diff options
Diffstat (limited to '42476-8.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 42476-8.txt | 6692 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 6692 deletions
diff --git a/42476-8.txt b/42476-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fca5776..0000000 --- a/42476-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6692 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Celebrities of the English -Lake-District, by Frederick Sessions - -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: Literary Celebrities of the English Lake-District - -Author: Frederick Sessions - -Release Date: April 7, 2013 [EBook #42476] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY CELEBRITIES *** - - - - -Produced by Eric Skeet, sp1nd and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - -Transcriber's Notes: -(1) Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text - by =equal signs=. -(2) Obvious punctuation, spelling and typographical errors - have been corrected. - - -[Illustration: -_Photo by Green Bros., Grasmere._ - - DOVE COTTAGE, GRASMERE. - - As it was when the Home of the Wordsworths (1799-1808) - and De Quincey (1808-1830). - -_Frontispiece._] - - - - - LITERARY CELEBRITIES - OF THE - ENGLISH LAKE-DISTRICT - - BY - FREDERICK SESSIONS, F.R.G.S. - AUTHOR OF 'ISAIAH, POET-PROPHET AND REFORMER' - - _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_ - - 'There is scarcely anything so interesting to man as his brother - man; because there is nothing else which so acts on his sympathies; - and sympathy is perhaps the most powerful of forces. We may feel - much interest in a Thing, more in a Truth, but most of all only in a - Man.' - MYERS' 'LECTURES ON GREAT MEN' - - - LONDON - ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. - 1905 - - - - - PREFACE - - -This is neither a handbook nor a guide to the haunts of our Lake -Celebrities. Yet it may, perhaps, serve in some sort the purposes of -both. - -It is not the result of any fresh or original research. I claim only to -have condensed many biographies, and to have provided an index to the -literary status of the men and women of whom I treat, some of whose -works are scarce, and some too voluminous for ordinary readers. - -These essays were written during leisure hours towards the close of a -busy life. They were published first in two different newspapers. This -will account for their form, and for the absence of either alphabetical -or chronological sequence. The earlier ones were written for friends in -my old home in the South; the later ones for my new friends in the -North. In bringing them together into book form I have remembered the -increasing number of tourists who require food for the mind as well as -for the body, and I have remembered my own want, in years past, of some -concise account of those whose names were perpetually before me while -moving from place to place in these attractive regions. - -To such tourists especially I respectfully dedicate my biographic -sketches, though not without a hope that they may reach, and be of use -to, a still wider circle of readers. - - FREDERICK SESSIONS. - - -THE BRANT, -KENDAL. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - Author's Preface iii - - I. THE ENGLISH OPIUM EATER: THOMAS DE QUINCEY: - 1.--THE MAN 3 - 2.--HIS BOOKS 11 - - II. A PIONEER OF POLITICAL REFORM: HARRIET - MARTINEAU 21 - - III. A LOVER OF BEAUTY: GERALD MASSEY 29 - - IV. A POET ENGRAVER: WILLIAM JAMES LINTON: - 1.--THE MAN 37 - 2.--HIS BOOKS AND HIS ART 43 - - V. A SUCCESSFUL NOVELIST: ELIZA LYNN LINTON: - 1.--THE WOMAN 51 - 2.--HER BOOKS 57 - - VI. THE PHILOSOPHER OF BRANTWOOD: JOHN RUSKIN: - 1.--THE MAN 65 - 2.--HIS ART-TEACHING AND HIS BOOKS 75 - - VII. A GREAT LIFE MARRED: SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 85 - - VIII. A LIFE TO PITY: HARTLEY COLERIDGE 95 - - IX. GEORGE THE FOURTH'S LAUREATE: ROBERT SOUTHEY 103 - - X. VICTORIA'S FIRST LAUREATE: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 113 - - XI. A FRIEND OF GREAT POETS: CHARLES LLOYD 123 - - XII.'CHRISTOPHER NORTH': JOHN WILSON 131 - - XIII. THE CHAMPION OF LORD BACON: JAMES SPEDDING 141 - - XIV. TWO BEAUTIFUL LIVES: WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH 149 - - XV. TWO BROAD THINKERS: FREDERIC AND F. W. H. MEYER - (FATHER AND SON) 157 - - XVI. A RELIGIOUS MEDIEVALIST: FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER: - 1.--THE MAN 167 - 2.--HIS BOOKS 177 - - XVII. JOHN RUSKIN'S FRIENDS: THE SISTERS OF THE - THWAITE, AND THEIR BROTHER 187 - - XVIII. A LEARNED YOUNG LADY: ELIZABETH SMITH 195 - - XIX. A COUNTRY DOCTOR AND HIS STORIES (FOLK-SPEECH): - DR. ALEXANDER CRAIG GIBSON 203 - - XX. TWO PIONEER EDUCATIONISTS: THOMAS AND - MATTHEW ARNOLD 213 - - XXI. 'DRUNKEN BARNABY': RICHARD BRAITHWAITE 223 - - XXII. LAST WORDS ABOUT OUR CELEBRITIES 233 - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - DOVE COTTAGE, GRASMERE _Frontispiece_ - - THOMAS DE QUINCEY _facing page_ 3 - - THE KNOLL, AMBLESIDE " 21 - - BRANTWOOD, CONISTON LAKE " 29 - - JOHN RUSKIN IN OLD AGE " 65 - - THE HOUSE AT HERNE HILL IN WHICH RUSKIN WAS - BORN IN 1819 " 75 - - MEDALLION ON THE RUSKIN MEMORIAL, DERWENTWATER " 82 - - SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE " 85 - - NAB COTTAGE, RYDAL " 95 - - WINE STREET, BRISTOL " 103 - - SOUTHEY'S MONUMENT IN CROSTHWAITE CHURCH, - KESWICK " 109 - - JOSEPH COTTLE, OF BRISTOL " 113 - - OLD BRATHAY " 123 - - CHARLES LLOYD AND HIS WIFE " 128 - - ELLERAY, WINDERMERE " 131 - - VIEW OF WINDERMERE " 167 - - YEWDALE " 187 - - HAWKESHEAD, FROM ESTHWAITE WATER " 203 - - FOX HOW, AMBLESIDE " 213 - - BURNESIDE HALL, NEAR KENDAL " 223 - - SWARTHMORE HALL, ULVERSTONE " 233 - - - - - GRASMERE AND DOVE COTTAGE - - - 'Once I absolutely went forwards from Coniston to the very verge of -Hammerscar, from which the whole Vale of Grasmere suddenly breaks upon -the view in a style of almost theatrical surprise, with its lovely -valley stretching before the eye in the distance, the lake lying -immediately below, with its solemn ark-like island of four and a half -acres in size seemingly floating on its surface, and its exquisite -outline on the opposite shore, revealing all its little bays and wild -sylvan margins, feathered to the edge with wild flowers and ferns. In -one quarter, a little wood, stretching for about half a mile towards the -outlet of the lake; more directly in opposition to the spectator, a few -green fields; and beyond them, just two bowshots from the water, a -little white cottage gleaming from the midst of trees, with a vast and -seemingly never-ending series of ascents, rising above it to the height -of more than three thousand feet. That little cottage was Wordsworth's -from the time of his marriage, and earlier; in fact, from the beginning -of the century to the year 1808. Afterwards, for many a year it was -mine.'--THOMAS DE QUINCEY: _Autobiographic Sketches_. - - -[Illustration: - THOMAS DE QUINCEY. -By A. C. Lucchesi.] - - - - - THE ENGLISH OPIUM EATER - - THOMAS DE QUINCEY - - I.--THE MAN - - - 'Oh! Mr. de Quinshy--sir, but you're a pleasant cretur--and were I - ask't to gie a notion o' your mainners to them that had never seen - you, I should just use twa words, Urbanity and Amenity.'--The - ETTRICK SHEPHERD in _Noctes Ambrosianæ_. - -Had you been in Edinburgh on a certain day of the early spring in the -year 1850, you might have met a little, undersized, slight-framed man, -with a somewhat stealthy tread, and shy, furtive glances--like one who -dreads being watched and overtaken--stepping quickly along the streets. -He is dressed in an overcoat, buttoned close to the chin, beneath which -is no other coat. At first sight you think him a youth. On a nearer -approach you notice his hair is turning gray, and that his -fair-complexioned face and massive brow are mapped all over with the -finest of fine wrinkles, denoting his age, which is actually almost -sixty-five. Let us see where he goes. Presently he reaches the -publishing office of _Hogg's Instructor_, and the weird little man is -shown into the editor's office, and as he seems tired out with the ten -miles' walk he says he has taken from his village home, he is kindly -told to seat himself. No sooner has he done so, than he produces from -one of his pockets a packet of manuscript sheets and a small handbrush -from another. He tells the astonished editor that he is Thomas De -Quincey, whose name by that time was known all over the English-speaking -world, and that he wishes to contribute to the new periodical. As he -talks, he unfolds each separate sheet, and, carefully wiping it with his -brush, lays it on the desk. Editor Hogg goes to his safe and places a -sufficient sum in the hands of the shy stranger, and thus begins a fast -friendship and a literary connection which results in the publication of -some fourteen volumes of scattered essays--essays the like of which are -not to be found elsewhere in our mother tongue either for learning or -for inimitable force and elegance of style. The friendship only ended -with the death of De Quincey nine years later. - -Now let us follow him to his home. His wife has been dead some years. On -her death the eldest daughter, still a mere girl, took upon herself the -care of the other children and their loving and famous, but most -eccentric, father. She removed the household to the village of Lasswade, -and their cottage made for them and all their visitors a bright and -happy centre of attraction. It is night ere he reaches his home, but -that is no matter, for he is in the habit of taking long and lonely -rambles far into the night and early morning, flitting about so silently -as to startle benighted travellers as if they had seen a ghost. This -night he has walked enough, and retires to his own room--a room crowded -with a confused mass of books, which leave only a narrow passage along -which he can just screw himself into his chair by the fire. A -wineglassful of laudanum is poured out by him from a decanter close at -hand, and he drinks it off, though it is of strength sufficient to kill -two or three ordinary people. Now, for a while, is his season of -recuperation and brilliant writing, till, as daylight approaches, he -turns into his simple bedroom and sleeps. Next day, probably, and for -many days thereafter we should seek him in vain at these his -headquarters, for he has other lodgings, two or three of them, in the -City, each simply running over with books. Into one of these -hiding-places we are introduced by one of his own essays, wherein he -amusingly describes his efforts, aided by his daughters, to discover a -manuscript which he desired to publish, and which was found at last at -the bottom of a metal bath crammed with papers, receipts, letters, and -folios of his own neat handwriting. He has left some other bundles of -valuable books and essays at some booksellers, whose very name and -address he has forgotten, for he has literally no memory at all for such -mundane things, and no kind of idea of the value of money. He would sue -for the loan of a few shillings _in forma pauperis_ when scores of -pounds were due to him from publishers who would have been only too glad -to settle with him promptly. A bank bill or a large note would lie -inside some book till its hiding-place was forgotten, simply because he -had not the remotest idea how to turn it into cash. On the other hand, -when it was cashed he was lavishly generous to every beggar and impostor -whom he came across, being one of the most genuinely sympathetic of men, -ready to talk with the unfortunates of the pavements, with no thought -of sin or shame in his heart, and to do them a good turn; and so fond of -little children that one of his greatest griefs--the death of -Wordsworth's infant daughter--was undoubtedly amongst the acutest pains -of his life. Earning money, after his early struggles were over, more -freely than most literary men of the day, so careless and so -simple-minded was he that he had to fly for sanctuary from his creditors -within the precincts of Holyrood, from whence he was only free to come -forth on Sundays, and if perchance he was decoyed into some friend's -house, and stayed late unwittingly, entrancing the company with his -torrents of living eloquence and unexampled knowledge, there he had to -lie _perdu_ till Sunday came round again. - -Loving, and beloved of all who knew him, unsophisticated and child-like -as he was in middle and later manhood, he had had as rough an experience -of the dark and troublous side of the world as any man of his century. - -He was born in Manchester, where his father, who died early of -consumption, was a well-to-do manufacturer. His mother, who was of a -socially higher grade, and of a rigid Puritan character, never -understood her sensitive son, and never took him to her heart or entered -his. Very touching are the autobiographic accounts he gives of his -sensations on the death of a little sister; how he stole into the silent -chamber and kissed the cold lips, and fell apparently into a kind of -trance, which, young as he was, made his eyes fill 'with the golden -fulness of life'; 'a vault,' he says, 'seemed to open in the zenith of -the far blue sky, a shaft which ran up for ever. I, in spirit, rose as -if on billows that also ran up the shaft for ever; and the billows -seemed to pursue the throne of God; but that also ran before us and fled -away for ever,' and so he goes on, 'till,' says he, 'I slept ... and -when I awoke I found myself standing, as before, close to my sister's -bed.' Later, too, in church, the organ music awoke within him the deep -mysticism of his nature, and he beheld with inner vision, as the solemn -notes pealed and sobbed, dreams and visions, and heard oracles, and had -with God, as he supposed, 'communion undisturbed.' These dream-echoes -haunted him more or less all his life. And it was this delicate, refined -nature which was terrorized and domineered over by a rough, fighting -elder brother, who forced him into conflict with town boys and -victimized him incessantly at home. It was this quick-learning, -preternaturally intelligent boy--who could beat all his schoolmates at -Greek and other book-knowledge--who was sent to dull and cruel masters, -who misused him and drove him in the end to run away and hide himself in -Wales, and afterwards in London. In the great Metropolis, in a desolate -old house at the corner of Greek Street and Soho Square, with only a -little waif of a girl to share his misery and solitude, he spent many -months, his only other acquaintances a hard old lawyer, who made him a -tool, and a girl of the streets, whom he calls 'Poor Ann of Oxford -Street,' who had rescued him from death when he lay famishing on a -doorstep. - -How he was discovered by his family; how he was sent to Oxford, and how -when there his sensitiveness led him to shirk the examinations for his -degree; how he went to the lakes of Westmorland to live, edited a Kendal -newspaper, associated with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Professor -Wilson, and many another celebrity of the day; how he married a farmer's -daughter, who made him an exemplary wife; how he had contracted the -terrific opium habit, and how he fought it, conquered it, and fell again -before it; how he filled, even in the days of his poverty and struggling -life, one cottage after another with precious volumes of ancient and -modern lore; and how he migrated northward, and lived in and near -Edinburgh, as he was doing when we first met him--all these things you -must read for yourselves in his 'English Opium Eater,' and in his -entrancing 'Autobiographic Sketches,' or else in a Life of him by Dr. -Japp or by Professor Masson. - -His death came not unawares to terminate a period of helpless weariness -with some delirium, the after-effects of opium doses. But even in -delirium his dreams, though they greatly tried him, revealed the gentle -spirit of the man. Telling his daughter one of them, he said: 'You know -I and the children were invited to the Great Supper--the Great Supper of -Jesus Christ. So, wishing the children to have suitable dresses for such -an occasion, I had them all dressed in white. They were dressed from -head to foot in white. But some rough men in the streets of Edinburgh, -as we passed on our way to the Supper, seeing the little things in -complete white, laughed and jeered at us, and made the children much -ashamed.' His daughter records: 'As the waves of death rolled faster and -faster over him, suddenly out of the abyss we saw him throw up his arms, -which to the last retained their strength, and he said distinctly, and -as if in great surprise, "Sister, sister, sister!"' So he fell on -sleep. - - - - - OF BOOKS AND CONVERSATION - - - 'A great scholar, in the highest sense of the term, is not one who - depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and - electrical power of combination, bringing together from the four - winds, like the Angel of the Resurrection, what else were dust from - dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing life. - - 'And of this let everyone be assured--that he owes to the - impassioned books which he has read, many a thousand more of - emotions than he can consciously trace back to them. Dim by their - origination, these emotions yet arise in him, and mould him through - life like the forgotten incidents of childhood. - - 'Books teach by one machinery, conversation by another; and if these - resources were trained into correspondence to their own separate - ideals, they might become reciprocally the complements of each - other.'--THOMAS DE QUINCEY: _Essay on Pope_. - - - - - THE ENGLISH OPIUM EATER - - THOMAS DE QUINCEY - - II.--HIS BOOKS - - - 'De Quincey! farewell! Many pleasing hours have we spent in the - perusal of thy eloquent page, and not a few in listening to thy - piercing words. Not a few tears have we given to thy early sorrows. - With no little emotion have we followed the current of thy romantic - narrative.' --GILFILLAN'S _Literary Portraits_. - - -We have already seen that De Quincey's collected essays filled, in the -edition prepared by himself, as many as fourteen volumes. How many there -are in the more recent edition by Professor Masson I do not at the -moment remember, but they are in most public libraries, and can be -heartily commended both for their careful annotation and the excellence -of their typography. This latter point is a great one for the -book-lover, who believes that everything he reads should be pleasant to -handle and a delight to the eyes, provided always that its price is -within reach of a moderately-filled purse. - -Of the quality of the contents of the fourteen volumes there are diverse -critical opinions. Let me appraise a few of them before offering my own. -Dr. Traill ('Social England'), while speaking highly of our author's -remarkable powers of literary expression, his wit, pathos, and humour, -considers him 'unequal' in merit, and is almost absurdly wrong when he -talks of De Quincey dividing a certain portion of his life 'between -Bohemianizing in London and lion-hunting in the Lake District.' Two more -utterly unsuitable words could hardly have been found with which to -describe the early experiences of our quaint, little, oversensitive -'Thomas Paperverius,' as Hill Burton calls him in 'The Book Hunter,' -than 'Bohemianizing' and 'lion-hunting.' We will, however, forgive Dr. -Traill, since one who was by nature an unsympathetic critic could not -possibly rise above his own customary level, and also because he gives -De Quincey a place of honour as the originator of the modern school of -'prose poets,' represented by Professor Wilson, his contemporary, and in -later years by John Ruskin. - -The Professor Wilson here named is, of course, he who is still known by -his _nom de plume_ of 'Christopher North.' Close friends were these two -great walkers, great talkers, and great writers. At first sight an -ill-assorted pair must they have seemed to anyone who met them together -on the hills above Windermere, the Celtic giant striding along, like one -of Ossian's heroes, with 'his yellow hair streaming upon the wind,' and -his undersized comrade half running by his side. As they climbed the -mountain they were fain to discourse of all things in heaven and on -earth, for they were both eclectics of a high order, both deeply versed -in German literature and metaphysics, both keenly observant of Nature -and of current events, and both excellent classical and English -scholars. The more Wilson knew of De Quincey the better he liked and -appreciated him, even though an occasional little breeze ruffled the -calmness of their intercourse. The latter owed to 'Kit' his introduction -to _Blackwood's Magazine_, of which he was then editor-in-chief. You -will also remember--you, at any rate, who are familiar with the charming -'Noctes Ambrosianæ' (though, I fear, you are in a sad minority in these -days of scrappy periodicals and flimsy popular fiction)--but you of the -elect few will remember the genial fun which Wilson pokes at 'The Opium -Eater,' and how cleverly he imitates his all but inimitable style, and -banters him on his out-of-the way bits of Attic or Teutonic lore, as -well as on his habits of tagging on one idea to another till he bids -fair to lay the whole universe under contribution to his analytical and -illuminative conversation. You will remember, further, that he puts into -the mouth of 'The Ettrick Shepherd' many such passages as the following, -professing to tease pleasantly the subject of them: 'As for "The Opium -Eater," he lives in a world o' his ain, where there are nae magazines o' -ony sort, but o' hail and sleet, and thunder, and lichtnin', and -pyramids, and Babylonian terraces, covering wi' their fallen gardens, -that are now naething but roots and trunks o' trees, and bricks o' -pleasure houses, the unknown tombs o' them that belonged once to the -Beasts o' the Revelation,' and much more of the same sort of chaff, -running into a paragraph three times the length of this quotation. - -Crabbe Robinson, in his 'Diary,' that wonderful repertoire of chit-chat -about the celebrities of his day, says 'all that De Quincey wrote is -curious if not valuable; commencing with his best-known "Confessions of -an English Opium Eater," and ending with his scandalous but -painfully-interesting autobiography in _Tait's Magazine_.' Scandalous -quotha! This most 'valuable' production has passed into our choicest -literature, while Mr. Robinson's own memoranda are barely known, if at -all, beyond a small circle of bookworms. The 'Diary' has become a mere -quarry in which historians and biographers dig for their building -materials, while De Quincey's life is a more enduring monument to his -fame than if it had been of marble. - -George Gilfillan has far more nearly hit the mark when he pens this -critique: 'In all his writings we find a lavish display of learning. You -see it bursting out, whether he will or no; never dragged in as by -cart-ropes; and his allusions, glancing in all directions, show even -more than his direct quotations that his learning is encyclopædic. His -book of reference is the brain. Nor must we forget his style. It is -massive, masculine, and energetic; ponderous in its construction, slow -in its motion, thoroughly English, yet thickly sprinkled with archaisms -and big words, peppered to just the proper degree with the condiments of -simile, metaphor, and poetic quotation; select, without being -fastidious; strong, without being harsh; elaborate, without being -starched into formal and false precision.' - -We will pass now from these critical estimates to our own mere likings -and preferences among De Quincey's very voluminous 'Selections Grave and -Gay.' I give the first place--the place of vantage and of honour--to the -autobiography already alluded to above, for it burns and scintillates -with the fire of genius, kindled by the action of unique experiences -upon a unique temperament. Next must come, of course, the -'Confessions,' which made him famous in the first instance. This is a -volume from which, in my limited space, I can make no typical extracts, -meandering as the pages do among golden visions and uncanny dreams -begotten by the hideous narcotic drug, and lingering lovingly among -picturesque sketches of the men and maidens of the villages and country -towns he strayed to during his flight from school and home, giving us -glimpses now of 'elaborate and pompous sunsets hanging over the -mountains of Wales,' and anon plunging us into the profoundest depths of -German philosophy and theology. Sometimes he makes us smile at a curious -and unexpected phrase, or some simile that is apt, and yet at first -sight seems incongruous, with a spice of exaggeration, such as the -statement that the shoulders of the porter who carried away his trunk -were 'broad as Salisbury Plain.' - -One of the most characteristic of his tales is that of 'The Spanish -Military Nun,' a true narrative, unearthed by him from the authentic -lore of Spain, of an episode in the conquest of South America, and -relating to a certain Catarina (prettily called by him 'our dear Kate') -who escaped from a convent in the mother country, donned armour, fought -battles and duels, was beloved by marriageable girls, forced a passage -across the Andes, and finally was drowned in the Western Atlantic. The -story is told with humour and much feeling, and has no counterpart, -except in the narrative similarly discovered and freely translated by -Southey, called 'The Expedition of Orsua, and the Crimes of Aguirre.' - -Perhaps the most celebrated of his essays, though, I fancy, better -known by its title than actually read, is that 'On Murder considered as -one of the Fine Arts.' It is an elaborate _jeu d'esprit_, of which the -grave introduction, brimming over with fun, not a muscle of the author's -face moving in the telling, commences thus: 'Most of us who read books -have probably heard of a Society for the Promotion of Vice, of the -Hell-fire Club, founded in the last century by Sir Francis Dashwood. At -Brighton, I think it was, that a society was formed for the suppression -of virtue. That society was itself suppressed; but I am sorry to say -that another exists in London of a character still more atrocious. In -tendency it may be denominated a Society for the Encouragement of -Murder, but according to their own delicate euphemismos is styled "The -Society of Connoisseurs in Murder." They profess to be curious in -homicide; amateurs and dilettante in the various modes of carnage, and, -in short, murder-fanciers.' - -Probably to the majority of his readers his 'English Mail-Coach,' with -its sub-chapters on 'The Glory of Motion,' 'The Vision of Sudden Death,' -and 'Dream Fugue,' will be the most attractive of all his pieces. We who -are old enough to remember 'The Arrow,' 'The Rival,' 'The Tally-Ho,' and -other four-horse mail-coaches, on which we rode seventy miles to and -from boarding-school, or to visit far-off country relatives, can enter -into the spirit of these sketches _con amore_. The young folk, who have -ridden only in hansom-cabs and excursion trains, have little idea of the -perils and pains, and the pleasures, of old coaching days, on the old -coaching roads, or at the old coaching inns, in weary winter rides, or -glorious sunny jaunts in summer time. They should certainly read these -essays, and learn how their parents and grandparents travelled in days -antecedent to steam and electricity. - -If sterner qualities are needed by more laborious readers, let me -commend to their attention that marvel of historic picture-writing, 'The -Revolt of the Tartars'; or 'The Essenes' may suit them, if they be -biblical students, even though they may not agree with De Quincey's -conclusions; or there is that painstaking, minutely-descriptive chapter -on 'The Toilet of a Hebrew Lady.' If they inquire for political -knowledge--and, indeed, this is sadly lacking, not only among working -men, but even more by professional men, who live outside the contact and -struggle with the hardships and necessities of business life--where will -you find anything more convincing, anywhere any severer logic, than that -in the dissertations on Political Economy? I say nothing of his other -historical, philosophical, and theological writings--his theories, -speculations, and researches--for I would advise none to begin the -systematic study of De Quincey with these. I would recommend beginners -to taste first his sketches of contemporary writers and his lighter -papers, and then, if they find they acquire a liking for these, to pass -on to the more recondite. I confess that, however fascinating his -literary style may be, it requires some little culture to appreciate it -at the outset. If a first attempt prove no success, let the -'Miscellanies' be laid aside for a while, till the man himself has -become well known and companionable. Then a second attempt can hardly be -a failure. - -Let me finish this article by inviting my readers' perusal of that -masterpiece of Jean Paul Richter's, so ably translated by our 'old man -eloquent,' and forming the appendix to his essay on the system of the -heavens. It begins, 'And God called up from dreams a man into the -vestibule of heaven, saying, "Come thou hither, and see the glory of My -house." And to His angels He said, "Take him and undress him from his -robes of flesh, and put a new breath into his nostrils, and arm him with -sail-broad wings for flight. Only touch not with any change his human -heart--the heart that weeps and trembles." It was done, and with a -mighty angel for his guide, the man stood ready for his infinite voyage, -and from the terraces of heaven, without sound or farewell, at once they -wheeled away into endless space.' - - - - - THE BRATHAY VALLEY, AMBLESIDE - - - 'It is the place for the earliest flowers of the spring, and - distinguished by the broom growing thickly on the bank of the river, - and yellow globe-ranunculus flourishing on the rocks at the brink, - or in the midst of the stream. In the autumn, the side of Loughrigg, - which overhangs the valley, is splendid with flowering heather. The - opposite character of this and the sister valley is striking, and - led to the remark of a resident of Ambleside that if one wants a - meditative walk in winter, one goes round the Brathay Valley--sure - to meet nobody but the postman, whereas, if one needs recreation - after a morning of study, the walk should be round the Rothay - Valley, where one is sure to meet all one's acquaintances. The - finest view in this valley, one of the finest in the whole district, - is from Skelwith Fold.... The stranger will hardly aver that he ever - saw a more perfect picture than this, with the fall (Skelwith Force) - in the centre, closed in by rock and wood on either hand, and by - Langdale Pikes behind.'--HARRIET MARTINEAU: _Guide to the Lakes_. - - -[Illustration: -_Photo by Herbert Bell, Ambleside._ - - THE KNOLL, AMBLESIDE. - - The Home of Harriet Martineau (1855-1876).] - - - - - II - - A PIONEER OF POLITICAL REFORM - - HARRIET MARTINEAU - - - 'She was born to be a destroyer of slavery, in whatever form, in - whatever place, all over the world, wherever she saw or thought of - it ... in the degraded offspring of former English poor-law ... in - English serfdom forty years ago ... in the fruits of any - abuse--social, legislative, or administrative--or in actual - slavery.'