grateful to both. Soon, however, +arrangements were made for their departure to the United States; for +Margaret was heart-weary at the political reaction in Europe, and the +pecuniary expediency of publishing to advantage her chronicles of the +revolution, seconded by a yearning to see her family and friends once +more, constrained to this step.</p> + +<p>From motives of economy, they took passage in a merchantman from +Leghorn, the <i>Elizabeth</i>, the expense being one-half what a return by +way of France would have been. The remonstrances of her acquaintance, +founded on the fatigues of a two months' voyage—the comparative +insecurity of such a bark—the exposed position of the cabin (on +deck)—and so on, were not unaided by Margaret's own presentiments. +Ossoli, when a boy, had been told by a fortune-teller, to 'beware of +the sea,' and this was the first ship he had ever set his foot in. In +a letter where she describes herself 'suffering, as never before, all +the horrors of indecision,' his wife expresses a fervent prayer that +it 'may not be my lot to lose my boy at sea, either by unsolaced +illness, or amid the howling waves; or if so, that Ossoli, Angelo, and +I may go together, and that the anguish may be brief.' That '<i>or if +so</i>' is affecting—and was realised, except, indeed, that the anguish +was <i>not</i> brief, for it lasted twelve terrible hours—a long communion +face to face with Death! The bark sailed May 17, 1850. Captain Hasty, +'so fine a model of the New-England seaman,' inspired the passengers +with cheerful confidence, and for a few days all went prosperously. +But early in June, Captain Hasty died of confluent small-pox. The +child Angelino caught it, but recovered, and won all hearts by his +playful innocence, loving especially to be walked up and down in the +arms of the steward, who had just such a boy at home waiting his +arrival. On Thursday, July 15, the <i>Elizabeth</i> was off the Jersey +coast: at evening-tide, a breeze sprang up, which by midnight had +become a hurricane. About four o'clock next morning, she struck on +Fire Island beach, and lay at the mercy of the maddened ocean. Mr +Channing's description of the wreck is a most picturesque narrative, +but too long for quotation. Very touching is the sketch of the Ossoli +group, remaining on board after nearly all the passengers and crew had +perished or escaped to land, which was distant only a few hundred +yards—the infant crying passionately, shivering in the wet, till +soothed and lullabied to sleep by his mother, a calm expectant of +death; and Ossoli tranquillising by counsel and prayer their +affrighted handmaid from Italy; all exchanging kindly partings, and +sending messages home, if any should survive to be their bearer. +Though persons were busy gathering into carts, on the shore, whatever +spoil was stranded, no life-boat appeared; and the few remaining on +the wreck were now fain to trust themselves to the rioting surf. +Margaret would not go alone. With her husband and attendant (Celeste), +she was just about to try the planks prepared by four seamen, and the +steward had just taken little Nino in his arms, pledged to save him or +die, 'when a sea struck the forecastle, and the foremast fell, +carrying with it the deck and all upon it. The steward and Angelino +were washed upon the beach, both dead, though warm, some twenty +minutes after. Celeste and Ossoli were caught for a moment by the +rigging, but the next wave swallowed them up. Margaret sank at once. +When last seen, she had been seated at the foot of the foremast, still +clad in her white night-dress, with her hair fallen loose upon her +shoulders.' No trace was found of her manuscript on Italy: her +love-correspondence with Ossoli was the only relic—the last memorial +of that howling hurricane, pitiless sea, wreck on a sand-bar, an idle +life-boat, beach-pirates, and not one friend!</p> + +<p>With the exception of certain sections of laboured, writhing +wordiness, the feverish restlessness and hectic symptoms of which are +but too familiar to persons read in the literature of second-rate +transcendentalism, these volumes comprise a large amount of matter +that will well repay perusal, and portray a character of no ordinary +type—a 'large-brained woman and large-hearted man.'</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 3 vols. London: +Bentley. 1852.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Mr Fuller's Autobiography, which comprises the first +sixty pages of these Memoirs.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="THE_COUNTER-STROKE" id="THE_COUNTER-STROKE"></a>THE COUNTER-STROKE.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>Just after breakfast one fine spring morning in 1837, an advertisement +in the <i>Times</i> for a curate caught and fixed my attention. The salary +was sufficiently remunerative for a bachelor, and the parish, as I +personally knew, one of the most pleasantly situated in all +Somersetshire. Having said that, the reader will readily understand +that it could not have been a hundred miles from Taunton. I instantly +wrote, enclosing testimonials, with which the Rev. Mr Townley, the +rector, was so entirely satisfied, that the return-post brought me a +positive engagement, unclogged with the slightest objection to one or +two subsidiary items I had stipulated for, and accompanied by an +invitation to make the rectory my home till I could conveniently suit +myself elsewhere. This was both kind and handsome; and the next day +but one I took coach, with a light heart, for my new destination. It +thus happened that I became acquainted, and in some degree mixed up, +with the train of events it is my present purpose to relate.</p> + +<p>The rector I found to be a stout, portly gentleman, whose years +already reached to between sixty and seventy. So many winters, +although they had plentifully besprinkled his hair with gray, shone +out with ruddy brightness in his still handsome face, and keen, +kindly, bright-hazel eyes; and his voice, hearty and ringing, had not +as yet one quaver of age in it. I met him at breakfast on the morning +after my arrival, and his reception of me was most friendly. We had +spoken together but for a few minutes, when one of the French windows, +that led from the breakfast-room into a shrubbery and flower-garden, +gently opened and admitted a lady, just then, as I afterwards learned, +in her nineteenth spring. I use this term almost unconsciously, for I +cannot even now, in the glowing summer of her life, dissociate her +image from that season of youth and joyousness. She was introduced to +me, with old-fashioned simplicity, as 'My grand-daughter, Agnes +Townley.' It is difficult to look at beauty through other men's eyes, +and, in the present instance, I feel that I should fail miserably in +the endeavour to stamp upon this blank, dead paper, any adequate idea +of the fresh loveliness, the rose-bud beauty of that young girl. I +will merely say, that her perfectly Grecian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[pg 326]</a></span> head, wreathed with wavy +<i>bandeaux</i> of bright hair, undulating with golden light, vividly +brought to my mind Raphael's halo-tinted portraitures of the +Virgin—with this difference, that in place of the holy calm and +resignation of the painting, there was in Agnes Townley a sparkling +youth and life, that even amidst the heat and glare of a crowded +ball-room or of a theatre, irresistibly suggested and recalled the +freshness and perfume of the morning—of a cloudless, rosy morning of +May. And, far higher charm than feature-beauty, however exquisite, a +sweetness of disposition, a kind gentleness of mind and temper, was +evidenced in every line of her face, in every accent of the +low-pitched, silver voice, that breathed through lips made only to +smile.</p> + +<p>Let me own, that I was greatly struck by so remarkable a combination +of rare endowments; and this, I think, the sharp-eyed rector must have +perceived, or he might not perhaps have been so immediately +communicative with respect to the near prospects of his idolised +grandchild, as he was the moment the young lady, after presiding at +the breakfast-table, had withdrawn.</p> + +<p>'We shall have gay doings, Mr Tyrrel, at the rectory shortly,' he +said. 'Next Monday three weeks will, with the blessing of God, be +Agnes Townley's wedding-day.'</p> + +<p>'Wedding-day!'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' rejoined the rector, turning towards and examining some flowers +which Miss Townley had brought in and placed on the table. 'Yes, it +has been for some time settled that Agnes shall on that day be united +in holy wedlock to Mr Arbuthnot.'</p> + +<p>'Mr Arbuthnot of Elm Park?'</p> + +<p>'A great match, is it not, in a worldly point of view?' replied Mr +Townley, with a pleasant smile at the tone of my exclamation. 'And +much better than that: Robert Arbuthnot is a young man of a high and +noble nature, as well as devotedly attached to Agnes. He will, I doubt +not, prove in every respect a husband deserving and worthy of her; and +that from the lips of a doting old grandpapa must be esteemed high +praise. You will see him presently.'</p> + +<p>I did see him often, and quite agreed in the rector's estimate of his +future grandson-in-law. I have not frequently seen a finer-looking +young man—his age was twenty-six; and certainly one of a more +honourable and kindly spirit, of a more genial temper than he, has +never come within my observation. He had drawn a great prize in the +matrimonial lottery, and, I felt, deserved his high fortune.</p> + +<p>They were married at the time agreed upon, and the day was kept not +only at Elm Park, and in its neighbourhood, but throughout 'our' +parish, as a general holiday. And, strangely enough—at least I have +never met with another instance of the kind—it was held by our entire +female community, high as well as low, that the match was a perfectly +equal one, notwithstanding that wealth and high worldly position were +entirely on the bridegroom's side. In fact, that nobody less in the +social scale than the representative of an old territorial family +ought, in the nature of things, to have aspired to the hand of Agnes +Townley, appeared to have been a foregone conclusion with everybody. +This will give the reader a truer and more vivid impression of the +bride, than any words or colours I might use.</p> + +<p>The days, weeks, months of wedded life flew over Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot +without a cloud, save a few dark but transitory ones which I saw now +and then flit over the husband's countenance as the time when he +should become a father drew near, and came to be more and more spoken +of. 'I should not survive her,' said Mr Arbuthnot, one day in reply to +a chance observation of the rector's, 'nor indeed desire to do so.' +The gray-headed man seized and warmly pressed the husband's hand, and +tears of sympathy filled his eyes; yet did he, nevertheless, as in +duty bound, utter grave words on the sinfulness of despair under any +circumstances, and the duty, in all trials, however heavy, of patient +submission to the will of God. But the venerable gentleman spoke in a +hoarse and broken voice, and it was easy to see he <i>felt</i> with Mr +Arbuthnot that the reality of an event, the bare possibility of which +shook them so terribly, were a cross too heavy for human strength to +bear and live.</p> + +<p>It was of course decided that the expected heir or heiress should be +intrusted to a wet-nurse, and a Mrs Danby, the wife of a miller living +not very far from the rectory, was engaged for that purpose. I had +frequently seen the woman; and her name, as the rector and I were one +evening gossipping over our tea, on some subject or other that I +forget, came up.</p> + +<p>'A likely person,' I remarked; 'healthy, very good-looking, and one +might make oath, a true-hearted creature. But there is withal a +timidity, a frightenedness in her manner at times which, if I may +hazard a perhaps uncharitable conjecture, speaks ill for that smart +husband of hers.'</p> + +<p>'You have hit the mark precisely, my dear sir. Danby is a sorry +fellow, and a domestic tyrant to boot. His wife, who is really a good, +but meek-hearted person, lived with us once. How old do you suppose +her to be?'</p> + +<p>'Five-and-twenty perhaps.'</p> + +<p>'Six years more than that. She has a son of the name of Harper by a +former marriage, who is in his tenth year. Anne wasn't a widow long. +Danby was caught by her good looks, and she by the bait of a +well-provided home. Unless, however, her husband gives up his corn +speculations, she will not, I think, have that much longer.'</p> + +<p>'Corn speculations! Surely Danby has no means adequate to indulgence +in such a game as that?'</p> + +<p>'Not he. But about two years ago he bought, on credit, I believe, a +considerable quantity of wheat, and prices happening to fly suddenly +up just then, he made a large profit. This has quite turned his head, +which, by the by, was never, as Cockneys say, quite rightly screwed +on.' The announcement of a visitor interrupted anything further the +rector might have had to say, and I soon afterwards went home.</p> + +<p>A sad accident occurred about a month subsequent to the foregoing +conversation. The rector was out riding upon a usually quiet horse, +which all at once took it into its head to shy at a scarecrow it must +have seen a score of times, and thereby threw its rider. Help was +fortunately at hand, and the reverend gentleman was instantly conveyed +home, when it was found that his left thigh was broken. Thanks, +however, to his temperate habits, it was before long authoritatively +pronounced that, although it would be a considerable time before he +was released from confinement, it was not probable that the lusty +winter of his life would be shortened by what had happened. +Unfortunately, the accident threatened to have evil consequences in +another quarter. Immediately after it occurred, one Matthews, a busy, +thick-headed lout of a butcher, rode furiously off to Elm Park with +the news. Mrs Arbuthnot, who daily looked to be confined, was walking +with her husband upon the lawn in front of the house, when the great +burly blockhead rode up, and blurted out that the rector had been +thrown from his horse, and it was feared killed!</p> + +<p>The shock of such an announcement was of course overwhelming. A few +hours afterwards, Mrs Arbuthnot gave birth to a healthy male-child; +but the young mother's life, assailed by fever, was for many days +utterly despaired of—for weeks held to tremble so evenly in the +balance, that the slightest adverse circumstance might in a moment +turn the scale deathward. At length the black horizon that seemed to +encompass us so hopelessly, lightened, and afforded the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[pg 327]</a></span> lover-husband +a glimpse and hope of his vanished and well-nigh despaired of Eden. +The promise was fulfilled. I was in the library with Mr Arbuthnot +awaiting the physician's morning report, very anxiously expected at +the rectory, when Dr Lindley entered the apartment in evidently +cheerful mood.</p> + +<p>'You have been causelessly alarmed,' he said. 'There is no fear +whatever of a relapse. Weakness only remains, and that we shall +slowly, perhaps, but certainly, remove.'</p> + +<p>A gleam of lightning seemed to flash over Mr Arbuthnot's expressive +countenance. 'Blessed be God!' he exclaimed. 'And how,' he added, +'shall we manage respecting the child? She asks for it incessantly.'</p> + +<p>Mr Arbuthnot's infant son, I should state, had been consigned +immediately after its birth to the care of Mrs Danby, who had herself +been confined, also with a boy, about a fortnight previously. +Scarlatina being prevalent in the neighbourhood, Mrs Danby was hurried +away with the two children to a place near Bath, almost before she was +able to bear the journey. Mr Arbuthnot had not left his wife for an +hour, and consequently had only seen his child for a few minutes just +after it was born.</p> + +<p>'With respect to the child,' replied Dr Lindley, 'I am of opinion that +Mrs Arbuthnot may see it in a day or two. Say the third day from this, +if all goes well. I think we may venture so far; but I will be +present, for any untoward agitation might be perhaps instantly fatal.' +This point provisionally settled, we all three went our several ways: +I to cheer the still suffering rector with the good news.</p> + +<p>The next day but one, Mr Arbuthnot was in exuberant spirits. 'Dr +Lindley's report is even more favourable than we had anticipated,' he +said; 'and I start to-morrow morning, to bring Mrs Danby and the +child'——The postman's subdued but unmistakable knock interrupted +him. 'The nurse,' he added, 'is very attentive and punctual. She +writes almost every day.' A servant entered with a salver heaped with +letters. Mr Arbuthnot tossed them over eagerly, and seizing one, after +glancing at the post-mark, tore it eagerly open, muttering as he +did so: 'It is not the usual handwriting; but from her, no +doubt'——Merciful God!' I impulsively exclaimed, as I suddenly lifted +my eyes to his. 'What is the matter?' A mortal pallor had spread over +Mr Arbuthnot's before animated features, and he was glaring at the +letter in his hand as if a basilisk had suddenly confronted him. +Another moment, and the muscles of his frame appeared to give way +suddenly, and he dropped heavily into the easy-chair from which he had +risen to take the letters. I was terribly alarmed, and first loosening +his neckerchief, for he seemed choking, I said: 'Let me call some +one;' and I turned to reach the bell, when he instantly seized my +arms, and held me with a grip of iron. 'No—no—no!' he hoarsely +gasped; 'water—water!' There was fortunately some on a side-table. I +handed it to him, and he drank eagerly. It appeared to revive him a +little. He thrust the crumpled letter into his pocket, and said in a +low, quick whisper: 'There is some one coming! Not a word, +remember—not a word!' At the same time, he wheeled his chair half +round, so that his back should be towards the servant we heard +approaching.</p> + +<p>'I am sent, sir,' said Mrs Arbuthnot's maid, 'to ask if the post has +arrived.'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' replied Mr Arbuthnot, with wonderful mastery of his voice. +'Tell your mistress I shall be with her almost immediately, and that +her—her son is quite well.'</p> + +<p>'Mr Tyrrel,' he continued, as soon as the servant was out of hearing, +'there is, I think, a liqueur-stand on the sideboard in the large +dining-room. Would you have the kindness to bring it me, +unobserved—mind that—unobserved by any one?'</p> + +<p>I did as he requested; and the instant I placed the liqueur-frame +before him, he seized the brandy <i>carafe</i>, and drank with fierce +eagerness. 'For goodness' sake,' I exclaimed, 'consider what you are +about, Mr Arbuthnot: you will make yourself ill.'</p> + +<p>'No, no,' he answered, after finishing his draught, 'It seems scarcely +stronger than water. But I—I am better now. It was a sudden spasm of +the heart; that's all. The letter,' he added, after a long and painful +pause, during which he eyed me, I thought, with a kind of +suspicion—'the letter you saw me open just now, comes from a +relative, an aunt, who is ill, very ill, and wishes to see me +instantly. You understand?'</p> + +<p>I <i>did</i> understand, or at least I feared that I did too well. I, +however, bowed acquiescence; and he presently rose from his chair, and +strode about the apartment in great agitation, until his wife's +bedroom bell rang. He then stopped suddenly short, shook himself, and +looked anxiously at the reflection of his flushed and varying +countenance in the magnificent chimney-glass.</p> + +<p>'I do not look, I think—or, at least shall not, in a darkened +room—odder, more out of the way—that is, more agitated—than one +might, that one <i>must</i> appear, after hearing of the dangerous illness +of—of—an aunt?'</p> + +<p>'You look better, sir, than you did awhile since.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, yes; much better, much better. I am glad to hear you say so. +That was my wife's bell. She is anxious, no doubt, to see me.'</p> + +<p>He left the apartment; was gone perhaps ten minutes; and when he +returned, was a thought less nervous than before. I rose to go. 'Give +my respects,' he said, 'to the good rector; and as an especial +favour,' he added, with strong emphasis, 'let me ask of you not to +mention to a living soul that you saw me so unmanned as I was just +now; that I swallowed brandy. It would appear so strange, so weak, so +ridiculous.'</p> + +<p>I promised not to do so, and almost immediately left the house, very +painfully affected. His son was, I concluded, either dead or dying, +and he was thus bewilderedly casting about for means of keeping the +terrible, perhaps fatal tidings from his wife. I afterwards heard that +he left Elm Park in a postchaise, about two hours after I came away, +unattended by a single servant!</p> + +<p>He was gone three clear days only, at the end of which he returned +with Mrs Danby and—his son—in florid health, too, and one of the +finest babies of its age—about nine weeks only—I had ever seen. Thus +vanished the air-drawn Doubting Castle and Giant Despair which I had +so hastily conjured up! The cause assigned by Mr Arbuthnot for the +agitation I had witnessed, was doubtless the true one; and yet, and +the thought haunted me for months, years afterwards, he opened only +<i>one</i> letter that morning, and had sent a message to his wife that the +child was well!</p> + +<p>Mrs Danby remained at the Park till the little Robert was weaned, and +was then dismissed very munificently rewarded. Year after year rolled +away without bringing Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot any additional little ones, +and no one, therefore, could feel surprised at the enthusiastic love +of the delighted mother for her handsome, nobly-promising boy. But +that which did astonish me, though no one else, for it seemed that I +alone noticed it, was a strange defect of character which began to +develop itself in Mr Arbuthnot. He was positively jealous of his +wife's affection for their own child! Many and many a time have I +remarked, when he thought himself unobserved, an expression of intense +pain flash from his fine, expressive eyes, at any more than usually +fervent manifestation of the young mother's gushing love for her first +and only born! It was altogether a mystery to me, and I as much as +possible forbore to dwell upon the subject.</p> + +<p>Nine years passed away without bringing any material change to the +parties involved in this narrative, except those which time brings +ordinarily in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[pg 328]</a></span> train. Young Robert Arbuthnot was a healthy, tall, +fine-looking lad of his age; and his great-grandpapa, the rector, +though not suffering under any actual physical or mental infirmity, +had reached a time of life when the announcement that the golden bowl +is broken, or the silver cord is loosed, may indeed be quick and +sudden, but scarcely unexpected. Things had gone well, too, with the +nurse, Mrs Danby, and her husband; well, at least, after a fashion. +The speculative miller must have made good use of the gift to his wife +for her care of little Arbuthnot, for he had built a genteel house +near the mill, always rode a valuable horse, kept, it was said, a +capital table; and all this, as it seemed, by his clever speculations +in corn and flour, for the ordinary business of the mill was almost +entirely neglected. He had no children of his own, but he had +apparently taken, with much cordiality, to his step-son, a fine lad, +now about eighteen years of age. This greatly grieved the boy's +mother, who dreaded above all things that her son should contract the +evil, dissolute habits of his father-in-law. Latterly, she had become +extremely solicitous to procure the lad a permanent situation abroad, +and this Mr Arbuthnot had promised should be effected at the earliest +opportunity.</p> + +<p>Thus stood affairs on the 16th of October 1846. Mr Arbuthnot was +temporarily absent in Ireland, where he possessed large property, and +was making personal inquiries as to the extent of the potato-rot, not +long before announced. The morning's post had brought a letter to his +wife, with the intelligence that he should reach home that very +evening; and as the rectory was on the direct road to Elm Park, and +her husband would be sure to pull up there, Mrs Arbuthnot came with +her son to pass the afternoon there, and in some slight degree +anticipate her husband's arrival.</p> + +<p>About three o'clock, a chief-clerk of one of the Taunton banks rode up +in a gig to the rectory, and asked to see the Rev. Mr Townley, on +pressing and important business. He was ushered into the library, +where the rector and I were at the moment rather busily engaged. The +clerk said he had been to Elm Park, but not finding either Mr +Arbuthnot or his lady there, he had thought that perhaps the Rev. Mr +Townley might be able to pronounce upon the genuineness of a cheque +for L.300, purporting to be drawn on the Taunton Bank by Mr Arbuthnot, +and which Danby the miller had obtained cash for at Bath. He further +added, that the bank had refused payment, and detained the cheque, +believing it to be a forgery.</p> + +<p>'A forgery!' exclaimed the rector, after merely glancing at the +document. 'No question that it is, and a very clumsily executed one, +too. Besides, Mr Arbuthnot is not yet returned from Ireland.'</p> + +<p>This was sufficient; and the messenger, with many apologies for his +intrusion, withdrew, and hastened back to Taunton. We were still +talking over this sad affair, although some hours had elapsed since +the clerk's departure—in fact, candles had been brought in, and we +were every moment expecting Mr Arbuthnot—when the sound of a horse at +a hasty gallop was heard approaching, and presently the pale and +haggard face of Danby shot by the window at which the rector and +myself were standing. The gate-bell was rung almost immediately +afterwards, and but a brief interval passed before 'Mr Danby' was +announced to be in waiting. The servant had hardly gained the passage +with leave to shew him in, when the impatient visitor rushed rudely +into the room in a state of great, and it seemed angry excitement.</p> + +<p>'What, sir, is the meaning of this ill-mannered intrusion?' demanded +the rector sternly.</p> + +<p>'You have pronounced the cheque I paid away at Bath to be a forgery; +and the officers are, I am told, already at my heels. Mr Arbuthnot, +unfortunately, is not at home, and I am come, therefore, to seek +shelter with you.'</p> + +<p>'Shelter with me, sir!' exclaimed the indignant rector, moving, as he +spoke, towards the bell. 'Out of my house you shall go this instant.'</p> + +<p>The fellow placed his hand upon the reverend gentleman's arm, and +looked with his bloodshot eyes keenly in his face.</p> + +<p>'Don't!' said Danby; 'don't, for the sake of yourself and yours! +Don't! I warn you: or, if you like the phrase better, don't, for the +sake of me and <i>mine</i>.'</p> + +<p>'Yours, fellow! Your wife, whom you have so long held in cruel bondage +through her fears for her son, has at last shaken off that chain. +James Harper sailed two days ago from Portsmouth for Bombay. I sent +her the news two hours since.'</p> + +<p>'Ha! Is that indeed so?' cried Danby, with an irrepressible start of +alarm. 'Why, then——But no matter: here, luckily, comes Mrs Arbuthnot +<i>and her son</i>. All's right! She will, I know, stand bail for me, and, +if need be, acknowledge the genuineness of her husband's cheque.'</p> + +<p>The fellow's insolence was becoming unbearable, and I was about to +seize and thrust him forcibly from the apartment, when the sound of +wheels was heard outside. 'Hold! one moment,' he cried with fierce +vehemence. 'That is probably the officers: I must be brief, then, and +to the purpose. Pray, madam, do not leave the room for your own sake: +as for you, young sir, I <i>command</i> you to remain!'</p> + +<p>'What! what does he mean?' exclaimed Mrs Arbuthnot bewilderedly, and +at the same time clasping her son—who gazed on Danby with kindled +eyes, and angry boyish defiance—tightly to her side. Did the man's +strange words give form and significance to some dark, shadowy, +indistinct doubt that had previously haunted her at times? I judged +so. The rector appeared similarly confused and shaken, and had sunk +nerveless and terrified upon a sofa.</p> + +<p>'You guess dimly, I see, at what I have to say,' resumed Danby with a +malignant sneer. 'Well, hear it, then, once for all, and then, if you +will, give me up to the officers. Some years ago,' he continued, +coldly and steadily—'some years ago, a woman, a nurse, was placed in +charge of two infant children, both boys: one of these was her own; +the other was the son of rich, proud parents. The woman's husband was +a gay, jolly fellow, who much preferred spending money to earning it, +and just then it happened that he was more than usually hard up. One +afternoon, on visiting his wife, who had removed to a distance, he +found that the rich man's child had sickened of the small-pox, and +that there was no chance of its recovery. A letter containing the sad +news was on a table, which he, the husband, took the liberty to open +and read. After some reflection, suggested by what he had heard of the +lady-mother's state of mind, he recopied the letter, for the sake of +embodying in it a certain suggestion. That letter was duly posted, and +the next day brought the rich man almost in a state of distraction; +but his chief and mastering terror was lest the mother of the already +dead infant should hear, in her then precarious state, of what had +happened. The tidings, he was sure, would kill her. Seeing this, the +cunning husband of the nurse suggested that, for the present, his—the +cunning one's—child might be taken to the lady as her own, and that +the truth could be revealed when she was strong enough to bear it. The +rich man fell into the artful trap, and that which the husband of the +nurse had speculated upon, came to pass even beyond his hopes. The +lady grew to idolise her fancied child—she has, fortunately, had no +other—and now, I think, it would really kill her to part with him. +The rich man could not find it in his heart to undeceive his +wife—every year it became more difficult, more impossible to do so; +and very generously, I must say, has he paid in purse for the +forbearance of the nurse's husband. Well now, then, to sum up: the +nurse was Mrs Danby;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[pg 329]</a></span> the rich, weak husband, Mr Arbuthnot; the +substituted child, that handsome boy—<i>my son!</i>'</p> + +<p>A wild scream from Mrs Arbuthnot broke the dread silence which had +accompanied this frightful revelation, echoed by an agonised cry, half +tenderness, half rage, from her husband, who had entered the room +unobserved, and now clasped her passionately in his arms. The +carriage-wheels we had heard were his. It was long before I could +recall with calmness the tumult, terror, and confusion of that scene. +Mr Arbuthnot strove to bear his wife from the apartment, but she would +not be forced away, and kept imploring with frenzied vehemence that +Robert—that her boy should not be taken from her.</p> + +<p>'I have no wish to do so—far from it,' said Danby with gleeful +exultation. 'Only folk must be reasonable, and not threaten their +friends with the hulks'——</p> + +<p>'Give him anything, anything!' broke in the unhappy lady. 'O Robert! +Robert!' she added with a renewed burst of hysterical grief, 'how +could you deceive me so?'</p> + +<p>'I have been punished, Agnes,' he answered in a husky, broken voice, +'for my well-intending but criminal weakness; cruelly punished by the +ever-present consciousness that this discovery must one day or other +be surely made. What do you want?' he after awhile added with +recovering firmness, addressing Danby.</p> + +<p>'The acknowledgment of the little bit of paper in dispute, of course; +and say a genuine one to the same amount.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, yes,' exclaimed Mrs Arbuthnot, still wildly sobbing, and holding +the terrified boy strained in her embrace, as if she feared he might +be wrenched from her by force. 'Anything—pay him anything!'</p> + +<p>At this moment, chancing to look towards the door of the apartment, I +saw that it was partially opened, and that Danby's wife was listening +there. What might that mean? But what of helpful meaning in such a +case could it have?</p> + +<p>'Be it so, love,' said Mr Arbuthnot soothingly. 'Danby, call to-morrow +at the Park. And now, begone at once.'</p> + +<p>'I was thinking,' resumed the rascal with swelling audacity, 'that we +might as well at the same time come to some permanent arrangement upon +black and white. But never mind: I can always put the screw on; +unless, indeed, you get tired of the young gentleman, and in that +case, I doubt not, he will prove a dutiful and affectionate son——Ah, +devil! What do you here? Begone, or I'll murder you! Begone, do you +hear?'</p> + +<p>His wife had entered, and silently confronted him. 'Your threats, evil +man,' replied the woman quietly, 'have no terrors for me now. My son +is beyond your reach. Oh, Mrs Arbuthnot,' she added, turning towards +and addressing that lady, 'believe not'——</p> + +<p>Her husband sprang at her with the bound of a panther. 'Silence! Go +home, or I'll strangle'——His own utterance was arrested by the +fierce grasp of Mr Arbuthnot, who seized him by the throat, and hurled +him to the further end of the room. 'Speak on, woman; and quick! +quick! What have you to say?'</p> + +<p>'That your son, dearest lady,' she answered, throwing herself at Mrs +Arbuthnot's feet, 'is as truly your own child as ever son born of +woman!'</p> + +<p>That shout of half-fearful triumph seems even now as I write to ring +in my ears! I <i>felt</i> that the woman's words were words of truth, but I +could not see distinctly: the room whirled round, and the lights +danced before my eyes, but I could hear through all the choking +ecstasy of the mother, and the fury of the baffled felon.</p> + +<p>'The letter,' continued Mrs Danby, 'which my husband found and opened, +would have informed you, sir, of the swiftly approaching death of <i>my</i> +child, and that yours had been carefully kept beyond the reach of +contagion. The letter you received was written without my knowledge or +consent. True it is that, terrified by my husband's threats, and in +some measure reconciled to the wicked imposition by knowing that, +after all, the right child would be in his right place, I afterwards +lent myself to Danby's evil purposes. But I chiefly feared for my son, +whom I fully believed he would not have scrupled to make away with in +revenge for my exposing his profitable fraud. I have sinned; I can +hardly hope to be forgiven, but I have now told the sacred truth.'</p> + +<p>All this was uttered by the repentant woman, but at the time it was +almost wholly unheard by those most interested in the statement. They +only comprehended that they were saved—that the child was theirs in +very truth. Great, abundant, but for the moment, bewildering joy! Mr +Arbuthnot—his beautiful young wife—her own true boy (how could she +for a moment have doubted that he was her own true boy!—you might +read that thought through all her tears, thickly as they fell)—the +aged and half-stunned rector, whilst yet Mrs Danby was speaking, were +exclaiming, sobbing in each other's arms, ay, and praising God too, +with broken voices and incoherent words it may be, but certainly with +fervent, pious, grateful hearts.</p> + +<p>When we had time to look about us, it was found that the felon had +disappeared—escaped. It was well, perhaps, that he had; better, that +he has not been heard of since.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="THE_TAXES_ON_KNOWLEDGE" id="THE_TAXES_ON_KNOWLEDGE"></a>THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>To all appearance, the abolition of the taxes on the spread of +knowledge through the press is only a matter of time. The principal of +these taxes is the Excise-duty on paper, which, as we have repeatedly +urged, acts most detrimentally on the issue of a cheap class of +publications. The duty next in importance is that which is charged on +advertisements. Our belief is, that a relief from this taxation would +be a prodigious advantage to all departments of trade and commerce, as +well as to various social interests. That the sum of eighteenpence +should be exacted by the state from every person—a poor housemaid, +for example—on advertising for a situation, is, to say the least of +it, inexpressibly shabby. The stamp-duty of one penny on each +newspaper is reckoned to be the third of these taxes on knowledge. +There can be no doubt that this duty is a tax, as applied to those +newspapers which circulate in a locality without going through the +post-office; but, as matters stand, we are inclined to think that much +the larger proportion of newspapers, metropolitan and provincial, +actually are posted, either by the publishers, or by parties sending +their copies to be read at second-hand. It is not quite clear that the +remission of the stamp-duty would be an entire gain; for a postage of +a penny in sending to second, third, and fourth readers—each fresh +hand requiring to adhibit a fresh postage label—might come to a very +much more severe tax than the existing stamp. Much, however, can be +said on both sides; and we desire to let each party state its own +case.</p> + +<p>The <i>British Quarterly Review</i>, in an able article on the Newspaper +Stamp and its proposed abolition, argues for that measure on one +particular ground—namely, its certain result in allowing of the +existence of small local papers. The writer says: 'Take the <i>Leeds +Mercury</i>, the <i>Manchester Guardian</i>, or the <i>Manchester Examiner</i>, for +example—all first-class papers, of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[pg 330]</a></span> largest size allowed by law, +and all giving four-page supplements once a week. In spite of their +immense size, there is not one of these journals which can give a +faithful weekly record of all that is worthy of note in the forty or +fifty towns and villages by which they are surrounded, and through +which these papers circulate. An attempt, indeed, is made to give as +many "Town-Council Meetings," "Board of Guardian Proceedings," +"Temperance Demonstrations," and "Meetings of Rate-payers"—with a due +mixture of change-ringings, friendly anniversaries, elections of +church-wardens, elections of town-councillors, elections of guardians, +offences, accidents, and crimes—as can be crammed, by rapid +abridgment, into a certain number of columns. But after all has been +done in this way that the most skilful and industrious editor, aided +by the most indefatigable sub-editor, can accomplish, or that any +reasonable newspaper reader in any of the smaller towns could possibly +require, there still remains a great number of equally important +events, which are necessarily left unnoticed altogether by the mammoth +journal, for sheer want of space, or given in a form so much abridged +as to render them of little or no value. The people of Oldham are +perhaps waiting with intense anxiety for a long and amusing account of +the "Extraordinary Scene" at the last meeting of the board of poor-law +guardians; or those of Ashton are looking forward with equal interest +to Saturday's paper, for a report of the animated debate in the +town-council on the proposed increase of two policemen for that +borough; or perhaps the news-agents of Rochdale, in anticipation of a +brisk demand, have ordered twice the usual number of papers because of +a church-rate contest, in which the vicar has been beaten by an +overwhelming majority. But the columns of the <i>Manchester Guardian</i>, +though nearly double what they were twenty years ago, are not made of +India rubber; and therefore, much as the editor may wish to give all +due latitude to Ashton, Bolton, Bury, Middleton, Oldham, Rochdale, +Stockport, or Wigan news, he is generally forced, by the pressure of +advertisements, or some other equally potent cause, to compress +everything within the narrowest limits. Whatever interest a piece of +district news may possess in its own locality, it must not be allowed +to encroach upon the space belonging to "the general reader," who buys +nine-tenths of every newspaper, and who does not care a farthing for +Rochdale or Ashton news, unless when it happens to be a very horrid +murder, or an exceedingly destructive fire. Were the stamp-duty +abolished, the large town papers would be relieved from all the +drudgery and annoyance attendant upon this department of editorial +work. There would no longer be any necessity for devoting six or eight +closely-printed columns of the paper to local news, which are not read +by one-twentieth part of those who purchase it. Each small town in +Lancashire and Yorkshire, as well as elsewhere, would have its penny +or twopenny newspaper, in which local news, local politics, and local +talent, would have fair play; while large papers, like the <i>Manchester +Guardian</i> or the <i>Leeds Mercury</i>, would be greatly improved by the +change. They would be enabled to substitute good readable matter, +literary or political, of which there is always abundance, for the +very dull stuff which they are now obliged to give under the head of +"District News." By this improvement in character, and by the +reduction of price, in such papers as we have named, from 5d. to +3-1/2d., their circulation would be greatly increased, in spite of the +number of penny and twopenny papers which would then supply the demand +for news among that numerous portion of the working-classes who cannot +afford such a luxury at present.'</p> + +<p>Such is a fair statement of certain advantages to be derived from the +abolition of the penny stamp, and the substitution of the penny label. +The advocates of the stamp-duty allege that, while the foregoing line +of argument may be perfectly valid, something, on the contrary, is due +to the advantage of having well-supported metropolitan newspapers as +centres of intelligence. These newspapers, say some of their +publishers, are put to vast expense for early news, foreign and +domestic; such news they at present permit every one freely to copy; +but, if a host of small country papers are to spring up, piracy of +this kind will no longer be tolerated. As newspapers go pretty much on +the principle of giving and taking in the way of intelligence, any +tendency to prosecute on the ground of piracy would, in all +probability, soon cure itself; and, therefore, we would not greatly +rely on this as a reason for maintaining an exclusiveness in the +business of newspaper publication. A more serious argument against the +creation of a host of cheap local papers, is the probable +dissemination of much petty scandal, and matter of a partially +libellous or offensive character; at the least, much bad writing. +Supposing, however, that there is a chance of literature being thus to +a certain extent deteriorated, it will not do to oppose an +improvement, if it be such, from fears of this nature. Should the +matter treated of in small local papers be sometimes of an +objectionable character, the public taste will surely go far towards +its correction; and why should not each provincial town have an +opportunity of educating writers up to the proper degree of literary +accomplishment? It is undeniable, that small towns stand in pressing +need of local channels for advertisements, and here, we think, is +their strongest ground. How much more important, in a town of 5000 +inhabitants, that the principal mercer should have his fresh arrival +of goods advertised in a paper which circulates 500 copies in that +town, than in some county-town journal which sends to it only some +thirty or forty copies! A sale of growing crops must, in like manner, +be much more effectually advertised in a paper which circulates +largely in a small district, than in one which is diffused sparsely +over a large one. All this, indeed, is amply proved by the tendency +which has been shewn of late years, in Scotland at least, to set up +unstamped monthly local papers containing advertisements, and by the +comparative success which these journals have met with.</p> + +<p>Among the arguments for such arrangements as would promote the sale of +newspapers, we see little or no stress laid upon the <i>educational</i>, +which to us appears as the very strongest of all. The interest felt in +the occurrences of the passing day is one of the most vigorous of all +intellectual appetences. Give a man ready access to a journal in which +this taste can be gratified, and his intellectual progress is certain. +The utterly uneducated, seeing the pleasure which his fellows derive +from the paper, will desire to learn to read, that he may enjoy the +like pleasure. The man just able to read will be drawn on to reflect +and judge, and in time he will desire intellectual food from books +also. The cheap newspaper thus becomes a most powerful instrument for +nursing the popular mind; and, if we consider how essential it is, +where there are free institutions, that the bulk of the people should +be enlightened, we must see what a great public end is to be served by +this simple means. A place in the apparatus is, we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[pg 331]</a></span> think, rightly +claimed by the small local newspaper, as a kind of A B C, or <i>first +form</i>, where the young and untutored mind may be entered by way of +preparation for higher studies.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="THE_VEGETATION_OF_EUROPE" id="THE_VEGETATION_OF_EUROPE"></a>THE VEGETATION OF EUROPE.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>The publication of the volume, the title of which appears below,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> is +to be regarded as additional evidence that the tendency of science in +the present day is towards wider and more comprehensive +generalisations. Many readers who may be more or less familiar with +certain species or even families of plants, will hardly have prepared +themselves for a view of the phytology of a quarter of the globe, such +as is given in outline in the interesting work now before us. The +subject is one that has been largely investigated within the past +twenty years, as may be seen in the records of the British +Association, in the transactions of learned societies, and in the +writings of numerous observers on the continent. Attempt after attempt +has been made to explain the causes of the variations and effects of +climate, their influence on vegetation, the appearance of certain +floras in localities where they might be least expected, and to +separate the natural and regular from the accidental. Different +countries have been examined and compared with each other, and many of +the differences accounted for; and in Mr Henfrey's volume we have an +acceptable <i>résumé</i> of these various researches.</p> + +<p>It becomes necessary, first of all, to study the influences—whether +general or special—which affect the distribution of vegetation; to +inquire into those freaks or aberrations of nature which favour in one +place the production of plants that will not grow in another, under +apparently similar circumstances; and why similar plants are found in +places widely separated. Oranges will ripen on one side the Alps, but +not on the other; grapes scarcely come to perfection out of doors in +England, while on the other side of the Channel they ripen by +thousands of acres; and several fruits which fail in our northern +counties, are grown without difficulty in Denmark in the open air. +Investigation soon shewed that temperature alone, mere heat and cold, +was insufficient to account for the phenomena; but that moisture and +dryness, the prevalence of certain winds, the chemical and physical +conditions of soil, and the constitution of the plants themselves, +would have to be considered in a proper inquiry into the subject.</p> + +<p>Here we must notice a fact which has proved of essential service in +the study of botanical geography—namely, the discovery 'that there is +some law presiding over the distribution of plants which causes the +appearance of particular species arbitrarily—if we may so say it—in +particular places;' from which, the conclusion has been arrived at, +'that countries have become populated with plants partly by the +spreading of some special kinds from centres within those countries +where they were originally exclusively created; and while these have +spread outward into the neighbouring regions, colonists from like +centres lying in the surrounding countries have invaded and become +intermingled with the indigenous inhabitants.'</p> + +<p>Looking at the effect of climate on vegetation, we find that as we +proceed from the north towards the south, the number and luxuriance of +plants increase in a remarkable degree, and the same result is +observable in altitude as in latitude. 'Step by step,' writes Mr +Henfrey, 'as the land rises in any mountain region, the vegetation +assumes, more and more, a polar character; and in the mountains of the +tropics, a succession of stages has been distinguished, corresponding +in the general peculiarities of the plants which clothe them, to +tracts extending horizontally, in succession, on the sea-level, from +the base of these mountains to the frozen regions within the arctic +and antarctic circles. Increase of elevation is accompanied by an +alteration of climate, bringing with it a set of conditions analogous +to those prevailing at certain distances further from the sun. +Ascending the Peak of Teneriffe, a series of regions are traversed, +one above another, displaying with the approach to the summit a +continually closer approximation in character to the polar regions, +till the traveller who left the palm, the cactus, and the thousand +varied forms of tropical vegetation at the foot, finds himself at last +among the stunted shrubs and scaly lichens, the borderers who hold the +outposts on the limits of the eternal snow.'</p> + +<p>It might be expected that places on the same parallel of latitude +would be equal in temperature; but on tracing out the distribution of +heat over the globe, and laying it down in what are called +<i>isothermal</i> lines on a map, most striking deviations are found to +exist, and the contour of the lines is anything but regular. The line +of greatest cold, for example, which leaves the eastern coast of +Labrador at about the 54th degree of latitude, rises six degrees as it +approaches Greenland, and strikes the coast of Lapland a little above +the 70th degree, or sixteen degrees nearer the pole than at its +starting-point—thus shewing that the northern parts of Europe have a +more genial climate than those of America. The line then curves +fifteen degrees to the south across Siberia, rises again on the +western coast of America, and falls once more as it advances towards +the east. Again, 'the isotherms of Canada pass through Iceland, across +about the middle of Norway and Sweden, St Petersburg and Kamtschatka. +Those of New York through the north of Ireland and England, twelve +degrees further north, North and Central Germany, and the Crimea. That +which leaves the United States at about 36 degrees north latitude, +crosses Southern Europe from the north of Spain to the Adriatic in a +tolerably straight line, some eight degrees further north, and then +falls south again, where the influence of the north-east polar current +is more felt, in Greece and Turkey.'</p> + +<p>But although these are marked as lines of equal heat, it is only in +the average temperature that the equality consists; and it is clear +that a country with 80 degrees of summer heat and 20 of winter cold, +would have a very different climate from another with 60 and 40 as the +highest and lowest degrees of temperature, although the mean of the +two would be the same. And herein we have an explanation of what at +first sight appear to be anomalies: we know, for instance, 'that +plants will flourish perennially in the British isles which are killed +by the frosts of winter in places lying considerably to the south upon +the continent; thus the laurel, that bears our winters steadily in +Ireland and the west of England, and is only affected by very severe +frosts in our eastern counties, is killed by the winters of Berlin, +equally fatal to the myrtle, the fuchsia, and a host of other shrubs +which attain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[pg 332]</a></span> considerable age and size in the western portions of the +British isles. Again, Canada, which lies south of Paris, has the +climate of Drontheim, in Norway; while at New York, lying in the +latitude of Naples, the flowers open simultaneously with those of +Upsala, in Sweden. Moreover, those very countries suffering so severe +a winter's cold, enjoy a summer's heat far exceeding ours, since the +snow lies for months on parts of Germany which yet receive sufficient +heat in summer to ripen the grape and Indian corn.'</p> + +<p>The principal modifying causes are winds and water. Islands, and +countries bordering on the ocean, have a much more equable climate +than those which lie in the interior of continents, and will have a +greater prevalence of moist south-westerly winds. The average annual +quantity of rain in the British islands is from 28 to 30 inches; on +the continent, it is less; the fall in Holland is estimated at 26 +inches, and in Denmark and North Germany, at 20 inches—the greatest +fall occurring in summer and autumn, as in England. Then with respect +to winds, we find those from the west most prevalent over what Mr +Henfrey distinguishes as the north European plain, as is the case in +our country. 