--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. - - -Perhaps the most instructive and reliable book ever written about the -actual condition of England, and about her people's struggles for light, -liberty, and better conditions of life during the first half of the -nineteenth century is Miss Martineau's 'History of the Thirty Years' -Peace.' It is emphatically a citizen's history as distinguished from a -partizan politician's, and it ought to be read, together with her -'Introduction' to it, by every young man who desires to possess an -intelligent acquaintance with the social problems of his age and -country. The ignorance of the present generation of youthful electors, -when compared with the knowledge of their parents at a similar time of -life, often astounds me. It is probably due to two causes--first, to the -fact that their fathers were, forty or fifty years ago, only just -emerging from the dust and smoke of hard-fought political battles, and -so had the causes of them well engrained into their minds, while they of -this generation have not yet so much as 'smelt powder' in the struggle -against still-existing grievances; and, secondly, that the present-day -education in elementary schools practically ignores the teaching of -history, while ordinary secondary schools teach English history only in -'samples,' and those seldom of the most modern periods. No other of -Harriet Martineau's works will take rank with her 'Thirty Years' Peace,' -yet they all had a great reputation when she was reckoned the greatest -living English woman, and they nearly all had a wide sale, though, -having been written for passing purposes, they naturally died -out of the popular memory when their purposes were accomplished, -and fresh interests had come into view. They were mostly -stories--novelettes--written to illustrate such questions as the then -burning ones of free trade, colonization by emigration of the pauper and -the criminal, the incidence and amendment of the Poor Laws, the -repression and punishment of crime, actual and ideal systems of -taxation, the relationships of capital and labour, and the like. In -addition to these, she wrote a few volumes of pure fiction, some -reminiscences of travel in the East--through Egypt, across the Sinaitic -desert, and northwards past Jerusalem to Damascus--and some others -respecting her stay in the United States of America in the troublous -anti-slavery times preceding the Civil War. In her earlier days she also -wrote some religious and theological essays and sketches for Unitarian -magazines. Of her fictions, two may be mentioned--'Deerbrook,' which she -considered her masterpiece, and 'Feats on the Fjord.' The latter was -favourite reading of my own boyhood. I took it to Norway with me in -later days, and found it in every way a most accurate description of -Scandinavian farm life, as well as of coast and mountain scenery--in -fact, quite as much so as the stories of Björnstjerne Björnson himself. -The extraordinary thing about this is that the authoress had never been -in Norway, and took all the settings of her hero's adventures from -narratives of other people's travels. - -Her autobiography--written when, in advancing age, heart-disease had -marked her for its victim at no distant date--with the appendix thereto, -compiled by her devoted friend, Mrs. Chapman--furnishes us with all the -available materials for a sketch of her life; and, indeed, it is the -most valuable of all her multitudinous productions, with the exception -already noted. It is the story of a noble and unceasing struggle, -successfully carried through, against internal difficulties, both mental -and physical of no ordinary character, and against external ones that -would have beaten any commonplace person. It is, however, also a -revelation of spiritual processes and of gradual abandonment of -once-cherished beliefs that does not fascinate us, and leaves us with -grave doubts as to the acuteness of her philosophical insight, and of -her grasp of real Christian teaching. Perhaps, too, it was natural that -her independence of character, and her constant overwork and overstrain, -should lead her into impatience of the frailties of others, and quicken -her contempt for many of the celebrities she knew personally. - -Born in 1802 of Unitarian parents, in Norwich, she grew to be a shy, -sensitive, but quietly-observant and clever girl. Her upbringing was on -the repressive lines of a conscientious but narrow-minded mother, who -was without sympathy for, or knowledge of, her 'ugly duckling's' -yearnings or capacity. The last thing the mother dreamed of was that the -'ugly duckling' was in truth a cygnet, whose swan-plumage the world -would one day recognise. The daughter longed inexpressibly for words and -deeds of parental love which never came to her, and so she grew silent, -introspective, and morbid. In mature age she became morbidly ashamed of -her childhood's, perhaps inevitable, morbidness. When her literary -instincts were bound to find a vent, her first venture in magazine -articles had to be made in secret, and, when they were discovered, -efforts were made to repress any continuation of them, and she was -sternly told to stick to her sewing-needle. She was fortunate in being -sent to a good day-school, which counteracted by its learned and genial -atmosphere the influences of home. It was, too, a blessing in disguise -when, her never robust health failing, her parents sent her to relatives -in Bristol, whose joyous spirits and cultured tastes were an inspiration -to her. A tendency to deafness, which became chronic, and at last -compelled the habitual use of an ear-trumpet, did not, till she -conquered the disadvantage by her brave fortitude, make her desirous of -company or help her to make much way in it. - -The one trusted friend of her youth was her beloved younger brother -James, afterwards the eminent Unitarian minister and theologian. To him -she confided her secret aspirations, and he encouraged her finally to -proceed to London and try and find a publisher for the series of -political economy stories she projected writing. Her heroic efforts to -find someone who would risk putting them on the market is one of the -romances of literary biography. - -Her father was dead. The manufacturing firm in which her mother's monies -were invested had failed. She was alone in London, and without knowledge -or influence. How she 'trudged many miles through the clay of the -streets, and the fog of the gloomiest December,' only to be rejected, -sometimes politely, and sometimes rudely, by everyone to whom she showed -her MSS. and explained her scheme; and how at last she despairingly -accepted what seemed almost impossible, and certainly were unreasonable, -terms, offered by a young bookseller without business connections; how a -wealthy relative unexpectedly stepped in to guarantee a portion of her -personal risk; and how she suddenly sprang into fame--are not all these -things faithfully set forth in her autobiographical chapter headed 'Aged -Twenty-nine'? From depths of discouragement that would have effectually -damped most aspiring authors she at once became a 'society lion,' or -rather, to retain our former metaphor, she was hailed as one of the -swans of literature, and, as was said of the royal bird in Andersen's -parable, 'the most beautiful of them all.' She endured a long and -terrible strain, while for several years producing a story a month, -which broke down her health seriously, yet she attended nearly every -evening some social function, which brought her into intimacy with the -most celebrated men and women of her generation. - -It is in her records of this period that the most unpleasant traits in -her disposition become apparent. Almost every page betokens a spirit of -captious criticism of her acquaintances, and almost every one is -belittled by her. - -About this time, too, Unitarianism lost altogether its slackening hold -of her. She saw that its dogmas were entirely contrary to Scripture -revelation and teaching, but instead of rectifying her faith to the -Christian standard, she abandoned the standard itself, and became an -avowed Positivist. She writes herself down as a convinced -'Necessitarian,' though if anyone's life and conduct effectually belied -such a creed it was hers. No one ever gave stronger proofs of a -self-determined will, free from all external or internal compulsion, -than she. - -Money as well as fame became now her well-earned portion, and she found -herself able to purchase an annuity, spend some time abroad, and buy -land and build a house thereon at Ambleside, by the shores of beautiful -Winander. In this charming home she spent her declining years, following -her favourite pursuits, advocating mesmerism, which she considered had -raised her up from a long-endured nervous prostration, and playing with -success the part of the Lady Bountiful to the neighbourhood. It was -whilst at this place that she translated the works of Comte, and lost -thereby, what she valued most in the world--the intimacy of her beloved -brother James, who, like herself, a model of conscientiousness, publicly -reviewed her introductions and comments with some severity. Both brother -and sister had opinions, held them tenaciously, and expressed them -fearlessly. On her side no sign of change from Positivism was ever -given. The same dauntless spirit which bore her through the anti-slavery -campaign, when in America she was threatened by the slave-owners with -personal violence, upheld her now in her championship of the philosophy -of altruism without a Divine Fatherhood. We believe her mistaken, but -admire her unflinching adhesion to what she deemed the truth. - -It was in her beautiful house, The Knoll, that she passed behind the -veil, and entered into the clear seeing of eternity. She died, says her -closest friend and biographer, 'in the summer sunset of her home amid -the Westmorland mountains, on June 27, 1876, after twenty-one years of -diligent, devoted, suffering, joyful years there, attended by the family -friends she most loved, and in possession of all her mental powers up -till the last expiring day, aged seventy-four years.' She lies among her -kindred, descendants of French refugees, in the old cemetery at -Birmingham. - -In her maidenhood she had once loved, and been beloved by one of the -other sex, but events occurred to prevent the consummation of her love -by marriage, and it proved a happy escape. Thenceforward she lived only -to endure - - 'Many a lofty struggle for the sake - Of duties, sternly, faithfully fulfilled, - For which the anxious mind must watch and wake, - And the strong feelings of the heart be stilled.' - - - - - THE TRUE POET - - - 'Who wears a singing-robe is richly dight; - The Poet, he is richer than a King. - He plucks the veil from hidden loveliness; - His gusts of music stir the shadowing boughs, - To let in glory on the darkened soul. - Upon the hills of light he plants his feet - To lure the people up with heart and voice; - At humblest human hearths drops dews divine - To feed the violet virtues nestling there. - His hands adorn the poorest house of life - With rare abiding shapes of loveliness. - All things obey his soul's creative eye; - For him earth ripens fruit-like in the light; - Green April comes to him with smiling tears, - Like some sweet maiden who transfigured stands - In dewy light of first love's rosy dawn, - And yields all secret preciousness, his Bride. - He reaps the Autumn without scythe or sickle; - And in the sweet low singing of the corn - Hears Plenty hush the pining Poor.' - - GERALD MASSEY. - - -[Illustration: - BRANTWOOD, CONISTON LAKE. - - Successively the Home of Gerald Massey, William J. and - Eliza Lynn Linton, and John Ruskin.] - - - - - III - - A LOVER OF BEAUTY - - GERALD MASSEY - - - 'Like the Norseman of whom he sings, he is everywhere true, brave, - generous, and free. He is before all things a patriot. He has an - intense belief in the genius of England as the champion of liberty, - and the pioneer of freedom.'--_The Poets and the Poetry of the - Century._ - - -He is still living, some seventy-five years of age, and it is difficult -to write anything of the nature of a biography of one still amongst us. -There are a few facts, however, patent to all the world, which may be -fitly reproduced. Perhaps the most striking of these is that, like -'Festus Bailey,' he did his best poetical work in his young manhood, and -the early promise of ripening in power and of richer fruit-bearing has -not been fulfilled. Massey, writing some sweet and inspiring lyrics, and -giving evidence of acute appreciation of the masters of literature in -his once well-known lectures, seems to have lost himself in a maze of -Egyptian and anti-Christian pseudo-philosophies even less edifying than -the science evolved from the 'inner consciousness' of such holy men as -Jacob Behmen, Peter Sterry, or Swedenborg, and as incomprehensible to -the ordinary mind as the strange mysticism of William Blake. He has, as -a poet, which was his true function in life, committed intellectual -suicide, and his resurrection into mythical regions and pamphleteering -on 'Luniolatry,' 'The Seven Souls of Man,' 'The Coming Religion,' and -other such subjects, will not only fail to add to his fame, but in the -future will be remembered merely by curiosity-hunters as the vagaries of -a capable but erratic genius. Like his own Atle the Fur-Hunter in -chasing the squirrel, he has lost his sledge-load of treasures. I know -that he does not personally think so, and that some, at least, of his -friends agree with him. He found verse-making insufficient for -subsistence--as, indeed, might have been expected--and it has been -written of him that in turning to his final career he began to - - 'Dredge the old sea-bottoms of the Past, - Lover of Beauty who gave up all for Truth.' - -Still, we shall ever regret the change. - -Some of his best life-work was done by Massey at Brantwood, on the -shores of Coniston Water, including 'The Ballad of Babe Christabel,' -'Craig-crook Castle,' and 'War-Waits.' He had come here after a period -of stress necessitated by his outward circumstances, which had been of -the poorest. His father was a canal-boatman of Tring, in Hertfordshire, -and for him, as for all of the wage-earners of those evil days of the -Corn Laws and other oppressions, there was virtually no education. He -was sent to work in a mill when eight years of age, for twelve hours a -day, at 9d. to 1s. 6d. per week. It was the sorrows and sufferings -of such little ones as he which inspired Mrs. Browning's -never-to-be-forgotten 'Cry of the Children.' Possessed of a resolute -will and an inquiring spirit, he taught himself all he could from the -very few books accessible to him. While passing through years of poverty -and hardship, engaged in straw-plaiting, he associated himself with -like-minded youths of his own and a somewhat better social class, threw -himself ardently into the progressive movements of the day, and -soon found his way into print in some of the restricted and -Government-worried local newspapers. When but twenty-one years old he -was actually editing a serial called _The Spirit of the Age_. A year -later he became one of the secretaries of the Christian Democratic -movement headed by Maurice and Kingsley, wrote verses for various -publications, and by-and-by mustered courage to issue his 'Voices of -Freedom and Lyrics of Love.' This little book and his next brought him -into contact or correspondence with Hepworth Dixon, W. Savage Landor, -'George Eliot,' and Tennyson. Tennyson writes him respecting the 'fine -lyrical impulse, and the rich, half-Oriental imagination' he found in -his poems. 'George Eliot' is said to have taken him for her model of -'Felix Holt the Radical.' She describes her hero as a somewhat -eccentric-mannered young man, shaggy-headed, large-eyed, and -strong-limbed, wearing neither waistcoat nor cravat, and in abrupt -sentences denouncing unreality and humbug, though amenable to softening -social and intellectual influences. This, at any rate, is her -introduction of him to her readers. Massey's first love-story (he was -happily married) was, at least, as much an idyll, it would appear, as -that of Holt, and the deep home love, the consecrated affection of the -wedded life, were the inspirations of some of his sweetest lyrics, just -as his intense yearnings for the betterment of the common people were -that of his patriotic ones. Later in life, after he had left Coniston, -we find him an accepted essayist in some leading literary magazines, and -a lecturer on literary subjects, living in Edinburgh. Another volume or -two, with war songs and ballads among them, evoked by what England has -long ago become ashamed of--the Crimean War--completed the first stage -of his career, and the only one that concerns us here. He has collected -into a volume--adopting a description of himself as 'the most -unpublished of authors'--a few of his best poems, which one critic -thinks contains everything of his worth preserving. I do not agree with -this dictum. Some of his best are omitted, though we have to thank this -self-same critic for preserving them for us. - -Now comes for me the ungrateful task of selecting from his garden of -delights, not posies, but a few blossoms and a few typical petals that -may serve to show the form and hue of the blossoms. In doing so, many of -the best must of necessity be passed over. Do you know 'Babe -Christabel'? Is it not pathetically true to experience? Has it not set -many a chord of many a mother's riven heart vibrating as she reads of - - 'A merry May morn, - All in the prime of that sweet time - When daisies whiten, woodbines climb, - When the dear Babe Christabel was born'? - -and how, coming through the 'golden gates of morn' to what seemed a -glorious destiny, and touching the earth with a fresh romance for the -happy parents, she grew in loveliness only to be caught away, ere -reaching womanhood, by angels who gathered her 'delighted as the -children do the primrose that is first in spring.' And do you know -'Cousin Winnie'? It is almost as pathetic, and quite as true, only in a -different way. It narrates a lad's love for a cousin, married, when she -reached maturity, to a friend of his, who brought trouble upon her, and -for whom he suffered as she suffered, unable to help, and never telling -out his affection for fear of causing division and dissension. - -His songs are far from being all sad. They are mostly redolent of bright -fancy. - - 'Pleasant it is, wee wife of mine, - As by my side thou art, - To sit and see thy dear eyes shine - With bonfires of the heart! - And Young Love smiles so sweet and shy - From warm and balmy deeps, - As under-leaf the fruit may try - To hide, yet archly peeps; - Gliding along in our fairy boat, - With prospering skies above, - Over the sea of time we float - To another New World of Love.' - -This lake-poet is not the Laureate of the love of courtship, but of -wedded bliss. - - 'Oh, lay thy hand in mine, dear! - We're growing old, we're growing old! - But time hath brought no sign, dear! - That hearts grow cold, that hearts grow cold!' - -begins another of what may be called the 'Darby and Joan' type. - -Of the liberty songs, many are familiar to progressive politicians, or -were till we got our terrible set-back at the late 'Khaki' election. -They need reissuing in a popular form. Most people who read anything of -this nature will remember the stanzas with the refrain: - - 'This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above, - And if we did our duty it might be as full of love.' - -Such another is 'The People's Advent,' and the best of them 'The Earth -for All,' two lines in which were often quoted in former days of -agitation: - - 'Your Mother Earth, that gave you birth, - You only own her for a grave.' - -Massey's longer poems I dare not even begin to quote from, only giving a -few solitary gems of thought by way of conclusion: - - 'I heard Faith's low sweet singing in the night. - And groping through the darkness touch'd God's hand.' - - 'Ye sometimes lead my feet on the Angel-side of life.' - - 'Nature at heart is very pitiful, - How gentle is the hand doth gently pull - The coverlet of flowers o'er the face - Of death! and light up his dark dwelling-place!' - - 'Creeds, empires, systems rot with age, - But the great people's ever youthful: - And it shall write the future's page - To our humanity more truthful.' - -Says Gilfillan (a half-forgotten author himself): 'Probably since Burns -there has been no such instance of a strong, untaught poet rising up -from the ranks by a few strides, grasping eminence by the very mane, and -vaulting into a seat so commanding with such ease and perfect -mastery.' - - - - - A NIGHT RAMBLE - - - 'I can recall ... our delight in the moonlight walk from the - Windermere station by the Lakeside to Ambleside, that loveliest five - miles in all England; our next day's climb (the track missed) over - the Stake Pass, after bathing under the fells in a pool at the head - of Langdale; how we lingered, dallying with our joy, on the mountain - tops till night came on, a cloudy night of late September, after a - day of autumn glory, overtaking us before we could reach the - Borrowdale road; how, unable even to grope our way, we lay down - together on the stones to sleep, and awakened by rain, crept under - an overhanging rock, and cold and hungry, smoked our pipes and - talked till the dawning light enabled us to find a path to - Stonethwaite; how we sat in a cottage porch to await the rising of - the inmates and welcome a breakfast of bad coffee and mutton-ham so - salt that it scarified our mouths. No grave-minded man was either of - the pair who went laughing and singing, if somewhat limping, on - their way.'--WILLIAM JAMES LINTON: _Memories_. - - - - - IV - - A POET ENGRAVER - - WILLIAM JAMES LINTON - - I.--THE MAN - - - 'I would build up in my own mind - A temple unto Truth, - And on its shrine an offering bind-- - My age and youth.' - W. J. LINTON. - -Mr. Linton succeeded Gerald Massey as occupant of Brantwood. He came -there from a home at Miteside, on the west coast of Cumberland, to which -he had retired from London with his first wife and their family. He had -been a member of an eminent wood-engraving firm, doing virtually all the -earlier pictorial work for the _Illustrated London News_, and when the -proprietors of that journal commenced a block-making department of their -own, he withdrew from his Hatton Garden business and sought to bring his -other connection with him to the North. He had fallen in love with our -beautiful mountain-land, he tells us, while on a walking tour with a -once well-known and promising young poet--the late Ebenezer Jones--too -soon cut off by consumption. Of this friend Linton afterwards wrote an -affectionate appreciation, extolling his 'joyous and most passionate -nature'--joyous under happy influences, passionate when his quick -intuitions of right and wrong were outraged by injustice. Perhaps it was -due to this excursion that Jones learned to love the rain. - - 'More than the wind, more than the snow, - More than the sunshine, I love rain; - Whether it droppeth soft and low, - Whether it rusheth amain.' - -At Miteside, near the confluence of two becks that flowed from Wast -Water screes, and in which aforetime the Romans fished for -pearl-mussels, and under a line of fells, Linton lived in full enjoyment -of the wild beauty of the country, till the owner needing the house, he -had to quit it. Just at that moment Brantwood came into the market, and, -with a little of his own and some mortgage money, he purchased it. -Shortly after removing into it his wife died. She was the sister of -another of his many poetic and republican friends--Thomas Wade--a man -who, according to his brother-in-law, should have made a great name in -literature, but missed doing so! They were a nest of singing-birds those -vigorous young Radicals of three-quarters of a century ago, singing not -only of the better day they worked to bring in, but, as Wade did, of the -circling hills and wave-swept shores and 'all the amplitude of air and -sea brooding in starry vastness.' What sort of a life Mrs. Linton had -lived with her husband I do not know. That he must have often tried her -patience and upset her domestic arrangements and felicities goes almost -without saying. He was of an ardent and impulsive nature, deeply -committed to European republicanism and its leaders, such as Mazzini, -the inspired conspirator, who loved God as he loved liberty and Italian -unity; such as the Abbé Lamennais, that noble French soul athirst for -love, who shook off the Papacy and the priesthood, and died, 'believing -in God, loving the people'; such as the wealthy, University-trained -Russian aristocrat, Herzen, who was imprisoned, sent to Siberia, and -finally exiled under the old 'drill sergeant,' Czar Nicholas. For -meeting with these in public or in private her husband would leave her -continually alone with her children, after his day's work was done, and -spend in feeding the poorer outlaws the money he had toiled for, and -very frequently would bring some hunted refugee home to live, or even to -prepare to die, in his house. Charles Stolzman, the Pole, he sheltered -at Brantwood, tended through his last sad hours, sent to Millom to -recruit, and when he finished his earthly career, in the little -churchyard beneath the shadow of the lake mountains, Linton laid to rest -the body of the one whom he revered as a true, manly, upright patriot. -The very appearance of Linton while at Coniston suggests, according to -the portraits preserved of him, a man of penetrating intellect, erratic -and versatile genius, impulsive generosity, and little common-sense. His -head was a noble one, with long, white hair and beard, belonging either -to an artist or a model, as might be preferred. In his eccentricity he -not only brought to Brantwood his engraving work and his friends from -many nations, but printers, also, for the printing and publishing of his -advanced newspaper--printers full of comradeship with their master, and -getting paid when and how they could, or not at all, as things prospered -or otherwise. And all this happened while the restless energy of the man -set him sketching and engraving charming vignettes of this romantic -district--some of the choicest we have among the thousand and one -volumes about the lakes--collecting and writing about the local ferns, -tramping the mountains, often having forgotten to take either food or -money, and writing verses or translating them from his favourite French -poets. One would have liked immensely to know the man, but certainly not -to have lived with him. - -After the death of his wife--the Miss Wade spoken of--he was left with -young children on his hands, and shortly afterwards he married Eliza -Lynn, the novelist, better known as Mrs. Lynn Linton, whose birthplace -was Crosthwaite Rectory, at Keswick. This marriage was anything but -satisfactory, as any onlooker would have foretold in regard to a union -between two such unusual and pronounced characters. After a while, -Brantwood being let, London was tried, the wife mingling in intellectual -and sparkling society, and trying to induce her husband to appreciate -it, the husband working fitfully at his art--in which he excelled--and -living uneconomically among his beloved European republicans, editing -magazines and papers that did not pay, and getting his letters opened -with Mazzini's and others by the British Post Office, under the orders -of Sir James Graham, M.P. for Carlisle, and Home Secretary. Men of my -age remember well the storm of indignation that raged through the -country at this flagrant violation of English liberties, and the -'anti-Graham' wafers we fastened our envelopes with by way of 'passive -resistance' to the outrage. - -'Incompatibility of temperament' is, I believe, in some of the United -States considered a just ground for divorce. It led to separation, by -mutual consent, between the Lintons, their selling Brantwood to Ruskin, -W. J. going to America, where he ended his days, and Eliza residing -mostly in London, the centre of an attached circle, and making herself -notorious for essays we shall have to speak of in another article. Yet -husband and wife continued to correspond on most affectionate terms till -death separated them finally. - -Linton maintained himself by his craft to which he had been apprenticed, -and which he loved too well to abandon, and occupied much of his time in -literary pursuits, becoming, like Carlyle, Kingsley, and many another -youthful reformer, timid in old age, and desiring, as John Bright said -of Earl Russell, to 'rest and be thankful'--and as John Bright himself -did when such new movements as Irish self-government in Irish affairs -came inevitably to the front. - -He was born in London in 1812. A biographer wrote of him, after he was -eighty years of age: 'Mr. Linton is one of those who never grow old. His -notes are sweeter and clearer to-day than they were fifty years ago.' He -died at eighty-six, in 1898; I can say nothing of his latter end. He, -like his second wife, held 'advanced,' or--as some of us -hold--retrogressive views on religion. Yet, to judge by expressions in -his works, God and another world still kept a hold upon his thoughts. -Few men succeed, after all, in making themselves atheists or believers -in soullessness or annihilation. Latent thoughts will out, in some way -or other, in imaginative literature, or in passionate, profane swearing, -or in ejaculatory prayer wrung from the heart by adversity. - -Victor Hugo closes a song translated by Linton with: 'The tomb said-- - - "Of the souls come in my power - I fashion the angels fair."' - - - - - THE SILENCED SINGER - - - 'The nest is built, the song hath ceased: - The minstrel joineth in the feast, - So singeth not. The poet's verse, - Crippled by Hymen's household curse, - Follows no more its hungry quest. - Well if love's feathers line the nest. - - 'Yet blame not that beside the fire - Love hangeth up his unstrung lyre! - How sing of hope when Hope hath fled, - Joy whispering lip to lip instead? - Or how repeat the tuneful moan - When the Obdurate's all my own? - - 'Love, like the lark, while soaring sings: - Wouldst have him spread again his wings? - What careth he for higher skies - Who on the heart of harvest lies, - And finds both sun and firmament - Closed in the round of his content?' - WILLIAM JAMES LINTON. - - - - - A POET ENGRAVER - - WILLIAM JAMES LINTON - - II.--HIS BOOKS AND HIS ART - - - 'Poets are all who love, who feel, great truths, - And tell them;--and the truth of truths is love.' - BAILEY'S _Festus_. - - -We have seen how various were Linton's tastes and sympathies. Drawing -and engraving, poetry, Nature-study to some small extent, biography, -magazine editing, and extreme politics--extreme for the age--relating -not only to England, but to most of Europe: all these occupied his -attention, not in turn, but continuously. - -Dealing with his published volumes, we must give first place to his -autobiographical 'Memories.' They are of ever-increasing value to the -student of the evolution of the nineteenth century, for they are crammed -with recollections and estimations of its makers, and with illustrations -of the old 'condition of England' question. One of the earliest things -that impressed him was the tolling of George III.'s 'passing bell.' -Another was the trial of Queen Caroline and the popular excitement -consequent thereon, and somewhat later the sordid funeral permitted her, -'the shabbiest notable funeral I ever saw,' he says. 'The demoralizing -craze for State lotteries,' the wild debauchery of the Court, -press-gangs and fights between these and butchers armed with long -knives, Government terrorism over the Press and the right of public -speech, riots in Wales for the purpose of demolishing turnpikes, and -many more such things are recorded; and they unquestionably impelled him -to take the side of the people against their despotic rulers. -Concurrently with these, however, he records the progressive movements -and struggles of the working-classes for social and political -emancipation, and for education and for such equality of opportunity as -wise laws can secure. In the course of his narrative we meet, in -addition to the continental agitators and ultra-Radicals and Chartists -of England, and the Duffys, Mitchells, O'Connells, O'Connors, and -O'Briens of Ireland, galaxies of literary celebrities, and men in the -foremost ranks of Art and Science. - -He shows himself to have had strong prejudices for or against people, -and he never scruples to record his opinions quite frankly. Of Thornton -Hunt and his relations to the pretty wife of G. H. Lewes and to Lewes -himself, he remarks that the legal husband 'asserted his belief in -Communistic principles,' the two men only quarrelling over the expense -of the double family! This Lewes is that historian of philosophy, be it -remembered, with whom 'George Eliot' lived, though he was undivorced. -For some reason or other, Samuel Carter Hall, author and editor of the -_Art Journal_, was Linton's pet aversion. He asserts--I know not with -what truth--that Charles Dickens made him sit for the portrait of -'Pecksniff.' Robert Owen, the founder of 'New Harmony' and of other -socialistic and co-operative enterprises, he stigmatizes as -impracticable, and 'a dry and unimaginative creature.' On the other -hand, he has many pleasant and generous things to say about Ruskin, 'the -poet beyond all verse-makers of his time,' and 'a man of the noblest -nature'; Derwent Coleridge, with whom he rambled around Keswick, and who -appeared to him to be 'a sensible, well-informed, genial and liberal -clergyman'; Harriet Martineau, who lived near enough to be on visiting -terms, 'a good-looking, comely, interesting old lady, very deaf, but -cheerful and eager for news which she did not always catch correctly'; -and many another, including the Americans, Whittier (of whom he wrote a -life), Longfellow, and Emerson. - -Linton's biographies of 'European Republicans'--mostly reprints of -magazine articles--are graphic and sympathetic. His sketch of Mazzini's -career I cannot say is the best extant, but it is good, and is the -result of a warm and life-long personal friendship. His great work--for -such it truly is--'The Masters of Wood-Engraving,' is not only the best -of a series of publications he issued on the history and technique of -his own art, but is, and always will be, the text-book of the subject. -Wood-engraving is now almost entirely superseded by the various -photographic 'processes.' - -His other purely literary productions ranged from a volume of children's -stories, 'The Flower and the Star,' to 'Poems and Translations.' The -children of days of long ago, when really good books for them were -scarce, must have hung delighted over the apparently impromptu -fairy-tales about the flowers of the sky and the stars of the earth -commingling; and how the dear little boy Dreamy Eyes, and his sisters -Softcheek and Brightface, sought and found them 'under the golden -oak-buds of the great oak,' and under the bushes clothed with delicate -young leaves of the honeysuckle, or in the evening glow, where the great -red sun went down, like a ball of fire, behind the sea. Linton was a -true poet. His muse was a lyric rather than an epic or dramatic one. - - 'Youth came: I lay at beauty's feet; - She smiled, and said my song was sweet.' - - -His first volume of poetry was entitled 'The Plaint of Freedom,' and one -of its themes evoked a tribute in verse from W. S. Landor. 'Claribel,' -seldom quoted now, was his second venture. 'Grenville's Last Fight,' -published in this collection, is a spirited ballad of a sea-fight in the -Western Main, when the Spanish fleet attacked the solitary English -man-of-war, 'drove on us like so many hornets' nests, thinking their -multitudes would bear us down,' and yet failed to conquer her, because -her captain sank her rather than surrender. - -Other pieces, too long to include here, are short enough to be set to -music, and would be worth more than the sentimental or garish theatre -stuff too many young ladies indulge in nowadays; such as-- - - 'Oh, happy days of innocence and song, - When Love was ever welcome, never wrong, - When words were from the heart, when folk were fain - To answer truth with truthfulness again; - Oh, happy days of innocence and song.' - -And again, 'The Silenced Singer'--silenced on account of the -consummation of his hope in the winning of his mate, when the nest was -built, and he had 'closed in the round of his content.' - -And, once again, 'Mind Your Knitting,' after the style of Beranger, -relating how the blind old mother heard the soft footfall of a lover, -and noted the cessation of her daughter's clicking needles' task. 