'The west wind blows more frequently in England than in +Denmark, more there than in Russia. The predominance is most marked in +summer; in the winter, the easterly winds are almost as frequent as +the westerly upon the continent, which is not true of the British +isles.' Sometimes, however, the south-westerly winds, which bring our +genial April showers, continue to arrive with their watery burden +until late in the summer, to the detriment or destruction of +grain-crops; and yet this same wind, losing its excessive moisture as +it sweeps onward over the continent, is highly favourable to the +husbandman in Southern Russia. The years 1816 and 1817 were cases in +point.</p> + +<p>The meteorology of Russia affords some striking contrasts: the yearly +rain-fall in St Petersburg is 21 inches, 'and the westerly winds are +most prevalent, although not to the same extent as in Western Europe; +they are also predominant in Moscow and Kasan. In the southern +steppes, it is stated that the average of four years has given only 6 +inches fall of rain, occurring in 47 days of the year; but the +irregularity is so great, that single years gave 59, 35, 39, and 53 +rainy days. In 1832-3, twenty months elapsed without rain, and in some +years the quantity is only one-tenth of that which falls in wet years. +In the summer, there is no dew, and the ground dries up and cracks, +the plants withering up: 1841, not considered as a dry year, gave only +8½ inches of rain; but in 1831, one of the wettest, the moisture +interfered with agriculture more than the drought does, saturating the +soil, which rests on a deep impermeable clayey formation.' In April +and May, when the snows melt, the steppe is a vast sea of mud, liable +to be hardened by occasional frosts, until, as the season advances, +myriads of crocuses, tulips, and hyacinths, cover the soil, which +perhaps a few days later will be hidden by north-east snowstorms, or +drenched by gales from the north-west. No rain falls for two months +after the middle of June, the luxuriant herbage withers more rapidly +than it grew, and, except in a few spots near the streams, the steppe +becomes a black, arid waste. Yet in some parts of these regions the +vegetation is extraordinary: 'the wormwoods and thistles grow to a +size unknown in the west of Europe; it is said that the thistle-bush, +found where these abound, is tall enough to hide a Cossack horseman. +The natives call all these rank weeds, useless for pasture, <i>burian</i>, +and, with the dry dung of the flocks, this constitutes all the fuel +they possess. One curious plant of the thistle tribe has attracted the +notice of most travellers—the wind-witch, as it is called by the +German colonists, or leap-the-field, as the Russian name may be +translated. It forms a large globular mass of light wiry branches +interlaced together, and in autumn decays off at the root, the upper +part drying up. It is then at the mercy of the autumn blast, and it is +said that thousands may sometimes be seen coursing over the plain, +rolling, dancing, and leaping over the slight inequalities, often +looking at a distance like a troop of wild horses. It is not uncommon +for twenty or thirty to become entangled into a mass, and then roll +away, as Mr Kohl says, "like a huge giant in his seven-league boots." +Thousands of them are annually blown into the Black Sea, and here, +once in contact with water, in an instant lose the fantastic grace +belonging to their dry, unsubstantial texture.'</p> + +<p>Any one who has seen the feather-like seeds of thistles and dandelions +floating about in the air, will have little difficulty in +comprehending the effect of winds on the distribution of vegetation. +Such seeds, as Mr Henfrey observes, might readily be carried across +Europe by a powerful autumn gale, blowing steadily in one direction. +In physiological language, they belong to the <i>sporadic</i>, not to the +<i>endemic</i> class, of which a remarkable instance is afforded in the +flea-bane (<i>Erigeron canadensis</i>), a plant which, having found its way +to this side the Atlantic only since the discovery of America, is now +a common weed on the continent of Europe. Running streams and ocean +currents also transport seeds from one locality to another. The +gulf-stream, as is well known, carries occasionally branches of trees +to the north coast of Scotland and Norway; and 'Mr Brown found that +six hundred plants collected about the river Zaire, in Africa, +included thirteen species, natives also of Guyana and Brazil. These +species mostly occurred near the mouth of the Zaire, and were of such +kind as produced fruits capable of resisting external agencies for a +long time.' Then, again, the agency of birds, of quadrupeds, and of +man, in the distribution of seeds and plants, is too important to be +overlooked, as Sir Charles Lyell has ably shewn in his <i>Principles of +Geology</i>; and there is 'a certain number of plants which seem to +accompany man wherever he goes, and to flourish best in his vicinity. +Thus, the docks, the goosefoots, the nettle, the chickweed, mallows, +and many other common weeds, seem to be universal, though unwelcome +companions to man—dogging his footsteps, affording by their presence, +even in now deserted districts, an almost certain index of the former +residence of human beings on the spot.'</p> + +<p>From an examination of the causes affecting distribution, Mr Henfrey +passes to a survey of the characteristics of the countries of Europe, +from north to south—from the peninsula of Scandinavia to those of +Spain, Italy, and Greece. The remarkable contrast is pointed out +between the climate and cultivation of the east and west sides of the +mountains of Sweden and Norway. Barley ripens as far north as the 70th +degree, in latitudes whose mean temperature is below the +freezing-point; while in Switzerland, corn ceases to ripen at 9 +degrees above the same point, and in the plateaux of South America, at +22½ degrees—a fact which goes to shew, 'that the growth of grain +is much more dependent on the summer temperature than on the annual +mean. The long summer days of the polar regions afford a very brief, +but a comparatively exalted summer heat.' It is, however, only the +barley which ventures so far north: the limit of rye is 67 degrees, of +oats, 65 degrees, of wheat, 64 degrees, on the west side of the +peninsula, and from 1 to 2 degrees less on the east. In Southern +Norway, the spruce-fir ceases to grow beyond the line of 2900 feet +above the sea-level; while in Switzerland, it is commonly met with at +the height of 5500 feet, and in some situations, 7000; shewing that +the influences which affect the growth of grain do not similarly +affect that of trees—proximity of the sea decreases the summer +temperature. Again: 'In Scandinavia the tree-limit is indicated by the +birch; in the Alps, by firs. The two lower mountain zones of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[pg 333]</a></span> the +Alps, the regions of the beech and the chestnut, do not exist in the +Scandinavian mountains. Compared with the climate and tree-limits, the +cultivation of corn does not go so high in the Alps as it does toward +the north; for it ceases about with the beech in the Alps, and grazing +is the regular pursuit in the region of firs; while in Scandinavia, +the beech only goes to 59 degrees, and corn-culture to 70 +degrees—that is, as far as the conifers. Corn succeeds in the latter +under a mean temperature below the freezing-point, while in the Alps +it ceases at 41 degrees Fahrenheit. The cause of this is the hot +though short summer of the north. The Alps have maize and the vine, +which will not grow around the Scandinavian mountains; the meadows are +throughout richer in the Alps, and grazing is therefore much more +extensively pursued.'</p> + +<p>The peculiarities and comparisons afforded by other countries, are not +less interesting than those we have selected, and we might multiply +instances, if space permitted. Enough, however, have been adduced to +shew that the mode of accounting for differences of vegetation is so +far satisfactory, that it appears to be in perfect accordance with +discoverable natural laws; and it is no longer a surprise or mystery +to find plants of Southern Russia and of Asia Minor on the high +table-lands of Spain; or that the effects of an unvarying temperature, +as at Quito, in the table-land of Peru, are to cause the culture of +wheat to cease at the mean temperature of Milan, and woods to +disappear at the mean of Penzance. A few remarks respecting our own +country is all that we can now find room for.</p> + +<p>Including snow-falls, the number of rainy days in Dublin in a year is +208, in London, 178, while in Copenhagen it is not more than 134. The +number of British plants indigenous or naturalised is from 1400 to +1500, comprising mostly the vegetation of Central Europe, but +including specimens from Scandinavia and the Pyrenees. The highest +point at which grain has been known to grow, is 1600 feet above the +sea-level, at the outlet of Loch Collater, in the Highlands. In +Drumochter Pass, an elevation of 1530 feet, potatoes can scarcely be +raised; and from 1000 to 1200 feet is the more common limit of the +cereal and the esculent. On this point a statement is made, which may +be useful to cultivators in the hill districts: it is, that 'the +common brake-fern (<i>Pteris aquilina</i>), distributed throughout Britain, +is found to be limited by a line running nearly level with the limit +of cultivation, and thus affords a test, when cultivation may be +absent, where nature does not deny it success. In one sheltered spot +in the woods of Loch-na-gar, it was observed at 1900 feet; and in +another part of the same woods, at 1700 feet; but on the exposed moors +it is very seldom seen beyond 1200 feet, unless in hollows, or on +declivities facing the sun.'</p> + +<p>In accounting for the varieties of plants in Britain, it is assumed +that, during the glacial period, when the tops of our mountains were +mere islands in a great sea, under which lay the greater part of +modern Europe, they were then peopled by the arctic and alpine +species, which now inhabit them. Then came an upheaval; a vast tract +of land rose above the water, without any break, as at present between +England and the continent; and at this period 'there appears to have +been a migration of both plants and animals from east to west, the +descendants of which still constitute the great body of the flora and +fauna of the British lowlands.' Meantime, the elevation of the former +islands into mountain summits, placed them in a temperature suited to +the perpetuation of their vegetation. Then, to account for the +presence of a Spanish flora in the west of Ireland, a bold hypothesis, +started by Professor Edward Forbes, is put forward—'that the west of +Ireland was geologically united with the north of Spain;' admitting +which, there is no difficulty in supposing the plants to have +travelled along the intervening land, which has subsequently +disappeared, and that, owing to climatic changes, the hardier sort of +plants, such as saxifrages and heaths, have alone survived.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The Vegetation of Europe, its Conditions and Causes. By +Arthur Henfrey, F.L.S. London: John Van Voorst. 1852.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="A_HALF-PENNYWORTH_OF_NAVIGATION" id="A_HALF-PENNYWORTH_OF_NAVIGATION"></a>A HALF-PENNYWORTH OF NAVIGATION.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>Who's for a cheap ride on what a pleasant writer calls the 'silent +highway?'—silent no longer, since the steamers have taken to plying +above Bridge at a charge which has made the surface of the Thames, +where it runs through the heart of London, populous with life, and +noisy with the clash of paddles and the rush of steam, to say nothing +of the incessant chorus of captains, engine-boys, and +gangway-men—with their 'Ease her,' 'Stop her,' 'Back her,' 'Turn +ahead,' 'Turn astarn,' 'Now, marm, with the bundle, be alive,' 'Heave +ahead there, will you?' &c., all the day long.</p> + +<p>Come this way, my friend; here we are opposite the Adelphi Theatre, +and this is the man who used to be a black man, or else it's another, +who does duty as talking finger-post, and shews you, if you are a +stranger, how you are to get at the half-penny boat. Come, we must +dive down this narrow lane, past the 'Fox under the Hill,' a rather +long and not very sightly, cleanly, smooth, or fragrant thoroughfare; +and here, in this shed-looking office, you must pay your half-penny, +which guarantees you a passage all the way to London Bridge. Look +alive! as the money-taker recommends—the <i>Bee</i>, you see, is already +discharging her living cargo, and others are hurrying on board. The +boat won't lose time in turning round—she goes backwards and forwards +as straight as a saw, and carries a rudder at her nose as well as one +at her tail. Never mind these jolting planks, you havn't time to +tumble down—on with you! That's it: here, on this floating-pier, +manufactured from old barges, we may rest a moment, while the boat +discharges her freight, and takes on board the return cargo. You see +the landing-stage or pier is divided into two equal portions; the +people who are leaving the boat have not yet paid their fare; they +will have to disburse their coppers at the office where we paid ours, +there being but one paying-place for the two termini.</p> + +<p>'Tis a motley company, you see, which comes and goes by the half-penny +boat. Here is a Temple barrister, with his red-taped brief under his +arm, and at his heels follows a plasterer, and a tiler's labourer with +a six-foot chimney-pot upon his shoulders. There goes a +foreigner—foreigners like to have things cheap—with a bushy black +beard and a pale face, moustached and whiskered to the eyes, and +puffing a volume of smoke from his invisible mouth; and there is a +washer-woman, with a basket of clothes weighing a hundredweight. +Yonder young fellow, with the dripping sack on his back, is staggering +under a load of oysters from Billingsgate, and he has got to wash them +and sell them for three a penny, and see them swallowed one at a time, +before his work will be done for the day—and behind him is a comely +lassie, with a monster oil-glazed sarcophagus-looking milliner's +basket, carrying home a couple of bonnets to a customer. See! there is +lame Jack, who sweeps the crossing in the borough, followed by a lady +with her 'six years' darling of a pigmy size,' whom she calls 'Little +Popps,' both hurrying home to dinner after a morning's shopping. All +these, and a hundred others of equally varied description, go off on +the landing-stage, whence they will have to pay their obolus to the +Charon of the Thames ere they are swallowed up in the living tide that +rolls along the Strand from morn to night.</p> + +<p>Now, if we mean to go, we had better get on board, for in another +minute the deck will be covered, and we shall not find room to stand. +That's right; make sure of a seat while you may! How they swarm on +board, and what a choice sample they present of the mixed multitude of +London! The deck is literally jammed with every variety of the +pedestrian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[pg 334]</a></span> population—red-breasted soldiers from the barracks, +glazed-hatted policemen from the station, Irish labourers and their +wives, errand-boys with notes and packages, orange-girls with empty +baskets, working-men out for a mouthful of air, and idle boys out for +a 'spree'—men with burdens to carry, and men with hardly a rag to +cover them; unctuous Jews, jabbering Frenchmen, and drowsy-looking +Germans—on they flock, squeezing through the gangway, or clambering +over the bulwarks, while the little vessel rolls and lurches till the +water laves the planks on which you stand. In three minutes from her +arrival she has discharged her old cargo, and is crammed to +overflowing with a new one. 'Back, there: overloaded already!' roars +the captain. 'Let go; turn ahead; go on!'—and fiz! away we go, +leaving full half of the intending voyagers to wait for the next boat, +which, however, will not be long in coming.</p> + +<p>'Bless me, how we roll about from side to side!' says an anxious old +lady. 'Is anything the matter with the boat, that it wabbles so?'</p> + +<p>'Only a little krank, marm; it's all right,' says the person +addressed.</p> + +<p>'It's all right, of course,' says another, glancing at the nervous +lady, 'whether we goes up or whether we goes down, so long as we gets +along. The <i>Cricket</i> blowed herself up, and the <i>Ant</i> got tired on it, +and laid down to rest herself at the bottom t'other day. Howasever, a +steamer never blows up nor goes to the bottom but once, and, please +God, 't aint goin' to be this time.'</p> + +<p>While the old lady, unsatisfied with this genuine specimen of Cockney +philosophy, is vowing that if she once gets safe on shore, she will +never again set foot in a half-penny boat, we are already at Waterloo +Bridge. Duck goes the funnel, and we dart under the noble arch, and +catch a passing view of Somerset House. The handsome structure runs +away in our rear; the Chinese Junk, with its tawdry flags, scuttles +after it; we catch a momentary glimpse of Temple Gardens, lying in the +sunlight, where half-a-dozen children are playing on the grass; then +comes Whitefriars, the old Alsatia, the sanctuary of blackguard +ruffianism in bygone times; then there is a smell of gas, and a vision +of enormous gasometers; and then down goes the funnel again, and +Blackfriars Bridge jumps over us. On we go, now at the top of our +speed, past the dingy brick warehouses that lie under the shadow of St +Paul's, whose black dome looks down upon us as we scud along. Then +Southwark Bridge, with its Cyclopean masses of gloomy metal, disdains +to return the slightest response to the fussy splashing we make, as we +shoot impudently through. Then come more wharfs and warehouses, as we +glide past, while our pace slackens, and we stop gently within a +stone's-throw of London Bridge, at Dyers' Hall, where we are bundled +out of the boat with as little ceremony as we were bundled in, and +with as little, indeed, as it has ever been the custom to use since +ceremony was invented—which, in matters of business, is a very +useless thing.</p> + +<p>And now, my friend, you have accomplished a half-penny voyage; and +without being a conjuror, you can see how it is that this cheap +navigation is so much encouraged. In the first place, it is cheaper +than shoe-leather, leaving fatigue out of the question; it saves a +good two miles of walking, and that is no trifle, especially under a +heavy burden, or in slippery weather. In the second place, it may be +said to be often cheaper than dirt, seeing that the soil and injury to +clothing which it saves by avoiding a two miles' scamper through the +muddy ways, would damage the purse of a decent man more than would the +cost of several journeys. These are considerations which the humbler +classes appreciate, and therefore they flock to the cheap boats, and +spend their halfpence to save their pence and their time. This latter +consideration of time-saving it is that brings another class of +customers to the boats. In order that it may be remunerative to the +projectors, every passage must be made with a regular and undeviating +rapidity; and this very necessity becomes in its turn a source of +profit, because it is a recommendation to a better class of business +men and commercial agents, to whom a saving of time is daily a matter +of the utmost importance. Hence the motley mixture of all ranks and +orders that crowd the deck.</p> + +<p>Besides these half-penny boats, there are others which run at double +and quadruple fares; but they carry a different class of passengers, +and run greater distances, stopping at intermediate stations. They are +all remunerative speculations; and they may be said to have created +the traffic by which they thrive. They have driven the watermen's +wherries off the river almost as effectually as the railways have +driven the stage-coaches from the road; but, like them, they have +multiplied the passengers by the thousand, and have awakened the +public to a new sense of the value of the river as a means of transit +from place to place. The demand for safe, cheap, and speedy conveyance +to and from all parts of the river between London Bridge and +Battersea, and beyond, is becoming daily more urgent; and we hear that +it will shortly be met by the launching of a fleet of steam gondolas +constructed on an improved principle, combining accommodation for +enlarged numbers, with appliances calculated to insure at once +security and speed.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="A_LONDON_NEWSPAPER_IN_1667" id="A_LONDON_NEWSPAPER_IN_1667"></a>A LONDON NEWSPAPER IN 1667.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>In a recent number of this Journal (14th February), some particulars +were given relating to a newspaper of a hundred years ago; and the +contrast—sufficiently strong—was shewn between the infant press of +that time and its developed form in our own. We propose now to make +research a century earlier, and to shew in what condition the 'fourth +estate of the realm' appeared in the early part of Charles II.'s +reign. Surely that great power was then in its very infancy and +weakness; and if the subject entered into our plan, it would be both +instructive and entertaining to trace its growth in this country from +the small beginning now before us.</p> + +<p>We have on our table some numbers of the <i>London Gazette</i> of 1667 to +1681; and, so far as we know, this newspaper was the only source of +information to the people of public and passing events. In the +Venetian territory, that republic issued its gazette so early as 1536. +In the days of our own Civil Wars, when matters of the last importance +were continually arising, the English newspaper commenced, each party +having one such organ. Under Cromwell, a more regular journal was +published in 1652; but it was not until Queen Anne's reign that the +<i>Daily Courant</i> appeared each morning, and pioneered that enormous +power of our own day which disseminates perhaps 80,000,000 newspapers +annually throughout the country.</p> + +<p>It would be curious to compare the <i>London Gazette</i> of 1667 with the +<i>Times</i> of 1852. In form, it is slightly larger than one leaf of this +Journal; but in type, and in appearance, it is quite equal to the +newspapers of a hundred years later. It is published 'by authority,' +and contains pithy paragraphs, void of detail and without comment, +under the headings of the different places whence the news is +brought—the first and the last paragraphs being devoted to 'home +news,' the latter dating usually from Whitehall, and supplying the +place of the Court Circular. The first number was probably issued +shortly after the Restoration, as <i>our</i> earliest date is No. 236, from +Thursday, 17th February, to Monday, 20th February 1667. We purpose +making some extracts from these veracious records as they arise; and +first, let us view in familiar guise a historical character, better +known to us by heading charges of cavalry at Naseby—a daring +cavalier, a valiant soldier; though now we see him <i>en déshabille</i>, +and only as Prince Rupert, who, poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[pg 335]</a></span> gentleman, has lost his pet dog! +'Lost,' says the advertisement—'lost on Friday last, about noon, a +light fallow-colored greyhound, with a sore under her jaw, and a scar +on her side; whoever shall give notice of her at Prince Rupert's +apartments in Whitehall, shall be well rewarded for their pains.' The +next month, we find the prince assisting at a launch. 'This day (3 +March), was happily launched at Deptford, in presence of his majesty, +his Royal Highness Prince Rupert, and many persons of the court, a +very large and well-built ship, which is to carry 106 great guns, and +is like to prove a ship of great force and excellent service, called +<i>Charles the Second</i>.'</p> + +<p>A little later, we find an account of the visit of 'Madam,' Duchess of +Orleans, and sister to Charles II. Her reception, her return, and her +death, follow quickly one upon another; so sudden, indeed, was her +decease, that her death was not, says history, without suspicion of +poison. '<span class="smcap">Dover</span>, <i>May 21, 1670</i>.—The 15 ins., about 6 in the morning, +arrived here Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Orleans, attended, +among other persons of quality, by the Mareshal de Plessis Praslin; +her brother, Bishop of Tournay; Madam de Plessis, the mareshal's son's +lady; and the Countess of Grammont; having the day before, at about +the same hour, embarked with her train upon the men-of-war and several +yachts under the command of the Earl of Sandwich, vice-admiral of +England, &c.</p> + +<p>'The same evening, the court was entertained with a comedy, acted by +his Royal Highnesses servants, who attend here for their diversion.'</p> + +<p>'Yesterday was acted, by the said servants, another comedy, in the +midst whereof Madam and the rest of the ladies were entertained with +an excellent banquet.'</p> + +<p>In the notice of 5th June, Madam embarked on her return to France. On +the 20th, she and the duke arrive at Paris; and on the 25th go to 'St +Clou.' The following is the official notice of her death:—</p> + +<p>'<span class="smcap">Whitehall</span>.—This day arrived an express from Mr Montague, His +Majesty's ambassador at Paris, with the sad news of the death of +Madam, His Majesty's only sister, to the enfinite grief and affliction +of their Majestys' and Royal Highnesses, as well for the greatness of +this loss as for the suddenness of it. She dyed at St Clou about 4 of +the clock on Munday morning, of a sudden and violent distemper, which +had seized her at 5 of the evening before, and was by her physician +taken for a kind of bilious colic.'</p> + +<p>Confining ourselves to home news, there appears an edict from +Whitehall, commanding the Duke of York's (James II.) absence. +'<span class="smcap">Whitehall</span>, <i>3 Mar. 1678</i>.—His Majesty, having thought fit to command +the Duke to absent himself, his Royal Highness and the Duchess took +leave of their majestys, and embarked this morning, intending to pass +into Holland.' But three years afterwards, he must have stood better +with the city, for in 1681 we find the lord mayor and court of +aldermen offering a reward of L.500 for the discovery of the person +who offered an indignity to the picture of his Royal Highness in the +Guildhall, to shew their deep resentment at that 'insolent and +villainous act.'</p> + +<p>The many allusions to Algerines and pirates of all kinds, and the +audacity which seems to mark their acts, are good evidence of the +inefficient state of our navy in King Charles's reign. Witness the +following extract. '<span class="smcap">Lyme</span>, <i>April 21, 1679</i>.