'Tis -the cat that you hear moving!' - - 'You speak false to me; - I'd like Robert better, loving - You more openly. - Lucy! mind your knitting.' - -It is right to say a few words about Linton as an artist. He was engaged -upon much better work than the illustrated weekly papers which were at -first his sheet-anchor. He was, for instance, employed by Alexander -Gilchrist to reproduce the quaint and exquisitely-coloured designs of -William Blake. These beautiful reproductions are before me as I write, -and they have not only the necessary accuracy of copied design, but also -delicacy of touch sufficient to make them virtually indistinguishable -from the master's own work. His own etchings adorn the fine volume on -the Lake Country, written by his wife, Mrs. Lynn Linton. There are few -such drawings done nowadays. Photography has, in some respects, greater -accuracy, yet there is accuracy of insight illuminated by the -artist-mind in Linton's wood-cuts, whether these be of some pouring -torrent on the river Duddon, a view of the 'Old Man' from Brantwood, a -group of castellated boulders on the 'sad seashore,' a jutting crag upon -Great Gable, or only a fallen pine on the fell-side, or a banner-like -mist clinging to a mountain peak. He had a pretty fashion of -illustrating his own writings, which has increased their value in the -eyes of collectors. 'Claribel' is thus brightened, and some may even -prefer the pencilled pictures to the written drama. 'The Flower and the -Star' has its landscapes, too, and its representations of Jack climbing -the beanstalk in the full moonlight, of the three people who cooked an -egg, and of other items that make the stories what they are. Even his -'Ferns of the English Lake Country' have his own copies of the fronds he -gathered. My edition is coloured by hand, though whether by himself or -not I cannot say. 'He is a wood-engraver first, and a poet afterwards,' -says one friendly critic. The same critic adds, 'As a translator, Mr. -Linton has few equals'; and yet, on the whole, heretical as it may seem, -I prefer his own utterances to his translations, and like best to have -them decorated by his own pencil, for his draughtmanship and his poetic -fancies are as the two edges of one sword with which he fought his way -to a place in our literary Valhalla. They both belonged to his -love-service of humanity as he understood that service. His own prayer -may be appropriately quoted: - - 'I am not worthy, Love! to claim a place - In thy close sanctuary; but of thy grace - Admit me to the outer courts, and so - In time that inner worship I may learn, - And on thy Altar burn - The sacrifice of woe!' - -He loved his race--too often at the cost of his own home happiness--and -most of what trials and troubles he had were the fruits of his -unselfishness. - - - - - CONISTON - - - 'Coniston Lake, that long and narrow sheet of water stretching its - six miles of blue between the fells, deserves a more generous - appreciation than what it has met with, and a more popular - acceptance. And now that it has a railroad probing its very heart, - it is likely that lovers will come round it as thickly as round - Windermere and Derwentwater. Take the circuit round the lake, - beginning at the Waterhead on the west side, and going southwards - towards Furness, past the islands and by Brantwood on the east, as - one example of the sweetness and the richness of the place. There is - first that grand Old Man, at the foot of which you reverently walk, - overshadowed by his huge crags as you pass through the ancient - village of Church Coniston--one of those quaint villages with the - flavour of old times about them, and the generous beautifying of - Nature around, so characteristic of our lake country. The old - deer-park, where once the lord held his high days of sport and - revelry, and which has still the inheritance of richer foliage and - nobler growth than belong elsewhere, is one of those flavourings; so - is that ivied and venerable house, Coniston Hall, where the Flemings - used to live, and which was the residence for a time of the Countess - of Pembroke--"Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother"--but which is now - only a farmhouse famous for its sheep-clipping.'--ELIZA LYNN LINTON; - _The Lake Country_. - - - - - V - - A SUCCESSFUL NOVELIST - - LIZA LYNN LINTON - - I.--THE WOMAN - - - 'She was one of the bravest of the morally brave, for she suffered - from that kind of local ostracism, consequent on her unorthodox - opinions, which in a manner isolated her and reduced her society to - a few--fit, if you will, but few all the same--yet she never relaxed - her propagandism.'--E. LYNN LINTON: _Free Shooting_. - -'The little dare-devil girl,' as Canon Rawnsley, not without -justification, calls her, was born in 1822, at Crosthwaite Vicarage, -Keswick. All that remains of her on earth lies beneath the shadow of -Crosthwaite Church--'the Lake Cathedral,' as she herself has styled -it--an edifice oft 'restored' since St. Kentigern from his wattled -preaching-house sounded forth the Gospel of Christ among the pagan -dalesmen thirteen centuries ago. Her father was the Vicar. He was left -with a large family of children on his hands at the death of his wife, -five months after Eliza was born. Mr. Lynn was an educated man, and, -according to his lights, a respectable minister. By contrast with the -carousing, wrestling, boxing parsons of Cumberland in his day--as they -are so graphically described by our authoress in more than one of her -novels--he was a gentleman and a Christian. When his father-in-law (the -Bishop of Carlisle) asked him what he would do about the serious charge -of so many motherless sons and daughters, his reply was, 'I shall sit in -my study and smoke my pipe, and commit them to Providence.' This he did, -breaking the monotony of his secluded life by wielding the rod among his -rude tribe of passionate lads and high-spirited girls, and spending the -nights in prayer for them. The topsy-turveyest book that ever was -written is Mrs. Linton's 'Christopher Kirkland.' It must be alluded -to--somewhat out of place--because it is autobiographical, and is used -as such by Mr. Layard, her historian. - -It is her life-story, with the sexes of the characters transposed. This -transformation of men into women and women into men makes the book most -grotesque in places, and quite incomprehensible to readers who have not -the key. Read it, however, inside out, or upside down, as it were, and -it is then not only understandable, but interesting and informing. It -is, in reality, the mine from which almost all important facts about her -have been quarried. She seems to have been a 'naughty boy' kind of girl, -holding her own bravely in a household which she likens to 'a farmyard -full of cockerels and pullets for ever pecking and sparring at one -another.' Yet she had her fits of moodiness and day-dreaming. Her short -sight helped to make her enjoy solitariness, and induced a habit of -lonely study and thought. From such books as she could get hold of she -taught herself languages, and obtained a fair knowledge of literature. -Unable, however, to accommodate herself to the strange government of her -father and the waywardness of her brothers and sisters, she -(twenty-three years of age, with a twelvemonth's allowance in her -pocket) went up to London to try her fortunes. Henceforth we may unite -her lively and interesting booklet,'My Literary Life,' with 'Christopher -Kirkland.' She obtained work on the _Morning Chronicle_, just purchased -by the 'Peelite' party, and edited by the redoubtable John Douglas Cook. -Her description of her first introduction to the terrible presence of -her impatient, irascible commander-in-chief is graphic. - -'So you are the little girl who has written that queer book, and you -want to be one of the press-gang, do you?' was his salutation. 'Yes, I -am the woman.' 'Woman you call yourself?' and more rough-mannered, but -not unkindly, words of the same sort followed. For two years she was -'handy man' on the paper--the first woman on a newspaper staff to draw a -salary. Then she visited Italy, and afterwards lived in Paris as -correspondent for an English paper. Her London home was near the British -Museum, where she kept up her reading. During her studies and her press -employment she had found time to write and publish several novels, and -contributed to _All the Year Round_, edited by Charles Dickens. Her -first story brought forth a sonnet in her praise from Walter Savage -Landor, and her association with Dickens introduced her to many other -well-known literary men and women. She had inherited Gad's Hill, Kent, -from her father, and this property she sold to Charles Dickens. Dickens -had fallen in love with the place when a boy, and had even then resolved -to buy it if ever he was able. Thackeray she knew, too, and he called -upon her while she was in Paris, climbing five toilsome flights of -stairs to reach the little rooms she shared with another young -Anglo-French woman--bed and sitting-rooms combined. Landor she first -met in Bath, where he then lived, and she was visiting. She was in a -shop, 'when in there came an old man, still sturdy, vigorous, upright, -alert,' dressed in brown, but negligently, and unbrushed. The keen eyes, -lofty brow, and sweet smile attracted her. When she heard his name--she -knew some of his 'Imaginary Conversations' by heart--she expressed her -joy. 'And who is this little girl who is so glad to see an old man?' The -question and answer made them friends on the spot, and they remained so -for many years afterwards, she paying long visits to his house, and -becoming his 'dear daughter,' while she always spoke and wrote to the -old lion as 'father.' - -It was in 1858 that her marriage with W. J. Linton took place. She had -had a love episode in earlier life which probably left its mark upon her -character; but this marriage can hardly claim any romance as its -inspiration. It is even said that she agreed to wed the artist partly -from pity and partly to test her educational theories upon his six -children. The secluded life at Brantwood became irksome to her, and the -Lintons moved to Leinster Square, Bayswater, where the City life became -equally irksome to her husband. Then came the separation, and Linton's -departure for America, Mrs. Lynn Linton occupying various quarters in -London, working on the _Saturday Review_, writing more novels, -patronizing and generously helping young lady aspirants for literary -successes, and making herself the centre of charming circles of friends -and guests. In the lofty Queen Anne's Mansions, rising like a -hill-summit above the flat plains and lake of St. James's Park, she had -an upper chamber--airy, quiet, and virtually inaccessible to all except -the privileged and welcomed of her choice. She had her turn, as so many -of her generation had, at the fashionable spiritualism of Home and other -tricksters, and with theosophists like Sinnett, but was not entrapped by -either, for, though her views were 'free' and 'advanced,' her struggles -and her environments secured her the saving grace of common-sense. She -was more nearly allied in thought to Voysey and Professor Clifford than -to the more mystical unbelievers. She was a hard worker, and lived -comfortably by her pen. Idleness for her would have meant 'suicidal -vacancy.' - -Failing somewhat in health, she tried change of air at Malvern with -little avail, and her eyesight failed her, so that writing became -difficult. She realized that the end was approaching. It arrived in -1898, when she was seventy-six years old. 'She faced the inevitable' -with more of the resignation of the stoic than the assurance of the -Christian. Canon Rawnsley preached her funeral sermon, and placed her -mental attitude in the most favourable light, and 'with a sure and -certain hope' in his own heart of her 'resurrection to eternal life.' So -let us also leave her in God's all-just, all-merciful keeping. Her own -belief was in 'Nirvana.' Her remains were cremated, and the ashes -conveyed to Crosthwaite, where Robert Southey also is buried. Landor -concludes his ode to her with 'Pure heart, and lofty soul, Eliza Lynn.' -I think (let me say it reverently) that God Himself might thus speak of -her, for I find these words in one of her later letters: 'We are all, -all, all His children, and He does not speak to us apart, but to us all -in our own language, equally according to our age--that is, our -knowledge and civilization. To Him I live, and in Him I believe, but all -the rest is dark.' - - - - - WOMEN AND POLITICS - - - 'We do not find that European homes are made wretched, or that - husbands are set at nought, because our women may choose their own - religion, their own priest, and have unchecked intercourse with the - family physician. - - 'Is it impossible to imagine a woman sweet and yet strong, - high-minded and yet modest, tender if self-reliant, womanly if - well-educated? Would a fine political conscience necessarily - deaden-or depress the domestic one? Surely not! A fine political - conscience would be only so much added--it would take nothing away. - If women thought worthily about politics, as about smuggling and - other things of the same class, they would be all the grander in - every relation, because having so much clearer perception of - baseness, and so much higher standard of nobleness. - - 'At all events, the phase of women's rights has to be worked through - to its ultimate. If found impracticable, delusive, subversive, in - the working, it will have to be put down again. It is all a question - of power, both in the getting and the using.'--ELIZA LYNN LINTON: - _Ourselves_. - - - - - A SUCCESSFUL NOVELIST - - ELIZA LYNN LINTON - - II.--HER BOOKS - - - 'My dear friend, Mrs. Lynn Linton, had lived through a long and - eventful career, known all the interesting people of her day, and - carried on intimate correspondence with all sorts and conditions of - minds and characters. Her sympathies did not begin and end with - literature; they strayed into many and wider regions of thought and - activity.'--BEATRICE HARRADEN. - -Several of her novels were written at Brantwood--'Lizzie Lorton,' -'Sowing the Wind,' and 'Grasp Your Nettle,' certainly, and some others -probably. I like to fancy the buxom, spectacled lady of -strongly-defined, yet cheery, features sitting in the window of the -study, and pausing in the midst of her composition to gaze at the -magnificent prospect of woods, waters, and towering mountain summits. -But to fancy her one must first dispossess the study of everything -Ruskinesque. Ruskin's Delia Robbia treasure, his paintings from Italy, -and by Burne Jones, bookcases with illuminated missals, polished agates -of rare striations and burning colours--all these must go, and plain -furniture, worn and faded, replace them, with, perhaps, some examples of -her husband's art and craft littered about. Her enforced quietude made -her literary output regular while living here. The extraordinary -topsy-turvy autobiographical piece of 'fiction' called 'Stephen -Kirkland'--already alluded to, and drawn upon for details of her -life--belongs to a later date. So also does 'The Second Youth of -Theodora Desanges,' another curious medley of impossibilities. It is the -story of a woman who, at eighty years of age, had an illness which left -her prostrate, but which led to her physical renewal--fresh, dark, -rippling hair, blooming cheeks, rounded form and limbs, in fact, to -ripe, desirable girlhood--while leaving her, of course, with the -experience and world-wisdom of a knowing old grandmother. The -metamorphosis brings her into a tissue of difficulties with those who -were in the secret of it, and counted her as one of the most perverse -and wilful of frauds, and into another tissue of another sort with -those, especially young men, who, seeing only the goddess and -worshipping her, thought she was playing upon them with wicked sarcasm -when she tried seriously to explain what she really was. Her social -adventures have a certain coherency in the telling; but a sense of -unreality, and, in fact, of ridiculous impossibility, haunts you all -through the narrative. The real value of the book (published -posthumously), according to her friend and editor, G. S. Layard, lies in -the fact that it contains her last message to the world--a gloomy gospel -of humanity--'good news, if you will, to the race, but disaster for the -individual.' Her farewell words are like a mingled evening of sunshine -and passing cloud. The whole book is full of petty 'isms,' and soured -comments, of pessimism overlying golden truths, which, however, have to -be dug for, and some deserved satire of undesirable men and things. To -use a crude simile, the whole volume reminds one of the celebrated -American road which began and continued for a while as a 'turnpike,' but -finished in a 'coon-track' running up a tree! 'Lizzie Lorton' is a book -of different character. The one link it has with most, if not all, Mrs. -Linton's books is the vein of mingled passion and tragedy that traverses -it. The one charm it has beyond most others is the fresh breeze from the -hills that seems to blow through it when the authoress condescends to be -simply descriptive of places and people in the region of Wastwater and -the Langdales. Her pen-pictures will do not only for her imaginary -'Greyrigg,' but for a hundred other dales and hillsides, lakes, tarns, -and waters, and her portraits for a score of other country-folk and -rural parsons to be found hereaway half a century ago, besides those she -names. It is, if a tragic, yet a common story of love misplaced and at -cross-purposes. Like many others of hers, this novel has been reproduced -in the modern one-volume form--unfortunately in the badly-printed -'yellow-backs,' once the chief form in which light literature was -obtainable at railway bookstalls. - -'Through the Long Night,' written later than the Brantwood period, has, -I cannot but feel convinced, been largely drawn from Coniston -surroundings and Coniston society, as she knew the latter. It is not, I -believe, considered one of her best productions. Nevertheless, it seems -to me that the plot is more carefully elaborated, the characters are -much more powerfully and convincingly conceived, and the interest is -better sustained than in any other I know, though I do not profess to -have read every one of her novels. The tragic element is strongly -present, and the intentionally humorous entirely absent. There are -melodramatic incidents that were not needed, and there is something that -'puts one's back up' when the angelic Lady Elizabeth condescends at last -to marry the selfish despot who had broken her rival's heart, after -driving her from home by his complicity with falsehood and forgery. The -book by which she is best known to many of our generation (published in -a sixpenny paper edition) is 'Joshua Davidson.' Issued at first -anonymously, just after the close of the Franco-German war, and while -the doings of the Paris Communists were fresh in everybody's mind, it -took mighty hold of a certain class of reader, and will continue to do -so. It ventilates her peculiar views of some of the sayings of Jesus our -Lord, 'Great David's Greater Son.' The simple-souled Cornish peasant is -represented as taking the Master's parabolic sayings as so many literal -commands to be implicitly and literally obeyed by all men, reasonably -and unreasonably. Thus he prays for the removal of a mountain, and gets -a shock to his religious sense when the mountain moves not. Perhaps he -was--or Mrs. Linton was, if she is recording any past experiences of her -own--like the old lady who offered prayer for the same thing, and who, -on awaking in the morning to find the hill she objected to still -blotting out her view, cried: 'I never expected it would go!' Or, if -Joshua is intended to have had faith, perhaps his literary creator might -have corrected the absurd conclusions she lands him in had she read John -Bunyan's account of his own actual experiences as recorded in 'Grace -Abounding.' This work, from the episode I thus criticise, to the -implied parallel between the priests' Gethsemane-mob of hired scoundrels -and the poor blind 'common people' of Paris, seems to me now, on -re-perusing it, as it did decades ago--just a poor, catchy sort of -playing up to the shallow wits in the gallery of popular literature, to -whom Christianity is not sufficiently exciting to be worth serious -study. Another of her writings which made much stir was her celebrated -magazine article, 'The Girl of the Period,' which appeared in the -_Saturday Review_ in its slashing days (_The Saturday Reviler_ John -Bright christened it). If unscrupulous, it was a power then--a poor, -third-rate affair to-day, as little thought of as are the ancient -lucubrations of the _Quarterly_ or _Old Ebony_ of our fathers. How well -we remember the sensation she made by this tirade on the younger members -of her sex. She certainly had 'changed sides' on the woman question of -the hour, and, rightly or wrongly, she suffered inevitably for doing so. -Such stinging phrases as she flung at her quondam friends--'sexless -tribe,' 'shrieking sisterhood'--were expected from the _Saturday_, but -to find the hand that formed and hurled them was one of their own was -too much for those by whom they were hit! When the modern mother was -shown to be no better than she should be, and the modern virgin -represented as envying the demi-monde, no wonder the feminine world was -set on fire! There are many other of her writings remaining unnoticed. -Only two earlier ones--her first endeavours, the now quite forgotten -'Azeth the Egyptian' and 'Anymone'--and her 'Witch Stories' can be -alluded to. The last is still read by the curious in occult lore, and -is a compilation made from researches in the British Museum during the -time of her girlhood, when she lodged near it, and was struggling to get -her foot on the bottom rung of the ladder to literary fame. Some degree -of fame and emolument we have seen that she attained to. Whether she -will be known after the last of her readers of her own generation is -dead is a very doubtful question. It is one that can be best answered by -publishers. If they deem her worth republishing in cheap and creditable -editions, she may hit the public taste a little longer, but only thus. - - - - - A MOUNTAIN CRAG AT CONISTON - - - 'The principal flank of Yewdale is formed by a steep range of crag, - thrown out from the greater mass of Wetherlam, and known as Yewdale - Crag. - - 'It is almost entirely composed of basalt, or hard volcanic ash, and - is of supreme interest among the southern hills of the Lake - District, as being practically the first rise of the great mountains - of England out of the lowlands of England. - - 'And it chances that my own study window being just opposite this - crag, and not more than a mile from it as the bird flies, I have it - always staring me, as it were, in the face, and asking again and - again, when I look up from writing any of my books: "How did _I_ - come here?" - - * * * * * - - 'But as I regain my collected thought, the mocking question ceases, - and the divine one forms itself, in the voice of vale and streamlet, - and in the shadowy lettering of the engraven rock. - - '"Where wast _thou_ when I laid the foundation of the earth? - Declare, if thou hast understanding."'--JOHN RUSKIN: _Yewdale and - its Streamlets_. - - -[Illustration: -_Photo by Hills & Saunders, Oxford._ - - JOHN RUSKIN IN OLD AGE.] - - - - - VI - - THE PHILOSOPHER OF BRANTWOOD - - JOHN RUSKIN - - I.--THE MAN - - - 'Alas! there was in John Ruskin a strain of the Knight of La Mancha, - and he, too, had to learn that in this world and in our age - Knight-errantry, however chivalrous in spirit, medieval romance, - however beautiful as poetry, will not avail to reform the world with - nothing but a rusty lance and a spavined charger. It is magnificent, - it may be war, but it is not a real social philosophy, nor is it a - possible religion.'--FREDERIC HARRISON. - -To write of the Lake celebrities without including the greatest of them -all would be like mapping our mountains and omitting Scawfell, or the -waters and forgetting Windermere. Yet to add anything to the countless -essays and biographies seems presumptuous. For the filling in of this -merest outline of one aspect of a noble life readers must become -diligent students of John Ruskin, and his books, and his exponents. -There are lives of him, appreciations of him and of his teachings, -monographs on his personality, on his relation to the Lake District, on -his views about Art, on his social politics and religion, on his Bible -references, and on every other light-reflecting facet of this -many-sided soul. In fact, no other man has lived in recent years whose -innermost being has been so extensively and so deeply probed, so exposed -to the universal gaze, or who has been so worshipfully followed, and, at -the same time, by another set, so resolutely opposed. When we turn to a -bibliography we stand amazed, not only that any author should be so -prolific, or even that he should possess so much first-hand knowledge of -so many matters, but that he should have done so much about such a -variety of things so marvellously well. A juvenile verse-maker of -promise developing into an unrivalled prose-poet and word-painter; a -draftsman of capacity from his youth up, if not naturally a colourist, -and an insistent teacher of style, yet an art critic with sympathetic -feelings, who knew what he was talking about (which, it is to be feared, -the majority do not); a mineralogist who wrote about stones and dust and -ores, both scientifically and poetically, as if he were in love with -their intrinsic and extrinsic beauties, and no less so with the unseen -rythmic dances of their molecules during crystallization; a geologist -who sought to explain by ice-gougings and water-chisellings, and by the -crushings and infoldings of volcanic pressure, the outlines of the vales -and hills whose forms and many-hued draperies his cultured eye delighted -in; the champion of a great artist who had been attacked without insight -by _Blackwood_, and in his championship evolving a classic--the classic -for ages to come--on 'Modern Painters'; an investigator of the ultimate -principles of architecture and sculpture, whose steps being led to -Venice, is impelled to write about her stones, thus to become nothing -less than a historian of that wonderful oligarchy; an observer of all -winged creatures about him, who sees in the swallow's circling flight, -and in the robin's cheery presence, eternal laws of art and mechanism -from which he can teach great truths to half-fledged undergraduates of -Oxford; a lover of the independent peasantry of Lakeland, who for their -sakes learns road-making, and sets them to cultivate home-industries, -and who writes strange, and frequently unpractical, suggestions for the -betterment of their condition, and for making the whole world sweeter; -how can such a man, intellectual giant and gladiator though he be, -remain always victor over so wide an area? He is often spoken of as 'The -Master.' Doubtless most of us have so styled him in relation to one -excursus of his or another that has specially captivated us. But it -seems to me that Mr. Frederic Harrison, his latest biographer and -personal intimate, is right when he says: 'The author of more than -eighty distinct works upon so miscellaneous a field, of masses of -poetry, lectures, letters, as well as substantial treatises, was of -necessity rather a stimulus than an authority, an influence rather than -a master.' Any claim on his behalf to speak the _mot d'ordre_ on any -given topic challenges the thoughtful reader, and lays upon him the duty -of closely looking at every emphatic statement, every unsupported -opinion, every clever aphorism put forth as an axiom. The recognition -that he is merely a force, though a mighty one, an impulsion and an -inspiration rather than a revealer and spokesman of the final word, -allows the mind to be swept along by the impetuous current of his -eloquence, rejoicing and untrammelled, and suffers it to be braced and -helped by him. The danger in this case may be, however, that the young -and inexperienced, lost in admiration at the marvellous beauty of his -language, and the obvious truth of so much that he says--intoxicated by -the wine of the kingdom which he so unrestrainedly pours forth--are -unable to notice how often the elixir tastes of the earthen amphora -containing it. The dogmatism of his precocious boyhood never left him in -after-life. Indeed, disappointment at the non-acceptance of so many of -his views by the world at large accentuated it. His delighted outlook on -Nature, his abiding joy in all things pure and lovely, his intense -hatred of moral ugliness and deformity, caused him too often to forget -that others had high and holy aspirations, and abhorrences of wrong, who -did not see through glasses made after the pattern that suited his own -peculiar vision. His complete, almost child-like, absorption in the -humour of the passing moment sometimes made him mistake a swift impulse -for the discovery of a new philosophic or scientific law, and placed him -in inconsistent and contradictory positions, and made his arguments so -full of inconsequences as to provoke no little amusement among -logicians. So, then, let us be content to take him for just what he is, -and no more--an erratic genius, but a genius of the very first order; a -discursive preacher, but a preacher who arouses, and thrills, and sends -you back into the world to live a better life; a prophet who -exaggerates, and is often incoherent with needless fury, but exhibiting -in his mission and messages to England a veritable commingling of -Carmel's Prophet of Fire, with Jerusalem's 'Evangelical' poet-prophet; a -Reformer who fails to see the standpoint of many whom he denounces in -social politics and economics, but a reformer, nevertheless, who -foreknows a bright to-morrow for the peoples, and who labours to hasten -its coming. Take him for all this, and you will accompany him a long -way, cautiously, yet reverently and lovingly, and find in him a rare -comrade, an unfailing and candid interpreter of your own soul, as well -as of many old enigmas that confront it. - -John Ruskin's connection with the Lakes dates from his childhood, when -he visited the locality with his parents. 'I remember Friar's Crag at -Derwentwater when I was four years old.' He received an inspiration for -his muse from Skiddaw when only nine: - - 'Skiddaw, upon thy heights the sun shines bright, - But only for a moment; then gives place - Unto a playful cloud, which on thy brow - Sports wantonly.' - - -And again, a year later, he contrasts it with the Egyptian Pyramids: - - 'The touch of man, - Raised pigmy mountains, but gigantic tombs, - The touch of Nature raised the mountain's brow.' - - -At twelve he saw Scawfell - - 'So haughty and proud, - While its battlements lofty looked down on the cloud.' - -Frequent visits at later periods kept his heart aglow with the romance -of these three counties vying so earnestly with each other for supremacy -in the glory of mountain-fell, and garrulous beck, dale and dingle, and -thunderous force. It was in 1871, when he was nearly fifty-three years -old, that he bought from W. J. Linton, the engraver-poet, that Coniston -cottage, as it then was, so closely associated with his name for some -thirty years thereafter. He gave £1,500 for the property, without seeing -it, while lying ill at Matlock. To everybody who knows English -literature Brantwood is a household name. On the steep slope of the -eastern hills, wood-embowered, with moorland above, and a green field -below the highroad, washed by the ripples of the lake on which his boats -rocked--one of which, _The Jumping Jenny_, he had designed, painted 'a -bright blue with a Greek scroll pattern round the gunwale'--it is in all -respects a true poet's paradise. The opinion of Wordsworth was that it -commanded the finest view of Coniston 'Old Man' that was to be had -anywhere. Linton was not a very practical man, choosing his gardener, -not for his skill, but for his shining blue eyes, and letting his -demesne go wild, and his abode to rack and ruin. Ruskin created order -and beauty out of the wilderness, with a rose-garden and a garden for -wild flowers, greatly enlarged the house, made a little harbour on the -shore, and a water-works on the fell, all at considerable outlay, -evidencing by the construction of his reservoir and conduits that -hydraulics and engineering are not best done by untrained enthusiastic -amateurs. In this exquisite retreat began what Mr. Harrison speaks of as -the second period of his career--the period when, except for his Slade -Professorship, he gave himself up, not to the study, for he never can be -said to have studied them--the promulgation of theories about social -economics. The Slade Professorship was an epoch in University life, and -in the history of British art. His classes were crowded. 'That singular -voice of his,' writes a pupil long afterwards, 'which would often hold -all the theatre breathless, haunts me still.' His Oxford lectures were -reprinted as books by Mr. George Allen, formerly a scholar of his at the -Working Man's College, and now become manager of his publishing business -(which, by-the-by, Mr. Allen managed so well as to bring Mr. Ruskin in -some £4,000 a year at a time it was greatly needed). During the -intervals of his professorial duties, and especially after ill-health -compelled their relinquishment, he wrote those invaluable autobiographic -reminiscences contained in 'Præterita' and 'Fors Clavigera'--books the -world will never spare, albeit they are so full of petulant -denunciations, and quaint extravagances, and inconsequent satires. We -forgive all these for the value of the self-revelations of a unique -soul, and for the literary gold-mine they present to the commonwealth of -the English-speaking races. When retired altogether to this Arcadia he -would ramble along the lakeside path, and up the mountain, to the happy -valley of Tarn Hows, or round the water-head to Yewdale, 'my little -nested dale of the Yew,' with its streamlets wandering through the fern, -and its deep water-pockets over which he would stand musing and -questioning them--'How came you to be?' or perchance up Tilberthwaite -Ghyll, with its zig-zagging wooden bridges after the fashion of a Swiss -river-gorge. As he strolled, he would stop to pet some children who, -seeing him coming, would await his kindly greeting, or to chat with some -ancient shepherd, or some housewife at her cottage door, or possibly he -would enter a wayside school-house to puzzle the youngsters with a -division sum respecting the sovereign he would leave for them in the -schoolmaster's hand. The old 'Professor,' as they called him, was -beloved by all, and in his broken years was devotedly cared for and -tended by his cousin and adopted daughter, Mrs. Arthur Severn, who lived -at Brantwood, and who now with her husband owns the estate. We must -remember what he had suffered during his long life, as well as what he -had accomplished. 'As we pass beneath the hills,' says he in 'Modern -Painters,' 'which have been shaken by earthquake and torn by convulsion, -we find periods of perfect repose succeed those of destruction.' He had -married unsuitably to satisfy his parents, and the marriage had been -nullified. Thrice he was passionately in love, and each disappointment -left him sick and despondent, however tenderly remembered and naïvely -talked of in old age. His generous money gifts to relatives, and to -causes like the Guild of St. George, which lay deep in his affections, -as well as, doubtless, some serious lack of lawful 'world-wisdom,' had -virtually dissipated the large fortune left him by his father. He was at -bay, too, with the rest of the world as to his schemes for its -reformation. He had had many serious illnesses, brain fevers included. - -At Brantwood, the scenery from his study window, so imposing yet so -tranquillizing, his art collections in every room, his admiring and -sympathetic neighbours, his own inward assurance of right guidance, -combined to give him peace. Among his friends were the Miss Beevers, of -The Thwaite--the house at the far end of the lake, nearly opposite the -one in which Tennyson spent his honeymoon--with whom the good old man -corresponded, and whom he loved with an old-world platonic love -honourable to both sides. They must have an article to themselves, these -'sources and loadstones of all good to the village,' worthy as they are -of remembrance, with their brother, among our literary celebrities. - -During the last ten years of his life he gradually grew more and more -feeble, till at length, succumbing to influenza, 'he sank softly -asleep,' when near his eighty-first birthday, with his dearest friends -around him. He was buried in the God's acre of Coniston, without -funereal pomp of black. The pall was of crimson silk embroidered with -wild roses, bearing the motto 'Unto this last.' Later the -beautifully-artistic cross, designed by his secretary, friend, and -authorized biographer, Mr. Collingwood, was erected over the grave. It -has allegorical carvings on it of his book-titles. A medallion likeness -in bronze by Onslow Ford, R.A., was placed in Westminster Abbey. - -I have said nothing of Ruskin's ancestry, nothing even of the -'honourable and distinguished merchant,' his father, nor of his loving, -pious, over-careful mother. Neither have I spoken of his education, of -his wanderings and residences in Switzerland and Italy, nor of his royal -gifts of museums and the like for the benefit primarily of artizans. I -have no space to tell of the impulse he gave to art, or to educating -wage-earners through Ruskin colleges and in other ways. His physical -appearance, his personal habits, his daily dealings with his kind, must -be discovered by my readers for themselves. Mr. Collingwood's Life of -him has recently been issued at 2s. 6d., and Mr. Harrison's in 'English -Men of Letters' at 2s. Acquaintance with these should be the duty and -privilege of every educated man and woman. - -'The woods, the blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses, have done their -parts for a time, but these do service for ever. Trees for the builder's -yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, corn for the granary, moss for -the grave. - -'Yet as in one sense the humblest, in another they are the most honoured -of the earth-children. Unfading, as motionless, the worm frets them not, -and the autumn wastes not. Strong in lowliness, they neither blanch in -heat nor pine in frost. To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is -entrusted the weaving of the dark, eternal tapestries of the hills, to -them, slow-pencilled, iris-dyed, the tender framing of their endless -imagery. Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they share -also its endurance; and while the winds of departing spring scatter the -white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow, and summer dims on the parched -meadow the drooping of its cowslip-gold, far above, among the mountains, -the silver lichen-spots rest, star-like, on the stone, and the gathering -orange-stain upon the edge of yonder western peak reflects the sunset of -a thousand years.'--JOHN RUSKIN: _Modern Painters_. - - -[Illustration: -_Photo by Hills & Saunders, Oxford._ - - THE HOUSE AT HERNE HILL IN WHICH RUSKIN WAS BORN IN 1819.] - - - - - THE PHILOSOPHER OF BRANTWOOD - - JOHN RUSKIN - - II.--HIS ART-TEACHING AND HIS BOOKS - - - 'To crib, cabin, and confine in a dull array of formal propositions - the rich exuberance of Mr. Ruskin's thought would be a needless - injury.'--J. A. HOBSON. - - -'Is there a gospel (of Art) according to Ruskin?' It is Mr. E. T. Cook, -an art-pupil and disciple of his, who asks and answers this question. -He, in 'Studies in Ruskin,' and another Oxford pupil, Mr. W. G. -Collingwood, in 'The Art Teaching of John Ruskin,' agree that their -great teacher did not formulate a creed, though he had definite -fundamental principles to explain to the world, which--however much -overlaid and obscured by eloquent language and elaborate -illustration--were never lost sight of by him, but impregnated all his -writings. As in the New Testament there is a revelation from God through -Jesus Christ, though it contains nothing akin to a Church Catechism or -Westminster Confession of Faith, so in Ruskin there is 'a complete -philosophy of Art' without a concise and formulated system that can be -packed into one's waistcoat pocket. We must find and arrange our canons -for ourselves. The Ruskin 'Gospel of Art'--Mr. Cook's word--or his -'Philosophy of Art'--Mr. Collingwood's word--is merely an old gospel, -with a new application--a philosophy of the position of Art with regard -to God, and the world, and the soul. 'Truth, sincerity, and nobleness' -are essentials of right living, and Art is the outcome and evidence of -the right living of the artist. It is the expression of man's rational, -disciplined delight in the forms and laws of the creation of which he is -a part. The origin of Art is 'imitation touched with delight'--delight, -that is to say, in God's work, and not in a man's own. Beauty, no less -than reality, strength, and morality, is characteristic of true Art as -'an expression of the Creating Spirit of the universe,' whose handiwork -is to be copied. Art is an interpreter of the Divine beauty in things -seen; for the inner life of it is religion, its food is the ocular and -passionate love of Nature, its health is the humility of its artists. -Art looks into the innermost core and centre of phenomena. The true -artist sees and makes others see. The greatest Art is that which conveys -the greatest number of greatest ideas. It is the declaration of the mind -of God-made great men. Fine Art is that in which hand, and head, and -heart have worked equally together. In outline, colour, and shade an -artist is to discipline himself, that he may become skilful in the -seeing of things accurately, and representing them with absolute -fidelity. What he sees accurately, however, he is to represent -imaginatively, so as to arouse the faculty of imagination and a feeling -of praise in others, and to cultivate their nobler instincts, and call -forth and feed their souls. Beauty is of two kinds--typical and -vital--the first lying in those external qualities of bodies which in -some sort represent the Divine attributes; the second in 'the -felicitous fulfilment of function in living things.' Ruskin agrees with -Hogarth that 'all forms of acknowledged beauty are composed exclusively -of curves.' Except in crystals, certain mountain forms, levels of calm -water, and alluvial land, there are no lines nor surfaces of Nature -without curvature. He adds that what curvature is to lines, so is -gradation to shades and colours. He made himself conversant with these -truths by independent study, minute investigation, inexhaustible -industry in sketching. - -Architecture, though subject to different rules and modes of handicraft, -is governed also by the same general and spiritual principles. Its -'Seven Lamps' are Sacrifice,--the offering of all that is most costly of -material, intention, execution; Truth,--which demands imagination, but -will not tolerate deception; Power,--realized through observation of -mountain buttresses and domes, cloistered woodland glades, and the -rock-walls of the sea; Beauty,--not as mere mask or covering, but -gracefully fitted to the conditions and uses of the object to be -attained; Life,--expressive of the workman's love of his work, and -knowledge of his ends; Memory,--which haunts the workman with shapes and -colours he has once noted, and which inspires him with ever fresh -ideals; Obedience,--which involves 'chastisement of the passions, -discipline of the intellect, subjection of the will.' - -It is in his 'Seven Lamps of Architecture' that the pæan on Giotto's -Campanile occurs, wherein he tells us how, as a boy, he despised it, and -how since then he lived beside it many a day and looked upon it from his -window 'by sunlight and moonlight, noting the bright, smooth, sunny -surface and glowing jasper, those spiral shafts and fairy traceries, so -white, so faint, so crystalline, that their slight shapes are hardly -traced in darkness on the eastern sky, that serene height of mountain -alabaster, coloured like a morning cloud, and chased like a sea-shell.' -His minute observation of form and colour in mountain gloom and mountain -glory, in rushing torrents, and in feathered songster, and his -unrivalled powers of description, must be an inspiration to all -right-minded artists, notwithstanding his unsparing and incisive -criticisms in his 'Notes on Pictures.' His scientific knowledge, too, -stood him in good stead. His words on mountain sculpture, with an -illustration from the Aiguilles or needle-pointed Alpine peaks, too long -for full quotation, may well be cited. 'Nature gives us in these -mountains a clear demonstration of her will. She is here driven to make -fracture the law of being. She cannot tuft the rock-edges with moss, or -round them by water, or hide them with leaves and roots. She is bound to -produce a form, admirable to human beings, by continual breaking away of -substances. And behold--so soon as she is compelled to do this, she -changes the law of fracture itself. "Growth," she seems to say, "is not -essential to my work, nor concealment, nor softness; but curvature is; -and if I must produce my forms by breaking, then the fracture shall be -in curves. If, instead of dew and sunshine, the only instruments I am to -use are the lightning and the frost, then the forked tongues and crystal -wedges shall still work out my laws of tender line. Devastation instead -of nurture may be the task of all my elements, and age after age may -only prolong the renovated ruin; but the appointments of typical beauty -which have been made over all creatures shall not therefore be -abandoned, and the rocks shall be ruled in their perpetual perishing, by -the same ordinances that direct the bending of the reed, and the -blushing of the rose." The cloud, the currents of trickling water, an -interior knot of quartz, help the work of shaping, and the dew "with a -touch more tender than a child's finger--as silent and slight as the -fall of a half-checked tear on a maiden's cheek" help to fix for ever -the form of peak and precipice, and hew the leagues of lifted granite, -into shapes that divide the earth and its kingdoms. Then the colouring -of the mountains is not done only by the chemical constituents of their -rocks, but by the jewellery of the flowers--the dark bell-gentian, the -light blue star-gentian, the alpine rose, the highland heather, the -many-hued blossom-masses, and the golden softness of deep, warm, -amber-coloured mosses.' - -It is not always easy to follow Ruskin's own canons of Art in his -exaltation of Turner--as, for instance, in the article of 'Truth touched -with Imagination'--in such a picture as Whitby. There the painter's -cliffs are unnatural and impossible, reminding us more of a straight-cut -pound of cheese than anything ever seen in Nature--specially at Whitby! -We are tempted to praise Turner more for revealing Ruskin than Ruskin -for discovering Turner! Thus, in describing Heysham, it is Ruskin who in -'Harbours of England' gives us the true and very graphic painting, and -Turner a glorified and unrecognisable one. 'A simple, north-country -village on the shore of Morecambe Bay, not in the common sense a -picturesque village; there are no pretty bow-windows, or red roofs, or -rocky steps of entrance to the rustic doors, or quaint gables; nothing -but a single street of thatched and chiefly clay-built cottages ranged -in a somewhat monotonous line, the roofs so green with moss that at -first we hardly discern the houses from the fields and trees. The -village street is closed at the end by a wooden gate, indicating the -little traffic there is on the road through it, giving it the look of a -large farmstead, in which a right of way lies through the yard.' The -rutty roads, the decayed fencing--haystacks and pigstyes--the -parsonage--the church--the craggy limestone rocks amid the brushwood, -and the pleasant turf upon their brows, the gleams of shallow water on -the sandy shore, the fisher-boat on the beach--all help us to see old -Heysham rather through the eyes of the prose-poet than those of the -painter he is lauding. - -Opening other--excluding his more voluminous--books, 'Love's Meinie' or -'Proserpina' to wit--the one of birds and the other of flowers--what -exquisite passages meet us on every page! What Ruskinite does not revel -in such as those contrasting the flight of the eagle and the seagull -with that of the swallow, or as that speaking of 'the beauty of the bird -that lives with you in your own houses, and which purifies for you, from -its insect pestilence, the air that you breathe. Thus the sweet domestic -thing has done, for men, at least, these four thousand years. She has -been their companion, not of the home merely, but of the hearth, and the -threshold; companion only endeared by departure, and showing better her -loving-kindness by her faithful return.' She is a type of the stranger, -or the supplicant, herald of our summer, 'who glances through our days -of gladness'--and he gives us much more of the same sweet poetry about -her. Then there are sentences like that outburst of joy at the discovery -of the blue asphodel in the fields beyond Monte Mario--'a spire two feet -high, of more than two hundred stars, the stalks of them all deep blue -as well as the flowers. Heaven send all honest people the gathering of -the like, in Elysian fields, some day!' - -Ruskin confessed ignorance of the writings of political economists, of -which he had read none but Adam Smith's--twenty years before--and his -continual travesty of them as though 'buying in the cheapest market and -selling in the dearest'--labour included--was their sole message to the -world, makes it difficult to quote from his more philosophical or social -science works. It must be remembered that Smith had forestalled Ruskin -in stating that wage-earners had a right to a living wage, and that -others, like Jeremy Bentham, had forestalled him in the doctrine of the -'greatest good of the greatest number' underlying his own strictures on -our land system. - -In his usual contradictory way he sometimes tells us the sword must -still be whetted to settle international disputes. At others he calls -war the mother of all evils, and writes paragraphs worthy of Carlyle on -the French and English villagers from their respective Drumdrudges, -pitying the peasantry upon whom the losses and cruelties fall, and -denouncing the squires who officer them and lead them to death. Women he -calls upon to exercise their influence in favour of peace, because they -can, if they will, put an end to all wars for ever. The idleness of the -upper classes, and the seeking of outlets for their capital by -financial speculators are, he says, its chief causes, and -ill-accumulated moneys are spent on it. In all this an ever-increasing -multitude of Christians agree with him, as well as in his denunciation -of the inhumanity of mere mercenary commerce uncontrolled by -consideration for others, and in his pleadings for purer and happier -homes, equal opportunities of education, and the glory and grace of -honest labour. When a man who has done much for the good of his fellows -can write of Ruskin in the second phase of his literary career, 'to him -I owe the guidance of my life, all its best impulses, and its worthiest -efforts,' we may be sure his later books were really great, -notwithstanding their blemishes. - -[Illustration: (Faithfully yours J Ruskin) - - JOHN RUSKIN'S HANDWRITING IN ADVANCED LIFE.] - - -[Illustration: - MEDALLION ON THE RUSKIN MEMORIAL, DERWENTWATER. - - By A. C. Lucchesi.] - - - - - VIEWS FROM GRETA HALL - - - 'This Greta Hall is a house on a small eminence, a furlong from - Keswick, in the county of Cumberland. Yes, my dear Sir, here I am, - with Skiddaw at my back--on my right hand the Bassenthwaite Water, - with its majestic _case_ of mountains, all of simplest outline. - Looking slant, direct over the feather of this infamous pen, I see - the sun setting. My God! what a scene! Right before me is a great - _camp_ of single mountains--each in shape resembles a giant's - tent--and to the left, but closer to it far than the Bassenthwaite - Water to my right, is the Lake of Keswick, with its islands and - white sails, and glossy lights of evening,--crowned with green - meadows; but the three remaining sides are encircled by the most - fantastic mountains that ever earthquakes made in sport, as - fantastic as if Nature had laughed herself into the convulsion in - which they were made. Close behind me flows the Greta; I hear its - murmuring distinctly. Then it curves round, almost in a - semi-circle, and is now catching the purple lights of the scattered - clouds above it directly before me.'--_A letter of Samuel Taylor - Coleridge's._ - - -[Illustration: - - SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. - - From a Painting by G. Dawe, R.A.] - - - - - VII - - A GREAT LIFE MARRED - - SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE - - - 'This illustrious man, the largest and most spacious intellect, the - subtlest and most comprehensive, in my judgment, that has yet - existed among men.'--DE QUINCEY. - - -In him we have another of our intellectual giants, a many-sided man, a -poet, a theologian, a politician, or, in Charles Lamb's well-known -phrase, a logician, a metaphysician, a bard. He was a fortunate man in -so far as he has attained literary immortality. He was a singularly -unfortunate man in so far as his natural character was deficient in -will-power, and lacking in that subtle but invaluable property known as -common-sense. His story, once you begin it, holds you, like the story of -his own 'long, lank, brown, and ancient Mariner's,' captive to the end, -it is so full of pathetic romance. - -Garrulous, kind-hearted old Bookseller Cottle, of Bristol, very minor -poet himself, yet devoted to letters, and staunch friend in their utmost -need to an afterwards famous band of young men, tells us how Robert -Lovell, an inexperienced and sanguine Quaker, was carried away by a -Socialistic colonization scheme to be tested on the banks of the -Susquehannah--the community to be called a Pantisocracy--from which -injustice, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil-speaking, were to be -excluded, thereby setting an example of human perfectability. Four young -men, Lovell said, had joined the movement, who were to embark at Bristol -for the American colonies--Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from Cambridge with -whom the idea was supposed to have originated, Robert Southey and George -Burnett from Oxford, and himself. In due time he introduced his -friends--Southey, 'tall, dignified, possessing great suavity of manners, -an eye piercing, with a countenance full of genius, kindliness, and -intelligence'; Burnett, son of a Somersetshire farmer, who soon vanished -from sight--never, indeed, comes fairly into it; and Coleridge, with 'an -eye, a brow, and a forehead indicative of commanding genius.' The last -soon applied on behalf of the fraternity for a loan, not to pay for the -emigrants' sea passage, but their lodgings bill! The good man lent £5, -and afterwards advanced Coleridge £30, taking the value back in MSS. as -he could secure them. Meanwhile, Coleridge lectured to small audiences -on somewhat abstruse subjects for a Bristol population, and managed to -fall in love with a sister of his friend Lovell's wife, a third of these -Miss Frickers becoming engaged to and marrying Southey, though he had -not the remotest prospect of supporting a family. Lecturing and -literature had not paid, Pantisocracy had perished in the bud, and -Coleridge had not in any other direction shown the least capacity for -dealing with every-day affairs. His antecedents both proved, and had -intensified, his want of sagacity. - -Born in 1772, into the large family of a learned Devonshire clergyman, -who was also Head Master of a Grammar School--'a gentle and kindly -eccentric'--he lost his father when only nine years of age, and was -sent to the Blue Coat School (Christ's Hospital) in London. Here Charles -Lamb was his schoolfellow. He grew, ere he left it, to be a tall lad of -striking presence, with long black hair. At nineteen he was sent to -Cambridge University. From Cambridge--owing, it is now generally -believed, to some disappointment in a love affair, though others will -have it that it was owing to debts recklessly contracted--he went up to -London with little money in his pocket, and enlisted as a private in a -regiment of light cavalry, under the assumed name of Silas Titus -Comberback. In this regiment he remained only four months, proving 'an -execrable rider, a negligent groom of his horse, and generally a slack -and slovenly trooper.' Here a Latin quotation scribbled on a whitewashed -wall discovered him, and led to his discharge, a visit to Oxford and an -introduction to Lovell and Southey, then students, made him a more -decided Pantisocratist, then a Bristolian, a protégé of Cottle and -Charles Lloyd, and a benedict. In 1795 he was married at St. Mary de -Redcliffe Church, and the thriftless pair set up housekeeping forthwith -in a rose-covered cottage at Clevedon, then a village on the shores of -the Severn Sea, though now a fashionable watering-place. Little -furniture, no cash, no income beyond a promise of a guinea and a half -for every hundred lines of copy, whether in rhyme or blank verse, -offered a poor matrimonial prospect. Two days after the wedding, -however, Cottle sent him 'with the aid of the grocer, and the shoemaker, -and the brewer, and the tin-man, and the glass-man, and the brazier,' -all he required--and more. In this retreat Coleridge did some necessary -bread-winning with his pen, but still more planning and projecting of -great world-astonishing magazines. Combined with his fancy for -projecting big schemes was an unconquerable habit of procrastination. -'His strongest intentions were but feebly supported after his first -paroxysm of resolve.' Such a man was unlikely to launch a serial on the -world successfully. He issued circulars of a paper to be called _The -Watchman_, travelled through the Midlands into Lancashire and Yorkshire -to obtain subscribers, and issued a few numbers, and then it collapsed. -In his travels he made the acquaintance of Lloyd, afterwards of -Ambleside, who found him in books, and made a home for him at Nether -Stowey. Wordsworth was then at Alfoxden, a close adjoining village. It -was during a walk taken by the two poets over the Quantock Hills that -their joint volume 'Lyrical Ballads,' was conceived, and that the -'Ancient Mariner' was partly written. 'Christabel' is another product of -this period of Coleridge's life, and what has been aptly called the -dream-poem of 'Kubla-Khan.' It was also now that he avowed himself a -Unitarian, and commenced to preach in the chapels of that sect. -Travelling to Shropshire in this ministry he captivated young William -Hazlitt by his extraordinary discourses in public and in private, who -records how it seemed to him poetry and philosophy were met together in -the preacher, truth and genius had embraced under the eye and sanction -of religion. At this time, he adds, Coleridge's personal appearance was -of one above the middle height, inclining to be corpulent, with hair -still raven-black, forehead broad and high, light as if built of ivory, -projecting brows, with rolling, bright eyes beneath them, and a mouth -'gross, voluptuous, open, eloquent.' His preaching, too, brought him -into contact with the generous De Quincey, and with the two Wedgwoods, -the eminent Staffordshire potters, who defrayed the expenses of himself -and William and Dorothy Wordsworth to Germany, and granted Coleridge a -pension to enable him to devote his life to literature. On their return, -Coleridge went to London on the staff of the _Morning Post_, in the -columns of which he did first-class work. - -In 1800 he removed his family to Keswick. He came to that town in many -respects a changed man. The torrents of revolutionary talk he indulged -in during his undergraduate days had lapsed into ultra-Toryism under the -reaction from the disappointed hopes excited by the upheaval in France, -but chiefly from his connection with the London Tory organ, although, as -his German biographer somewhat grimly remarks, 'a trace of his -partiality for the community of goods lingered in his blood; he never -ceased to live upon his friends'! The Church of England doctrines he was -intended to imbibe at school and college had given way before -Unitarianism and the mysticism and pantheism of the Continent. Goethe, -Kant, and Lessing had become his masters. He came, too, in broken -health. At Keswick dwelt a good man in Greta Hall, or rather in the -smaller of the two houses now known by that name. Mr. Jackson, who -started as a common carrier, was a well-to-do man, and had accumulated a -library. He charged Coleridge half the proper rent for the other -cottage, and gave him access to his books. There seemed no reason why -our poet-philosopher should not have been happier here than ever before. -But the end of his poetical career was at hand. 'Opium,' says De -Quincey, himself a victim to the drug, 'killed Coleridge as a poet.' He -began taking the deadly poison to allay the pains of gout, to which he -was a martyr. His 'Ode to Dejection' is undoubtedly his dirge over the -grave of his muse. In his hours of awakening he gave himself afresh to -philosophy to compel mental activity. He found the study an alleviation, -but by no means a cure. An artist friend took him a voyage up the -Mediterranean. On returning to his care-worn wife he found himself -without sufficient means for the support of a growing family, though Sir -George Beaumont, of Coleorton, and the ever-faithful Cottle and Sir -Humphry Davy, helped him and interested themselves on his behalf, to -enable him to earn something by lecturing in London. Returning again to -the Lake Country, he started another weekly paper, which he called _The -Friend_. It failed to capture the public, and ceased at the -twenty-seventh number. He had magazine and review work, and published -something. The opium habit still increased till these Kendal Black Drops -(he probably so calls them because he first procured them as a quack -medicine from this town) were at last taken in doses amounting to two -quarts of laudanum in a week. Yet he was visited by the Lambs, the -Wordsworths, Hazlitt, Professor Wilson, and many another who admired and -loved him for his genius and his unique personality. In four years' time -his brother-in-law, Robert Southey, and his family joined him at Greta -Hall. On the other hand, the Wedgwood annual allowance was withdrawn, on -the ground that his side of the agreement was not being fulfilled. More -and more he drifted about from place to place, leaving his wife and -children to the care of their relatives. One while he stayed with the -Wordsworths at Grasmere, and another with a benevolent friend at Calne -(he was three years there), till his generous host's means being much -reduced he was compelled to withdraw his hospitality. Here he had been -partly weaned from opium, but on going up to London in search of a -livelihood he fell back under its complete tyranny. In a kind of -desperation he carried his case to a Dr. Gillman, of Highgate. This -gentleman, an able physician and a man of standing and culture, was -happily married, and needed no 'paying guest,' but as Professor Brandle -puts it, 'the spell of his talk, and the repute of his name, vanquished -the Gillmans at once, and from that time he became the inmate and friend -of the family, and remained so till his end.' Here in this beautiful -home--beautiful in its then countrified surroundings, beautiful in its -moral atmosphere--he was once again happy, and for no fewer than sixteen -years. No opium was permitted within the walls. His wife and children, -and friendly visitors like Irving, Hallam, Maurice, Hare, and T. H. -Green, were welcomed. He became an undoubted Christian, and a powerful -advocate of a form of orthodoxy commoner now than it was then--an -attractive Anglican theology impregnated with the German type of -platonic philosophy. His utter simplicity of character was never lost, -and, unfortunately, his endeavours after pecuniary recovery were -thwarted by a scoundrelly publisher cheating him of large sums he had -fairly earned by hard work and genius. It was at this time he issued -'Aids to Reflection,' 'Lay Sermons,' and other memorable books. - -Towards the end of his days he suffered much, notably from an affection -of the heart, which 'bent his figure, furrowed his face, and hindered -his work.' Finding death within sight, he settled what outward affairs -he had to settle, ordered mourning rings for his friends, composed an -epitaph for his tombstone, and in a marvellous calm, not begotten of -narcotics, but of a living faith, he passed away into the fulness of -light, in the year of our Lord 1834, and the sixty-second of his age. - -What is the true estimate of his character? His was empathically a -self-marred life. With a steady, reliable temperament and will he might -have achieved one of the very highest positions among England's greatest -men. 'Frailty,' cries a modern essayist, 'thy name is Genius.' His -conversational powers were unequalled, and attracted eminent people from -afar to hear him pour forth his brilliant scientific knowledge, -philosophic speculations, and wealth of illustration. It is true that -Charles Lamb adjudged him too great a monopolist of the situation. -'Lamb,' was the response, 'did you ever hear me preach?' 'I never heard -you do anything else,' retorted Lamb. His talks were really spontaneous -orations which electrified his hearers. That ineffectual outward life of -his, so full of latent possibilities, has not, happily, been -altogether thrown away. Both the pre-opium-drinking days and the -post-opium-drinking were long enough for him to influence the thoughts -and teaching of his own and future ages, and he still leavens the -literature of the pulpit and the desk. His poetry yet delights young and -old. It is comforting to know that one whom the 'Circean Chalice' had -driven to wish for annihilation, and created in him a desire to place -himself in a madhouse, could write from his death-bed to a 'dear -god-son' that on the brink of the grave he had proved Christ to be an -Almighty Redeemer, who had reconciled God, and given him, under all -pains and infirmities, 'the peace that passeth understanding.' - -His literary output I will neither expound nor criticise, tempting as it -is to do both. His poems are on the shelves of every well-selected -library, however small. His more solid works are not for the general -public. They are too profound, and go far too deeply into the secret -springs of life and thought, too far afield into the Divine and human -undercurrents of motive and action; are too theological, too -speculative, to lay hold of any but those who themselves are, in their -spheres, and to some extent, at least, guides and moulders of other -men's emotions and duties. They are essentially books for the patiently -reflective, who learn that they may teach. If spiritual things are only -spiritually discerned, so also are philosophical theories, methods, and -categories appreciated only by those who have a natural leaning towards -them, and some degree of training. Nine-tenths of my readers will be -'practical' men and women, to whom his revelations will seem guess-work -and his intuitions dreams. But if any want a delicate and subtle -analysis of Coleridge's mind, and whatsoever was in it, they may read -the late Walter Pater's 'Appreciation' of him. - - - - - TO BE READ AT HIS GRAVESIDE - - - 'I have no particular choice of a churchyard, but I would repose, if - possible, where there were no proud monuments, no new-fangled - obelisks or mausoleums, heathen in everything but taste, and not - Christian in that. Nothing that betokened aristocracy, unless it - were the venerable memorial of some old family long extinct. If the - village school adjoined the churchyard, so much the better. But all - this must be as He will. I am greatly pleased with the fancy of - Anaxagoras, whose sole request of the people of Lampsacus was, that - the children might have a holiday on the anniversary of his death. - But I would have the holiday on the day of my funeral. I would - connect the happiness of childhood with the peace of the dead, not - with the struggles of the dying.'