—Yesterday, a small vessel +called the <i>William and Sarah</i>, bound for Holland from Morlaix, put in +here to avoid two Turks men-of-war, as he very much suspects them to +be, because he saw them chase a small vessell, who likewise escaped +them. It is reported that some of these pyrats have been as high as +the Isle of Wight, and that Sir Robert Robinson met with five of them, +whom he chased into Brest.' There are many accounts of the pirates of +Sally (Salee), and an account of an engagement with one of them by an +old collier, called the <i>Lisborne Merchant</i>, on her voyage from London +to Lisbon. The description is almost as formidable as Falstaff's with +his men of buckram, and we should have liked a little confirmatory +evidence beyond the narrator's. All our naval feelings of British +supremacy on the water would be gratified by the gallant conduct of +our trading captain.</p> + +<p>'He had the fortune,' the account declares, 'to be set upon by the +admiral of the <i>Argur</i>, of 60 guns, and his consort of 40 guns, the +former with 700 men, and the latter with 500 men. The admiral +immediately boarded the poor merchant, who had only 25 men and 16 +guns, clapping on as many men as they thought sufficient to have +mastered her. But the English entertained them with so much courage, +that they in little time cleared the ship, forcing all the Turks +overboard, with little loss besides that of the master of the ship, +one seaman, a young man who was knockt on the head.' The Turk repeated +his attack, and boarded the merchant; the 'dispute' continues for +about three glasses—the admiral assaults them the third time, but his +men are so terrified, that only 'seaven' durst adventure on board, +whereof six were killed, and the other taken prisoner. 'This done, the +Turks left her to pursue her course, wearing very eminent marks of +that encounter.'</p> + +<p>We are at a loss what to make of this report from Dublin; but perhaps +some more learned authority can explain it: '<i>Dublin, April 9, +1679</i>.—This morning the Lord Lieutenant signed a warrant for the +pardon of Lawry, a Scotch man, minister in the county of Fermanagh, +and his five servants, for killing five notorious Tories in that +countrey, wounding two others to death, as is believed, and takeing +the eighth. The parson killed three of them with his own hand; and +while another of the Tories was going to draw the trigger of his gun +to shoot him, his hand was cut off by one of the parson's servants.' +Here, again, is a singular announcement to be published 'by +authority.' 'A warm report having been spred about of some unusual +effects of witchcraft in the province of Daleicarly, near the best +copper-mines in Suedeland, it is said several persons are sent to make +an enquiry in to the matter of fact, with power to proceed to the +punishment of such persons as shall be found guilty.' In another +number, there has been an inquiry among the Jews in Germany, who were +supposed to have sacrificed young children in their ceremonies.</p> + +<p>The slow growth of the newspaper press from these times is very +remarkable. Even so late as sixty years since, a London paper was a +very meagre and timid affair. Before us lies a copy of the <i>Times</i> of +1797, insignificant in size and appearance. The small modicum of news +is entirely foreign: no brilliant leaders, models of composition—no +fearless correction of abuse, or withering sarcasm of folly. The +parliamentary debates are merely alluded to as with permission, and +the simple propositions said to be advanced and seconded, disputed and +amended. How strange is the comparison suggested with the present +aspect of the <i>Times</i>, or indeed any of the London daylies! We live in +an age of wonders, and not the least of these is the well-written, +well-filled, and capacious-minded newspapers.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="A_SCENE_IN_BOSTON" id="A_SCENE_IN_BOSTON"></a>A SCENE IN BOSTON.</h2> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<p>A coloured girl, eighteen years of age, a few years ago escaped from +slavery in the South. Through scenes of adventure and peril, almost +more strange than fiction can create, she found her way to Boston. She +obtained employment, secured friends, and became a consistent member +of the Methodist church. She became interested in a very worthy young +man of her own complexion, who was a member of the same church. They +were soon married. Their home, though humble, was the abode of piety +and contentment. Industrious, temperate, and frugal, all their wants +were supplied. Seven years passed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[pg 336]</a></span> away. They had two little boys, one +six, and the other four years of age. These children, the sons of a +free father, but of a mother who had been a slave, by the laws of the +Southern States were doomed to their mother's fate. These Boston boys, +born beneath the shadow of Faneuil Hall, the sons of a free citizen of +Boston, and educated in the Boston Free Schools, were, by the +compromises of the constitution, admitted to be slaves, the property +of a South Carolinian planter. The Boston father had no right to his +own sons. The law, however, had long been considered a dead-letter. +This was not to continue. The Fugitive Slave Law was enacted. It +revived the hopes of the slave-owners. A young, healthy, energetic +mother, with two fine boys, was a rich prize. She would make an +excellent mother. Good men began to say: 'We must enforce this law; it +is one of the compromises of the constitution.' Christian ministers +began to preach: 'The voice of law is the voice of God. There is no +higher rule of duty.' As may be supposed, the poor woman was +panic-stricken. Her friends gathered around her, and trembled for her. +Her husband was absent from home, a seaman on board one of the +Liverpool packets. She was afraid to go out of doors, lest some one +from the South should see her, and recognise her. One day, as she was +going to the grocery for some provisions, her quick anxious eye caught +a glimpse of a man prowling around, whom she immediately recognised as +from the vicinity of her old home of slavery. Almost fainting with +terror, she hastened home, and taking her two children by the hand, +fled to the house of a friend. She and her trembling children were hid +in the garret. In less than an hour after her escape, the officer, +with a writ, came for her arrest. It was a dark and stormy day. The +rain, freezing as it fell, swept in floods through the streets of +Boston. Night came, cold, black, and tempestuous. At midnight, her +friends took her in a hack, and conveyed her, with her children, to +the house of her pastor. Hence, after an hour of weeping, for the +voice of prayer had passed away into the sublimity of unutterable +anguish, they conveyed this mother and her children to one of the +Cunard steamers, which fortunately was to sail for Halifax the next +day. They took them in the gloom of midnight, through the +tempest-swept streets, lest the slave-hunter should meet them. Her +brethren and sisters of the church raised a little money from their +scanty means to pay her passage, and to save her, for a few days, from +starving, after her first arrival in the cold land of strangers. Her +husband soon returned to Boston, to find his home desolate, his wife +and children exiles in a foreign land. These facts need no +word-painting.—<i>Burritt's Bond of Brotherhood</i>.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="THE_TONGUE_OF_FIRE" id="THE_TONGUE_OF_FIRE"></a>THE TONGUE OF FIRE.</h2> + +<h4>BY MRS NEWTON CROSLAND.</h4> + +<p class="returnTOC"><a href="#Contents">Return to Table of + Contents</a></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I hear December's biting blast,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">I see the slippery hail-drops fall—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That shot which frost-sprites laughing cast<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In some great Arctic arsenal;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I lean my cheek against the pane,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But start away, it is so chill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And almost pity tree and plain<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For bearing Winter's load of ill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The sombre sky hangs dark and low,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">It looks a couch where mists are born—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A throne whence they in clusters flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Or by the tempest's wrath are torn.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I turn me to the chamber's Heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Low pulsing like a vague desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strike an ebon block apart,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till up there springs a Tongue of Fire!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It hath a jovial roaring tone,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Like one rebuking half in jest—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet ah! I wish there could be shewn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The wisdom that it hath exprest—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or sinking to a lambent glow,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Its arched and silent cavern seems<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A magic glass whereon to shew,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And shape anew, our broken dreams!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I vow the Fiery Tongue hath caught<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Quaint echoes of the passing time;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus laughs it at my idle thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">My longing for a fairer clime:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'So—so you'd like some southern shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To gather flowers the winter through,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if there were on earth no more<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For busy human hands to do!<br /></span> +</div> +<hr class="poem" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And guard your Own!—In this, oh mark<br /></span> +<span class="i1">High duty and the world's far fate;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art poor deluged Europe's Ark,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Her fortunes on Thy Safety wait;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And—couching lion at her feet—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In all her matron graces drest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let free Britannia smiling greet<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Her radiant Daughter of the West!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The broad Atlantic flows between,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But love can bridge the ends of earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all the lands my race have seen,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">These two the rest are more than worth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not for their skies, or fruits, or gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But for their sturdy growth of Man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who walks erect, and will not hold<br /></span> +<span class="i1">His life beneath a tyrant's ban.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Yet do not curl your lips with scorn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That others are not great as ye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your fathers fought ere ye were born,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And died that thus it now should be!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I tell ye, spirits walk unseen,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Excepting by the soul's strong sight;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hampden and Washington, I ween,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Are leaders yet in Freedom's fight!'<br /></span> +</div> +<hr class="poem" /> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It ceased; but oh, Its words of fire<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Had dropped upon my Northman's heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rebuked a moment's vain desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And slain it like a hunter's dart;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, welcome now the slippery hail,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And welcome winter's biting blast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ye braced our sires; they still prevail<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Who triumphed through the stormy past.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And as beside the ruddy blaze<br /></span> +<span class="i1">We muse or talk of mighty things,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In clarion tone one little phrase<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Still through the heart's deep echoes rings:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Our Hearths—our Homes—beyond compare!'<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Those charmèd circles whence there rise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The steadfast souls that do and dare,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And shape a Nation's destinies!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There, pile the fagots high—aslant—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And let them crackle out their hymn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is no logic—that I grant—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In wilful words of woman's whim:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet I feel the links that glide<br /></span> +<span class="i1">'Twixt English Hearths and Liberty,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And track how We—our truest pride—<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>First</i> sheltered Her Divinity!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—<i>Ladies' Companion</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p>Printed and Published by W. and R. <span class="smcap">Chambers</span>, High Street, Edinburgh. +Also sold by W. S. <span class="smcap">Orr</span>, Amen Corner, London; D. N. <span class="smcap">Chambers</span>, 55 West +Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. <span class="smcap">M'Glashan</span>, 50 Upper Sackville Street, +Dublin.—Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to +<span class="smcap">Maxwell & Co.</span>, 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all +applications respecting their insertion must be made.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH *** + +***** This file should be named 18853-h.htm or 18853-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/5/18853/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. 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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 + + +Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 + Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Robert Chambers + William Chambers + +Release Date: July 17, 2006 [EBook #18853] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. Shiffer and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL + + CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S + INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c. + + + No. 438. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d._ + + + + +PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER. + + +From the time of King Solomon downwards, laughter has been the subject +of pretty general abuse. Even the laughers themselves sometimes +vituperate the cachinnation they indulge in, and many of them + + ----'laugh in such a sort, + As if they mocked themselves, and scorned the spirit + That could be moved to laugh at anything.' + +The general notion is, that laughter is childish, and unworthy the +gravity of adult life. Grown men, we say, have more to do than to +laugh; and the wiser sort of them leave such an unseemly contortion of +the muscles to babes and blockheads. + +We have a suspicion that there is something wrong here--that the world +is mistaken not only in its reasonings, but its facts. To assign +laughter to an early period of life, is to go contrary to observation +and experience. There is not so grave an animal in this world as the +human baby. It will weep, when it has got the length of tears, by the +pailful; it will clench its fists, distort its face into a hideous +expression of anguish, and scream itself into convulsions. It has not +yet come up to a laugh. The little savage must be educated by +circumstances, and tamed by the contact of civilisation, before it +rises to the greater functions of its being. Nay, we have sometimes +received the idea from its choked and tuneless screams, that _they_ +were imperfect attempts at laughter. It feels enjoyment as well as +pain, but has only one way of expressing both. + +Then, look at the baby when it has turned into a little boy or girl, +and come up in some degree to the cachinnation. The laughter is still +only rudimental: it is not genuine laughter. It expresses triumph, +scorn, passion--anything but a feeling of natural amusement. It is +provoked by misfortune, by bodily infirmities, by the writhings of +agonised animals; and it indicates either a sense of power or a +selfish feeling of exemption from suffering. The 'light-hearted laugh +of children!' What a mistake! Observe the gravity of their sports. +They are masters or mistresses, with the care of a family upon their +hands; and they take especial delight in correcting their children +with severity. They are washer-women, housemaids, cooks; soldiers, +policemen, postmen; coach, horsemen, and horses, by turns; and in all +these characters they scour, sweep, fry, fight, pursue, carry, whirl, +ride, and are ridden, without changing a muscle. + +At the games of the young people there is much shouting, argument, +vituperation--but no laughter. A game is a serious business with a +boy, and he derives from it excitement, but no amusement. If he laughs +at all, it is at something quite distinct from the purpose of the +sport: for instance, when one of his comrades has his nose broken by +the ball, or when the feet of another make off from him on the ice, +and he comes down upon his back like a thunderbolt. On such occasions, +the laugh of a boy puts us in mind of the laugh of a hyaena: it is, in +fact, the broken, asthmatic roar of a beast of prey. + +It would thus appear that the common charge brought against laughter, +of being something babyish, or childish, or boyish--something properly +appertaining to early life--is unfounded. But we of course must not be +understood to speak of what is technically called giggling, which +proceeds more from a looseness of the structures than from any +sensation of amusement. Many young persons are continually on the +giggle till their muscles strengthen; and indeed, when a company of +them are met together, the affection, aggravated by emulation, +acquires the loudness of laughter, when it may be likened, in +Scripture phrase, to the crackling of thorns. What we mean is a +regular guffaw; that explosion of high spirits, and the feeling of +joyous excitement, which is commonly written ha! ha! ha! This is +altogether unknown in babyhood; in boyhood, it exists only in its +rudiments; and it does not reach its full development till adolescence +ripens into manhood. + +This train of thought was suggested to us a few evenings ago, by the +conduct of a party of eight or ten individuals, who meet periodically +for the purpose of philosophical inquiry. Their subject is a very +grave one. Their object is to mould into a science that which as yet +is only a vague, formless, and obscure department of knowledge; and +they proceed in the most cautious manner from point to point, from +axiom to axiom--debating at every step, and coming to no decision +without unanimous conviction. Some are professors of the university, +devoted to abstruse studies; some are clergymen; and some authors and +artists. Now, at the meeting in question--which we take merely as an +example, for all are alike--when the hour struck which terminates +their proceedings for the evening, the jaded philosophers retired to +the refreshment-room; and here a scene of remarkable contrast +occurred. Instead of a single deep, low, earnest voice, alternating +with a profound silence, an absolute roar of merriment began, with the +suddenness of an explosion of gunpowder. Jests, bon-mots, anecdotes, +barbarous plays upon words--the more atrocious the better--flew round +the table; and a joyous and almost continuous ha! ha! ha! made the +ceiling ring. This, we venture to say it, _was_ laughter--genuine, +unmistakable laughter, proceeding from no sense of triumph, from no +self-gratulation, and mingled with no bad feeling of any kind. It was +a spontaneous effort of nature, coming from the head as well as the +heart: an unbending of the bow, a reaction from study, which study +alone could occasion, and which could occur only in adult life. + +There are some people who cannot laugh, but these are not necessarily +either morose or stupid. They may laugh in their heart, and with their +eyes, although by some unlucky fatality, they have not the gift of +oral cachinnation. Such persons are to be pitied; for laughter in +grown people is a substitute devised by nature for the screams and +shouts of boyhood, by which the lungs are strengthened and the health +preserved. As the intellect ripens, that shouting ceases, and we learn +to laugh as we learn to reason. The society we have mentioned studied +the harder the more they laughed, and they laughed the more the harder +they studied. Each, of course, to be of use, must be in its own place. +A laugh in the midst of the study would have been a profanation; a +grave look in the midst of the merriment would have been an insult to +the good sense of the company. + +If there are some people who cannot laugh, there are others who will +not. It is not, however, that they are ashamed of being grown men, and +want to go back to babyhood, for by some extraordinary perversity, +they fancy unalterable gravity to be the distinguishing characteristic +of wisdom. In a merry company, they present the appearance of a Red +Indian whitewashed, and look on at the strange ways of their +neighbours without betraying even the faintest spark of sympathy or +intelligence. These are children of a larger growth, and have not yet +acquired sense enough to laugh. Like the savage, they are afraid of +compromising their dignity, or, to use their own words, of making +fools of themselves. For our part, we never see a man afraid of making +a fool of himself at the right season, without setting him down as a +fool ready made. + +A woman has no natural grace more bewitching than a sweet laugh. It is +like the sound of flutes on the water. It leaps from her heart in a +clear, sparkling rill; and the heart that hears it feels as if bathed +in the cool, exhilarating spring. Have you ever pursued an unseen +fugitive through the trees, led on by her fairy laugh; now here, now +there--now lost, now found? We have. And we are pursuing that +wandering voice to this day. Sometimes it comes to us in the midst of +care, or sorrow, or irksome business; and then we turn away, and +listen, and hear it ringing through the room like a silver bell, with +power to scare away the ill spirits of the mind. How much we owe to +that sweet laugh! It turns the prose of our life into poetry; it +flings showers of sunshine over the darksome wood in which we are +travelling; it touches with light even our sleep, which is no more the +image of death, but gemmed with dreams that are the shadows of +immortality. + +But our song, like Dibdin's, 'means more than it says;' for a man, as +we have stated, may laugh, and yet the cachinnation be wanting. His +heart laughs, and his eyes are filled with that kindly, sympathetic +smile which inspires friendship and confidence. On the sympathy +within, these external phenomena depend; and this sympathy it is which +keeps societies of men together, and is the true freemasonry of the +good and wise. It is an imperfect sympathy that grants only +sympathetic tears: we must join in the mirth as well as melancholy of +our neighbours. If our countrymen laughed more, they would not only be +happier, but better; and if philanthropists would provide amusements +for the people, they would be saved the trouble and expense of their +fruitless war against public-houses. This is an indisputable +proposition. The French and Italians, with wine growing at their +doors, and spirits almost as cheap as beer in England, are sober +nations. How comes this? The laugh will answer that leaps up from +group after group--the dance on the village-green--the family dinner +under the trees--the thousand merry-meetings that invigorate industry, +by serving as a relief to the business of life. Without these, +business is care; and it is from care, not from amusement, men fly to +the bottle. + +The common mistake is to associate the idea of amusement with error of +every kind; and this piece of moral asceticism is given forth as true +wisdom, and, from sheer want of examination, is very generally +received as such. A place of amusement concentrates a crowd, and +whatever excesses may be committed, being confined to a small space, +stand more prominently forward than at other times. This is all. The +excesses are really fewer--far fewer--in proportion to the number +assembled, than if no gathering had taken place. How can it be +otherwise? The amusement is itself the excitement which the wearied +heart longs for; it is the reaction which nature seeks; and in the +comparatively few instances of a coarser intoxication being +superadded, we see only the craving of depraved habit--a habit +engendered, in all probability, by the _want_ of amusement. + +No, good friends, let us laugh sometimes, if you love us. A dangerous +character is of another kidney, as Caesar knew to his cost:-- + + 'He loves no plays, + As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music; + Seldom he laughs;' + +and when he does, it is on the wrong side of his mouth. + +Let us be wiser. Let us laugh in fitting time and place, silently or +aloud, each after his nature. Let us enjoy an innocent reaction rather +than a guilty one, since reaction there must be. The bow that is +always bent loses its elasticity, and becomes useless. + + + + +MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.[1] + + +The authoress of _Woman in the Nineteenth Century_, known also in this +country by her _Papers on Literature and Art_, occupied among her own +people a station as notable as that of De Stael among the French, or +of Rahel von Ense in Germany. Mystic and transcendental as she was, +her writings teem with proof of original power, and are the expression +of a thoughtful and energetic, if also a wayward and undisciplined, +mind. One of the two compilers of these Memoirs (Emerson and W. H. +Channing) observes, that his first impression of her was that of a +'Yankee Corinna;' and such is not unlikely to be the last impression +of ordinary readers, ourselves among the number. In a letter, dated +1841, we find her saying: 'I feel all Italy glowing beneath the Saxon +crust'--an apt illustration of her mental structure and tone of +sentiment, compounded of New Worldedness, as represented by Margaret +Fuller, and of the feelings of Southern Europe, as embodied in the +Marchesa Ossoli. Without at this time pausing to review her literary +position, and her influence upon contemporary minds, we proceed to +draw from these interesting, but frequently eccentric and +extravagantly worded Memoirs, a sketch of her remarkable life-history. + +Margaret Fuller was born at Cambridge-Port, Massachusetts, in May +1810. Her father was a shrewd, practical, hard-headed lawyer, whose +love for his wife 'was the green spot on which he stood apart from the +commonplaces of a mere bread-winning, bread-bestowing existence.' That +wife is described as a fair and flower-like nature, bound by one law +with the blue sky, the dew, and the frolic birds. 'Of all persons whom +I have known, she had in her most of the angelic--of that spontaneous +love for every living thing, for man, and beast, and tree, which +restores the Golden Age.'[2] Mr Fuller, in undertaking the education +of his daughter, committed the common error of excessive +stimulation--thinking to gain time by forwarding the intellect as +early as possible. He was himself a scholar, and hoped to make her the +heir of all he knew, and of as much more as might be elsewhere +attained. He was a severe and exacting disciplinarian, and permanently +marred the nervous system of his child by the system he adopted of +requiring her to recite her tasks on his return home at night, which +was frequently very late. Hence a premature development of the brain, +which, while it made her a youthful prodigy by day--one such youthful +prodigy, it has been justly said, is often the pest of a whole +neighbourhood--rendered her the nightly victim of spectral illusions, +somnambulism, &c.; checked her growth; and eventually brought on +continual headaches, weakness, and various nervous affections. As soon +as the light was removed from her chamber at night, this ill-tended +girl was haunted by colossal faces, that advanced slowly towards her, +the eyes dilating, and each feature swelling loathsomely as they came; +till at last, when they were about to close upon her, she started up +with a shriek, which drove them away, but only to return when she lay +down again. 'No wonder the child arose and walked in her sleep, +moaning all over the house, till once, when they heard her, and came +and waked her, and she told what she had dreamed, her father sharply +bade her "leave off thinking of such nonsense, or she would be +crazy"--never knowing that he was himself the cause of all these +horrors of the night.' Her home seems to have been deficient in the +charms and associations appropriate to childhood. Finding no relief +from without, her already overexcited mind was driven for refuge from +itself to the world of books. She tells us she was taught Latin and +English grammar at the same time; in Latin, which she began to read at +six years old, her father, and subsequently a tutor, trained her to a +high degree of precision, expecting her to understand the mechanism of +the language thoroughly, and to translate it tersely and +unhesitatingly, with the definite clearness of one perfectly _au fait_ +in the philosophy of the classics. Thus she became imbued with an +abiding interest in the genius of old Rome--'the power of will, the +dignity of a fixed purpose'--where man takes a 'noble bronze in camps +and battle-fields,' his brow well furrowed by the 'wrinkles of +council,' and his eye 'cutting its way like the sword;' and thence she +loved to escape, at Ovid's behest, to the enchanted gardens of the +Greek mythology, to the gods and nymphs born of the sunbeam, the wave, +the shadows on the hill--delighted to realise in those Greek forms the +faith of a refined and intense childhood. Reading was now to her a +habit and a passion. Its only rival attraction was the 'dear little +garden' behind the house, where the best hours of her lonely +child-life were spent. Within the house, everything, she says, was +socially utilitarian; her books told of a proud world, but in another +temper were the teachings of the little garden, where her thoughts +could lie callow in the nest, and only be fed and kept warm, not +called to fly or sing before the time. A range of blue hills, at about +twelve miles' distance, allured her to reverie, and bred within her +thoughts _not_ too deep for tears. The books which exercised most +power over her at this period were Shakspeare, Cervantes, and +Moliere--all three students of the 'natural history of man,' and +inspired by fact, not fancy; reconstructing the world from materials +which they collected on every side, not spinning from the desires of +their own special natures; and accordingly teaching her, their +open-eyed disciple, to distrust all invention which is not based on a +wide experience, but, as she confesses, also doing her harm, since the +child, fed with meat instead of milk, becomes too soon mature. For a +few months, this bookish life was interrupted, or varied, by the +presence of an English lady, whom Margaret invested with ideal +perfections as her 'first friend,' and whom she worshipped as a star +from the east--a morning-star; and at whose departure she fell into a +profound depression. Her father sought to dispel this rooted +melancholy, by sending her to school--a destiny from which her whole +nature revolted, as something alien to its innermost being and +cherished associations. To school, however, she went, and at first +captivated, and then scandalised her fellow-pupils by her strange +ways. Now, she surprised them by her physical faculty of rivalling the +spinning dervishes of the East--now, by declaiming verses, and acting +a whole _repertoire_ of parts, both laughter-raising and +tear-compelling--now, by waking in the night, and cheating her +restlessness by inventions that alternately diverted and teased her +companions. She was always devising means to infringe upon the +school-room routine. This involved her at last in a trouble, from +which she was only extricated by the judicious tenderness of her +teacher--the circumstances attending which 'crisis' are detailed at +length in her story of 'Mariana.' + +Her personal appearance at this time, and for some following years, is +described by one of her friends as being that of a blooming girl of a +florid complexion and vigorous health, with a tendency to robustness, +which she unwisely endeavoured to suppress or conceal at the price of +much future suffering. With no pretensions to beauty then, or at any +time, her face was one that attracted, but baffled physiognomical art. +'She escaped the reproach of positive plainness, by her blond and +abundant hair, by her excellent teeth, by her sparkling, busy eyes, +which, though usually half-closed from near-sightedness, shot piercing +glances at those with whom she conversed, and, most of all, by the +very peculiar and graceful carriage of her head and neck.' In +conversation she was already distinguished, though addicted to +'quizzing'--the not unreasonable ground of unpopularity with her +female friends. Emerson alludes to her dangerous reputation for +satire, which, in addition to her great scholarship, made the women +dislike one who despised them, and the men cavil at her as 'carrying +too many guns.' A fragment from a letter in her sixteenth year will +illustrate her pursuits at that period:--'I rise a little before five, +walk an hour, and then practise on the piano till seven, when we +breakfast. Next, I read French--Sismondi's _Literature of Southern +Europe_--till eight; then, two or three lectures in Brown's +_Philosophy_. About half-past nine, I go to Mr Perkins's school, and +study Greek till twelve, when, the school being dismissed, I recite, +go home, and practise again till dinner, at two. Sometimes, if the +conversation is very agreeable, I lounge for half an hour over the +dessert, though rarely so lavish of time. Then, when I can, I read two +hours in Italian, but I am often interrupted. At six, I walk, or take +a drive. Before going to bed, I play or sing, for half an hour or so, +to make all sleepy, and, about eleven, retire to write a little while +in my journal, exercises on what I have read, or a series of +characteristics which I am filling up according to advice.' Greek, +French, Italian, metaphysics, and private authorship--pretty well for +a miss in her teens, and surely a promissory-note on the _bas bleu_ +joint-stock company!--a note which she discharged in full when it +became due. Next year (1826), we find her studying Mme de Stael, +Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and Spanish ballads, 'with great delight.' +Anon she is engrossed with the elder Italian poets, from Berni down to +Pulci and Politian; then with Locke and the ontologists; then with the +_opera omnia_ of Sir William Temple. She pursued at this time no +systematic study, but 'read with the heart, and was learning more +from social experience than from books.' The interval of her life, +between sixteen and twenty-five, is characterised by one of her +biographers as a period of 'preponderating sentimentality, of romance +and dreams, of yearning and of passion.' While residing at Cambridge, +she suffered from profound despondency--conscious of the want of a +home for her heart. A sterner schooling awaited her at Groton, whither +her father removed in 1833. Here he died suddenly of cholera in 1835. +Now she was taught the miserable perplexities of a family that has +lost its head, and was called to tread a path for which, as she says, +she had no skill and no call, except that it must be trodden by some +one, and she alone was ready. In 1836 she went to Boston, to teach +Latin and French in an academy of local repute; and in the ensuing +year she accepted a 'very favourable offer,' to become 'lady-superior' +in an educational institution at Providence, where she seems to have +exercised an influence analogous to that of Dr Arnold at +Rugby--treating her pupils as ladies, and thus making them anxious to +prove that they deserved to be so treated. + +By this time, she had attracted around her many and devoted friends. +Her conversational powers were of a high order, by common consent. Mr +Hedge describes her speech as remarkably fluent and correct; but +deriving its strength not from fluency, choice diction, wit, or +sentiment, but from accuracy of statement, keen discrimination, and a +certain weight of judgment; together with rhetorical finish, it had an +air of spontaneity which made it seem the grace of the moment: so that +he says, 'I do not remember that the vulgar charge of talking "like a +book" was ever fastened upon her, although, by her precision, she +might seem to have incurred it.' The excitement of the presence of +living persons seems to have energised her whole being. 'I need to be +called out,' are her words, 'and never think alone, without imagining +some companion. It is my habit, and bespeaks a second-rate mind.' And +again: 'After all, this writing,' she says in a letter, 'is mighty +dead. Oh, for my dear old Greeks, who talked everything--not to shine +as in the Parisian saloons, but to learn, to teach, to vent the heart, +to clear the head!' Mr Alcott of Boston considered her the most +brilliant talker of the day. Miss Martineau was fascinated by the same +charm. It is thus characterised by the author of _Representative Men_: +'Talent, memory, wit, stern introspection, poetic play, religion, the +finest personal feeling, the aspects of the future, each followed each +in full activity, and left me, I remember, enriched and sometimes +astonished by the gifts of my guest.' Her self-complacency staggered +many at first--as when she spoke, in the quietest manner, of the girls +she had formed, the young men who owed everything to her, the fine +companions she had long ago exhausted. 'I now know,' she has been +heard to say in the coolest style, 'all the people worth knowing in +America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.' Well may Mr +Emerson talk of her letting slip phrases that betrayed the presence of +'a rather mountainous ME.' Such phrases abound in her conversation and +correspondence--mountainous enough to be a hill of offence to the +uninitiated and untranscendental. At anyrate, there was no affectation +in this; she thoroughly believed in her own superiority; her +subscription to _that_ creed was implicit and _ex animo_. Nor do we +detect affectation in her most notable vagaries and crotchets. She +loved the truth, and spoke it out--we were about to write, manfully; +and why not? At heart, she was, to use the words of an intimate and +discerning friend, a right brave and heroic woman--shrinking from no +duty because of feeble nerves. Numerous illustrations of this occur in +the volumes before us. Thus we find her going from a bridal of passing +joyfulness to attend a near relative during a formidable surgical +operation--or drawing five hundred dollars to bestow, on a New-York +'ne'er-do-weel,' half-patriot, half-author, always in such depths of +distress, and with such squadrons of enemies that no charity could +relieve, no intervention save him. + +In 1839, she removed from Groton, with her mother and family, to +Jamaica Plain, a few miles from Boston; and thence, shortly, to +Cambridge and New York. Boston, however, was her _point d'appui_, and +in it she formed acquaintances of every class, the most utilitarian +and the most idealistic. In 1839, she published a translation of +Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann; in 1841, the Letters of +Bettina; in 1843, the _Summer on the Lakes_--a narrative of her tour +to Lake Superior and Michigan. During the same period she was editor +of the _Dial_, since conducted by Emerson and Ripley, and in which +appeared her papers on Goethe and Beethoven, the Rhine, the Romaic +Ballads, John Sterling's Poems, &c. + +Exhausted by continuous exertion in teaching and writing for the +press, Miss Fuller, in 1844, sought refreshment and health in change +of scene; and, desiring rather new employments than cessation from +work, she accepted a liberal offer from Mr Horace Greeley of New York, +to become a regular contributor to the _Tribune_; and for that purpose +to take up her abode in his house, first spending some time in the +Highlands of the Hudson. At New York, she took an active interest, +after Mrs Fry's manner, in the various benevolent institutions, and +especially the prisons on Blackwell's Island. For more than a year she +wrote regularly for the _Tribune_, 'always freshly, vigorously, but +not always clearly.' The notice attracted by her articles insured +fresh hosts of acquaintances, and she became a distinguished character +at Miss Lynch's reunions, and at literary soirees of a similar order. +In 1846, she left her native land--for ever, as the melancholy event +proved--to join Mr and Mrs Spring in a European tour. Her letters home +contain much pleasant gossip about some of the Old-World notabilities. +Thus she records her interviews with Wordsworth in his Rydal retreat, +with Dr Chalmers, Dr Andrew Combe, Mr De Quincey, the Howitts, &c. She +visited Paris in the winter, and became acquainted with Lamennais, +Beranger, Mme Dudevant, and others. Thence, in the spring of 1847, she +went to Italy, where she remained until she embarked in 1850 on board +that doomed ship, the _Elizabeth_. As a resident in Rome, her safety +was seriously imperiled during the French siege of 1849. She was +appointed by the 'Roman Commission for the succour of the wounded,' to +the superintendence of an hospital, and all along took the liveliest +interest in the fortunes of Mazzini and the republic. She was then a +wife and a mother, having been married privately to the Marquis +Ossoli, a Roman, 'of a noble but impoverished house,' whom she +described, in a letter to her mother, as 'not in any respect such a +person as people in general would expect to find with her,' being a +man 'absolutely ignorant of books, and with no enthusiasm of +character,' but endowed with excellent practical sense, a nice sense +of duty, native refinement, and much sweetness of temper. The peculiar +circumstances attending the marriage in that country, and at that +agitated crisis, involved Margaret in numerous afflictions, and taxed +her powers of endurance to the very uttermost. + +She had to suffer compulsory separation from husband and child--the +one in hourly peril of a bloody death, the other neglected and pining +away in the hands of strangers: penury, loneliness, prostrating +sickness, and treachery on the part of those around her, were +meanwhile her own lot in the land of strangers. How this season of +trial affected her character, may be inferred from the remarks of her +friend Mrs Story, then sojourning in Italy, who says, that in Boston +she had regarded Margaret as a person on intellectual stilts, with a +large share of arrogance, and little sweetness of temper; and adds: +'How unlike to this was she now!--so delicate, so simple, confiding, +and affectionate; with a true womanly heart and soul, sensitive and +generous, and, what was to me a still greater surprise, possessed of +so broad a charity, that she could cover with its mantle the faults +and defects of all about her.' Her devotion to her husband, and her +passionate attachment to her little Angelo, were exhibited in the +liveliest colour: the influence she exercised, too, by love and +sympathy, over Italians of every class with whom she came in contact, +appears of a kind more tender, chastened, and womanly than that which +previously characterised her. When the republican cause at Rome left +no hope of present restoration, Margaret found a tranquil refuge in +Florence, devoting her mornings to literary labours, and her evenings +to social intercourse with cultivated natives and a few foreign +visitors, among whom the Brownings occupied a distinguished place. +Greatly straitened in means at this time, the repose she and her +husband enjoyed at Florence, in their small and scantily-furnished +room, seems to have been peculiarly grateful to both. Soon, however, +arrangements were made for their departure to the United States; for +Margaret was heart-weary at the political reaction in Europe, and the +pecuniary expediency of publishing to advantage her chronicles of the +revolution, seconded by a yearning to see her family and friends once +more, constrained to this step. + +From motives of economy, they took passage in a merchantman from +Leghorn, the _Elizabeth_, the expense being one-half what a return by +way of France would have been. The remonstrances of her acquaintance, +founded on the fatigues of a two months' voyage--the comparative +insecurity of such a bark--the exposed position of the cabin (on +deck)--and so on, were not unaided by Margaret's own presentiments. +Ossoli, when a boy, had been told by a fortune-teller, to 'beware of +the sea,' and this was the first ship he had ever set his foot in. In +a letter where she describes herself 'suffering, as never before, all +the horrors of indecision,' his wife expresses a fervent prayer that +it 'may not be my lot to lose my boy at sea, either by unsolaced +illness, or amid the howling waves; or if so, that Ossoli, Angelo, and +I may go together, and that the anguish may be brief.' That '_or if +so_' is affecting--and was realised, except, indeed, that the anguish +was _not_ brief, for it lasted twelve terrible hours--a long communion +face to face with Death! The bark sailed May 17, 1850. Captain Hasty, +'so fine a model of the New-England seaman,' inspired the passengers +with cheerful confidence, and for a few days all went prosperously. +But early in June, Captain Hasty died of confluent small-pox. The +child Angelino caught it, but recovered, and won all hearts by his +playful innocence, loving especially to be walked up and down in the +arms of the steward, who had just such a boy at home waiting his +arrival. On Thursday, July 15, the _Elizabeth_ was off the Jersey +coast: at evening-tide, a breeze sprang up, which by midnight had +become a hurricane. About four o'clock next morning, she struck on +Fire Island beach, and lay at the mercy of the maddened ocean. Mr +Channing's description of the wreck is a most picturesque narrative, +but too long for quotation. Very touching is the sketch of the Ossoli +group, remaining on board after nearly all the passengers and crew had +perished or escaped to land, which was distant only a few hundred +yards--the infant crying passionately, shivering in the wet, till +soothed and lullabied to sleep by his mother, a calm expectant of +death; and Ossoli tranquillising by counsel and prayer their +affrighted handmaid from Italy; all exchanging kindly partings, and +sending messages home, if any should survive to be their bearer. +Though persons were busy gathering into carts, on the shore, whatever +spoil was stranded, no life-boat appeared; and the few remaining on +the wreck were now fain to trust themselves to the rioting surf. +Margaret would not go alone. With her husband and attendant (Celeste), +she was just about to try the planks prepared by four seamen, and the +steward had just taken little Nino in his arms, pledged to save him or +die, 'when a sea struck the forecastle, and the foremast fell, +carrying with it the deck and all upon it. The steward and Angelino +were washed upon the beach, both dead, though warm, some twenty +minutes after. Celeste and Ossoli were caught for a moment by the +rigging, but the next wave swallowed them up. Margaret sank at once. +When last seen, she had been seated at the foot of the foremast, still +clad in her white night-dress, with her hair fallen loose upon her +shoulders.' No trace was found of her manuscript on Italy: her +love-correspondence with Ossoli was the only relic--the last memorial +of that howling hurricane, pitiless sea, wreck on a sand-bar, an idle +life-boat, beach-pirates, and not one friend! + +With the exception of certain sections of laboured, writhing +wordiness, the feverish restlessness and hectic symptoms of which are +but too familiar to persons read in the literature of second-rate +transcendentalism, these volumes comprise a large amount of matter +that will well repay perusal, and portray a character of no ordinary +type--a 'large-brained woman and large-hearted man.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 3 vols. London: Bentley. 1852. + +[2] Mr Fuller's Autobiography, which comprises the first sixty pages +of these Memoirs. + + + + +THE COUNTER-STROKE. + + +Just after breakfast one fine spring morning in 1837, an advertisement +in the _Times_ for a curate caught and fixed my attention. The salary +was sufficiently remunerative for a bachelor, and the parish, as I +personally knew, one of the most pleasantly situated in all +Somersetshire. Having said that, the reader will readily understand +that it could not have been a hundred miles from Taunton. I instantly +wrote, enclosing testimonials, with which the Rev. Mr Townley, the +rector, was so entirely satisfied, that the return-post brought me a +positive engagement, unclogged with the slightest objection to one or +two subsidiary items I had stipulated for, and accompanied by an +invitation to make the rectory my home till I could conveniently suit +myself elsewhere. This was both kind and handsome; and the next day +but one I took coach, with a light heart, for my new destination. It +thus happened that I became acquainted, and in some degree mixed up, +with the train of events it is my present purpose to relate. + +The rector I found to be a stout, portly gentleman, whose years +already reached to between sixty and seventy. So many winters, +although they had plentifully besprinkled his hair with gray, shone +out with ruddy brightness in his still handsome face, and keen, +kindly, bright-hazel eyes; and his voice, hearty and ringing, had not +as yet one quaver of age in it. I met him at breakfast on the morning +after my arrival, and his reception of me was most friendly. We had +spoken together but for a few minutes, when one of the French windows, +that led from the breakfast-room into a shrubbery and flower-garden, +gently opened and admitted a lady, just then, as I afterwards learned, +in her nineteenth spring. I use this term almost unconsciously, for I +cannot even now, in the glowing summer of her life, dissociate her +image from that season of youth and joyousness. She was introduced to +me, with old-fashioned simplicity, as 'My grand-daughter, Agnes +Townley.' It is difficult to look at beauty through other men's eyes, +and, in the present instance, I feel that I should fail miserably in +the endeavour to stamp upon this blank, dead paper, any adequate idea +of the fresh loveliness, the rose-bud beauty of that young girl. I +will merely say, that her perfectly Grecian head, wreathed with wavy +_bandeaux_ of bright hair, undulating with golden light, vividly +brought to my mind Raphael's halo-tinted portraitures of the +Virgin--with this difference, that in place of the holy calm and +resignation of the painting, there was in Agnes Townley a sparkling +youth and life, that even amidst the heat and glare of a crowded +ball-room or of a theatre, irresistibly suggested and recalled the +freshness and perfume of the morning--of a cloudless, rosy morning of +May. And, far higher charm than feature-beauty, however exquisite, a +sweetness of disposition, a kind gentleness of mind and temper, was +evidenced in every line of her face, in every accent of the +low-pitched, silver voice, that breathed through lips made only to +smile. + +Let me own, that I was greatly struck by so remarkable a combination +of rare endowments; and this, I think, the sharp-eyed rector must have +perceived, or he might not perhaps have been so immediately +communicative with respect to the near prospects of his idolised +grandchild, as he was the moment the young lady, after presiding at +the breakfast-table, had withdrawn. + +'We shall have gay doings, Mr Tyrrel, at the rectory shortly,' he +said. 'Next Monday three weeks will, with the blessing of God, be +Agnes Townley's wedding-day.' + +'Wedding-day!' + +'Yes,' rejoined the rector, turning towards and examining some flowers +which Miss Townley had brought in and placed on the table. 