--_Written on a book-margin by - Hartley Coleridge._ - - -[Illustration: - - _Photo by Herbert Bell, Ambleside._ - - NAB COTTAGE, RYDAL. - - The Home of De Quincey's Father-in-law (see p. 8), and - afterwards of Hartley Coleridge.] - - - - - VIII - - A LIFE TO PITY - - HARTLEY COLERIDGE - - - 'Hartley Coleridge has come much nearer us, and probably you might - see as much of him as you liked. Of genius he has not a little, and - talent enough for fifty.'--WORDSWORTH. - - 'Dined at Mrs. Fletcher's. H. Coleridge behaved very well. He read - some verses on Dr. Arnold which I could not comprehend, he read them - so unpleasantly; and he sang a comic song that kept me very grave. - He left us quite early.'--CRABBE ROBINSON'S _Diary_. - -Poor 'Lile Hartley'--_little_ Hartley, as the neighbours called him--is -one of the most pathetic figures in English literature. Undersized in -body, of promising intellect from childhood, of child-like simplicity in -character, devoid of self-control, and overmastered by the alcoholic -habit, as his father was by the opium habit, he is at once pitiable, -excusable, and lovable. As you ride from Ambleside to Grasmere you pass -a low cottage on your right, just beneath Nab Scarr, where the young -farmer and his wife lived who cared so unselfishly for him and for his -comfort and welfare. It is locally known as 'Coleridge's Cottage.' Here -he lived in later manhood, followed and brought home tenderly, when he -had wandered away, by his kind-hearted caretakers, and writing prose -essays and sweet sonnets in hours of freedom from his besetment. - -By birth Hartley Coleridge belongs to the West Country, having come into -the world while his parents lived on Redcliffe Hill, Bristol, shortly -after their return from their little flower-covered, poverty-stricken -Clevedon Cottage. The National Dictionary of Biography is in error in -giving Rose Cottage as his birthplace. It was beyond all doubt Bristol, -and he was born during the autumn of 1796. 'A pretty and engaging -child,' his brother Derwent says he was. There must have been something -attractive about the babe, for it is given to few to be apostrophized by -two poets at so early an age, especially by two such as his own father -and his father's friend, William Wordsworth. Great things were -anticipated for him in the future by both the seers. He was taken to -London for a visit when three years old, and, after being mystified by -the street lamps, he suddenly exclaimed: 'Oh! now I know what the stars -are: they are lamps that have been good upon earth, and have gone up -into heaven!' At six years of age he was removed with the family to -Keswick. Here for a season the two households of Coleridge and Southey -dwelt at Greta Hall, an occurrence which seems in many ways to have -remarkably influenced his career. Those who came in contact with him at -this place speak of him as pouring forth, with flashing eyes, strange -speculations far beyond his years, and weaving wild inventions. His -dreamy boyhood was varied by another stay in London and a visit to -Bristol, in both which places further mundane knowledge was acquired, -only to be forthwith transmuted into the visions which filled his mental -life. His very play related to the history of a kind of Utopia, its -populations, its geography, its constitution, its wars, its politics. -'Ejuxria' was the name he gave his island kingdom, and he prolonged the -existence of it for himself and his playmates beyond the length of the -famous thousand and one nights of the Eastern story-teller. Everything -he saw, everything he read, became forthwith 'Ejuxrian.' This habit of -introversion and lack of practicality changed its forms as he grew -older, but never left him. When at length he went to a boarding-school -at Ambleside--or, rather, was placed in a clergyman's house near it with -a few other boys for private tuition--his power of improvization was -encouraged by his companions demanding long-drawn-out romances from him, -while his morbid tendencies and consciousness of his small stature -induced the habit of lonely wanderings and musing. - -Desultory reading and frequent intercourse with his father's -friends--Southey, Wordsworth, Professor Wilson, De Quincey, and Charles -Lloyd--formed the chief part of his early education. He seems to have -been as a schoolboy truthful, dutiful, and thoughtful, but with great -infirmity of will and subject to paroxysms of passion and heartbroken -repentance. From school to Oxford University was a natural and proper -advance. Unfortunately, his rare conversational qualities made him much -sought after for students' wine parties. The result of this was that, -although he passed his exams creditably, and won an Oriel Fellowship, -he was judged to have forfeited this Fellowship by his intemperance. -The authorities were inexorable. No expostulation or influence could -save him. It is probable some freedom of speech offensive to the -narrow-minded dons of his day had something to do with their hardness. -Sympathy and kindly common-sense might have recovered him just then from -his snare. As it was, he tried for literary employment in London with -little success, though his tarriance there resulted in a further -development of his alcoholic tendency. Thence he drifted back to -Ambleside, where he tried school-keeping, but in vain. He had no -disciplinary power, and one by one his pupils were removed, till the -school collapsed. From there he went to the Grasmere Cottage, already -spoken of, facing the lovely little lake of Rydal, a blue island-dotted -gem framed in with lofty green mountains. Everybody loved the lonely, -affectionate man--a keen observer of Nature, an inspired writer of -poetry--and everybody grieved when the end came one winter's day of -1849, and his remains were buried in Grasmere Churchyard. There a little -group of us stood but a while ago, reverently uncovered, beneath the -yews that overshadow his grave and the graves of the Wordsworth family. -That he knew his weakness and lamented it, and at seasons valiantly -struggled to overcome it, is certain, and one cannot help wondering -whether he would not have triumphed ultimately had he lived in a -teetotal age, when he could have been surrounded by abstaining -companions, who would have sheltered him and kept him out of perpetually -recurrent temptations. Some of his more personal verses are sadly -suggestive both of his struggle and his need: - - 'A woeful thing it is to find - No trust secure in weak mankind, - But tenfold woe betide the elf - Who knows not how to trust himself.' - -And again he writes: - - 'Oh woeful impotence of weak resolve, - Recorded rashly to the writer's shame, - Days pass away, and Time's large orbs revolve, - And every day behold me still the same, - Till oft-neglected purpose loses aim, - And hope becomes a flat, unheeded lie, - And conscience, weary with the work of blame, - In seeming slumber droops her wistful eye, - As if she would resign her unregarded ministry.' - -Passing lightly over his 'Northern Worthies,' some dozen or so of -biographic sketches, good and capable 'pot-boilers'--yet 'pot-boilers' -essentially--one comes to his essays, written for _Blackwood_ and other -magazines and papers, and his marginalia written in his books and -published after his death. We cannot but be struck with the immense -variety of subjects dealt with in his essays. Many of them are signed by -a pseudonym, such as 'Thersites' if on 'Heathen Mythology'--or 'Tom -Thumb the Great' if 'Brief Observations upon Brevity'--or 'Ignoramus' if -a series on the 'Fine Arts'--and very few were issued in his own name. -Some are full of quaint humour, such as 'Thoughts on Horsemanship, by a -Pedestrian,' 'A Nursery Lecture delivered by an Old Bachelor.' Others -have a fine literary flavour, as, for example, 'Shakespeare, a Tory and -a Gentleman,' or 'On the Character of Hamlet.' It is, however, as a -sonnetteer he will be longest remembered, and as a writer of -miscellaneous verses. When rowing round Grasmere Lake the other day we -recalled his lines, beginning: - - 'Within the compass of a little vale - There lies a lake unknown in fairy tale, - Which not a poet knew in ancient days, - When all the world believed in ghosts and fays; - Yet on that lake I have beheld a boat - That seemed a fairy pinnace all afloat, - On some blest mission to a distant isle - To do meet worship in some ruined pile, - Where long of yore the Fairies used to meet - And haply hallow with their last retreat.' - -Sometimes, too, when religious controversies grow warm around the good -old revelation those verses of his come to remembrance, called 'The Word -of God': - - 'In holy books we read how God hath spoken - To holy men in many different ways; - But hath the present work'd no sign or token? - Is God quite silent in these latter days? - - 'And hath our Heavenly Sire departed quite, - And left His poor babes in this world alone, - And only left for blind belief--not sight-- - Some quaint old riddles in a tongue unknown?' - -Hartley Coleridge's longer and more ambitious pieces do not commend -themselves to the public as do his shorter ones. His _forte_ was in-- - - 'Singing of the little rills - That trickle down the yellow hills - To drive the Fairies' water-mills;' - -of children whom he doted upon,--of 'the merry lark that bids a blithe -good-morrow,'--of 'summer rain'--of 'rose, and violet, and pansy, each -with its tale of love'--of poor Mary Magdalene. From his own soul, as -from Mary's, it may be the Lord has 'wiped off the soiling of despair.' -May we find it has been so when we ourselves reach the great hereafter. - - - - - KESWICK IN WINTER - - - 'Summer is not the season for this country. Coleridge says, and says - well, that then it is like a theatre at noon. There are _no goings - on_ under a clear sky.... The very snow, which you would perhaps - think must monotonize the mountains, gives new varieties; it brings - out their recesses and designates all their inequalities, it - impresses a better feeling of their height, and it reflects such - tints of saffron, or fawn, or rose-colour to the evening sun. _O - Maria Santissima!_ Mount Horeb with the glory upon its summit might - have been more glorious, but not more beautiful than Skiddaw in his - pelisse of ermine. I will not quarrel with frost, though the fellow - has the impudence to take me by the nose. The lakeside has such ten - thousand charms; a fleece of snow or of the hoar-frost lies on the - fallen trees or large stones; the grass-points, that just peer above - the water, are powdered with diamonds; the ice on the margin with - chains of crystal, and such veins and wavy lines of beauty as mock - all art; and, to crown all, Coleridge and I have found out that - stones thrown upon the lake, when frozen, made a noise like singing - birds, and when you whirl on it a large flake of ice, away the - shivers slide, chirping and warbling like a flight of finches.'--_A - letter of Robert Southey's._ - -[Illustration: WINE STREET, BRISTOL. - - The Birthplace of Robert Southey.] - - - - - IX - - GEORGE THE FOURTH'S LAUREATE - - ROBERT SOUTHEY - - - 'I could say much of Mr. Southey, at this time; of his - constitutional cheerfulness, of the polish of his manners, of his - dignity, and at the same time of his unassuming deportment, as well - as of the general respect which his talent, conduct, and - conversation excited.'--JOSEPH COTTLE, _Southey's first publisher_. - - -He was the most bookish and the most learned Laureate of them all. As a -poet, he was inferior to Wordsworth and Tennyson, yet superior to Pye or -Austin. He was a native of Bristol, where his father was an unsuccessful -linen-draper in Wine Street. Heredity had little or nothing to do with -the evolution of Robert's genius, except so far as from his mother's -alertness of intellect and happy temperament he received a foundation -upon which he was enabled to build his literary future. Industry, and a -great practical capacity, animated by a sanguine spirit, carried him -through a life of unremitting toil, and conquered difficulties that -would have crushed or disheartened most men. - -He first saw the light on August 12, 1774. 'Is it a boy?' asked the -mother. 'Ay,' replied the nurse, 'a great ugly boy'; and the mother, -when she saw the 'great red creature,' feared she should never be able -to love him! However, he soon grew to be a handsome, curly-headed lad, -sensitive, and very much alive. The Southeys being 'under water' most of -their time, their first-born was adopted by a half-sister of the wife. -Aunt Tylor lived in Bath. To Bath, then, he was removed, and the -fashionable, theatre-going spinster, even over-nice and fastidious in -her love of spotless cleanliness, and very imperious in her manner, did -her duty conscientiously by her charge, letting him, however, attend -dramatic entertainments, and read all he could lay hands on, till he was -old enough to be sent to school. The 'Academy' selected was fully as low -as the average of the 'Do-the-boys' Halls of the day. The master was a -broken-down tradesman who had married his drunken servant-maid, and the -school broke up shortly with a free fight between the proprietor and his -son. Two years here had added little to the pupil's knowledge. He gained -most by his private reading. The next four years were spent in attending -as a day-boarder in the classes of a bewigged, irascible little -Welshman, with whom he learned Latin and the Church Catechism. 'Who -taught you to read, boy?' inquired schoolmaster Williams. 'My aunt, -sir.' 'Then tell your aunt that my old horse, dead these twenty years, -could have done it better!' This naturally terminated his attendance at -that school. The aunt left Bath shortly thereafter, and finally settled -at Bristol, Southey going with her, and still poring over Spenser, -Sidney, Pope's Homer and translations of Tasso, Ariosto, and Josephus. -By-and-by he was promoted to Westminster School to continue his Latin, -which he remembered for reading though not for writing, and to learn -Greek, which he afterwards forgot. A bias for history developed itself -here, and he found a good library in the house of a friend in Dean's -Yard, scarcely out of bounds. Here he studied Gibbon, Rousseau, and -Epictetus. Authorship in a school journal was tried, and so successfully -that his criticism on the ways of a stupid, 'flogging' preceptor, whose -name may well pass into oblivion, led to his expulsion, and the expelled -lad, whose name will never be obliterated, returned to his aunt in -Bristol. - -Robert Southey had a maternal uncle, a clergyman, and English chaplain -at Lisbon, who became more to him than a father, the real father having -failed in business and died of a broken heart. Mr. Hill sent his nephew -to Oxford, designing to make a clergyman of him. The Dean of Christ -Church, however, hearing that the tall, handsome, enthusiastic young -poet and Radical had been turned out of Westminster for daring to attack -that fine old English institution, flogging in the great public schools, -rejected his application. Balliol received him. Here he made some -lifelong and most valuable friendships, one bringing him a future -pension of £160 a year to aid him in his devotion to literature, an -allowance continued, with unusual generosity, till he had made his mark, -and Government had remunerated him for his eminent services. He owed as -little to Oxford as to lower schools. All he learned, he tells us, was -some swimming and boating. He wrote his epic poem, 'Joan of Arc,' in his -nineteenth year; refused to enter into orders, 'joyfully bade adieu to -Oxford,' tried to learn medicine, but hated the dissecting-room too much -to follow it; had an interview with Coleridge, imbibed 'Pantisocracy,' -returned to Bristol once more, fell in love with Edith Fricker, sister -of Lovell's and Coleridge's wives, and was refused his Aunt Tylor's -house in consequence of his erratic opinions and misdoings. His -Portuguese uncle now stepped in to wean him from those ultra-democratic -views, as they were then considered, though nowadays almost commonplaces -of Toryism, and to relieve his pecuniary necessities. Pantisocracy, -supplemented by a little lecturing and a little publishing, had not -proved profitable, and poor Southey frequently knew the want of a -dinner. Mr. Hill was over in England, and took his relative back with -him. To make all fast, however, Robert and his beloved Edith, his -faithful, loving, and every way admirable wife for many years, got -themselves married in St. Mary de Redcliffe Church on the morning of the -day the former started from Bristol on his travels. They could not raise -the price of the wife's wedding-ring between them, and kind-hearted -Bookseller Cottle lent the requisite guinea. They parted at the -church-door, Southey going first to Madrid, and then to Lisbon and its -environs. In the Spanish peninsula were many valuable libraries hidden -away in monasteries. These he ransacked, learning the tongues in which -they were written, or printed, posting himself up in Portuguese history, -translating the romance of the Cid, and bringing back with him a number -of valuable books and documents. It was one of the pleasantest and most -profitable periods of his life, was this trip to the old medieval, -Catholic world of modern Portugal, though he came home with an intense -dislike of Romanism. But he returned to England and commenced studying -law in London, forgetting all he learned the moment his law books were -closed, and writing his second great poem, 'Madoc,' in the intervals of -reading Blackstone and Littleton and Coke. A holiday near Christchurch -followed during the bright summer weather of 1797 with wife and mother, -brother Tom just released from a French prison, brother-in-law -Coleridge, Bookseller Cottle, Friend Lloyd, Charles Lamb, and John -Rickman; and then a homeless time, sometimes in London, sometimes in -Bristol, and once among the literati of Norwich. Then ensued a residence -at Westbury-on-Trym in a pretty cottage, and an acquaintance with Davy, -afterwards the celebrated Sir Humphrey. Another trip to Portugal, this -time accompanied by his Edith, involved more study, and produced another -poem--'Thalaba.' Coleridge, it will be remembered, had removed to -Keswick, to Greta Hall. He now wrote for the Southeys to join him there, -which they did, and it was their home as long as their lives lasted. -Here Robert toiled at literature for his daily bread, living a strenuous -life not for his own and his growing family's sake alone, but for the -Coleridges during Samuel's sad lapses into the opium habit, and for the -widowed Mrs. Lovell and her child also. There was a time when I could -not like Robert Southey as man or author. His longer poems seemed prosy, -and most of his shorter ones trivial, and his prose lacking in sympathy -with humanity, and his books narrow in their outlook on life. He seemed -to be commonplace and cold, and every way humdrum. Fuller acquaintance -with the author and his works has not greatly changed one's views, about -some of his verses, but it has brought acquaintance with some books of -extraordinary merit wherein prejudice fades into quaintness of thought -and expression not altogether unpleasant, and since one's youthful days -the commonplace virtues of domestic life and home cheerfulness and the -heroism that toils and struggles unseen, and bears its life's burdens -uncomplainingly, have received a spiritual glorification far beyond that -which is due to the showy, romantic, good-for-nothing selfishness of the -plunger who neglects his responsibilities while captivating the -onlookers. - -Life at Keswick was apparently a monotonous one. To-day was as -yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day, with the exception of short journeys -away, always leavened by longings to be at home. Each forty-eight hours -was mapped out with as much regularity as social claims would permit. -Reading, writing, walking among the beautiful landscapes of Keswick, and -the hearty enjoyment of relaxation in the midst of his numerous family -circle, had all their allotted times, with the hours of rest and sleep, -for Southey needed sleep and exercise to keep in good order the bodily -functions his very existence as an author depended upon. Yet did he -never refuse to be interviewed by legitimate callers--that is, those who -brought their own literary credentials with them, or introductions from -those he knew. Among the men who sought him for his works' sake was -Shelley during the time of his compulsory retirement at Keswick. He -carried on also a very large private correspondence. His 'selected' -letters alone fill four volumes. He befriended Kirke White, the poet, -with wise counsel and friendly sympathies, and Charlotte Brontë, and not -a few now quite unknown poets, struggling to make names for themselves -among the stars of English poesie. The correspondents to whom he -unbent, and showed the real man behind the books he wrote, included such -geniuses as Bishop Lightfoot, Sir Walter Scott, Walter Savage Landor -(who was an inspiration to him), Sir Henry Taylor, and, of course, the -Lake Poets so well known to us all by now. - -[Illustration: - _Photo by Herbert Bell, Ambleside._ - - SOUTHEY'S MONUMENT IN CROSTHWAITE CHURCH, KESWICK.] - -The losses, occurring in every extensive family, came from time to time -to tear the fibres of Southey's loving and sensitive heart. Children -died, or married and left him, and at length his brave, and -dearly-beloved wife's mental faculties decayed, and after some time of -gradual and hopeless failure, she died in 1837. Two years later he -married another excellent woman, though of quite different type from his -deeply-mourned Edith. This was Caroline Bowles, who was a literary lady -and poetess, and had been a correspondent for some time. He never fully -recovered the shock of his first wife's loss, and his own later years -were beclouded with brain disease resulting in something not quite -imbecility, and yet bordering upon it, in which he seemed to live in a -perpetual dream. A fever hastened his end, which came in the month of -March, 1843. His successor in the Laureateship and his son-in-law were -the only strangers present in Crosthwaite Churchyard at the funeral. It -was a cloudy day on which he was buried, but as the service was ending a -ray of sunshine touched the grave, and reminded the mourners of the -better light in the world beyond into which his soul had entered. -Southey was all his life a sincerely religious man. His refusal to enter -the Anglican priesthood in youth, and his championship of liberal views, -and even the narrowness of his later opinions on affairs of State and -Church--in other words, his bigoted Toryism--were all due to the -sincerity of his convictions, and his loyalty to what he thought at the -time to be the truth. The best short life you can have of Southey is -Edward Dowden's in 'English Men of Letters.' - -Of his longer poems the world takes small account, though there is -undoubted poetry in them. It preserves chiefly his ballads, things like -the 'Battle of Blenheim,' 'How the Water Comes Down at Lodore,' 'The Old -Woman of Berkley,' and so forth, which can be found in most anthologies. -His prose writings were principally task-work, bread-winners, -painstaking, and mostly reliable. His 'Life of Nelson' has still a -circulation, and is probably the most popular of his books. His 'Life of -John Wesley' is pre-eminently a Churchman's appreciation of one to -whom he tried to be just, but had no kind of sympathy with. The works -which best show us Southey himself are his 'Uneducated Poets,' a -readable group of short biographies of his humbler brethren, to some of -whom he had been personally a benefactor; his 'Book of the Church,' a -volume of biographical sketches of builders and martyrs of the Church of -England; his 'Commonplace Book,' which shows the marvellous industry of -the man in collecting materials for his life-work; and, above all, that -curious assortment of odds and ends of erudition connected by the -thinnest thread of a story, around which the quaint old-world learning -winds and winds endlessly with something of Rabelaisian humour without -its grossness. This, of course, is 'The Doctor,' a book once captured -from an acquaintance of mine by hospital surgeons on the ground that -'medical' works were not permitted to patients! This book, written for -his own delectation and for the justification of his friends, is -particularly suitable for long, wet winter evenings by a cosy fireside, -and one that can be opened anywhere to disclose 'a feast of reason and a -flow of soul' to the reader. - -[Illustration: JOSEPH COTTLE, OF BRISTOL. - B. 1770. D. 1853. - - Friend and Patron of Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth, and - their first Publisher (see pp. 85, 87, 106). - - Portrait (æt. 50) by Branwhite, also of Bristol.] - - - - - X - - VICTORIA'S FIRST LAUREATE - - WILLIAM WORDSWORTH - - - 'The Age grew sated with her frail wit, - Herself waxed weary on her loveless throne. - Men felt life's tide, the sweep and surge of it, - And craved a living voice, a natural tone.' - From _Wordsworth's Grave_, by WILLIAM WATSON. - -Wordsworth is, of course, the greatest poet of the English Lake school. -He is also the only one born in the lake counties, educated and, with -slight exception, resident all his life within them. His birthplace was -Cockermouth, his school the Grammar School of Hawkshead; his -residences--except what time he briefly dwelt among the southern -Quantock Hills--were at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, and Rydal Mount; his -burial-place was among his kinsfolk in a quiet corner of Grasmere -Churchyard, beneath the sycamores and yews. Most of his compeers and -friends--Coleridge, Southey, De Quincey, Charles Lloyd, John Wilson, and -even Hartley Coleridge--were born elsewhere, and came to live among -these northern mountains in youth or manhood. - -He wrote, also, more about our district, and wrote it better, than any -other. This was partly due to patriotic devotion to his native corner -of our common fatherland, partly because the love of rambling was -ingrained in his being, chiefly because he was intuitively a -Nature-poet, looking below the grand and the lovely into the mystical -heart and core of sights and sounds that conceal and yet reveal their -Creator, Fashioner, and Upholder. He was the inspired interpreter of -things which ordinary men have not spiritual knowledge to -understand--which, indeed, the majority do not so much as behold dimly -until one of God's seers lifts the enshrouding veil. - -Born in 1770, he died at noon on April 23, 1850. No one now living was -contemporary with his birth. Middle-aged admirers of his poems, -middle-aged controverters of his claim to pre-eminence, well remember -the shadow of death that fell across the nation's heart when they heard -the laureate had passed away. 'Surely,' writes F. W. H. Myers, 'of him, -if of anyone, we may think as a man who was so in accord with Nature, so -at one with the very soul of things, that there can be no mansion of the -universe which shall not be to him a home, no governor that will not -accept him among his servants, and satisfy him with love and peace.' -There are few events to record between his earthly birth and his birth -into the upper kingdom--or shall we say his return to that kingdom?--if -there is anything in his own suggestion that-- - - 'Not in entire forgetfulness, - And not in utter nakedness, - But trailing clouds of glory do we come - From God who is our home.' - -His was a domestic life after he left Cambridge, and had done some -Continental travel and some in Scotland. It was spent in cottage homes -with his beloved sister Dorothy, for a short while in Dorsetshire, -another short while at Alfoxden, in Somerset, and then till his marriage -at Grasmere. He was married to Mary Hutchinson at Penrith in 1802. As -his family grew he removed successively into two larger houses, and -eventually settled at Rydal Mount. Here his life was one of attention to -his small Government appointment of stamp distributor, wandering 'lonely -as a cloud,' and muttering to himself so much that the peasants deemed -him half crazy; meditating upon and composing his immortal poems; and, -after he had become famous, receiving literary guests from all the -English-speaking peoples. His biography is a biography of the mind, a -history of mental processes and tendencies, a record of the gradual -creation of his own anthology. There are innumerable lives of him, of -less or greater length, from the old one of Paxton Hood, and the most -full and capable by his own nephew, and by Professor Knight, to the -latest in the 'English Men of Letters Series.' Professor Knight, too, -has given the world excellent editions of his poems, excellent -selections therefrom, and a charming review of his connection with the -lakes. All these are accessible to ordinary readers and -hero-worshippers. It will answer my purpose best in this place to note -only his local Nature-verses. Yet I may, perhaps, remind this generation -that Wordsworth had to win his spurs--the recognition of his right to be -ranked in any degree as a poet--and still more to be considered a -teacher of his race. His earlier effusions passed through a veritable -fire of scornful criticism. 'Primroses,' 'Daffodils,' 'Pet Lambs,' 'Idle -Shepherd Boys,' 'Alice Fells' and 'Lucy Grays,' and 'Lines to a -Friend's Spade,' were altogether too trivial themes for the responsible -and serious muse, while 'Peter Bell' was a special subject of scorn. -'Poems of Sentiment' were merely 'sentimental.' The sonnets and larger -pieces, particularly 'The Excursion,' were too heavy, and too laboured -to be readable. Pantheism was charged upon him as an objectionable -creed. Time justified him largely, and Wordsworth Societies helped to do -so still further, though in some respects the slashing critics may have -had fair ground. No other poet of his calibre is so unequal in the -quality of his output. Wordsworth's poems are by no means, it cannot be -too much insisted upon, all on the same high plane of merit, and many -will never pass into the world's best thought, as nearly all Tennyson's -have, to say nothing of Shakespeare's or Milton's. - -He was pre-eminently a revealer of the kingdom of Nature, as seen in the -mountains and lakes, the birds, the flowers, the peasantry of the -counties of Westmorland and Cumberland, and the over-sea portion of -Lancashire. Not only did he write an admirable guide for travellers and -tourists in these regions, but there is scarcely a section of this land -that he has not rendered classic ground by connecting with it some -incident, some allusion, some poetical idealizing. Where shall I begin? -With Windermere, of course. You remember this in the Prelude? - - 'When summer came, - Our pastime was, on bright half-holidays, - To sweep along the plain of Windermere - With rival oar; and the selected bourne - Was now an island musical with birds - That sang and ceased not; now a sister isle - Beneath the oak's umbrageous covert--sown - With lilies of the valley like a field; - And now a third small island, where survived - In solitude the ruins of a shrine - Once to Our Lady dedicate, and served - Daily with chanted rites.' - -Better still than this is another passage from the same poem: - - 'There was a boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs - And islands of Winander! Many a time - At evening, when the earliest stars began - To move along the edges of the hills, - Rising or setting, would he stand alone - Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake, - And there with fingers interwoven, both hands - Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth - Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, - Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, - That they might answer him, and they would shout - Across the watery vale, and shout again, - Responsive to his call, with quivering peals, - And long halloos and screams and echoes, long - Redoubled, and redoubled--concourse wild - Of jocund din; and when a lengthened pause - Of silence came, and baffled his best skill, - Then sometimes in that silence, while he hung - Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise - Has carried far into his heart the voice - Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene - Would enter unawares into his mind, - With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, - Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received - Into the bosom of the steady lake.' - -Perhaps it is merely from old associations--the love one had for skating -on the flooded and frozen Severn-side meadows, when in one's -'teens'--yet I confess I like even better than either of the foregoing -extracts those lines describing the scene when our poet and his -schoolmates, 'all shod with steel,' 'hissed along the polished ice in -games confederate,' over the wintry floor of Windermere Lake, lines -which lead up to - - 'Ye Presences of Nature in the sky - And on the earth. Ye visions of the hills! - And souls of lonely places! Can I think - A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed - Such ministry. When ye through many a year - Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, - On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, - Impressed upon all forms the characters - Of danger or desire; and thus did make - The surface of the universal earth - With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, - Work like a sea?' - -Wordsworth did not write much referring to Derwentwater. It was not size -so much as beauty that captivated his imagination. What little there is -may well be passed over for the poems connected with Ullswater--that -English Lake Lucerne--and Helvellyn. Three years after his marriage he -visited these regions in a stormy November. Of this short tour he has -left a journal, and to its credit we place several of his descriptive -verses, notably 'The Pass of Kirkstone,' omitted in some editions of his -works. Therein he tells us how the mists, though they obscured the -distant views, magnified even the smaller objects close at hand, so that -a stone wall might be taken for a monument of ancient grandeur, and the -grassy tracts in the semi-light for tarns. The rocks appeared like ruins -left by the Deluge, or to altars fit for Druid service, but never -carrying the sacred fire unless the glow-worm lit the nightly sacrifice. -On another tour it was that his sister Dorothy, always his good genius, -called his attention to the gorgeous bed of daffodils, in the woods -below Gowbarrow Park--afterwards made famous by his sonnet. 'I never saw -daffodils,' he records in his journal, 'so beautiful. They grew among -the mossy stones about them. Some rested their heads on these stones -like a pillow, the others tossed, and reeled, and danced, and seemed as -if they half laughed in the wind, they looked so gay and glancing.' -There is also in the journal a paragraph about a singular and magnified -reflection about Lyulph's Tower in this lake, though the tower itself -was hidden from him behind an eminence. It was on this second tour he -wrote, near Brothers Water, verses, somewhat too like a catalogue of -articles on view, that close with this happy lilt: - - 'There's joy in the mountains, - There's life in the fountains, - Small clouds are sailing, - Blue sky prevailing-- - The rain is over and gone.' - -It is among these lines the fancy occurs of which the critics made such -surpassing fun--for themselves, certainly: - - 'The cattle are grazing, - Their heads never raising, - There are forty feeding like one.' - -Not a bad illustration, after all, is this of the facile descent from -the sublime into bathos. To the Ullswater period we owe, of course, 'The -Somnambulist,' a legend of Aira Force, and a sonnet to Clarkson, the -abolitionist, who lived at the foot of the lake. Helvellyn appears in -many poems. Grasmere and Rydal, as is only natural, still more often, -with their ancient mountains imparting to him 'dream and visionary -impulses,' their 'thick umbrage' of beech-trees, their fir-trees beyond -the Wishing Gate, and their 'massy ways carried across these heights by -human perseverance.' Of the River Duddon he has given us a series of -sonnets, some three dozen in number, of which we may hold 'The -Stepping-Stones' to be the best, and 'The After-Thought' the best for me -to close with, for it is representative of his subtler feelings: - - 'I thought of thee, my partner and my guide[A] - As being past away.--Vain sympathies! - For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes, - I see what was, and is, and will abide; - Still glides the stream, and shall for ever glide; - The form remains, the function never dies; - While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, - We men, who in the morn of youth, defied - The elements, must vanish;--be it so! - Enough, if something from our hands have power - To live, and act, and serve the future hour; - And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, - Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, - We feel that we are greater than we know.' - -[A] The river. - - - - - HIS PRAYER FOR POETIC INSPIRATION - - - 'Celestial Spirit which erewhile didst deign - Our elder Milton's hallowed prayer to hear, - Do thou inspire my tributary strain, - Breathe thou through every word that sense severe - Of TRUTH; and if ought eloquent appear, - Let it to everyone be manifest, - That it flows from that empyrian clear, - Where thou beside God's throne, a heavenly guest, - With vision beatific evermore art blessed!' - CHARLES LLOYD: _Stanzas_. - -[Illustration: - - _Photo by Herbert Bell, Ambleside._ - - OLD BRATHAY. - The Home of Charles Lloyd.] - - - - - XI - - A FRIEND OF GREAT POETS - - CHARLES LLOYD - - - 'Long, long, within my aching heart, - The grateful sense shall cherished be; - I'll think less meanly of myself, - That Lloyd will sometimes think on me.' - CHARLES LAMB. - - -Many will, no doubt, ask who this man was, and where he lived? Such a -question shows small acquaintance with either the biographies or -writings of the great poets of the Lake School, or of Charles Lamb or -Thomas De Quincey. He was the personal and highly-valued friend of them -all, and his name and residence are too frequently mentioned in their -letters and publications to escape the notice of even casual readers. He -was the collaborateur of S. T. Coleridge and Charles Lamb in their first -joint volume of poems, published by Joseph Cottle, bookseller, of -Bristol, their kind patron in early days of struggle. He became a -'celebrity' of this district when he went to reside at Low Brathay, near -Ambleside, fixing his home by the rushing rivulet of the Langdales, and -beneath the lofty summit of Loughrigg, the mountain beloved of Fosters, -and Arnolds, and their compeers and neighbours. He was born in 1775 at -Birmingham, his father being a member of the Society of Friends, one of -the wealthy banking firm, and a philanthropist and man of culture. He, -the elder Lloyd, was a lover and translator of Homer and Horace, and -specially a student of Greek literature, thereby helping to disprove the -random assertion of a recent novelist that the Quakerism of the past -generation was utterly antagonistic to the culture and spirit of old -Greece. - -When Charles was about of age, and had declined entering his father's -bank, that he might give himself up to poesy, Coleridge visited -Birmingham on the profitless errand of obtaining subscriptions to his -magazine. He took a great liking to the new and rising author, and -followed him to Bristol. Coleridge was very poor (Wedgewood's pension -had not yet been granted), and was very shiftless to boot. Lloyd -provided him with a free home and with access to sorely-needed books. -When Coleridge removed to Nether Stowey, on the Quantock Hills, Lloyd -went too, and again kept house. Here they were near Wordsworth, then -residing at Alfoxden. One result of this acquaintance was the marriage -of Lloyd's sister to a younger brother of the future Laureate. A -strange, unpractical company these poets and philosophers were, and -their ways were erratic. The story of their inability to put a collar on -their pony till shown by a servant-girl, is well known. The landlord of -Alfoxden refused to renew the letting of the house to Wordsworth because -of his rumoured odd manners and habits. Here, at Nether Stowey, poor -Lloyd appears first to have developed the epilepsy that, increasing in -intensity, at last ended in madness. He was, no doubt in consequence of -these fits, liable to extreme depression, and his morbidness, a source -of anxiety and irritation to his friends, may have lain at the root of a -quarrel between them, which the indispensable Cottle helped to settle, -relating to their joint authorship, to which Lloyd had contributed the -larger quantity of MSS. and the larger share of funds, if not the more -excellent material. - -As a poet and novelist he is now virtually forgotten. I can find no -copies of his works in any public or subscription library in this -locality, nor is there one of them in the invaluable London Library -among all its hundreds of thousands of volumes. Yet those that exist are -worth much money. In a second-hand dealer's catalogue I see there is a -copy of the poems priced at no less than fifty shillings, at least ten -times its original price. His novels I have failed altogether to find. -'Edmund Oliver' embodies the account, transferred to a fictitious hero, -of Coleridge's disappointment in love while at Cambridge, an event which -led to his enlisting in a cavalry regiment. It tells nothing but the -truth when it humorously narrates the rough-riding experiences and the -torture of the unhorsemanlike student-soldier, and pictures the -astonishment of a cultured officer on discovering a Latin inscription on -a stable wall, and on inquiry a trooper able to converse in Greek and -ready to discuss at egregious length the most abstruse questions in -philosophy. This episode alone makes the book interesting to collectors. - -But though neither 'Edmund Oliver,' a novel in two volumes; nor 'The Duc -d'Ormond,' a tragedy; nor 'Beritola,' a tale; nor even 'Desultory -Thoughts in London,' are easy to find outside the British Museum -Library, yet Lloyd clearly deserves a nearer approach to immortality -than he has attained. De Quincey writes of him in his 'Literary -Reminiscences': 'At Brathay lived Charles Lloyd. Far as he might be -below the others I have mentioned, he could not be called a common man. -Common! He was a man never to be forgotten! He was somewhat too -Rousseauish, but he had in conversation the most extraordinary powers -for analysis of a certain kind, applied to the philosophy of manners and -the most delicate nuances of social life.' He could not be a mere -hanger-on to greater men to whom several poets addressed sonnets of -affection and admiration. Charles Lamb, whose contributions to the early -joint volume were few, while he speaks of Lloyd's as over a hundred, -'though only his choice fish,' is quite enthusiastic, exclaiming: - - 'Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, - Why were't thou not born in my father's dwelling, - So we might talk of the old familiar faces?' - -One, and the chief, labour undertaken by Lloyd at Brathay, after his -marriage and permanent settlement there, was a voluminous translation of -Alfieri's poetical works from the Italian. It is spoken of as faithful -to the original and full of the truest poetic insight. In the judgment -of competent critics his translations were better than his own -compositions, even of those of his later years, such as his 'Nugæ -Canoræ,' published about the same time as Professor Wilson's 'Isle of -Palms,' of which, by-the-by he received a presentation copy as a token -of regard from the author, with whom he was on intimate terms. Lamb in -writing to Lloyd, gives him rather a back-handed testimonial when he -says, 'Your verses are as good and wholesome as prose,' while in another -letter he says, 'Your lines are not to be understood on one leg! They -are sinuous and to be won with wrestling.' Probably the key to this -remark is contained in Talfourd's statement that Lloyd wrote 'with a -facility fatal to excellence.' On the other hand, the spitefully -sarcastic and foolish sentences of Byron, uttered against Wordsworth and -his 'school,' inclusive of the subject of this paper, seem almost -beneath contempt: - - 'Vulgar Wordsworth,' quoth he, 'the meanest object of - the holy group, - Whose verse of all but childish prattle void, - Seems blessed harmony to Lambe and Lloyd.' - -Lambe (whose name should have no 'e' at the end) and Lloyd, he adds in a -footnote, are 'the most ignoble followers of Southey and Co.' Fancy a -Byron sneering at Southey, Wordsworth, and Lamb! These, at least, are -equal, if not superior, to himself, even if Lloyd is confessedly beneath -him in merit. However, I can, fortunately, give my readers a specimen of -one of Lloyd's sonnets, admired and preserved by Bernard Barton. It is -addressed to God on behalf of his own father, the Birmingham -philanthropist: - - 'Oh Thou who, when Thou mad'st the heart of man, - Implanted'st there, as paramount to all, - Immortal conscience; do Thou deign to scan - With favouring eye these lays which would recall - Man to his due allegiance. Nothing can - Thrive without Thee; hence at Thy throne I fall - And Thee implore to go forth in the van - Of these my numbers, Lord of great and small! - Bless Thou these lays, and, with a reverent voice, - Next to Thyself would I my father place - Close at Thy threshold; true to his youth's choice - His deeds with conscience ever have kept pace; - Great Father, bid my "earthly sire" rejoice, - A white-robed Christian in Thy safe embrace.' - -Bernard Barton calls it a 'noble sonnet.' - -But the end was nearing. The fits and morbid impressions were followed -by illusory voices and cries, and at last Wilson writes his wife: 'Poor -Lloyd is in a madhouse.' He seems to have been for awhile in the -well-known 'Retreat' at York, from whence he escaped, and was ultimately -removed to an asylum in France, where, after some years, he died. In -happier days he had married a Miss Pemberton, who is said to have been -carried off by Southey on his friend's behalf. She was a capable and -appreciated housewife, but her sanity did not prevent the transmission -of her husband's disease to his son, the Rev. Owen Lloyd, a highly -respected clergyman, with his father's poetic tastes and genius, and a -close friend of 'lile' Hartley Coleridge. - -Such, in brief, is the story, interesting yet melancholy, of one whose -high character and culture and rare social qualities endeared him to a -wide circle of men in the first literary ranks, and who was cordially -esteemed by another and outer circle, in which was Leigh Hunt, who -writes of him as 'a Latinist--much shaken by illness, but of an acute -mind, and metaphysical.' - -[Illustration: CHARLES LLOYD AND HIS WIFE. From a rare Painting. By -permission of J. M. Dent, Esq.] - - - - - THE COMING OF THE YACHTS TO WINDERMERE - REGATTA - - - 'Bowness Bay is the rendezvous for the Fleet. And lo! from all the - airts, coming in the sunshine, flights of felicitous wide-winged - creatures, whose snow-white lustre, in bright confusion hurrying to - and fro, adorns, disturbs, and dazzles the broad blue bosom of the - Queen of Lakes. Southwards from forest Fell-Foot beneath the Beacon - Hill, gathering glory from the sylvan bays of green Graithwaite, and - the templed promontory of stately Storrs, before the sea-borne wind, - the wild swans, all, float up the watery vale of beauty and of - peace. Out from that still haven, overshadowed by the Elm-grove, - where the old parsonage sleeps, comes the _Emma_ murmuring from the - water-lilies, and as her mainsail rises to salute the sunshine, in - proud impatience lets go her anchor the fair _Gazelle_. As if to - breathe themselves before the start, cutter and schooner in amity - stand across the ripple, till their gaffs seem to cut the sweet - woods of Furness Fells, and they put about, each on less than her - own length, ere that breezeless bay may show, among the inverted - umbrage, the drooping shadows of their canvass. Lo! Swinburne the - Skilful sallies from his pebbly pier, in his tiny skiff that seems - all sail; and the _Norway Nautilus_, as the wind slackens, leads the - van of the Fairy squadron which heaven might now cover with one of - her small clouds, did she choose to drop it from the sky.'--JOHN - WILSON: _Christopher at the Lakes_. - - -[Illustration: - _Photo by Herbert Bell, Ambleside_ - - ELLERAY, WINDERMERE. - - The Home of Professor John Wilson, as it then was.] - - - - - XII - - 'CHRISTOPHER NORTH' - - JOHN WILSON - - - 'Tories! Yes! we are Tories. Our faith is in the Divine right of - kings. But easy, my boys, easy; all free men are kings, and they - hold their empire from heaven. That is our political, philosophical, - moral, religious creed. In its spirit we have lived, and in its - spirit we hope to die.'--_Recreations of Christopher North._ - - -In the days of my youth--say half a century ago--with extraordinary -avidity my reading contemporaries devoured the 'Noctes Ambrosianæ' of -'Christopher North,' mastering the barbaric Scotch dialect of Galloway, -in which the Ettrick Shepherd is made to speak, for the delightsomeness -of his imagination and his quaintly-expressed notions about men and -matters. Nowadays, if I mention the books to any young fellow of -twenty-five to thirty-five, I am stared at as blankly as if I had asked -was he intimately acquainted with the man in the moon! In Alfred Miles's -fine volumes, 'The Poets of the Century,' his poems are not even quoted, -and his very name is merely lumped in with a number of the smaller fry -of North Britain; while Mr. Stedman, in 'Victorian Poets,' will have it -that his verses had become 'antiquated' even before their author's -death. Wilson has been overshadowed by our Southeys, Coleridges, -Wordsworths, and Ruskins, though he was greater, more interesting, more -lovable as a mere human being than any of them, and deserves to be as -long remembered for his books. A generation that calls Kipling a poet, -and makes an Alfred Austin its Laureate, may indeed be expected to -forget many of the men of true genius honoured by their fathers. - -Wilson came into the Lake Country in 1807 from Paisley, where he was -born twenty-two years previously. He had recently buried his father, -from whom he had inherited some £40,000. The property he purchased, and -retained in his possession till his decease in 1854, was a small -farmhouse and its lands, known as Elleray. It is situated on the slopes -of Orrest Head, so well beloved of Windermere residents, and so -frequented by tourists on account of the magnificent prospect it -commands. He added to the house, and converted it into a charming home -for a wife and growing family, and a haven of rest for himself in his -frequent retirements from his future busy professional life in -Edinburgh. It was pulled down about forty years ago, when the estate -changed hands. From either of the lofty ranges enclosing the romantic -Troutbeck Valley there is one of the most magnificent mountain views in -all England. The tumbled masses, immortal weather-beaten -monarchs--Wansfell, Loughrigg, and their compeers and allies, and, -farther off, the Langdale Pikes (twin cloud-piercing giants), and -Cringle Crags, and 'The Old Man' of Coniston, and, on a clearer day than -usual, the dominating summit of distant Scafell--these, their sunshine -and shadows, their waving woodlands, their stretches of purple heather -and vast brown beds of bracken, their foaming cascades and garrulous -streams, and the blue inland sea at their feet dotted with verdant -islands and white-sailed yachts, and traversed by elegant steam -gondolas thronged with happy 'trippers,' are all visible in one -never-to-be-forgotten picture arranged in the wisdom of the Almighty for -the pleasure of His people. Such an outlook, but from a lower altitude, -delighted daily the eyes of Nature-loving Wilson, whose very prose was -poetry, of a calibre not less than Kingsley's in his celebrated -'Devonshire Idylls,' or than Ruskin's rhapsodies on Switzerland. His -ardent temperament and unusual virility compelled him to throw himself -heartily into almost every possible form of physical and intellectual -enjoyment. There never was such a man as he for undertaking everything -and anything, and for doing nothing badly, including the art of -'loafing,' when he was in the cue for it. Nearly six feet high, -broad-shouldered--'lish,' as they say here (meaning 'lissom,' as -Southerners say, or 'lithe,' as the dictionaries have it)--blue-eyed, -loosely arrayed, and collarless, he strode along the vales or over the -fells, doing his thirty and forty miles at a stretch, or rode his famous -pony Colonsay in a still-remembered trotting-match, or, with a couple of -like-minded friends he chased a bull by moonlight across the uplands, -each of the huntsmen being armed with a long spear. He was a mighty -fisherman, storing numberless rods and artificial flies among the books -of his library, and even whiling away the tedium of his last illness by -arranging and rearranging the latter, and recalling as he did so the -exploits of former days accomplished with the aid of this one or that, -for sometimes his catches had amounted to as many as eighteen and -twenty dozen of trouts in a day. He was an adept at wrestling and at -boxing, throwing or being thrown with keen enjoyment of the tussle, and -attacking and punishing professional pugilists or bullies of the fair, -if in his opinion oppression or unfair play were evidenced. He kept a -fleet of sailing-boats on the lake, and was dubbed 'Lord High Admiral of -Windermere,' and he was as expert a swimmer as he was a sailor, -delighting in occasionally frightening his shipmates by feigned -accidents, and then having a boisterous laugh at their fears for him. -Cock-fighting was at that time a 'gentlemanly' sport, and his breed of -game-cocks was celebrated far and near. He seems never to have kept -fewer than fifty at once. As great a conversationist and humorous and -jovial companion as he was an athlete, he was much sought after for -dinner and supper parties, while at balls he was accounted the best of -dancers. So universal a genius in all manly outdoor pastimes, and so -genial a friend within doors, was liable to many temptations in that -sadly too 'drinking' age, and as a young man he certainly was often the -worse for liquor, as his own letters help to prove. Yet was he never -quarrelsome, never did he put forth his strength and skill for any low -or mean purpose, never but in play or in defence of the ill-used. -'Everybody loved him,' records his daughter, rich and poor, and the dumb -animals also. Many stories are told of his chivalrous and gallant -conduct, especially towards womanhood, and of the wonderful combination -in his character of almost feminine tenderness and sympathy with the -roistering vigour of an ancient Viking. He would keep patient watch at -night by a sick servant's bed, tend with his own hands some wounded dog; -and there is on record the fact of a fledgling sparrow taking refuge in -his study, and being fed and cared for and so tamed that it stayed as a -denizen of the same room for at least eleven years. - -The delightful time at Elleray was crowned with a still higher happiness -when he married a beautiful and engaging lady, every way his peer in -bodily graces and in mind, whom he loved passionately, and for whose -death in middle life he grieved so deeply that he never fully recovered -the blow, though so exceptionally blessed with affectionate and able -children and eminent sons-in-law. His married days at Elleray were by no -means all spent in mere physical enjoyments and recreation. They were -full of literary and social occupations. All his great contemporaries -and neighbours were frequent guests. At their reunions there was -first-rate talk, and often competitions in versifying some given theme, -or some other proof was forthcoming that the circle was one of learning -and talent. De Quincey was, though insignificant in stature, and obliged -to trot by the side of the stalwart Wilson, one of his most valued -touring companions. Hartley Coleridge was always welcomed, and on one -occasion he was detained a prisoner in his own interest for a fortnight, -in order to prevent an outbreak of intoxication, and to secure some -promised contribution for an editor who was to pay him cash for his -needs. Here, too, came other well-known litterateurs to see and converse -with the rising poet and journalist, and perchance to go a-fishing with -him in the becks and tarns of the neighbourhood. It was at this period -that his greatest poems were written, and some published--for instance, -'The Isle of Palms,' and 'The City of the Plague,' the former a story of -shipwrecked lovers, and the latter one of London during the Great -Plague, introducing a wandering Magdalene from Grasmere whose memory -goes back, in the hour of trouble, to her 'beautiful land of mountains, -lakes, and woods,' to the 'green and primrose banks of her own Rydal -Lake,' and the 'deep hush of Grasmere Vale,' and the waters 'reflecting -all the heavens.' His society and surroundings, as well as his -instincts, encouraged the poetic vein, already evinced by his having won -the Oxford Newdigate Prize during his University days. - -Alas, these halcyon hours were over all too soon for the -hitherto-fortunate couple! The wife's dower was a handsome one, but the -far larger property of the husband was swept away by the fraudulence of -a relative who was his trustee. The family had to leave Elleray for the -home of Mrs. Wilson, senior, in Edinburgh, though the Windermere house -was retained, and frequently returned to after the early stress of -changed circumstances was over. Cruel as was the wrench, it brought out -the better side of Wilson's disposition. He murmured not, bowing before -the trial with real Christian resignation, and at the same moment -bracing himself to the task of earning a subsistence with truly noble -fortitude. In the Scotch metropolis he soon became connected with the -newly-started _Blackwood's Magazine_, and was, with Lockhart, one of the -ruling spirits of that famous periodical. For long years his wit, his -rhetoric, his trenchant and slashing criticisms, his keen insight into -literary merit, his almost incredible fertility of subject-matter (he -sometimes, under pressure, wrote the whole of the articles for a -particular number), speedily lifted it to the foremost place among -similar journals, and made it the fiercest organ of the most rampant -intellectual Toryism that Britain has ever known, bitterly hated, sorely -dreaded, yet bought by friend and foe alike, and read wherever our -language was understood. It is worth any reader's while to buy at some -second-hand bookseller's 'The Recreations of Christopher North' and the -'Noctes,' both reprints from 'Old Ebony.' - -Suddenly there occurred a vacancy in the University Professorship of -Moral Philosophy. Wilson tried for the post against Sir William -Hamilton. All the influence of a grateful and unscrupulous Tory -administration (that of Lord Liverpool, George IV.'s first Premier) was -exerted on his behalf, and they handled the unreformed City Corporation, -in whose appointment the Professorship lay, as voters in rotten boroughs -were then handled. John Wilson secured the chair, to the great scandal -of the other side, who truly pointed out that he had had no -philosophical training nor known bias to ethical studies, while his -previous life had given no evidence of his fitness to teach morals to -young men. As a matter of fact, however, this was a turning-point in his -own spiritual career. He took the advice of Sir Walter Scott to -'forswear sack, purge, and live cleanly like a gentleman.' He set -himself diligently to the study of his new subject, and mastered it. He -never published any system of Moral Philosophy. He has made no such mark -in the history of philosophy as did his great competitor. Yet, far -beyond almost any teacher of modern times, he achieved the highest of -all distinctions--that of being beloved, reverenced, almost idolized, -by generations of students during a term of thirty years, moulding and -shaping the lives of multitudes of public men and of those who create -the national welfare in schools and colleges, and filling them with -noble aspirations and ideals. His was a 'muscular Christianity,' taught -and practised long ere the term was invented and popularized. - -His strenuous life was now, at the end of the thirty years of occupancy -of the chair, drawing to its close. A paralytic stroke obliged him to -resign. After a lingering time of gradual decay the fine spirit--erring, -repentant, forgiven, witnessing mightily for the higher and better side -of human nature--passed into a world of kindred souls, as he wished it -might, ''mid the blest stillness of a Sabbath day.' - - - - - THE PROFESSIONAL CRITIC - - - 'Of all creatures that feed upon the earth, the professional critic - is the one whose judgment I least value for any purpose except - advertisement. But of all writers, the one whom he sits in judgment - on is also the one whom he is least qualified to assume a - superiority over. For is it likely that a man, who has written a - serious book about anything in the world, should not know more about - that thing than one who merely reads his book for the purpose of - reviewing it. But so it must be, and a discreet man must just let it - be. What I want to know is whether men and women and children who - care nothing about me, but take an intelligent interest in the - subject, find the book readable. What its other merits are nobody - knows so well as I.'--_A letter to Lord Tennyson by James Spedding._ - - - - - XIII - - THE CHAMPION OF LORD BACON - - JAMES SPEDDING - - 'Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last; - The barren wilderness he pass'd, - Did on the very border stand - Of the blest promised land, - And from the mountain top of his exalted wit, - Saw it himself, and show'd us it.' - ABRAHAM COWLEY. - - -He was a 'Baconian specialist.' Specialists are seldom known to the -public, and seldom read, even when known by name, except by the chosen -few they write for. His life of the great philosopher and -essayist--Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, and Baron Verulam, -etc.--in seven volumes, is the standard biography. The fourteen -additional volumes of Bacon's works, edited by Spedding and two -coadjutors, is the standard edition of these. There is a smaller form of -the 'Life and Letters' in a couple of volumes--a condensation of the -completer edition--and also done by Spedding. He spent thirty years in -gathering materials, and putting them in order. 'Minute, accurate, and -dry,' his _magnum opus_ can never become popular; but it is exhaustive, -leaving nothing more to be said on the subject. It will be seen at once -what infinite pains he must have taken to perfect his self-imposed -task--how he must have searched, and searched again, in all available -libraries and depositories of old MSS., old letters, old records of -State and documents in private hands--how he must have written and -rewritten, added, struck out, and revised over and over during that long -period, as new facts cropped up or new views occurred to his mind. Says -Mrs. Lynn Linton of him: 'He was one who touched the crown of the ideal -student, whose justice of judgment was on a par with his sweetness of -nature, whose intellectual force was matched by his serenity, his -patience, his self-mastery, his purity.' There is another book of -his--'Evenings with a Reviewer'--written to defend Bacon from unfounded -aspersions on his character made by Macaulay, and by Pope at an earlier -period. This was originally printed for private circulation among a few -friends, and was not given to the world till after the decease of our -author. It is cast in the conversational form affected by Vaughan in his -'Hours with the Mystics,' by Smith, of Keswick, in 'Thorndale' and -'Gravenhurst,' and in similar works where it is desired that all sides -shall be fairly presented, and the whole of the issues involved -thoroughly thrashed out and carefully summed up. - -It is confirming to those of us who remain sceptics in relation to the -Shakespeare-Bacon theory, and who believe 'The Great Cryptogram' to -exist only in some kink of the brain of its first exponent, and not in -any of Shakespeare's plays or poems, that so painstaking and minute an -investigator--one so utterly conversant with all that Bacon ever did or -wrote, one so familiar with his contemporaries and his age, even to the -analysis of the respective shares of Shakespeare and Fletcher in the -composition of 'Henry VIII.'