'Yes, it +has been for some time settled that Agnes shall on that day be united +in holy wedlock to Mr Arbuthnot.' + +'Mr Arbuthnot of Elm Park?' + +'A great match, is it not, in a worldly point of view?' replied Mr +Townley, with a pleasant smile at the tone of my exclamation. 'And +much better than that: Robert Arbuthnot is a young man of a high and +noble nature, as well as devotedly attached to Agnes. He will, I doubt +not, prove in every respect a husband deserving and worthy of her; and +that from the lips of a doting old grandpapa must be esteemed high +praise. You will see him presently.' + +I did see him often, and quite agreed in the rector's estimate of his +future grandson-in-law. I have not frequently seen a finer-looking +young man--his age was twenty-six; and certainly one of a more +honourable and kindly spirit, of a more genial temper than he, has +never come within my observation. He had drawn a great prize in the +matrimonial lottery, and, I felt, deserved his high fortune. + +They were married at the time agreed upon, and the day was kept not +only at Elm Park, and in its neighbourhood, but throughout 'our' +parish, as a general holiday. And, strangely enough--at least I have +never met with another instance of the kind--it was held by our entire +female community, high as well as low, that the match was a perfectly +equal one, notwithstanding that wealth and high worldly position were +entirely on the bridegroom's side. In fact, that nobody less in the +social scale than the representative of an old territorial family +ought, in the nature of things, to have aspired to the hand of Agnes +Townley, appeared to have been a foregone conclusion with everybody. +This will give the reader a truer and more vivid impression of the +bride, than any words or colours I might use. + +The days, weeks, months of wedded life flew over Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot +without a cloud, save a few dark but transitory ones which I saw now +and then flit over the husband's countenance as the time when he +should become a father drew near, and came to be more and more spoken +of. 'I should not survive her,' said Mr Arbuthnot, one day in reply to +a chance observation of the rector's, 'nor indeed desire to do so.' +The gray-headed man seized and warmly pressed the husband's hand, and +tears of sympathy filled his eyes; yet did he, nevertheless, as in +duty bound, utter grave words on the sinfulness of despair under any +circumstances, and the duty, in all trials, however heavy, of patient +submission to the will of God. But the venerable gentleman spoke in a +hoarse and broken voice, and it was easy to see he _felt_ with Mr +Arbuthnot that the reality of an event, the bare possibility of which +shook them so terribly, were a cross too heavy for human strength to +bear and live. + +It was of course decided that the expected heir or heiress should be +intrusted to a wet-nurse, and a Mrs Danby, the wife of a miller living +not very far from the rectory, was engaged for that purpose. I had +frequently seen the woman; and her name, as the rector and I were one +evening gossipping over our tea, on some subject or other that I +forget, came up. + +'A likely person,' I remarked; 'healthy, very good-looking, and one +might make oath, a true-hearted creature. But there is withal a +timidity, a frightenedness in her manner at times which, if I may +hazard a perhaps uncharitable conjecture, speaks ill for that smart +husband of hers.' + +'You have hit the mark precisely, my dear sir. Danby is a sorry +fellow, and a domestic tyrant to boot. His wife, who is really a good, +but meek-hearted person, lived with us once. How old do you suppose +her to be?' + +'Five-and-twenty perhaps.' + +'Six years more than that. She has a son of the name of Harper by a +former marriage, who is in his tenth year. Anne wasn't a widow long. +Danby was caught by her good looks, and she by the bait of a +well-provided home. Unless, however, her husband gives up his corn +speculations, she will not, I think, have that much longer.' + +'Corn speculations! Surely Danby has no means adequate to indulgence +in such a game as that?' + +'Not he. But about two years ago he bought, on credit, I believe, a +considerable quantity of wheat, and prices happening to fly suddenly +up just then, he made a large profit. This has quite turned his head, +which, by the by, was never, as Cockneys say, quite rightly screwed +on.' The announcement of a visitor interrupted anything further the +rector might have had to say, and I soon afterwards went home. + +A sad accident occurred about a month subsequent to the foregoing +conversation. The rector was out riding upon a usually quiet horse, +which all at once took it into its head to shy at a scarecrow it must +have seen a score of times, and thereby threw its rider. Help was +fortunately at hand, and the reverend gentleman was instantly conveyed +home, when it was found that his left thigh was broken. Thanks, +however, to his temperate habits, it was before long authoritatively +pronounced that, although it would be a considerable time before he +was released from confinement, it was not probable that the lusty +winter of his life would be shortened by what had happened. +Unfortunately, the accident threatened to have evil consequences in +another quarter. Immediately after it occurred, one Matthews, a busy, +thick-headed lout of a butcher, rode furiously off to Elm Park with +the news. Mrs Arbuthnot, who daily looked to be confined, was walking +with her husband upon the lawn in front of the house, when the great +burly blockhead rode up, and blurted out that the rector had been +thrown from his horse, and it was feared killed! + +The shock of such an announcement was of course overwhelming. A few +hours afterwards, Mrs Arbuthnot gave birth to a healthy male-child; +but the young mother's life, assailed by fever, was for many days +utterly despaired of--for weeks held to tremble so evenly in the +balance, that the slightest adverse circumstance might in a moment +turn the scale deathward. At length the black horizon that seemed to +encompass us so hopelessly, lightened, and afforded the lover-husband +a glimpse and hope of his vanished and well-nigh despaired of Eden. +The promise was fulfilled. I was in the library with Mr Arbuthnot +awaiting the physician's morning report, very anxiously expected at +the rectory, when Dr Lindley entered the apartment in evidently +cheerful mood. + +'You have been causelessly alarmed,' he said. 'There is no fear +whatever of a relapse. Weakness only remains, and that we shall +slowly, perhaps, but certainly, remove.' + +A gleam of lightning seemed to flash over Mr Arbuthnot's expressive +countenance. 'Blessed be God!' he exclaimed. 'And how,' he added, +'shall we manage respecting the child? She asks for it incessantly.' + +Mr Arbuthnot's infant son, I should state, had been consigned +immediately after its birth to the care of Mrs Danby, who had herself +been confined, also with a boy, about a fortnight previously. +Scarlatina being prevalent in the neighbourhood, Mrs Danby was hurried +away with the two children to a place near Bath, almost before she was +able to bear the journey. Mr Arbuthnot had not left his wife for an +hour, and consequently had only seen his child for a few minutes just +after it was born. + +'With respect to the child,' replied Dr Lindley, 'I am of opinion that +Mrs Arbuthnot may see it in a day or two. Say the third day from this, +if all goes well. I think we may venture so far; but I will be +present, for any untoward agitation might be perhaps instantly fatal.' +This point provisionally settled, we all three went our several ways: +I to cheer the still suffering rector with the good news. + +The next day but one, Mr Arbuthnot was in exuberant spirits. 'Dr +Lindley's report is even more favourable than we had anticipated,' he +said; 'and I start to-morrow morning, to bring Mrs Danby and the +child'----The postman's subdued but unmistakable knock interrupted +him. 'The nurse,' he added, 'is very attentive and punctual. She +writes almost every day.' A servant entered with a salver heaped with +letters. Mr Arbuthnot tossed them over eagerly, and seizing one, after +glancing at the post-mark, tore it eagerly open, muttering as +he did so: 'It is not the usual handwriting; but from her, no +doubt'----Merciful God!' I impulsively exclaimed, as I suddenly lifted +my eyes to his. 'What is the matter?' A mortal pallor had spread over +Mr Arbuthnot's before animated features, and he was glaring at the +letter in his hand as if a basilisk had suddenly confronted him. +Another moment, and the muscles of his frame appeared to give way +suddenly, and he dropped heavily into the easy-chair from which he had +risen to take the letters. I was terribly alarmed, and first loosening +his neckerchief, for he seemed choking, I said: 'Let me call some +one;' and I turned to reach the bell, when he instantly seized my +arms, and held me with a grip of iron. 'No--no--no!' he hoarsely +gasped; 'water--water!' There was fortunately some on a side-table. I +handed it to him, and he drank eagerly. It appeared to revive him a +little. He thrust the crumpled letter into his pocket, and said in a +low, quick whisper: 'There is some one coming! Not a word, +remember--not a word!' At the same time, he wheeled his chair half +round, so that his back should be towards the servant we heard +approaching. + +'I am sent, sir,' said Mrs Arbuthnot's maid, 'to ask if the post has +arrived.' + +'Yes,' replied Mr Arbuthnot, with wonderful mastery of his voice. +'Tell your mistress I shall be with her almost immediately, and that +her--her son is quite well.' + +'Mr Tyrrel,' he continued, as soon as the servant was out of hearing, +'there is, I think, a liqueur-stand on the sideboard in the large +dining-room. Would you have the kindness to bring it me, +unobserved--mind that--unobserved by any one?' + +I did as he requested; and the instant I placed the liqueur-frame +before him, he seized the brandy _carafe_, and drank with fierce +eagerness. 'For goodness' sake,' I exclaimed, 'consider what you are +about, Mr Arbuthnot: you will make yourself ill.' + +'No, no,' he answered, after finishing his draught, 'It seems scarcely +stronger than water. But I--I am better now. It was a sudden spasm of +the heart; that's all. The letter,' he added, after a long and painful +pause, during which he eyed me, I thought, with a kind of +suspicion--'the letter you saw me open just now, comes from a +relative, an aunt, who is ill, very ill, and wishes to see me +instantly. You understand?' + +I _did_ understand, or at least I feared that I did too well. I, +however, bowed acquiescence; and he presently rose from his chair, and +strode about the apartment in great agitation, until his wife's +bedroom bell rang. He then stopped suddenly short, shook himself, and +looked anxiously at the reflection of his flushed and varying +countenance in the magnificent chimney-glass. + +'I do not look, I think--or, at least shall not, in a darkened +room--odder, more out of the way--that is, more agitated--than one +might, that one _must_ appear, after hearing of the dangerous illness +of--of--an aunt?' + +'You look better, sir, than you did awhile since.' + +'Yes, yes; much better, much better. I am glad to hear you say so. +That was my wife's bell. She is anxious, no doubt, to see me.' + +He left the apartment; was gone perhaps ten minutes; and when he +returned, was a thought less nervous than before. I rose to go. 'Give +my respects,' he said, 'to the good rector; and as an especial +favour,' he added, with strong emphasis, 'let me ask of you not to +mention to a living soul that you saw me so unmanned as I was just +now; that I swallowed brandy. It would appear so strange, so weak, so +ridiculous.' + +I promised not to do so, and almost immediately left the house, very +painfully affected. His son was, I concluded, either dead or dying, +and he was thus bewilderedly casting about for means of keeping the +terrible, perhaps fatal tidings from his wife. I afterwards heard that +he left Elm Park in a postchaise, about two hours after I came away, +unattended by a single servant! + +He was gone three clear days only, at the end of which he returned +with Mrs Danby and--his son--in florid health, too, and one of the +finest babies of its age--about nine weeks only--I had ever seen. Thus +vanished the air-drawn Doubting Castle and Giant Despair which I had +so hastily conjured up! The cause assigned by Mr Arbuthnot for the +agitation I had witnessed, was doubtless the true one; and yet, and +the thought haunted me for months, years afterwards, he opened only +_one_ letter that morning, and had sent a message to his wife that the +child was well! + +Mrs Danby remained at the Park till the little Robert was weaned, and +was then dismissed very munificently rewarded. Year after year rolled +away without bringing Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot any additional little ones, +and no one, therefore, could feel surprised at the enthusiastic love +of the delighted mother for her handsome, nobly-promising boy. But +that which did astonish me, though no one else, for it seemed that I +alone noticed it, was a strange defect of character which began to +develop itself in Mr Arbuthnot. He was positively jealous of his +wife's affection for their own child! Many and many a time have I +remarked, when he thought himself unobserved, an expression of intense +pain flash from his fine, expressive eyes, at any more than usually +fervent manifestation of the young mother's gushing love for her first +and only born! It was altogether a mystery to me, and I as much as +possible forbore to dwell upon the subject. + +Nine years passed away without bringing any material change to the +parties involved in this narrative, except those which time brings +ordinarily in his train. Young Robert Arbuthnot was a healthy, tall, +fine-looking lad of his age; and his great-grandpapa, the rector, +though not suffering under any actual physical or mental infirmity, +had reached a time of life when the announcement that the golden bowl +is broken, or the silver cord is loosed, may indeed be quick and +sudden, but scarcely unexpected. Things had gone well, too, with the +nurse, Mrs Danby, and her husband; well, at least, after a fashion. +The speculative miller must have made good use of the gift to his wife +for her care of little Arbuthnot, for he had built a genteel house +near the mill, always rode a valuable horse, kept, it was said, a +capital table; and all this, as it seemed, by his clever speculations +in corn and flour, for the ordinary business of the mill was almost +entirely neglected. He had no children of his own, but he had +apparently taken, with much cordiality, to his step-son, a fine lad, +now about eighteen years of age. This greatly grieved the boy's +mother, who dreaded above all things that her son should contract the +evil, dissolute habits of his father-in-law. Latterly, she had become +extremely solicitous to procure the lad a permanent situation abroad, +and this Mr Arbuthnot had promised should be effected at the earliest +opportunity. + +Thus stood affairs on the 16th of October 1846. Mr Arbuthnot was +temporarily absent in Ireland, where he possessed large property, and +was making personal inquiries as to the extent of the potato-rot, not +long before announced. The morning's post had brought a letter to his +wife, with the intelligence that he should reach home that very +evening; and as the rectory was on the direct road to Elm Park, and +her husband would be sure to pull up there, Mrs Arbuthnot came with +her son to pass the afternoon there, and in some slight degree +anticipate her husband's arrival. + +About three o'clock, a chief-clerk of one of the Taunton banks rode up +in a gig to the rectory, and asked to see the Rev. Mr Townley, on +pressing and important business. He was ushered into the library, +where the rector and I were at the moment rather busily engaged. The +clerk said he had been to Elm Park, but not finding either Mr +Arbuthnot or his lady there, he had thought that perhaps the Rev. Mr +Townley might be able to pronounce upon the genuineness of a cheque +for L.300, purporting to be drawn on the Taunton Bank by Mr Arbuthnot, +and which Danby the miller had obtained cash for at Bath. He further +added, that the bank had refused payment, and detained the cheque, +believing it to be a forgery. + +'A forgery!' exclaimed the rector, after merely glancing at the +document. 'No question that it is, and a very clumsily executed one, +too. Besides, Mr Arbuthnot is not yet returned from Ireland.' + +This was sufficient; and the messenger, with many apologies for his +intrusion, withdrew, and hastened back to Taunton. We were still +talking over this sad affair, although some hours had elapsed since +the clerk's departure--in fact, candles had been brought in, and we +were every moment expecting Mr Arbuthnot--when the sound of a horse at +a hasty gallop was heard approaching, and presently the pale and +haggard face of Danby shot by the window at which the rector and +myself were standing. The gate-bell was rung almost immediately +afterwards, and but a brief interval passed before 'Mr Danby' was +announced to be in waiting. The servant had hardly gained the passage +with leave to shew him in, when the impatient visitor rushed rudely +into the room in a state of great, and it seemed angry excitement. + +'What, sir, is the meaning of this ill-mannered intrusion?' demanded +the rector sternly. + +'You have pronounced the cheque I paid away at Bath to be a forgery; +and the officers are, I am told, already at my heels. Mr Arbuthnot, +unfortunately, is not at home, and I am come, therefore, to seek +shelter with you.' + +'Shelter with me, sir!' exclaimed the indignant rector, moving, as he +spoke, towards the bell. 'Out of my house you shall go this instant.' + +The fellow placed his hand upon the reverend gentleman's arm, and +looked with his bloodshot eyes keenly in his face. + +'Don't!' said Danby; 'don't, for the sake of yourself and yours! +Don't! I warn you: or, if you like the phrase better, don't, for the +sake of me and _mine_.' + +'Yours, fellow! Your wife, whom you have so long held in cruel bondage +through her fears for her son, has at last shaken off that chain. +James Harper sailed two days ago from Portsmouth for Bombay. I sent +her the news two hours since.' + +'Ha! Is that indeed so?' cried Danby, with an irrepressible start of +alarm. 'Why, then----But no matter: here, luckily, comes Mrs Arbuthnot +_and her son_. All's right! She will, I know, stand bail for me, and, +if need be, acknowledge the genuineness of her husband's cheque.' + +The fellow's insolence was becoming unbearable, and I was about to +seize and thrust him forcibly from the apartment, when the sound of +wheels was heard outside. 'Hold! one moment,' he cried with fierce +vehemence. 'That is probably the officers: I must be brief, then, and +to the purpose. Pray, madam, do not leave the room for your own sake: +as for you, young sir, I _command_ you to remain!' + +'What! what does he mean?' exclaimed Mrs Arbuthnot bewilderedly, and +at the same time clasping her son--who gazed on Danby with kindled +eyes, and angry boyish defiance--tightly to her side. Did the man's +strange words give form and significance to some dark, shadowy, +indistinct doubt that had previously haunted her at times? I judged +so. The rector appeared similarly confused and shaken, and had sunk +nerveless and terrified upon a sofa. + +'You guess dimly, I see, at what I have to say,' resumed Danby with a +malignant sneer. 'Well, hear it, then, once for all, and then, if you +will, give me up to the officers. Some years ago,' he continued, +coldly and steadily--'some years ago, a woman, a nurse, was placed in +charge of two infant children, both boys: one of these was her own; +the other was the son of rich, proud parents. The woman's husband was +a gay, jolly fellow, who much preferred spending money to earning it, +and just then it happened that he was more than usually hard up. One +afternoon, on visiting his wife, who had removed to a distance, he +found that the rich man's child had sickened of the small-pox, and +that there was no chance of its recovery. A letter containing the sad +news was on a table, which he, the husband, took the liberty to open +and read. After some reflection, suggested by what he had heard of the +lady-mother's state of mind, he recopied the letter, for the sake of +embodying in it a certain suggestion. That letter was duly posted, and +the next day brought the rich man almost in a state of distraction; +but his chief and mastering terror was lest the mother of the already +dead infant should hear, in her then precarious state, of what had +happened. The tidings, he was sure, would kill her. Seeing this, the +cunning husband of the nurse suggested that, for the present, his--the +cunning one's--child might be taken to the lady as her own, and that +the truth could be revealed when she was strong enough to bear it. The +rich man fell into the artful trap, and that which the husband of the +nurse had speculated upon, came to pass even beyond his hopes. The +lady grew to idolise her fancied child--she has, fortunately, had no +other--and now, I think, it would really kill her to part with him. +The rich man could not find it in his heart to undeceive his +wife--every year it became more difficult, more impossible to do so; +and very generously, I must say, has he paid in purse for the +forbearance of the nurse's husband. Well now, then, to sum up: the +nurse was Mrs Danby; the rich, weak husband, Mr Arbuthnot; the +substituted child, that handsome boy--_my son!_' + +A wild scream from Mrs Arbuthnot broke the dread silence which had +accompanied this frightful revelation, echoed by an agonised cry, half +tenderness, half rage, from her husband, who had entered the room +unobserved, and now clasped her passionately in his arms. The +carriage-wheels we had heard were his. It was long before I could +recall with calmness the tumult, terror, and confusion of that scene. +Mr Arbuthnot strove to bear his wife from the apartment, but she would +not be forced away, and kept imploring with frenzied vehemence that +Robert--that her boy should not be taken from her. + +'I have no wish to do so--far from it,' said Danby with gleeful +exultation. 'Only folk must be reasonable, and not threaten their +friends with the hulks'---- + +'Give him anything, anything!' broke in the unhappy lady. 'O Robert! +Robert!' she added with a renewed burst of hysterical grief, 'how +could you deceive me so?' + +'I have been punished, Agnes,' he answered in a husky, broken voice, +'for my well-intending but criminal weakness; cruelly punished by the +ever-present consciousness that this discovery must one day or other +be surely made. What do you want?' he after awhile added with +recovering firmness, addressing Danby. + +'The acknowledgment of the little bit of paper in dispute, of course; +and say a genuine one to the same amount.' + +'Yes, yes,' exclaimed Mrs Arbuthnot, still wildly sobbing, and holding +the terrified boy strained in her embrace, as if she feared he might +be wrenched from her by force. 'Anything--pay him anything!' + +At this moment, chancing to look towards the door of the apartment, I +saw that it was partially opened, and that Danby's wife was listening +there. What might that mean? But what of helpful meaning in such a +case could it have? + +'Be it so, love,' said Mr Arbuthnot soothingly. 'Danby, call to-morrow +at the Park. And now, begone at once.' + +'I was thinking,' resumed the rascal with swelling audacity, 'that we +might as well at the same time come to some permanent arrangement upon +black and white. But never mind: I can always put the screw on; +unless, indeed, you get tired of the young gentleman, and in that +case, I doubt not, he will prove a dutiful and affectionate son----Ah, +devil! What do you here? Begone, or I'll murder you! Begone, do you +hear?' + +His wife had entered, and silently confronted him. 'Your threats, evil +man,' replied the woman quietly, 'have no terrors for me now. My son +is beyond your reach. Oh, Mrs Arbuthnot,' she added, turning towards +and addressing that lady, 'believe not'---- + +Her husband sprang at her with the bound of a panther. 'Silence! Go +home, or I'll strangle'----His own utterance was arrested by the +fierce grasp of Mr Arbuthnot, who seized him by the throat, and hurled +him to the further end of the room. 'Speak on, woman; and quick! +quick! What have you to say?' + +'That your son, dearest lady,' she answered, throwing herself at Mrs +Arbuthnot's feet, 'is as truly your own child as ever son born of +woman!' + +That shout of half-fearful triumph seems even now as I write to ring +in my ears! I _felt_ that the woman's words were words of truth, but I +could not see distinctly: the room whirled round, and the lights +danced before my eyes, but I could hear through all the choking +ecstasy of the mother, and the fury of the baffled felon. + +'The letter,' continued Mrs Danby, 'which my husband found and opened, +would have informed you, sir, of the swiftly approaching death of _my_ +child, and that yours had been carefully kept beyond the reach of +contagion. The letter you received was written without my knowledge or +consent. True it is that, terrified by my husband's threats, and in +some measure reconciled to the wicked imposition by knowing that, +after all, the right child would be in his right place, I afterwards +lent myself to Danby's evil purposes. But I chiefly feared for my son, +whom I fully believed he would not have scrupled to make away with in +revenge for my exposing his profitable fraud. I have sinned; I can +hardly hope to be forgiven, but I have now told the sacred truth.' + +All this was uttered by the repentant woman, but at the time it was +almost wholly unheard by those most interested in the statement. They +only comprehended that they were saved--that the child was theirs in +very truth. Great, abundant, but for the moment, bewildering joy! Mr +Arbuthnot--his beautiful young wife--her own true boy (how could she +for a moment have doubted that he was her own true boy!