--never seems to have for a moment suspected -any sort of literary co-partnership between the philosopher and the -actor. - -Apart, however, from any questions of literature, and his high place -among its leading lights, James Spedding's personal character and his -association on terms of equality with the most eminent men of his day, -and the regard in which he was held by them, makes him an interesting -and important man of mark in the district--one whose memory should not -be allowed to die. - -He was the son of a Cumberland squire living at Mirehouse, on -Bassenthwaite Water. The estate, lying on the eastern shore, is a little -north of where the River Derwent discharges itself into the lake, and at -the foot of mighty Skiddaw. Mirehouse Woods clothe the slopes of Skiddaw -Dodd. He was born in 1808, sent to school at Bury St. Edmunds, and -afterwards went to Cambridge University. At college he took no high -degree. He was, nevertheless, an eminent 'Apostle'--eloquent in debate, -though calm and unimpassioned. Does anyone ask who and what Cambridge -'Apostles' were? They were a band of ardent spirits among the -undergraduates, holding regular meetings, and often foregathering in -each others' rooms to discuss tobacco and coffee, and where, says -Carlyle in his 'Life of Sterling' (who was a member), 'was much logic -and other spiritual fencing, and ingenuous collision, probably of a -really superior quality in that kind, for not a few of the then -disputants have since proved themselves men of parts, and attained -distinction in the intellectual walks of life.' Besides Spedding and -Sterling, this genial circle of comrades included the Tennysons, Trench -(afterwards Archbishop), Arthur Hallam, Frederick Denison Maurice (the -founder of the club, and toasted as such at one of its annual dinners), -and many another of equal or little less fame--a band of youthful -friends who, as the future Laureate wrote, held debate - - 'On mind and art, - And labour and the changing mart, - And all the framework of the land.' - -Of Spedding himself Lord Tennyson wrote in later days: 'He was the Pope -among us young men--the wisest man I ever knew.' With this opinion -agrees the report of Caroline Fox as to a remark of Samuel Laurence, the -portrait painter: 'Spedding has the most beautiful combination of noble -qualities I ever met with.' - -Leaving the University, James Spedding went, in 1835, into the Colonial -Office, under Sir Henry Taylor, author of 'Philip van Artevelde,' a -chief with tastes wholly congenial to those of his youthful subordinate. -During the time he remained in the Civil Service he went with Lord -Ashburton as travelling secretary to the Commission appointed to settle -the United States dispute with this nation as to the proper line of -their North-West boundary. He acquitted himself so ably in his -Government work that he was offered the post of an Under-Secretary of -State at a salary of £2,000 a year. This he refused in order to give -himself entirely to literature. Mr. Gladstone entertained the highest -opinion of his abilities and integrity, and greatly lamented his -decision not to serve his country in the post for which he was so -obviously fitted. Still later in life Mr. Gladstone tried to persuade -him to take the Professorship of History at Cambridge--a prospect which -had no more attractions for Spedding than Government officialism. - -Spedding never married. He was wedded to his self-chosen life-work of -building up the standard biography of Bacon. He was, however, by no -means a man of one idea. He was an ardent Liberal in politics, and -during the awful upheaval of the European nations, about the middle of -last century, he became even a vehement partisan of the Hungarian -Revolution, and of Louis Kossuth and its other leaders. He was a votary -of Keats, and of Tennyson, the latter staying with him twice at -Mirehouse. He was an ardent admirer of the celebrated Jenny Lind, the -'Swedish Nightingale.' He was also an advocate of phonetic 'reform,' as -it was called, not merely, it is to be feared, for the sake of promoting -the study and commercial use of shorthand reporting, but with the view -of actually changing the orthography of our ancient language. With all -its difficulties and peculiarities, one would have felt lasting regret -had he and his coadjutors succeeded in their raid on our historical and -ethnological inheritance in the English spelling-book. He was, -furthermore, a careful student of handwriting. The last-named study was -necessitated by his continuous poring over the MSS. relating to his -sixteenth- and seventeenth-century investigations. - -Some people who had observed Spedding's patient and leisurely methods of -study, and his calmness and deliberation of thought and verbal -expression, considered him of a lazy disposition, and as strangely -lacking in energy. This was an erroneous judgment. He was certainly -cautious, because acute in noticing details, and refused to commit -himself without due, and perhaps sometimes undue, premeditation, but he -frequently assumed purposely an air of ignorance when he was merely -endeavouring to draw others out, and he was fond of adopting the -Socratic method with those whom he conversed, in order to get at the -bottom of them, or of the subject under discussion. His memory was an -exceedingly retentive one. To a friend he writes: 'I have no copy of -"The Palace of Art," but when you come I shall be happy to repeat it to -you.' Readers of Tennyson know that this poem contains seventy-four -stanzas, besides the prelude to it. He was, like so many others in this -series, a contributor to _Blackwood_, and to the _Edinburgh_ and the -_Gentleman's Magazine_ as well. In the _Edinburgh_ he reviewed -Tennyson's first book with discrimination and with appreciation. - -The chief fascination about Spedding, I say again, was undoubtedly his -commanding personality and his abiding comradeship with the greatest men -of genius among his contemporaries. Such diverse characters as James -Anthony Froude and Edward Fitzgerald were among his intimates. He was -with Froude on that historian's first visit to Thomas Carlyle, and -Fitzgerald called to see him in the hospital where he died. It was in -1881 that he was knocked down by a cab in London, and carried to St. -George's. On his death-bed, says Fitzgerald, he was 'all patience,' -refusing to hear the cabman blamed, and, indeed, fully exonerating him. - -When Spedding's brother died, the friend of them both, Alfred Tennyson, -wrote to James in touching sympathy with his loss, a noble poem which, -in the volume, is inscribed simply 'To J. S.' The last two verses may -fitly conclude this sketch, for they apply as much to one brother as to -the other: - - 'Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace; - Sleep, holy spirit, tender soul, - While the stars burn, the moons increase, - And the great ages onward roll. - - Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet, - Nothing comes to thee new or strange; - Sleep full of rest from head to feet-- - Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.' - - - - - THE BLESSING OF A FULL LIFE - - - 'Deep streams run still, and why? Not because there are no - obstructions, but because they altogether overflow those stones or - rocks round which the shallow stream has to make its noisy way. 'Tis - the full life that saves us from the little noisy troubles of - life.'--WILLIAM SMITH. - - * * * * * - - - 'So when our complaining - Tells of constant strife - With some moveless hindrance - In our path of life, - - 'What we need is only - Fulness of our own. - If the current deepen, - Never mind the stone! - - 'Let the fuller nature - Flow its mass above; - Cover it with pity, - Cover it with love.' - LUCY SMITH. - - - - - XIV - - TWO BEAUTIFUL LIVES - - WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH - - - 'As unto the bow the cord is, - So unto the man is woman, - Though she bends him, she obeys him, - Though she draws him, yet she follows. - Useless each without the other.' - LONGFELLOW'S _Hiawatha_. - -Two rarely beautiful lives were theirs--close-welded, and thereby each -sharing and each doubling the beauty of the other. Their beauty was -spiritual, intellectual, influential. - -William sprang from the mercantile classes of the Metropolis--from a -race of evangelical Free Churchmen of such liberal leanings as to throw -no obstacle in his way of becoming a theological and metaphysical -thinker of a decidedly 'advanced' type; while an elder brother became an -eloquent Episcopalian preacher at the celebrated Temple Church. - -Lucy, whose maiden name was Cummings, was the daughter of a medical man -who had married a lady socially superior to himself, and was brought up -by her parents in an atmosphere of 'Welsh Calvinism.' - -William was a shy, sensitive boy and lad, learning quickly, given to -introspection, and taking a high place in his schools. His university -life was spent at Glasgow--Oxford and Cambridge being at that time (the -late forties of last century) closed against all except Anglicans--and -there his mental bias towards philosophy was strengthened and developed, -especially by the teaching of Dr. Chalmers. From college he was sent to -study law under the well-known author, Sharon Turner. This study he -cordially detested, yet in after-years he confessed that compulsory -training for the Bar had invigorated and disciplined his reasoning -powers to a degree he learned to be grateful for. Some travels abroad, -too, though at a later period--notably to Italy--matured his character -and widened his outlook. His first literary efforts were articles which -were accepted by the _Athenæum_, then just started. In that paper, and -in _Blackwood_ (is it not singular that most of our Lake celebrities -were contributors to 'Old Ebony'?) he had frequent enough insertions to -earn thereby a modest income--small, but sure, and sufficient for the -limited needs of a quiet-living single man. For years he followed the -career of an essayist and reviewer, pondering deeply meanwhile problems -that seem to admit of no definite solution during the present -limitations of human knowledge--problems which have bewildered -Christians and non-Christians alike for centuries past, and, if Milton's -authority may be relied upon, even the fallen principalities and powers -in Hades--'Fixed Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge Absolute'--the origin of -evil, the eternal duration of sin's consequences, the nature of sin -itself, the possibility of finding and knowing God, the attainment of -final certitude on any question other than mathematical, the relation of -revealed or natural religion to science, the unalterable reign of law in -mental and moral as well as in physical regions--these, and many similar -enigmas, whirled perpetually through his brain, and would not rest till -at least an honest attempt had been made to solve them. The necessity -that appeared to be laid on him to discover answers to the practically -unanswerable induced a habit of seclusion and a shrinking from any -society that might interrupt the flow of speculative thought. He would -pass people in the streets and the country roads absolutely without -seeing them; and though cheerful and apt in conversation when obliged to -meet his fellows, he invariably preferred to be alone on long mountain -walks that he might think his own thoughts, and by meditation work out -his difficulties, and record in his MSS. for future publication the -conclusions he had arrived at, even though those conclusions amounted to -no more than that none could be attained to! It was while residing in -solitary seclusion, first at sunny Bowness upon Windermere Lake and then -across the watershed at Keswick, on the rainier side of the mountains, -that his great books 'Thorndale' and 'Gravenhurst' were wrought in the -secret recesses of his soul. The first, the sub-title of which is 'The -Conflict of Opinion,' is constructed on the conversational model, as, -indeed, is the second also. Materialist, Roman Catholic, Theist, or -Unitarian, and Scientific Evolutionist, all are heard with fairness and -courtesy, and the discussions are intensely interesting to readers with -thoughtful minds. But there is, after all has been said that can be -said, nothing more than an open verdict returned on the highest themes -that can occupy human attention. There is no more settlement of any of -the vast questions debated for the inquirer who has discarded Divine -revelation than for him who accepts it in whole or in part. -'Gravenhurst' has for a secondary title 'Knowing and Feeling: a -Contribution to Psychology.' So far as it leads us to an end that end -seems hardly distinguishable from the Eastern 'Necessitarianism,' or -'Fatalism,' in which all metaphysicians sooner or later engulf us who -get rid of human responsibility for sin and its consequences by making -the Creator the author of both moral and material evil. Yet the -conclusions are logical if only certain premises are granted. Both books -are crowded with sweet and helpful thoughts--wayside flowers of -brilliancy and fragrancy, the gathering of which may easily lure the -reader from the watchfulness needed in travelling along these winding -roads, so destitute of authoritative sign-posts; the sign-posts erected -by previous explorers having been cut down by more modern pedestrians, -because, forsooth! the painted directions were faded, and they had no -brush wherewith to freshen them! - -While William was thus developing his life-work and weaving his -intellectual robes, Lucy was growing into her charming womanhood amid -the happy surroundings of her home in North Wales, and evolving the -noblest of characters through self-denial and loving devotion to others. -As a girl she was highly educated. When past her girlhood she proved a -handsome and cultured lady, sought in marriage by at least two men, both -of whose offers she refused, but neither of whom espoused any other. She -remained single that she might help retrieve the fortunes of her -parents, which had become so reduced that the house endeared to them by -long residence had to be sold, and her own little patrimony given up to -the clearance of debt. The broken father and mother were thenceforth -tended, and, indeed, partly supported, by Lucy, who earned something by -making translations from German, and in similar ways, till she lost them -both in one sad week. - -It was by an apparent chance, though by a very real providence of God, -that these two met, William Smith and Lucy Cummings, while mother and -daughter were in one set of apartments of a Keswick lodging-house, and -'Thorndale Smith,' as he came to be called, in an upper. A pleasant -comradeship began on purely literary matters, and ripened into warm -friendship, and frequent correspondence after parting for the season, -till they met again some time afterwards at Patterdale. Then it was that -friendship suddenly sprang upwards into the unique form of love most -exquisitely portrayed in the ideal biography written of her husband by -Lucy, after his premature decease. This biography was written originally -for private circulation among her friends, and was afterwards attached, -as a preface, to a new edition of 'Gravenhurst.' It is one of the most -lovely stories of wedded life in our English tongue. All that poets have -imagined of 'The Angel of the House,' of love's wealth, of love's -visions, of 'Love's Young Dream,' seem to have been realized in the -experiences of these kindred souls, brought together at a later period -in life than most people enter on the married state. After a period of -unalloyed happiness William's health began to fail, and a long time of -anxious watching fell to Lucy Smith. Still was their talk ever of higher -things and of the deeper problems of life and humanity. Despite his -assumed negative position with regard to much that Christians hold to be -essential truth, there was an undercurrent of devout belief in God left -in William's heart, as is evidenced by lines in his verses, as for -example: - - 'Earth can be earth, yet rise - Into the region of God's dwelling-place - If Light and Love are what we call His skies.' - -In his 'Athelwood,' too--a tragedy, set on the stage and played by -Macready and Helen Faucit--there are passages, notably those put into -the mouth of Dunston, which show the same thing: - - 'God, where art Thou? - I call for Thee, they give me but a world, - Thy mechanism; I call aloud for Thee, - My Father, Friend, Sustainer, Teacher, Judge.' - -Still more remarkable was his impromptu acknowledgment when he lay -dying, and his wife, referring to some of his published views, said: -'William, such love as mine for you cannot be the result of mere -mechanism or vital forces, can it?' 'Oh, no,' he responded; 'it has a -far higher source.' 'Once,' adds his wife, 'I saw the hands clasped as -in a speechless communion with the Unseen, and twice I caught the solemn -word "God" uttered, not in a tone of appeal or entreaty, but as if the -supreme contemplation which had been his very life meant more, revealed -more, than ever!' In a former article I pointed out how seldom -professed, and even perfectly sincere, doubters ever entirely shake off -the impressions of Divine reality and the Divine Presence. My own -conviction is that the God whom they seek (I am not thinking of the -unbelief that springs from moral unfaithfulness or obliquity) does, -after all, touch their hands in the darkness, and the Christ whom they -fail to understand has included them in His great and universal -atonement. It may be that the Holy Spirit, who shows the things of -Christ to men, gives them a saving view of Calvary as they pass through -the Valley of the Shadow. I cannot believe that any _bonâ fide_ seeker -after God ever became a 'lost soul' in any sense of those awful words, -even though his seeking endured for a lifetime without conscious -finding. - -Lucy Smith survived her husband's death at Brighton several years, often -making her way back to their beloved Borrowdale, where some of their -intensest happiness had been experienced, and to Patterdale, where their -first love was awakened. In the latter place there are 'exquisite shade -of birch-trees on high ground' where she and her lover read together and -recited poetry--his or hers or another's; peeps of Ullswater through the -woods; mossy knolls and sequestered grassy walks; and all had -memory-voices for her in the midst of their outward quietude. She had, -as might have been foretold, imbibed much of her husband's philosophy, -and in some directions her cherished 'orthodoxy' of opinion had reached -its vanishing point, but her orthodoxy of heart was not touched -adversely. It actually grew as life passed onward, and her sunset-lights -glowed with the radiancy of heaven. William's real creed, 'God, -Immortality, Progress'--a noble residuum, after all--was hers with great -assurance, and she writes that she shared 'his craving for fellowship in -Christ's deep love, and for a willing acceptance of His sufferings.' -They both looked to being united--to quote her own words from her -verses--'In, life more high in seeing, serving God, in nearer, nobler -ways.' She ripened in character, in lovable ways, in self-forgetting -devotion to her friends, till her poet-heart ceased to beat, and her -yearnings after a fuller and more perfect soul-life were at length -realized through the mercies and merits of the One she knew but in part, -though He knew her, and her aspirations and difficulties, through and -through. - - - - - THE BIBLE AND ITS REVELATIONS - - - Wherever its Revelations of the essentials of Deity and Humanity - occur they may and must be considered as the most solemn and - precious of all the contents of the Bible. But even of these it - should be specially noted that they are for the most part - progressive. The Bible contains, in fact, a series as well as a - collection of Revelations--a series, of which the earliest terms are - the least, and which very gradually, and not quite uniformly, rises - to its height, and only after long centuries reaches its final terms - in Him who was Himself the highest Revelation which man can be - conceived capable of receiving in the flesh. That there is such a - progression in the Revelation of truth and duty in the Bible must be - obvious at once to anyone who considers the gradual manner in which - those two greatest of all ideas--God and Immortality--are disclosed - in it, and how the great duty of loving all men as ourselves, and - considering every man as our brother, was never at all insisted on - under the older dispensations.--REV. FREDERIC MYERS: _Catholic - Thoughts on the Bible and Theology_. - - - - - XV - - TWO BROAD THINKERS - - FREDERIC AND F. W. H. MYERS - - (FATHER AND SON) - - - 'Must then all quests be nought, all voyage vain, - All hopes the illusion of the whirling brain? - Or are there eyes beyond earth's veil that see, - Dreamers made strong to dream what is to be?' - F. W. H. MYERS: _The Renewal of Youth_. - - -Frederic Myers, of Keswick, is still known by his once-celebrated -'Lectures on Great Men,' and by his two volumes of 'Catholic Thoughts' -on the Church and on the Bible and theology. The lectures were delivered -to his parishioners. The series commenced about 1840, in accordance with -his strong conviction that a clergyman should be the educator as well as -the spiritual guide of his flock, and as a consequence of his horror at -the 'dreadful separation and want of sympathy of the various orders and -classes of modern society.' Remember the period to which these words -were applied. It was several years after this that Maurice, Kingsley, -Ludlow, and their friends commenced their remarkable movement for -bringing the influence, learning, and wealth of the better social strata -to the aid of the poorer. Since those early days of awakening to the -claims of human brotherhood many things have happened to draw 'the -various classes and orders of men' nearer together. Cruel taxes upon the -food of the masses, for the further enrichment of the rich, have been -swept away. The awakening of the democracy has brought it political -power, and with this power the felt necessity for national education. -The abolition of child-labour, the regulation and inspection of -factories, mines, and workshops, the removal of many sectarian -restrictions upon religious equality, an interest in sanitation and the -preservation of public health, and many other such things for which the -great 'middle classes' have steadfastly laboured side by side with the -wage-earners, are results of the transfer of power from the few to the -many. Such matters as these, now looked upon as among the common-places -of civic life, were then hardly deemed by their most sanguine advocates -as within the reach of 'practical politics.' Kindly-hearted Christian -pastors, of the type of Frederic Myers, were few and far between, though -wherever they existed they provoked among the people that element of -'Divine discontent' which found many voices ere it was appeased, from -the decent respectability of Christian Socialism to the plebeian, and -often extravagant, cries of Chartism. - -Myers, and such as he, fitly began the movement, though scarcely -consciously, by seeking 'to call forth the powers within man, by the -culture of his whole nature; energy of all kinds--with the simultaneous -cultivation of his sympathies, the nurture of truthfulness, justice, -love, and faith.' He strove to awaken a spiritual ambition among his -hearers by setting before their mental vision the struggles and the -conquests of men who had resolved to achieve something worth the -winning, and who had in their day become epoch-makers--who had possessed -in eminent degree the qualities we all ought ever to cherish, according -to our capacities, and our opportunities for self-development. His dozen -specimen characters are well chosen from the regions of religion, -adventure, and statesmanship. His two other books are devoted to the -solution of questions then being much debated after the commencement of -the Romeward Oxford movement known as 'Tractarianism.' The earlier -one--that on the Church--was originally printed for private circulation. -It is well for us that it was fully published at a later date, for -though that era was prophetic of the coming of political advancement, it -also set in motion a retrograde religious stream of thought and practice -which is still flowing through the Anglican Church, and affecting the -spiritual well-being of the nation. The principles enunciated in this -masterly reply to Newman's doctrine of the Church, and his thorough -examination of the sacerdotal claims of the Puseyite Oxonians can never -become antiquated. With him the primary idea of the Christian Church is -of a brotherhood of 'men worshipping Christ as the revelation of the -Highest.' Equality of Christian privilege is, in his view, so -characteristic of its constitution that the existence of a priestly -caste within its borders is destructive of it. Christian faith is in -Christ Himself, and not in doctrines or formulas of even the holiest and -wisest men. In the true and universal--_i.e._, the Catholic--Church -there can be no majestry, only a ministry. It is a Spiritual Republic in -which no worldly distinctions can be recognised. 'Apostolic Sucsession,' -in the High Anglican and Romish sense of the phrase, has no place -therein, and no room exists for any human assumption over the minds and -souls of believers in Christ within the purely spiritual Church, which -is His body. Many readers will naturally see some lack of logical -sequence in the argument which follows as to the relation of the -Established Anglican Church to this Catholic and Spiritual one. That the -conclusions reached on this point do not seem necessarily to flow from -the premises must surely be conceded by all. Either legitimate -conclusions must be drawn from the assumed fundamental position, or -fresh premises must be granted. Nevertheless, as the Scriptural ground -of his position was generally accepted, his timely work certainly helped -to save the Church of England from the medievalist enemies within its -own borders. Instead of their carrying the Establishment over to Rome, -several of the ablest leaders of the new ritualistic movement severed -themselves from its communion, and, as is well known, entered the Papal -fold, some rising to great honour and dignity within it. - -The 'Thoughts on the Bible and Theology' involve the theory that sacred -literature 'contains, rather than consists of, special revelations.' In -it, though not wholly Divine, 'the Divine Spirit may mingle with the -human, and mingling, overmaster it.' It has infirmities and -imperfections, but, he hastens to add, 'less in proportion to its holy -truths than the chaff is to the wheat in any harvest--yea, is even only -as the small dust of the balance compared with the greatest weight that -the balance will weigh.' His theological teaching cannot be presented -satisfactorily in a few lines, and it must be, therefore, dismissed with -the sole remark that, though far from being rationalistic, it appears -highly rational, as it is based on the written words of God, and is not -derived from the dogmas and traditions of Churchmen. - -Frederic Myers was born in London in 1811, educated at home and at -Cambridge, and became perpetual curate of St. John's, Keswick, in 1839, -holding that living till his death in 1851, thus giving twelve years of -his prime to the thoughtful activities of his ministry, and to the -liberalizing of the Church of England. - -Frederic William Henry Myers was the son of Frederic by his second wife. -He was born at Keswick, and this town was, of course, the headquarters -of his boyhood and youth. Therefore we claim him for the Lake District, -though the necessities of his official life made it expedient to reside -afterwards in the Metropolis. The year of his birth was 1843, Blackheath -and Cheltenham were the places of his school education, and Cambridge -was his Alma Mater. His classical knowledge and his memory were -especially good. He could recite the whole of 'Virgil,' and had a love, -spoken of as 'enthusiastic,' for Pindar, Æschylus, and Homer. His -culture was widened by a trip to the East, and another to America. -Somewhat of an athlete and a good swimmer, he once swam across the -Niagara River below the Falls. Returning to England, he became one of -her late Majesty's School Inspectors. He died in 1901. This brief -summary of his life must suffice. - -His literary output is of more value to us than are the details of his -personal career. This output all thinking men will be grateful for, -whatever their opinions about his teaching on telepathy, hypnotism, and -so forth. Had he only given the world his well-known poem on 'St. -Paul,' he would have contributed more than most hymn-writers have done -to its moral profiting. If the old Hebrew Seer was one who saw visions -of the future through Time's manifold veils, and visions of Jehovah -behind the marching cohorts of human generations, and who also had the -Divine gift of 'discernment of spirits,' surely F. W. H. Myers may be -called a nineteenth century seer. He solved in his prose works for many -an earnest seeker after the truth many a scientific doubt respecting God -and Immortality, while in his principal poem he seems to identify -himself with the great Apostle in the yearning and the self-abandonment -essential to such a herald of the Cross. As he wrote, he must have -entered into close sympathy with the flaming desires with which Paul's -breast was burning, and the love with which he ached for souls whom he -set himself to win for the Kingdom of Heaven. To present the inner life -of him whom Christ Himself chose to fill the vacant office of the fallen -Judas was a daring venture, but successful. He makes Paul say: - - 'Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest - Cannot confound Him nor deny; - Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest, - Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.' - -Myers made the great choice, ranking himself among those 'who,' as he -puts it, 'suppose themselves to discern spiritual verities,' amid a -tumult of Agnosticism and positive philosophy which arose about that -time, partly, perhaps, as a result of the reaction from that exaggerated -High Church teaching opposed by his father. Accepting the actual -discoveries of experimental science without question, he yet maintained -there is both direct and indirect evidence that the cosmic laws of -uniformity, conservation of energy, and evolution, do not exhaust the -controlling laws of the universe, nor explain all classes of phenomena. -There is, at least, a fourth cosmic law as ascertainable as any of the -others by observation and experiment. To this fourth law the greatest -poets, such as Goethe, Wordsworth, Tennyson, to say nothing of the still -greater Semitic Poets, have helped to introduce mankind, and psychical -research has demonstrated their scientific truth. 'Life, consciousness, -and thought' are facts not fully explained by physiology. The communion -of mind with mind without speech or bodily contact or proximity is as -certain as that of X rays or wireless telegraphy. The communion of the -human soul with the Oversoul of the Universe is not a dream, but a fact -as indubitable as the fact of gravitation. The study of these facts, -their modes of motion, and the laws which govern them, bring careful -philosophers to the conclusion that behind the natural law is an active -will, and behind natural force and evolution one universal and -intelligent motive power. Mental and spiritual phenomena are -ignored--or, for some obscure reason, at any rate neglected--by the -ordinary man of science. No real all-round student of cosmic -appearances, and the laws and influences that control and guide them to -cosmic ends, can afford to shut his eyes to the existence of clues -which, whenever they have been loyally followed, have led along the -chain of cause and effect to the ultimate discovery of God and -Immortality. He who follows the Gleam, everywhere shining before him, -arrives sooner or later, whatever he thinks of the creeds of the sects, -at the abode of the Eternal Presence, leaving the Land of Negations far -behind him. This is the substance, or at least the fair interpretation, -of the ideas woven throughout the series of Essays written by our author -on 'Science and a Future Life,' 'Charles Darwin and Agnosticism,' -'Tennyson as Prophet,' and 'Modern Poets and Cosmic Law.' At a later -period he put forth in support of his views, in collaboration with two -others, a large collection of instances, gathered from definite -experiences of witnesses, of 'Phantasms of the Living.' These evidences -occupy two bulky volumes. He may have been sometimes too credulous. Some -of his alleged facts may have needed closer examination. His deductions -from observations may not always have been accurate, yet his argument is -strong in itself, strongly fortified, and apparently, as a whole, still -unshaken. He was, as he says of Tennyson, 'the proclaimer of man's -spirit as part and parcel of the Universe, and indestructible at the -very root of things,' and as such he has restored to many a doubter, -unsettled by scientific materialism, his latent self-hood, his -'subliminal soul,' his realization of the invisible world, and a belief -in that intellectual 'Cosmic Will' which common men persist in calling -'God.' - -Myers wrote a few sketches of men and women of the hour, under the title -of 'Classical Essays,' terse, readable, and displaying literary insight. -The most recent 'Life of Wordsworth,' with whose semi-pantheism he had -much sympathy, is his also. Nor was St. Paul his only excursion into the -realms of poesy. 'The Renewal of Youth and Other Poems' is his. Little -of its contents, however, rise to the level of his religious poem, and -some are distinctly trivial. Since penning this sentence I have -happened upon an 'Appreciation' of the volume mentioned, by the late -John Addington Symonds. He likens the muse of Myers to a 'flute of -silver, or a fife of gold,' through which he breathed strains, now -stronger, now weaker, according to the degree of his inspiration. 'To -some ears this instrument may seem too artificial, too metallic,' for -his wont was to select words for their colour-values and their -sonority--for the mode of saying things rather than for the expression -of new and original thoughts. Symonds finds in the poetry not only a -special message of God and Immortality, but a declaration of the happy -influence of womanhood in human affairs. Whether or not this judgment is -right on the last point, it is certain that the all-absorbing intuition -of the poet's soul was that of an eternal life for mankind, not an -immortality of the species at the expense of the individual, by -sacrifice and extinction, but of every separate being: - - 'Oh, dreadful thought, that all our sires and we - Are but foundations of a race to be-- - Stones which are thrust in earth, to build thereon - Some white delight, some Parian Parthenon!' - - - - - THE VIEW FROM HELVELLYN - - - 'There to the north the silver Solway shone, - And Criffel, by the hazy atmosphere - Lifted from off the earth, did then appear - A nodding island or a cloud-built throne. - And there, a spot half fancied and half seen, - Was sunny Carlisle; and by hillside green - Lay Penrith with its beacon of red stone. - - 'Southward through pale blue steam the eye might glance - Along the Yorkshire fells, and o'er the rest, - My native hill, dear Ingleboro's crest, - Rose shapely, like a cap of maintenance. - The classic Duddon, Leven, and clear Kent - A trident of fair estuaries sent, - Which did among the mountain roots advance. - - 'Westward, a region of tumultuous hills, - With here and there a tongue of azure lake - And ridge of fir, upon the eye did break. - But chiefest wonder are the tarns and rills - And giant coves, where great Helvellyn broods - Upon his own majestic solitudes, - Which even now the sunlight barely fills.' - FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER: _Poems_. - -[Illustration: - _Photo by Brunskill, Bowness_ - - VIEW OF WINDERMERE. - - Summer Lake and Copse-wood Green.'