--you might +read that thought through all her tears, thickly as they fell)--the +aged and half-stunned rector, whilst yet Mrs Danby was speaking, were +exclaiming, sobbing in each other's arms, ay, and praising God too, +with broken voices and incoherent words it may be, but certainly with +fervent, pious, grateful hearts. + +When we had time to look about us, it was found that the felon had +disappeared--escaped. It was well, perhaps, that he had; better, that +he has not been heard of since. + + + + +THE TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE. + + +To all appearance, the abolition of the taxes on the spread of +knowledge through the press is only a matter of time. The principal of +these taxes is the Excise-duty on paper, which, as we have repeatedly +urged, acts most detrimentally on the issue of a cheap class of +publications. The duty next in importance is that which is charged on +advertisements. Our belief is, that a relief from this taxation would +be a prodigious advantage to all departments of trade and commerce, as +well as to various social interests. That the sum of eighteenpence +should be exacted by the state from every person--a poor housemaid, +for example--on advertising for a situation, is, to say the least of +it, inexpressibly shabby. The stamp-duty of one penny on each +newspaper is reckoned to be the third of these taxes on knowledge. +There can be no doubt that this duty is a tax, as applied to those +newspapers which circulate in a locality without going through the +post-office; but, as matters stand, we are inclined to think that much +the larger proportion of newspapers, metropolitan and provincial, +actually are posted, either by the publishers, or by parties sending +their copies to be read at second-hand. It is not quite clear that the +remission of the stamp-duty would be an entire gain; for a postage of +a penny in sending to second, third, and fourth readers--each fresh +hand requiring to adhibit a fresh postage label--might come to a very +much more severe tax than the existing stamp. Much, however, can be +said on both sides; and we desire to let each party state its own +case. + +The _British Quarterly Review_, in an able article on the Newspaper +Stamp and its proposed abolition, argues for that measure on one +particular ground--namely, its certain result in allowing of the +existence of small local papers. The writer says: 'Take the _Leeds +Mercury_, the _Manchester Guardian_, or the _Manchester Examiner_, for +example--all first-class papers, of the largest size allowed by law, +and all giving four-page supplements once a week. In spite of their +immense size, there is not one of these journals which can give a +faithful weekly record of all that is worthy of note in the forty or +fifty towns and villages by which they are surrounded, and through +which these papers circulate. An attempt, indeed, is made to give as +many "Town-Council Meetings," "Board of Guardian Proceedings," +"Temperance Demonstrations," and "Meetings of Rate-payers"--with a due +mixture of change-ringings, friendly anniversaries, elections of +church-wardens, elections of town-councillors, elections of guardians, +offences, accidents, and crimes--as can be crammed, by rapid +abridgment, into a certain number of columns. But after all has been +done in this way that the most skilful and industrious editor, aided +by the most indefatigable sub-editor, can accomplish, or that any +reasonable newspaper reader in any of the smaller towns could possibly +require, there still remains a great number of equally important +events, which are necessarily left unnoticed altogether by the mammoth +journal, for sheer want of space, or given in a form so much abridged +as to render them of little or no value. The people of Oldham are +perhaps waiting with intense anxiety for a long and amusing account of +the "Extraordinary Scene" at the last meeting of the board of poor-law +guardians; or those of Ashton are looking forward with equal interest +to Saturday's paper, for a report of the animated debate in the +town-council on the proposed increase of two policemen for that +borough; or perhaps the news-agents of Rochdale, in anticipation of a +brisk demand, have ordered twice the usual number of papers because of +a church-rate contest, in which the vicar has been beaten by an +overwhelming majority. But the columns of the _Manchester Guardian_, +though nearly double what they were twenty years ago, are not made of +India rubber; and therefore, much as the editor may wish to give all +due latitude to Ashton, Bolton, Bury, Middleton, Oldham, Rochdale, +Stockport, or Wigan news, he is generally forced, by the pressure of +advertisements, or some other equally potent cause, to compress +everything within the narrowest limits. Whatever interest a piece of +district news may possess in its own locality, it must not be allowed +to encroach upon the space belonging to "the general reader," who buys +nine-tenths of every newspaper, and who does not care a farthing for +Rochdale or Ashton news, unless when it happens to be a very horrid +murder, or an exceedingly destructive fire. Were the stamp-duty +abolished, the large town papers would be relieved from all the +drudgery and annoyance attendant upon this department of editorial +work. There would no longer be any necessity for devoting six or eight +closely-printed columns of the paper to local news, which are not read +by one-twentieth part of those who purchase it. Each small town in +Lancashire and Yorkshire, as well as elsewhere, would have its penny +or twopenny newspaper, in which local news, local politics, and local +talent, would have fair play; while large papers, like the _Manchester +Guardian_ or the _Leeds Mercury_, would be greatly improved by the +change. They would be enabled to substitute good readable matter, +literary or political, of which there is always abundance, for the +very dull stuff which they are now obliged to give under the head of +"District News." By this improvement in character, and by the +reduction of price, in such papers as we have named, from 5d. to +3-1/2d., their circulation would be greatly increased, in spite of the +number of penny and twopenny papers which would then supply the demand +for news among that numerous portion of the working-classes who cannot +afford such a luxury at present.' + +Such is a fair statement of certain advantages to be derived from the +abolition of the penny stamp, and the substitution of the penny label. +The advocates of the stamp-duty allege that, while the foregoing line +of argument may be perfectly valid, something, on the contrary, is due +to the advantage of having well-supported metropolitan newspapers as +centres of intelligence. These newspapers, say some of their +publishers, are put to vast expense for early news, foreign and +domestic; such news they at present permit every one freely to copy; +but, if a host of small country papers are to spring up, piracy of +this kind will no longer be tolerated. As newspapers go pretty much on +the principle of giving and taking in the way of intelligence, any +tendency to prosecute on the ground of piracy would, in all +probability, soon cure itself; and, therefore, we would not greatly +rely on this as a reason for maintaining an exclusiveness in the +business of newspaper publication. A more serious argument against the +creation of a host of cheap local papers, is the probable +dissemination of much petty scandal, and matter of a partially +libellous or offensive character; at the least, much bad writing. +Supposing, however, that there is a chance of literature being thus to +a certain extent deteriorated, it will not do to oppose an +improvement, if it be such, from fears of this nature. Should the +matter treated of in small local papers be sometimes of an +objectionable character, the public taste will surely go far towards +its correction; and why should not each provincial town have an +opportunity of educating writers up to the proper degree of literary +accomplishment? It is undeniable, that small towns stand in pressing +need of local channels for advertisements, and here, we think, is +their strongest ground. How much more important, in a town of 5000 +inhabitants, that the principal mercer should have his fresh arrival +of goods advertised in a paper which circulates 500 copies in that +town, than in some county-town journal which sends to it only some +thirty or forty copies! A sale of growing crops must, in like manner, +be much more effectually advertised in a paper which circulates +largely in a small district, than in one which is diffused sparsely +over a large one. All this, indeed, is amply proved by the tendency +which has been shewn of late years, in Scotland at least, to set up +unstamped monthly local papers containing advertisements, and by the +comparative success which these journals have met with. + +Among the arguments for such arrangements as would promote the sale of +newspapers, we see little or no stress laid upon the _educational_, +which to us appears as the very strongest of all. The interest felt in +the occurrences of the passing day is one of the most vigorous of all +intellectual appetences. Give a man ready access to a journal in which +this taste can be gratified, and his intellectual progress is certain. +The utterly uneducated, seeing the pleasure which his fellows derive +from the paper, will desire to learn to read, that he may enjoy the +like pleasure. The man just able to read will be drawn on to reflect +and judge, and in time he will desire intellectual food from books +also. The cheap newspaper thus becomes a most powerful instrument for +nursing the popular mind; and, if we consider how essential it is, +where there are free institutions, that the bulk of the people should +be enlightened, we must see what a great public end is to be served by +this simple means. A place in the apparatus is, we think, rightly +claimed by the small local newspaper, as a kind of A B C, or _first +form_, where the young and untutored mind may be entered by way of +preparation for higher studies. + + + + +THE VEGETATION OF EUROPE. + + +The publication of the volume, the title of which appears below,[3] is +to be regarded as additional evidence that the tendency of science in +the present day is towards wider and more comprehensive +generalisations. Many readers who may be more or less familiar with +certain species or even families of plants, will hardly have prepared +themselves for a view of the phytology of a quarter of the globe, such +as is given in outline in the interesting work now before us. The +subject is one that has been largely investigated within the past +twenty years, as may be seen in the records of the British +Association, in the transactions of learned societies, and in the +writings of numerous observers on the continent. Attempt after attempt +has been made to explain the causes of the variations and effects of +climate, their influence on vegetation, the appearance of certain +floras in localities where they might be least expected, and to +separate the natural and regular from the accidental. Different +countries have been examined and compared with each other, and many of +the differences accounted for; and in Mr Henfrey's volume we have an +acceptable _resume_ of these various researches. + +It becomes necessary, first of all, to study the influences--whether +general or special--which affect the distribution of vegetation; to +inquire into those freaks or aberrations of nature which favour in one +place the production of plants that will not grow in another, under +apparently similar circumstances; and why similar plants are found in +places widely separated. Oranges will ripen on one side the Alps, but +not on the other; grapes scarcely come to perfection out of doors in +England, while on the other side of the Channel they ripen by +thousands of acres; and several fruits which fail in our northern +counties, are grown without difficulty in Denmark in the open air. +Investigation soon shewed that temperature alone, mere heat and cold, +was insufficient to account for the phenomena; but that moisture and +dryness, the prevalence of certain winds, the chemical and physical +conditions of soil, and the constitution of the plants themselves, +would have to be considered in a proper inquiry into the subject. + +Here we must notice a fact which has proved of essential service in +the study of botanical geography--namely, the discovery 'that there is +some law presiding over the distribution of plants which causes the +appearance of particular species arbitrarily--if we may so say it--in +particular places;' from which, the conclusion has been arrived at, +'that countries have become populated with plants partly by the +spreading of some special kinds from centres within those countries +where they were originally exclusively created; and while these have +spread outward into the neighbouring regions, colonists from like +centres lying in the surrounding countries have invaded and become +intermingled with the indigenous inhabitants.' + +Looking at the effect of climate on vegetation, we find that as we +proceed from the north towards the south, the number and luxuriance of +plants increase in a remarkable degree, and the same result is +observable in altitude as in latitude. 'Step by step,' writes Mr +Henfrey, 'as the land rises in any mountain region, the vegetation +assumes, more and more, a polar character; and in the mountains of the +tropics, a succession of stages has been distinguished, corresponding +in the general peculiarities of the plants which clothe them, to +tracts extending horizontally, in succession, on the sea-level, from +the base of these mountains to the frozen regions within the arctic +and antarctic circles. Increase of elevation is accompanied by an +alteration of climate, bringing with it a set of conditions analogous +to those prevailing at certain distances further from the sun. +Ascending the Peak of Teneriffe, a series of regions are traversed, +one above another, displaying with the approach to the summit a +continually closer approximation in character to the polar regions, +till the traveller who left the palm, the cactus, and the thousand +varied forms of tropical vegetation at the foot, finds himself at last +among the stunted shrubs and scaly lichens, the borderers who hold the +outposts on the limits of the eternal snow.' + +It might be expected that places on the same parallel of latitude +would be equal in temperature; but on tracing out the distribution of +heat over the globe, and laying it down in what are called +_isothermal_ lines on a map, most striking deviations are found to +exist, and the contour of the lines is anything but regular. The line +of greatest cold, for example, which leaves the eastern coast of +Labrador at about the 54th degree of latitude, rises six degrees as it +approaches Greenland, and strikes the coast of Lapland a little above +the 70th degree, or sixteen degrees nearer the pole than at its +starting-point--thus shewing that the northern parts of Europe have a +more genial climate than those of America. The line then curves +fifteen degrees to the south across Siberia, rises again on the +western coast of America, and falls once more as it advances towards +the east. Again, 'the isotherms of Canada pass through Iceland, across +about the middle of Norway and Sweden, St Petersburg and Kamtschatka. +Those of New York through the north of Ireland and England, twelve +degrees further north, North and Central Germany, and the Crimea. That +which leaves the United States at about 36 degrees north latitude, +crosses Southern Europe from the north of Spain to the Adriatic in a +tolerably straight line, some eight degrees further north, and then +falls south again, where the influence of the north-east polar current +is more felt, in Greece and Turkey.' + +But although these are marked as lines of equal heat, it is only in +the average temperature that the equality consists; and it is clear +that a country with 80 degrees of summer heat and 20 of winter cold, +would have a very different climate from another with 60 and 40 as the +highest and lowest degrees of temperature, although the mean of the +two would be the same. And herein we have an explanation of what at +first sight appear to be anomalies: we know, for instance, 'that +plants will flourish perennially in the British isles which are killed +by the frosts of winter in places lying considerably to the south upon +the continent; thus the laurel, that bears our winters steadily in +Ireland and the west of England, and is only affected by very severe +frosts in our eastern counties, is killed by the winters of Berlin, +equally fatal to the myrtle, the fuchsia, and a host of other shrubs +which attain considerable age and size in the western portions of the +British isles. Again, Canada, which lies south of Paris, has the +climate of Drontheim, in Norway; while at New York, lying in the +latitude of Naples, the flowers open simultaneously with those of +Upsala, in Sweden. Moreover, those very countries suffering so severe +a winter's cold, enjoy a summer's heat far exceeding ours, since the +snow lies for months on parts of Germany which yet receive sufficient +heat in summer to ripen the grape and Indian corn.' + +The principal modifying causes are winds and water. Islands, and +countries bordering on the ocean, have a much more equable climate +than those which lie in the interior of continents, and will have a +greater prevalence of moist south-westerly winds. The average annual +quantity of rain in the British islands is from 28 to 30 inches; on +the continent, it is less; the fall in Holland is estimated at 26 +inches, and in Denmark and North Germany, at 20 inches--the greatest +fall occurring in summer and autumn, as in England. Then with respect +to winds, we find those from the west most prevalent over what Mr +Henfrey distinguishes as the north European plain, as is the case in +our country. 'The west wind blows more frequently in England than in +Denmark, more there than in Russia. The predominance is most marked in +summer; in the winter, the easterly winds are almost as frequent as +the westerly upon the continent, which is not true of the British +isles.' Sometimes, however, the south-westerly winds, which bring our +genial April showers, continue to arrive with their watery burden +until late in the summer, to the detriment or destruction of +grain-crops; and yet this same wind, losing its excessive moisture as +it sweeps onward over the continent, is highly favourable to the +husbandman in Southern Russia. The years 1816 and 1817 were cases in +point. + +The meteorology of Russia affords some striking contrasts: the yearly +rain-fall in St Petersburg is 21 inches, 'and the westerly winds are +most prevalent, although not to the same extent as in Western Europe; +they are also predominant in Moscow and Kasan. In the southern +steppes, it is stated that the average of four years has given only 6 +inches fall of rain, occurring in 47 days of the year; but the +irregularity is so great, that single years gave 59, 35, 39, and 53 +rainy days. In 1832-3, twenty months elapsed without rain, and in some +years the quantity is only one-tenth of that which falls in wet years. +In the summer, there is no dew, and the ground dries up and cracks, +the plants withering up: 1841, not considered as a dry year, gave only +8-1/2 inches of rain; but in 1831, one of the wettest, the moisture +interfered with agriculture more than the drought does, saturating the +soil, which rests on a deep impermeable clayey formation.' In April +and May, when the snows melt, the steppe is a vast sea of mud, liable +to be hardened by occasional frosts, until, as the season advances, +myriads of crocuses, tulips, and hyacinths, cover the soil, which +perhaps a few days later will be hidden by north-east snowstorms, or +drenched by gales from the north-west. No rain falls for two months +after the middle of June, the luxuriant herbage withers more rapidly +than it grew, and, except in a few spots near the streams, the steppe +becomes a black, arid waste. Yet in some parts of these regions the +vegetation is extraordinary: 'the wormwoods and thistles grow to a +size unknown in the west of Europe; it is said that the thistle-bush, +found where these abound, is tall enough to hide a Cossack horseman. +The natives call all these rank weeds, useless for pasture, _burian_, +and, with the dry dung of the flocks, this constitutes all the fuel +they possess. One curious plant of the thistle tribe has attracted the +notice of most travellers--the wind-witch, as it is called by the +German colonists, or leap-the-field, as the Russian name may be +translated. It forms a large globular mass of light wiry branches +interlaced together, and in autumn decays off at the root, the upper +part drying up. It is then at the mercy of the autumn blast, and it is +said that thousands may sometimes be seen coursing over the plain, +rolling, dancing, and leaping over the slight inequalities, often +looking at a distance like a troop of wild horses. It is not uncommon +for twenty or thirty to become entangled into a mass, and then roll +away, as Mr Kohl says, "like a huge giant in his seven-league boots." +Thousands of them are annually blown into the Black Sea, and here, +once in contact with water, in an instant lose the fantastic grace +belonging to their dry, unsubstantial texture.' + +Any one who has seen the feather-like seeds of thistles and dandelions +floating about in the air, will have little difficulty in +comprehending the effect of winds on the distribution of vegetation. +Such seeds, as Mr Henfrey observes, might readily be carried across +Europe by a powerful autumn gale, blowing steadily in one direction. +In physiological language, they belong to the _sporadic_, not to the +_endemic_ class, of which a remarkable instance is afforded in the +flea-bane (_Erigeron canadensis_), a plant which, having found its way +to this side the Atlantic only since the discovery of America, is now +a common weed on the continent of Europe. Running streams and ocean +currents also transport seeds from one locality to another. The +gulf-stream, as is well known, carries occasionally branches of trees +to the north coast of Scotland and Norway; and 'Mr Brown found that +six hundred plants collected about the river Zaire, in Africa, +included thirteen species, natives also of Guyana and Brazil. These +species mostly occurred near the mouth of the Zaire, and were of such +kind as produced fruits capable of resisting external agencies for a +long time.' Then, again, the agency of birds, of quadrupeds, and of +man, in the distribution of seeds and plants, is too important to be +overlooked, as Sir Charles Lyell has ably shewn in his _Principles of +Geology_; and there is 'a certain number of plants which seem to +accompany man wherever he goes, and to flourish best in his vicinity. +Thus, the docks, the goosefoots, the nettle, the chickweed, mallows, +and many other common weeds, seem to be universal, though unwelcome +companions to man--dogging his footsteps, affording by their presence, +even in now deserted districts, an almost certain index of the former +residence of human beings on the spot.' + +From an examination of the causes affecting distribution, Mr Henfrey +passes to a survey of the characteristics of the countries of Europe, +from north to south--from the peninsula of Scandinavia to those of +Spain, Italy, and Greece. The remarkable contrast is pointed out +between the climate and cultivation of the east and west sides of the +mountains of Sweden and Norway. Barley ripens as far north as the 70th +degree, in latitudes whose mean temperature is below the +freezing-point; while in Switzerland, corn ceases to ripen at 9 +degrees above the same point, and in the plateaux of South America, at +22-1/2 degrees--a fact which goes to shew, 'that the growth of grain +is much more dependent on the summer temperature than on the annual +mean. The long summer days of the polar regions afford a very brief, +but a comparatively exalted summer heat.' It is, however, only the +barley which ventures so far north: the limit of rye is 67 degrees, of +oats, 65 degrees, of wheat, 64 degrees, on the west side of the +peninsula, and from 1 to 2 degrees less on the east. In Southern +Norway, the spruce-fir ceases to grow beyond the line of 2900 feet +above the sea-level; while in Switzerland, it is commonly met with at +the height of 5500 feet, and in some situations, 7000; shewing that +the influences which affect the growth of grain do not similarly +affect that of trees--proximity of the sea decreases the summer +temperature. Again: 'In Scandinavia the tree-limit is indicated by the +birch; in the Alps, by firs. The two lower mountain zones of the +Alps, the regions of the beech and the chestnut, do not exist in the +Scandinavian mountains. Compared with the climate and tree-limits, the +cultivation of corn does not go so high in the Alps as it does toward +the north; for it ceases about with the beech in the Alps, and grazing +is the regular pursuit in the region of firs; while in Scandinavia, +the beech only goes to 59 degrees, and corn-culture to 70 +degrees--that is, as far as the conifers. Corn succeeds in the latter +under a mean temperature below the freezing-point, while in the Alps +it ceases at 41 degrees Fahrenheit. The cause of this is the hot +though short summer of the north. The Alps have maize and the vine, +which will not grow around the Scandinavian mountains; the meadows are +throughout richer in the Alps, and grazing is therefore much more +extensively pursued.' + +The peculiarities and comparisons afforded by other countries, are not +less interesting than those we have selected, and we might multiply +instances, if space permitted. Enough, however, have been adduced to +shew that the mode of accounting for differences of vegetation is so +far satisfactory, that it appears to be in perfect accordance with +discoverable natural laws; and it is no longer a surprise or mystery +to find plants of Southern Russia and of Asia Minor on the high +table-lands of Spain; or that the effects of an unvarying temperature, +as at Quito, in the table-land of Peru, are to cause the culture of +wheat to cease at the mean temperature of Milan, and woods to +disappear at the mean of Penzance. A few remarks respecting our own +country is all that we can now find room for. + +Including snow-falls, the number of rainy days in Dublin in a year is +208, in London, 178, while in Copenhagen it is not more than 134. The +number of British plants indigenous or naturalised is from 1400 to +1500, comprising mostly the vegetation of Central Europe, but +including specimens from Scandinavia and the Pyrenees. The highest +point at which grain has been known to grow, is 1600 feet above the +sea-level, at the outlet of Loch Collater, in the Highlands. In +Drumochter Pass, an elevation of 1530 feet, potatoes can scarcely be +raised; and from 1000 to 1200 feet is the more common limit of the +cereal and the esculent. On this point a statement is made, which may +be useful to cultivators in the hill districts: it is, that 'the +common brake-fern (_Pteris aquilina_), distributed throughout Britain, +is found to be limited by a line running nearly level with the limit +of cultivation, and thus affords a test, when cultivation may be +absent, where nature does not deny it success. In one sheltered spot +in the woods of Loch-na-gar, it was observed at 1900 feet; and in +another part of the same woods, at 1700 feet; but on the exposed moors +it is very seldom seen beyond 1200 feet, unless in hollows, or on +declivities facing the sun.' + +In accounting for the varieties of plants in Britain, it is assumed +that, during the glacial period, when the tops of our mountains were +mere islands in a great sea, under which lay the greater part of +modern Europe, they were then peopled by the arctic and alpine +species, which now inhabit them. Then came an upheaval; a vast tract +of land rose above the water, without any break, as at present between +England and the continent; and at this period 'there appears to have +been a migration of both plants and animals from east to west, the +descendants of which still constitute the great body of the flora and +fauna of the British lowlands.' Meantime, the elevation of the former +islands into mountain summits, placed them in a temperature suited to +the perpetuation of their vegetation. Then, to account for the +presence of a Spanish flora in the west of Ireland, a bold hypothesis, +started by Professor Edward Forbes, is put forward--'that the west of +Ireland was geologically united with the north of Spain;' admitting +which, there is no difficulty in supposing the plants to have +travelled along the intervening land, which has subsequently +disappeared, and that, owing to climatic changes, the hardier sort of +plants, such as saxifrages and heaths, have alone survived. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] The Vegetation of Europe, its Conditions and Causes. By Arthur +Henfrey, F.L.S. London: John Van Voorst. 1852. + + + + +A HALF-PENNYWORTH OF NAVIGATION. + + +Who's for a cheap ride on what a pleasant writer calls the 'silent +highway?'--silent no longer, since the steamers have taken to plying +above Bridge at a charge which has made the surface of the Thames, +where it runs through the heart of London, populous with life, and +noisy with the clash of paddles and the rush of steam, to say +nothing of the incessant chorus of captains, engine-boys, and +gangway-men--with their 'Ease her,' 'Stop her,' 'Back her,' 'Turn +ahead,' 'Turn astarn,' 'Now, marm, with the bundle, be alive,' 'Heave +ahead there, will you?' &c., all the day long. + +Come this way, my friend; here we are opposite the Adelphi Theatre, +and this is the man who used to be a black man, or else it's another, +who does duty as talking finger-post, and shews you, if you are a +stranger, how you are to get at the half-penny boat. Come, we must +dive down this narrow lane, past the 'Fox under the Hill,' a rather +long and not very sightly, cleanly, smooth, or fragrant thoroughfare; +and here, in this shed-looking office, you must pay your half-penny, +which guarantees you a passage all the way to London Bridge. Look +alive! as the money-taker recommends--the _Bee_, you see, is already +discharging her living cargo, and others are hurrying on board. The +boat won't lose time in turning round--she goes backwards and forwards +as straight as a saw, and carries a rudder at her nose as well as one +at her tail. Never mind these jolting planks, you havn't time to +tumble down--on with you! That's it: here, on this floating-pier, +manufactured from old barges, we may rest a moment, while the boat +discharges her freight, and takes on board the return cargo. You see +the landing-stage or pier is divided into two equal portions; the +people who are leaving the boat have not yet paid their fare; they +will have to disburse their coppers at the office where we paid ours, +there being but one paying-place for the two termini. + +'Tis a motley company, you see, which comes and goes by the half-penny +boat. Here is a Temple barrister, with his red-taped brief under his +arm, and at his heels follows a plasterer, and a tiler's labourer with +a six-foot chimney-pot upon his shoulders. There goes a +foreigner--foreigners like to have things cheap--with a bushy black +beard and a pale face, moustached and whiskered to the eyes, and +puffing a volume of smoke from his invisible mouth; and there is a +washer-woman, with a basket of clothes weighing a hundredweight. +Yonder young fellow, with the dripping sack on his back, is staggering +under a load of oysters from Billingsgate, and he has got to wash them +and sell them for three a penny, and see them swallowed one at a time, +before his work will be done for the day--and behind him is a comely +lassie, with a monster oil-glazed sarcophagus-looking milliner's +basket, carrying home a couple of bonnets to a customer. See! there is +lame Jack, who sweeps the crossing in the borough, followed by a lady +with her 'six years' darling of a pigmy size,' whom she calls 'Little +Popps,' both hurrying home to dinner after a morning's shopping. All +these, and a hundred others of equally varied description, go off on +the landing-stage, whence they will have to pay their obolus to the +Charon of the Thames ere they are swallowed up in the living tide that +rolls along the Strand from morn to night. + +Now, if we mean to go, we had better get on board, for in another +minute the deck will be covered, and we shall not find room to stand. +That's right; make sure of a seat while you may! How they swarm on +board, and what a choice sample they present of the mixed multitude of +London! The deck is literally jammed with every variety of the +pedestrian population--red-breasted soldiers from the barracks, +glazed-hatted policemen from the station, Irish labourers and their +wives, errand-boys with notes and packages, orange-girls with empty +baskets, working-men out for a mouthful of air, and idle boys out for +a 'spree'--men with burdens to carry, and men with hardly a rag to +cover them; unctuous Jews, jabbering Frenchmen, and drowsy-looking +Germans--on they flock, squeezing through the gangway, or clambering +over the bulwarks, while the little vessel rolls and lurches till the +water laves the planks on which you stand. In three minutes from her +arrival she has discharged her old cargo, and is crammed to +overflowing with a new one. 'Back, there: overloaded already!' roars +the captain. 'Let go; turn ahead; go on!'--and fiz! away we go, +leaving full half of the intending voyagers to wait for the next boat, +which, however, will not be long in coming. + +'Bless me, how we roll about from side to side!' says an anxious old +lady. 'Is anything the matter with the boat, that it wabbles so?' + +'Only a little krank, marm; it's all right,' says the person +addressed. + +'It's all right, of course,' says another, glancing at the nervous +lady, 'whether we goes up or whether we goes down, so long as we gets +along. The _Cricket_ blowed herself up, and the _Ant_ got tired on it, +and laid down to rest herself at the bottom t'other day. Howasever, a +steamer never blows up nor goes to the bottom but once, and, please +God, 't aint goin' to be this time.' + +While the old lady, unsatisfied with this genuine specimen of Cockney +philosophy, is vowing that if she once gets safe on shore, she will +never again set foot in a half-penny boat, we are already at Waterloo +Bridge. Duck goes the funnel, and we dart under the noble arch, and +catch a passing view of Somerset House. The handsome structure runs +away in our rear; the Chinese Junk, with its tawdry flags, scuttles +after it; we catch a momentary glimpse of Temple Gardens, lying in the +sunlight, where half-a-dozen children are playing on the grass; then +comes Whitefriars, the old Alsatia, the sanctuary of blackguard +ruffianism in bygone times; then there is a smell of gas, and a vision +of enormous gasometers; and then down goes the funnel again, and +Blackfriars Bridge jumps over us. On we go, now at the top of our +speed, past the dingy brick warehouses that lie under the shadow of St +Paul's, whose black dome looks down upon us as we scud along. Then +Southwark Bridge, with its Cyclopean masses of gloomy metal, disdains +to return the slightest response to the fussy splashing we make, as we +shoot impudently through. Then come more wharfs and warehouses, as we +glide past, while our pace slackens, and we stop gently within a +stone's-throw of London Bridge, at Dyers' Hall, where we are bundled +out of the boat with as little ceremony as we were bundled in, and +with as little, indeed, as it has ever been the custom to use since +ceremony was invented--which, in matters of business, is a very +useless thing. + +And now, my friend, you have accomplished a half-penny voyage; and +without being a conjuror, you can see how it is that this cheap +navigation is so much encouraged. In the first place, it is cheaper +than shoe-leather, leaving fatigue out of the question; it saves a +good two miles of walking, and that is no trifle, especially under a +heavy burden, or in slippery weather. In the second place, it may be +said to be often cheaper than dirt, seeing that the soil and injury to +clothing which it saves by avoiding a two miles' scamper through the +muddy ways, would damage the purse of a decent man more than would the +cost of several journeys. These are considerations which the humbler +classes appreciate, and therefore they flock to the cheap boats, and +spend their halfpence to save their pence and their time. This latter +consideration of time-saving it is that brings another class of +customers to the boats. In order that it may be remunerative to the +projectors, every passage must be made with a regular and undeviating +rapidity; and this very necessity becomes in its turn a source of +profit, because it is a recommendation to a better class of business +men and commercial agents, to whom a saving of time is daily a matter +of the utmost importance. Hence the motley mixture of all ranks and +orders that crowd the deck. + +Besides these half-penny boats, there are others which run at double +and quadruple fares; but they carry a different class of passengers, +and run greater distances, stopping at intermediate stations. They are +all remunerative speculations; and they may be said to have created +the traffic by which they thrive. They have driven the watermen's +wherries off the river almost as effectually as the railways have +driven the stage-coaches from the road; but, like them, they have +multiplied the passengers by the thousand, and have awakened the +public to a new sense of the value of the river as a means of transit +from place to place. The demand for safe, cheap, and speedy conveyance +to and from all parts of the river between London Bridge and +Battersea, and beyond, is becoming daily more urgent; and we hear that +it will shortly be met by the launching of a fleet of steam gondolas +constructed on an improved principle, combining accommodation for +enlarged numbers, with appliances calculated to insure at once +security and speed. + + + + +A LONDON NEWSPAPER IN 1667. + + +In a recent number of this Journal (14th February), some particulars +were given relating to a newspaper of a hundred years ago; and the +contrast--sufficiently strong--was shewn between the infant press of +that time and its developed form in our own. We propose now to make +research a century earlier, and to shew in what condition the 'fourth +estate of the realm' appeared in the early part of Charles II.'s +reign. Surely that great power was then in its very infancy and +weakness; and if the subject entered into our plan, it would be both +instructive and entertaining to trace its growth in this country from +the small beginning now before us. + +We have on our table some numbers of the _London Gazette_ of 1667 to +1681; and, so far as we know, this newspaper was the only source of +information to the people of public and passing events. In the +Venetian territory, that republic issued its gazette so early as 1536. +In the days of our own Civil Wars, when matters of the last importance +were continually arising, the English newspaper commenced, each party +having one such organ. Under Cromwell, a more regular journal was +published in 1652; but it was not until Queen Anne's reign that the +_Daily Courant_ appeared each morning, and pioneered that enormous +power of our own day which disseminates perhaps 80,000,000 newspapers +annually throughout the country. + +It would be curious to compare the _London Gazette_ of 1667 with the +_Times_ of 1852. In form, it is slightly larger than one leaf of this +Journal; but in type, and in appearance, it is quite equal to the +newspapers of a hundred years later. It is published 'by authority,' +and contains pithy paragraphs, void of detail and without comment, +under the headings of the different places whence the news is +brought--the first and the last paragraphs being devoted to 'home +news,' the latter dating usually from Whitehall, and supplying the +place of the Court Circular. The first number was probably issued +shortly after the Restoration, as _our_ earliest date is No. 236, from +Thursday, 17th February, to Monday, 20th February 1667. We purpose +making some extracts from these veracious records as they arise; and +first, let us view in familiar guise a historical character, better +known to us by heading charges of cavalry at Naseby--a daring +cavalier, a valiant soldier; though now we see him _en deshabille_, +and only as Prince Rupert, who, poor gentleman, has lost his pet dog! +'Lost,' says the advertisement--'lost on Friday last, about noon, a +light fallow-colored greyhound, with a sore under her jaw, and a scar +on her side; whoever shall give notice of her at Prince Rupert's +apartments in Whitehall, shall be well rewarded for their pains.' The +next month, we find the prince assisting at a launch. 'This day (3 +March), was happily launched at Deptford, in presence of his majesty, +his Royal Highness Prince Rupert, and many persons of the court, a +very large and well-built ship, which is to carry 106 great guns, and +is like to prove a ship of great force and excellent service, called +_Charles the Second_.' + +A little later, we find an account of the visit of 'Madam,' Duchess of +Orleans, and sister to Charles II. Her reception, her return, and her +death, follow quickly one upon another; so sudden, indeed, was her +decease, that her death was not, says history, without suspicion of +poison. 'DOVER, _May 21, 1670_.--The 15 ins., about 6 in the morning, +arrived here Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Orleans, attended, +among other persons of quality, by the Mareshal de Plessis Praslin; +her brother, Bishop of Tournay; Madam de Plessis, the mareshal's son's +lady; and the Countess of Grammont; having the day before, at about +the same hour, embarked with her train upon the men-of-war and several +yachts under the command of the Earl of Sandwich, vice-admiral of +England, &c. + +'The same evening, the court was entertained with a comedy, acted by +his Royal Highnesses servants, who attend here for their diversion.' + +'Yesterday was acted, by the said servants, another comedy, in the +midst whereof Madam and the rest of the ladies were entertained with +an excellent banquet.' + +In the notice of 5th June, Madam embarked on her return to France. On +the 20th, she and the duke arrive at Paris; and on the 25th go to 'St +Clou.' The following is the official notice of her death:-- + +'WHITEHALL.--This day arrived an express from Mr Montague, His +Majesty's ambassador at Paris, with the sad news of the death of +Madam, His Majesty's only sister, to the enfinite grief and affliction +of their Majestys' and Royal Highnesses, as well for the greatness of +this loss as for the suddenness of it. She dyed at St Clou about 4 of +the clock on Munday morning, of a sudden and violent distemper, which +had seized her at 5 of the evening before, and was by her physician +taken for a kind of bilious colic.' + +Confining ourselves to home news, there appears an edict from +Whitehall, commanding the Duke of York's (James II.) absence. +'WHITEHALL, _3 Mar. 1678_.--His Majesty, having thought fit to command +the Duke to absent himself, his Royal Highness and the Duchess took +leave of their majestys, and embarked this morning, intending to pass +into Holland.' But three years afterwards, he must have stood better +with the city, for in 1681 we find the lord mayor and court of +aldermen offering a reward of L.500 for the discovery of the person +who offered an indignity to the picture of his Royal Highness in the +Guildhall, to shew their deep resentment at that 'insolent and +villainous act.' + +The many allusions to Algerines and pirates of all kinds, and the +audacity which seems to mark their acts, are good evidence of the +inefficient state of our navy in King Charles's reign. Witness the +following extract. 'LYME, _April 21, 1679_.--Yesterday, a small vessel +called the _William and Sarah_, bound for Holland from Morlaix, put in +here to avoid two Turks men-of-war, as he very much suspects them to +be, because he saw them chase a small vessell, who likewise escaped +them. It is reported that some of these pyrats have been as high as +the Isle of Wight, and that Sir Robert Robinson met with five of them, +whom he chased into Brest.' There are many accounts of the pirates of +Sally (Salee), and an account of an engagement with one of them by an +old collier, called the _Lisborne Merchant_, on her voyage from London +to Lisbon. The description is almost as formidable as Falstaff's with +his men of buckram, and we should have liked a little confirmatory +evidence beyond the narrator's. All our naval feelings of British +supremacy on the water would be gratified by the gallant conduct of +our trading captain. + +'He had the fortune,' the account declares, 'to be set upon by the +admiral of the _Argur_, of 60 guns, and his consort of 40 guns, the +former with 700 men, and the latter with 500 men. The admiral +immediately boarded the poor merchant, who had only 25 men and 16 +guns, clapping on as many men as they thought sufficient to have +mastered her. But the English entertained them with so much courage, +that they in little time cleared the ship, forcing all the Turks +overboard, with little loss besides that of the master of the ship, +one seaman, a young man who was knockt on the head.' The Turk repeated +his attack, and boarded the merchant; the 'dispute' continues for +about three glasses--the admiral assaults them the third time, but his +men are so terrified, that only 'seaven' durst adventure on board, +whereof six were killed, and the other taken prisoner. 'This done, the +Turks left her to pursue her course, wearing very eminent marks of +that encounter.' + +We are at a loss what to make of this report from Dublin; but perhaps +some more learned authority can explain it: '_Dublin, April 9, +1679_.--This morning the Lord Lieutenant signed a warrant for the +pardon of Lawry, a Scotch man, minister in the county of Fermanagh, +and his five servants, for killing five notorious Tories in that +countrey, wounding two others to death, as is believed, and takeing +the eighth. The parson killed three of them with his own hand; and +while another of the Tories was going to draw the trigger of his gun +to shoot him, his hand was cut off by one of the parson's servants.' +Here, again, is a singular announcement to be published 'by +authority.' 'A warm report having been spred about of some unusual +effects of witchcraft in the province of Daleicarly, near the best +copper-mines in Suedeland, it is said several persons are sent to make +an enquiry in to the matter of fact, with power to proceed to the +punishment of such persons as shall be found guilty.' In another +number, there has been an inquiry among the Jews in Germany, who were +supposed to have sacrificed young children in their ceremonies. + +The slow growth of the newspaper press from these times is very +remarkable. Even so late as sixty years since, a London paper was a +very meagre and timid affair. Before us lies a copy of the _Times_ of +1797, insignificant in size and appearance. The small modicum of news +is entirely foreign: no brilliant leaders, models of composition--no +fearless correction of abuse, or withering sarcasm of folly. The +parliamentary debates are merely alluded to as with permission, and +the simple propositions said to be advanced and seconded, disputed and +amended. How strange is the comparison suggested with the present +aspect of the _Times_, or indeed any of the London daylies! We live in +an age of wonders, and not the least of these is the well-written, +well-filled, and capacious-minded newspapers. + + + + +A SCENE IN BOSTON. + + +A coloured girl, eighteen years of age, a few years ago escaped from +slavery in the South. Through scenes of adventure and peril, almost +more strange than fiction can create, she found her way to Boston. She +obtained employment, secured friends, and became a consistent member +of the Methodist church. She became interested in a very worthy young +man of her own complexion, who was a member of the same church. They +were soon married. Their home, though humble, was the abode of piety +and contentment. Industrious, temperate, and frugal, all their wants +were supplied. Seven years passed away. They had two little boys, one +six, and the other four years of age. These children, the sons of a +free father, but of a mother who had been a slave, by the laws of the +Southern States were doomed to their mother's fate. These Boston boys, +born beneath the shadow of Faneuil Hall, the sons of a free citizen of +Boston, and educated in the Boston Free Schools, were, by the +compromises of the constitution, admitted to be slaves, the property +of a South Carolinian planter. The Boston father had no right to his +own sons. The law, however, had long been considered a dead-letter. +This was not to continue. The Fugitive Slave Law was enacted. It +revived the hopes of the slave-owners. A young, healthy, energetic +mother, with two fine boys, was a rich prize. She would make an +excellent mother. Good men began to say: 'We must enforce this law; it +is one of the compromises of the constitution.' Christian ministers +began to preach: 'The voice of law is the voice of God. There is no +higher rule of duty.' As may be supposed, the poor woman was +panic-stricken. Her friends gathered around her, and trembled for her. +Her husband was absent from home, a seaman on board one of the +Liverpool packets. She was afraid to go out of doors, lest some one +from the South should see her, and recognise her. One day, as she was +going to the grocery for some provisions, her quick anxious eye caught +a glimpse of a man prowling around, whom she immediately recognised as +from the vicinity of her old home of slavery. Almost fainting with +terror, she hastened home, and taking her two children by the hand, +fled to the house of a friend. She and her trembling children were hid +in the garret. In less than an hour after her escape, the officer, +with a writ, came for her arrest. It was a dark and stormy day. The +rain, freezing as it fell, swept in floods through the streets of +Boston. Night came, cold, black, and tempestuous. At midnight, her +friends took her in a hack, and conveyed her, with her children, to +the house of her pastor. Hence, after an hour of weeping, for the +voice of prayer had passed away into the sublimity of unutterable +anguish, they conveyed this mother and her children to one of the +Cunard steamers, which fortunately was to sail for Halifax the next +day. They took them in the gloom of midnight, through the +tempest-swept streets, lest the slave-hunter should meet them. Her +brethren and sisters of the church raised a little money from their +scanty means to pay her passage, and to save her, for a few days, from +starving, after her first arrival in the cold land of strangers. Her +husband soon returned to Boston, to find his home desolate, his wife +and children exiles in a foreign land. These facts need no +word-painting.--_Burritt's Bond of Brotherhood_. + + + + +THE TONGUE OF FIRE. + +BY MRS NEWTON CROSLAND. + + + I hear December's biting blast, + I see the slippery hail-drops fall-- + That shot which frost-sprites laughing cast + In some great Arctic arsenal; + I lean my cheek against the pane, + But start away, it is so chill, + And almost pity tree and plain + For bearing Winter's load of ill. + + The sombre sky hangs dark and low, + It looks a couch where mists are born-- + A throne whence they in clusters flow, + Or by the tempest's wrath are torn. + I turn me to the chamber's Heart, + Low pulsing like a vague desire, + And strike an ebon block apart, + Till up there springs a Tongue of Fire! + + It hath a jovial roaring tone, + Like one rebuking half in jest-- + Yet ah! I wish there could be shewn + The wisdom that it hath exprest-- + Or sinking to a lambent glow, + Its arched and silent cavern seems + A magic glass whereon to shew, + And shape anew, our broken dreams! + + I vow the Fiery Tongue hath caught + Quaint echoes of the passing time; + Thus laughs it at my idle thought, + My longing for a fairer clime: + 'So--so you'd like some southern shore, + To gather flowers the winter through, + As if there were on earth no more + For busy human hands to do! + + * * * * * + + 'And guard your Own!--In this, oh mark + High duty and the world's far fate; + Thou art poor deluged Europe's Ark, + Her fortunes on Thy Safety wait; + And--couching lion at her feet-- + In all her matron graces drest, + Let free Britannia smiling greet + Her radiant Daughter of the West! + + 'The broad Atlantic flows between, + But love can bridge the ends of earth; + Of all the lands my race have seen, + These two the rest are more than worth; + Not for their skies, or fruits, or gold, + But for their sturdy growth of Man, + Who walks erect, and will not hold + His life beneath a tyrant's ban. + + 'Yet do not curl your lips with scorn + That others are not great as ye; + Your fathers fought ere ye were born, + And died that thus it now should be! + I tell ye, spirits walk unseen, + Excepting by the soul's strong sight; + Hampden and Washington, I ween, + Are leaders yet in Freedom's fight!' + + * * * * * + + It ceased; but oh, Its words of fire + Had dropped upon my Northman's heart, + Rebuked a moment's vain desire, + And slain it like a hunter's dart; + Oh, welcome now the slippery hail, + And welcome winter's biting blast, + Ye braced our sires; they still prevail + Who triumphed through the stormy past. + + And as beside the ruddy blaze + We muse or talk of mighty things, + In clarion tone one little phrase + Still through the heart's deep echoes rings: + 'Our Hearths--our Homes--beyond compare!' + Those charmed circles whence there rise + The steadfast souls that do and dare, + And shape a Nation's destinies! + + There, pile the fagots high--aslant-- + And let them crackle out their hymn; + There is no logic--that I grant-- + In wilful words of woman's whim: + And yet I feel the links that glide + 'Twixt English Hearths and Liberty, + And track how We--our truest pride-- + _First_ sheltered Her Divinity! + +--_Ladies' Companion_. + + * * * * * + +Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. +Also sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D. N. CHAMBERS, 55 West +Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street, +Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to +MAXWELL & CO., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all +applications respecting their insertion must be made. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH *** + +***** This file should be named 18853.txt or 18853.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/5/18853/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Richard J. 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