--FABER.] - - - - - XVI - - A RELIGIOUS MEDIEVALIST - - FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER - - I.--THE MAN - - - 'Especially did he endeavour to study the spirit of the Church at - its foundation head, in the City of Rome, under the shadow of St. - Peter's Chair. Fully recognising the claims of his own country to - his labours, he made it his business to introduce into it in every - possible way the devotions and practices which are consecrated by - the usage of Rome.'--FATHER BOWDEN'S _Life of Faber_. - - -Of Huguenot descent, his ancestors having fled from France to England to -avoid the persecutions arising out of the 'Edict of Nantes,' and of -Evangelical Church of England training, he early developed an unexpected -'spurt' towards Romanism, and that rather of the medieval Italian than -of the modern English type. - -Starting from such a parentage and such environments as this, it becomes -an interesting study of character and temperament, and of the forces -that mould and direct them, to trace the gradual development of ideas, -and habits, through boyhood to youth, and youth to manhood. The key to -his having ultimately become a priestly devotee of a mystical form of -Mariolatry, is only secured by a careful perusal of his letters, books, -and poetry; of his memoir by Father Bowden; and such fragmentary -notices of him as contemporaries have given us. His life itself, as we -read it, must furnish us with clues by which to follow the labyrinths of -his mind to the end it reached. - -He was born in 1814 at Calverley, near Leeds, of which parish his father -was the vicar. The family removed the following year to Bishop Auckland -on Mr. Faber becoming secretary to the Bishop of Durham. As he grew to -boyhood the circumstances of his home-life wrought a development of -character beyond his years, his precociousness was stimulated by his -parents, and his ardent devotion to work or play gave promise of future -eminence. The beautiful scenery around him encouraged his romantic -tendencies. Sent to a private clerical school at Kirkby Stephen, he was -never really free from ecclesiastical influences at any point of his -outlook on the world. His imaginative disposition was still further -quickened, and his poetical tastes and instincts acquired a direction -for life in the midst of the wild Westmorland hills, for 'solitude is -the nurse of enthusiasm.' He took long rambles over mountain and fell, -rebuilding in fancy the ruined castles of the eastern borderland, and -the abbeys of the western, repeopling them with steel-clad knights, and -ladies fair and gay, or with monks chanting their vespers as the great -sun went down in glory beyond the clear-cut ramparts guarding the blue -inland meres. If one reads no farther than the index to his verses one -sees at a glance how firm a grasp the enchanted region had upon his -affections, beginning to secure them even then, intensifying the grasp -while he lived in young manhood at Ambleside, and recurring to his -memory when far away by 'Adria's sapphire waters,' or beneath the shadow -of St. Mary's in his 'dear City' of Oxford. Helvellyn and Loughrigg, -when sunshine and storm combine to throw rainbow-bridges from peak to -peak; the little babbling rivers Rothay and Brathay, when their -glittering foam-bells danced beneath the autumn-tinted trees; the green -vale of Rydal, where the thrushes pipe the whole day through--were each -as much, or perhaps more, to him, and appealed as clamourously for the -weaving of a lay, as great Parnassus himself, or even as 'the sweet -Styrian Lake.' Amidst the wind-sounds in the 'brotherhood of trees' and -the bird-voices of the daytime--nay, in the very night-silences of the -towers and fastnesses of the 'awful sanctuary God hath built' in the -Lake District--he heard 'the echoes of Church bells,' and dreamed dreams -of fonts and altars at which he might serve his 'mother' as her priest. - -Educational progress compelled him, after a short tariance at -Shrewsbury, to go forward to Harrow. Here he would ride and swim, but he -would not play. Instead of giving himself up to the healthy commingling -of learning and the usual school athletics, he thought and thought, till -he began to think himself an unbeliever in Divine mysteries. From Harrow -to Balliol College, Oxford, was a natural transition. He left his -infidel doubts and temptations behind, only, however, to come under the -influence of the Tractarian flood then streaming through the University, -and sweeping some of its best sons towards Rome. He was specially -attracted by the preaching of Newman, who was then engaged in -constructing a theology from the writings of Anglican Fathers, showing -that the Church of England was Roman in its teaching though not Papal in -government. - -While at Oxford he remained, as all through his career, pure, truthful, -sincere, and studious, though ever romantic and impulsive. One of his -best impulses was to read his Bible twice from beginning to end, -prayerfully and meditatively, without note or comment. This brought him -back for a season to the Evangelicalism he had been reared in. Attending -Newman's sermons and lectures turned him once more to Church tradition -and authority. He soon left his Bible for sacramentalism and all its -concommitants. His friends accused him of vacillation. 'No, not -vacillation,' he answered; 'but oscillation.' Perhaps we may say his -course was like the Borrowdale road, which an old guide-book says -'serpentizes.' Under Newman's more intimate friendship and guidance he -was set to the translation of Patristic writings, while still reading -for ordination, and began to hope Tractarianism would 'soon saturate' -the Church of England. Pursuing his theological studies, winning the -Newdigate Prize, and receiving a Fellowship from his college, he, of -course, took in due time deacon's and priest's orders, and left Oxford -to undertake a tutorship in the household of Mr. Harrison, of Ambleside. - -Into the parochial work of Ambleside he threw himself _con amore_, the -incumbent being old and feeble. From thence he went on a brief tour -through Belgium, returning with another set-back from Rome owing to what -he had seen of the low intellectual state and morals of the Belgium -priesthood. It was during the period of his Ambleside tutorship that he -became acquainted with Wordsworth, whom he accompanied on long walks, -the elder poet 'muttering verses to himself' in the intervals of -conversation. - -Somewhat later came the memorable tour of Europe, and visit to Rome, -with his pupils, which practically sealed his conversion. The perusal of -the records of this journey in his 'Sights and Thoughts in Foreign -Countries' affords a curious revelation of biased history (and therefore -often very inaccurate), an interesting account of his mental -perplexities, and of the wonderful organization of the Papal hierarchy, -enabling it to shadow his steps and 'create an atmosphere' around him -wherever he went. This time he carried letters of introduction from the -astute Dr. Wiseman, which assured his seeing the æsthetic best of all -the great cathedrals and institutions of the Church, in each country he -traversed, and helped him to shut the eyes of his memory to -Inquisitions, and persecutions, and the pride and licentiousness of -Popes and Cardinals, and to the grosser side of popular superstition, -comprising the annals of the places he visited, and to the story of -Italy especially. He had a keen sense of the misdeeds of poor people -provoked to reprisals by the tyranny of kings and priests, but never -breathed a word--for he failed to notice anything wrong--against the -Church that was courting him, and was coquetting with others like him in -the Anglican Communion of that day. At Rome the cultured and winsome Dr. -Grant was selected as his chaperon, and once more the attractive figment -of a world-dominion of an united Church was dangled before his -imaginative mind amidst the music and incense of elaborate ceremonials -appealing to his senses. The kindness and sympathy of those who were -watching over him effectually removed the last veil between him and -Roman doctrine. The Pope accorded him an interview in private, and he -prostrated himself to kiss his feet and receive his benediction. The -Pope was already the 'Holy Father' to him, and he is able in his letters -of this date, though still nominally an Anglican, to pledge himself to a -life-crusade against the detestable and diabolic heresy of Protestantism -'as being' what he calls 'the devil's masterpiece.' - -After all this, one wonders how he could have persuaded himself it was -right to accept, on his return to England, the living of Elton, in -Huntingdonshire. He did so, however, and for the space of two years he -did his utmost to Romanize the district. His charming manners, and -natural persuasiveness, the vein of superstition in him (evidenced by -his kissing relics and touching them for healing), which fitted well -with the ignorance of his rural parishioners, gave him such influence in -this direction that when, in 1845, he somewhat suddenly relinquished his -pastorate, and was officially united with the Roman Church, he carried -off with him several of his young men, who were the nucleus of his -Brotherhood of the Will of God in Birmingham. - -From this time forward, the Church having gained a priest but, as -Wordsworth said, 'England having lost a poet,' there was developed in -him a neurotic mysticism impelling him to ascetic neglect of his body, -and suppression of human affections and responsibilities, which preyed -on his physical frame, producing incessant headaches, and complete -prostrations, and unquestionably shortened his days on earth. His love -fixed on such intangible objects as Mary and the saints, rather than the -living Christ, indulges itself in luscious outbreathings towards her who -was not only to him Queen of Heaven and of Purgatory, and Mother of God, -but his 'dear Mama,' his 'dearest Mama,' in whose 'fondling care,' and -under whose 'sweet caress' he dwelt, finding, he tells her, 'Our home, -deep in Thee, eternally, eternally.' His favourite saints are 'Joseph -our Father,' and St. Wilfrid, whom he adopted as his patron, and from -whom his monks were called 'Wilfridians.' He lived henceforth a life of -self-renunciation, the will of God being accepted by him as made known -through his superiors in the Roman priesthood. He devoted his time, -substance, and skill to church building, and creation of monastic -brotherhoods, in Birmingham, in Shropshire, in the City of London, and -finally at Brompton, ere long merging his order in that of the Oratory -of St. Philip Neri--an Italian confraternity introduced into England by -Newman, a missionary body formed for proselytizing the poor and the -young. Besides the beautiful church of St. Wilfrid's erected under the -auspices of the Earl of Shrewsbury, there is the well-known Brompton -Oratory, wherein his preaching, magnetizing rather by its fervour and -picturesqueness than convincing by its reason and logic, held -congregations of thousands spell-bound, who were partly, no doubt, -attracted by his fame, though quite as much by the exquisite singing of -the hymns of his composition and the lavish ceremonies of the Mass. It -proved an immense strain upon his nervous system, the daily necessity of -feeding the monks, building his churches slowly but magnificently, -supplying the vestments, the lights, the incense, and all the other -thousand and one requirements of so gorgeous a ritual. He failed under -it in 1863, and died while only forty-nine years of age, prematurely -worn out and aged. - -Protestant as I am, at the extreme antipodes of conviction, religious -experience, education, and sympathies from Father Faber, I doubt not -his soul went straight to the Great All Father, the only 'Holy Father,' -without the help of Masses to liberate it from any intermediate -imprisonment, or process of purification, and without need of -intercession from our Lord's virgin Mother, or from any portion of the -pantheon of Roman saints. Some of his objectionable opinions and -teachings--some that are very terrible to us--as well as many that are -common to all true Christians, will be noticed in the next article, and -there may only be added now a caution to many Protestants, as well as to -many of the Church of Rome, not to confound wrong views with moral -wrong-doing, nor to make a man's intellectual mistakes the measure of -his presumed status before the throne of his God. 'Shall not the Judge -of all the earth do right,' when He sits in judgment upon the soul? As -Faber's own celebrated hymn declares: - - 'The love of God is broader, - Than the measures of man's mind; - And the Heart of the Eternal, - Is most wonderfully kind.' - - - - - COME TO JESUS - - - 'Souls of men! why will ye scatter - Like a crowd of frightened sheep? - Foolish hearts! why will ye wander - From a love so true and deep? - - 'Was there ever kindest shepherd - Half so gentle, half so sweet, - As the Saviour who would have us - Come and gather round His feet? - - 'It is God: His love looks mighty, - But is mightier than it seems: - 'Tis our Father: and His fondness - Goes far out beyond our dreams. - - 'There's a wideness in God's mercy, - Like the wideness of the sea; - There's a kindness in His justice, - Which is more than liberty. - - 'There is no place where earth's sorrows - Are more felt than up in heaven; - There is no place where earth's failings - Have such kindly judgment given.' - FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER: _Hymns_. - - - - - A RELIGIOUS MEDIEVALIST - - FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER - - II.--HIS BOOKS - - - 'At the evening service, after a few preliminary words, he told his - people that the doctrines he had taught them, though true, were not - those of the Church of England; that, as far as the Church of - England had a voice, she had denounced them.'--FATHER BOWDEN'S _Life - of Faber_. - - -Faber's mental output is a reflex of his character. I assumed this by -using his letters and poems as the matrix of the life I sought to -present my readers with. Neither I nor they found them rocks of barren -quartz. They contained much gold--'yea, much fine gold'--of -conscientiousness, devotion, and self-abnegation; of poetic, oratorical -fervour; of rare zeal for the Church of his adoption. But with the fine -gold there is also much dross. There are, for instance, not a few -passages in 'Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches' of a startling -kind to Englishmen--a book, be it remembered, written while the author -was an Anglican clergyman. To him Charles I. was more than 'Charles the -Martyr.' He was a King, 'conformed to the image of his Master through -suffering.' Most of us will ask whether, supposing Jesus of Nazareth had -been King in Charles's stead, there would have been any ship-money, any -Star-Chamber, or any Civil War? Surely no man bears the image of Christ -any farther than he comports himself Christly in politics and general -public as in private life. Christ is a poor Master to serve if Charles -was an image of Him. The admitted tyranny and licentiousness of the -French Bourbons seemed to him to be condoned because they were great at -building churches and convents. National struggles for liberty, and -their champions, are usually presented in their worst lights, and the -freer the nation the bitterer his words about her. The American Republic -is thus a 'proud invalid' for whom there is no cure except by 'a -multiplication of bishops, and then a monarchy.' In this book occurs his -famous passage in favour of burning heretics. His attempted palliation, -or modification, of the passage when challenged by Crabbe Robinson, the -Diarist, on their ramble together to Eskdale Tarn, is disingenuous. The -objectionable sentiment is explicitly made by 'the stranger,' who is as -distinctly alleged to be Faber himself by his biographer, and virtually -admitted to Robinson to be so. Here is the excerpt: 'Persecution belongs -not, strictly speaking, to the Church. Her weapon, and a most dire one, -is excommunication, whereby she cuts off the offender from the fountains -of life in this world, and makes him over from her own judgment to that -of Heaven in the world to come. But surely it is the duty of a Christian -State to deprive such an excommunicate person of every social right and -privilege; to lay on him such pains and penalties as may seem good to -the wisdom of the law, or even, if they so judge, to sweep him from the -earth; in other words, to put him to death. The least that can be done -is make a civil death to follow an ecclesiastical death, and this must -be done where the Church and State stand in right relation to each -other.' To the ultramontane views promulgated in this book might be -added others from his letters and published sermons, as, for instance, -the phrase, 'the pernicious influence of Protestant ragged schools'; -that in which he opposes the reading of the English Bible because its -'uncommon beauty and marvellous English' made it 'the stronghold of -heresy'; those in which he elaborately argues for the 'adoration' of -Mary ('surely it must be called so,' he says); the many in which he -disparages the Reformation and applauds the blessings which the Church, -and the Papacy in particular, had bestowed upon the nations; and those, -once more, in which he declares a man has no rights as man conferred on -him by the Bible, unless he be a Christian (by which he means a -Churchman, for he says so), and dilating on the misery and unrest of -that Protectionist period, proposes no remedies other than obedience to -the Church, the keeping of saints' days and holy days, and the sweeping -away of the 'indecent system of pews'! Incredible as it may seem, every -one of these proposals is seriously propounded in 'A Churchman's -Politics in Disturbed Times.' - -One might make large quotations from the Oratory sermons full of -descriptions, graphic even to gruesomeness, of the bodily agony of Jesus -on the Cross, powerful enough to stir emotional women into hysterical -weeping, and to bring them into a profound, if temporary and unreal, -sentiment of fellowship with His sufferings, leaving Him still afar off -as a risen and personal Friend, and leaving them unmoved by the -bleeding figure on the crucifix in the silent recess till the next -cerebral excitement. The whole of my articles might be taken up with -extracts from his hymns that are simply astounding to the unprejudiced -mind in their luscious sentimentality towards Mary and the saints. Of -these it may be said the expressions do not necessarily mean all to a -Catholic that they seem to a Protestant to imply. But is that so? Who -that has watched and heard Italian or Irish worship, or studied the -biographies and writings of the Romanist mystics of Italy or Spain, can -possibly doubt their perfect sincerity? Is it not an entirely natural -transfer of ardent love from the Redeemer to His mother happening -concurrently with the priestly transfer of worship, of 'adoration,' from -Him to her? Her images are bedecked with flowers and gorgeous attire, -and her shrines are brilliantly lighted and are perfumed with incense. -His image stands in a dark, neglected, railed-off side-chapel, in all -the great cathedrals and rural churches of Romanist Europe. - -Some of Faber's best prose is curiously reserved for lamentations over -the decay of Paganism!--the 'beautiful births of Greek faith, most -radiant legends, springing from every hard and barren spot, like -unnumbered springs out of the Parnassian caverns, or the leafy sides of -Citheron, or the bee-haunted slope of pale Hymettus.' 'The decline of -Paganism was mournful and undignified. Faith after faith went out, like -the extinguishing of lamps in a temple, or the paling of the marsh-fires -before the rising sun.' Yet were the old creeds full of symbols, and the -'whole of external nature an assemblage of forms and vases capable of, -and actually filled with, the Spirit,' and so Greek Paganism was the -expression of a wish to 'write God's name on all things beautiful and -true.' We can re-echo his dirge and acknowledge the saner, more cheerful -side of the 'Paganism' that feels after God, 'if haply it may find Him'; -but what a contrast between his attitude towards the non-Christian world -and the fellow-Christians--not lacking in as holy teaching or living as -his own--whom he had left, for an approachment towards image-worship! - -Let us see, now, however, what he can do in description of places and -scenery, in both prose and poetry. Here is his first impression of -Venice: 'How is it to be described? What words can I use to express that -vision, that thing of magic that lay before us?... Never was so wan a -sunlight, never was there so pale a blue, as stood round about Venice -that day. And there it was, a most visionary city, rising as if by -enchantment out of the gentle-mannered Adriatic, the waveless Adriatic. -One by one rose steeple, tower, and dome, street, and marble palace; -they rose to our eyes slowly, as from the weedy deeps; and then they and -their images wavered and floated, like a dream, upon the pale, sunny -sea. As we glided onward from Fusina in our gondola, the beautiful -buildings, with their strange Eastern architecture, seemed like fairy -ships, to totter, to steady themselves, to come to anchor one by one, -and where the shadow was, and where the palace was, you scarce could -tell. And there was San Marco, and there the Ducal Palace, and there the -Bridge of Sighs, and the very shades of the Balbi, Foscari, Pisani, -Bembi, seemed to hover about the winged Lion of St. Mark. And all this, -all, to the right and left, all was Venice; and it needed the sharp -grating of the gondola against the stairs to bid us be sure it was not -all a dream.' - -He says of Milan Cathedral that 'In the moonlight it disarms criticism. -When the moon's full splendour streams on Milan roofs, and overflows -upon its lofty buttresses; when the liquid radiance trickles down the -glory-cinctured heads of the marble saints, like the oil from Aaron's -beard, and every fretted pinnacle, and every sculptured spout ran with -light as they might have run with rain in a thunder-shower, who would -dare to say there was a fault in that affecting miracle of Christian -Art?' Of Corfu, the most perfect earthly Elysium I myself have seen, -though I first saw it when returning from the Far East, he writes: 'What -traveller does not know the delight of getting among foliage whose shape -and hues are not like those of his native land? The interior of the -island of Corfu was to us a sweet foretaste of Oriental foliage. We rode -among strange hedges of huge cactus, fields of a blue-flowering grain, -occasional palms, clouds of blue and white gum cistus, myrtle-shoots -smelling in the sun, little forests of the many-branched arbutus, marshy -nooks of blossoming oleander, venerable dull olives and lemon groves -jewelled with pale yellow fruit. It was a dream of childhood realized, -and brought with it some dreary remembrances barbed with poignant -sorrows. Dreams, alas! are never realized till the freshness of the -heart is gone, and their beauty has lost all that wildness which made it -in imagination so desirable.' - -'Sir Lancelot,' his longest and most ambitious poem, though finished at -Ambleside in 1847, was issued from his Elton Vicarage two years later, -and is under the guise of 'an attempt to embody and illustrate the -social and ecclesiastical spirit of the thirteenth century,' avowedly an -allegory of the soul seeking for that which it is represented as finding -only when brought 'back to the foot of Peter's sovran chair.' To us its -chief interest lies in his portraiture of our Westmorland surroundings. -The hermitage to which the returned Crusader wends his way lies - - 'Within the Vale of Troutbeck, where towards the head - There is a single woody hill, enclosed - Within the mountains, yet apart and low. - Amid the underwood around, it seems - Like a huge animal recumbent there, - Not without grace; and sweetly apt it is - To catch all wandering sunbeams as they pass, - Or volatile lights in transit o'er the vale.' - -Who among us does not recognise it? Who does not know 'the bell-shaped -mountain which the wild winds ring full mournfully'? And the beck, too, -where the ouzel flits even in winter on the 'ice-rimmed stones,' and the -banks, whereon Sir Lancelot might lie and watch 'the flowery troops in -pageant movable'--the snowdrops 'like a flock of children purely white,' -the 'deep Lent-lilies, like constellations girt with lesser orbs.' When -he crosses to the western sea 'angry and purple, far and wide outspread -in stormy grandeur,' we go with him, and as we wander thitherward see -Scawfell 'palpitating in the haze,' feel 'the tingling of the woodlands' -at night-time down the valley of the Duddon, and learn how Esk is -'suckled in sylvan places' by 'clusters of wild tarns.' - -Among his minor local poems 'English Hedges'--the Saxon hedgerows--are -apostrophized: - - 'The hedges still survive, shelters for flowers, - An habitation for the singing birds, - Cool banks of shadow, grateful to the herds, - A charm scarce known in any land but ours.' - -And in 'Mountain Tarns' he sings: - - 'There is a power to bless - In hillside loneliness-- - In tarns and dreary places-- - A virtue in the brook, - A freshness in the look - Of mountains' joyless faces-- - And so when life is dull, - Or when my heart is full - Because my dreams have frowned, - I wander up the rills - To stones and tarns, and hills-- - I go there to be crowned.' - -If we turn to Faber's purely devotional writings, such as 'All for -Jesus,' and can forget, or slide over, the subtle insinuations of Romish -doctrines, and the curious blending of saints and sacraments, popes and -priests, confessions and penances, with earnest appeals on behalf of -Jesus, at one time as though the soul's salvation depended solely on -ceremonials and priestly absolutions, and at another time as if on -'Jesus only,' one may find much help and light in many beautiful -passages--as, for example: 'Who can look into the world and not see how -God's glory is lost upon the earth? It is the interests of Jesus that we -should seek and find it. Apart from clear acts of great and grievous -sin, how is God forgotten, clean forgotten, by the greatest part of -mankind! They live as if there were no God. It is not as if they openly -rebelled against Him. They pass over and ignore Him. He is an -inconvenience in His own world, an impertinence in His own creation. So -He has been quietly set on one side, as if He were an idol out of -fashion, and in the way. Men of science, and politicians, have agreed on -this, and men of business and wealth think it altogether the most decent -thing to be silent about God, for it is difficult to speak of Him, or -have a view of Him, without allowing too much to Him.... Half a dozen -men, going about God's world, seeking nothing but God's glory--they -would remove mountains. This was promised to faith--why should not we be -the men to do it?' - -Similarly burning words, apart from his descriptions of Calvary, might -be quoted from his sermons, but, alas! these would lack the passionate -personality behind them, with the flashing eye, the expressive -emphasizing hands, and, above all, the voice rising like the swelling of -bells in the steeple, or tender as a silver chord trembling into -silence. Without the spirit to make them live, let us not try to -reproduce them. - - - - - THE BLACK ANT - - - This fly is an inhabitant of woods and coppices, and is very - abundant in the neighbourhood of the English Lakes. The nest is - often of enormous size, sometimes containing more than a cart-load - of sticks and small twigs. The Vale of Duddon swarms with wood ants, - and is the only place where I have seen the wryneck, which is said - to feed principally on these insects. Like other ants, they have the - enjoyment of wings for a few weeks in each year, and often, as the - proverb says, "to their sorrow," as by them they are conveyed to - places where they suffer greatly from birds, as well as from fishes. - They generally make their appearance in August and September. Body, - a strand of peacock's herl, and one of black ostrich's herl laid on - together; silk, dark brown; wing, the lightest part of a starling's - quill; hackle from a black cock.'--JOHN BEEVER: _Practical - Fly-Fishing_. - -[Illustration: - _Photo by Herbert Bell, Ambleside._ - - YEWDALE. - - The Favourite Valley of John Ruskin (see p. 64), and - of the Sisters of the Thwaite.] - - - - - XVII - - JOHN RUSKIN'S FRIENDS - - THE SISTERS OF THE THWAITE, AND THEIR - BROTHER - - - 'Nature takes the hue of a man's own feeling, and he finds in it - what he brings to it. In proportion as he becomes more intelligent - and holy, so does it become more beautiful and significant to - him.'--HUGH MACMILLAN. - -John Ruskin's later years were gladdened by the friendship of the Miss -Beevers, especially that of Miss Susie, the younger of the two. To her, -though so near a neighbour that a short boat-row to the water-head of -Coniston Lake would take him across, he wrote no fewer than 2,000 -letters. The best of these, or at any rate those most suitable for the -public, form the book called 'Hortus Inclusus,' arranged by the -professor's 'Master of Industries at Loughrigg,' Mr. Albert Fleming, and -prefaced by Ruskin himself. The very title-page of the little collection -shows the love he bore his friends: 'Messages from the Wood to the -Garden, sent in happy days to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, -Coniston, by their thankful friend, John Ruskin, LL.D., D.C.L.' The -introductory words of this 'thankful friend' tell us much about the -ladies: 'Sources they have been of good, like one of the mountain -springs of the English shepherd land, ever to be found at need. They did -not travel; they did not go up to London in its season; they did not -receive idle visitors to jar or waste their leisure in the waning year. -The poor and the sick could find them always; or, rather, they watched -for and prevented all poverty and pain that care or tenderness could -relieve or heal. Loadstones they were, as steadily bringing the light of -gentle and wise souls about them as the crest of the mountain gives -pause to the moving clouds; in themselves they were types of perfect -womanhood in its constant happiness, queens alike of their own hearts -and of a Paradise in which they knew the names and sympathized with the -spirits of every living creature that God had made to play therein, or -to blossom in its sunshine or shade.' A beautiful description is this of -the cultured English gentlewoman, fortunately for our peasantry by no -means rare. But it is on their literary and intellectual sides, rather -than their philanthropic, that we have to speak of them here. It might -be sufficient guarantee of Miss Susie's high level, at any rate, that -Ruskin wrote to her letters as carefully composed in full mastery of -language, and on as great a variety of topics, as if he had been -consciously inditing another volume of his 'Modern Painters' for -publication. 'The Lost Church in the Campagna' is written to one whom he -knows will understand and appreciate his historical and artistic -allusions. She loved flowers, and studied them enthusiastically. She and -her sister are named in more than one botanical work as authorities on -our mountain plants, and discoverers of rare species and their -localities. Therefore he continually sets down little bits of -blossom-news for his friend--though it be no more than such as this from -Perugia--'the chief flowers here are only broom and bindweed, and I -begin to weary for my heather and for my Susie; but oh, dear! the ways -are long and the days few'; or those scraps from Ingleton, where he -playfully gives all his pretty flowers names of girls, changing the -harsh botanical names into sweet-sounding ones, and consulting his -correspondent as to how far he may venture to separate and rechristen -certain pinks and pearlworts and saxifrages from their ordained family -groups. From Brantwood he discourses to her on his blue and purple -agates and groups of crystals, dwelling on the perfection of some -stone--'its exquisite colour and superb weight, flawless clearness, and -delicate cutting, which makes the light flash from it like a wave of the -lake.' The last letter written by him was to his 'Dearest Susie.' And -her letters to him are treasures of poetic appreciation of Nature and of -book-lore rare in women. 'Did you think of your own quotation from -Homer,' she asks, 'when you told me that field of yours was full of -violets? But where are the four fountains of white water? How delicious -Calypso's fire of finely-chopped cedar!' 'When I was a girl (I was once) -I used to delight in Pope's Homer.... When a schoolgirl going with my -bag of books into Manchester, I used to like Don Quixote and Sir Charles -Grandison with my milk porridge.' 'Coniston would go into your heart if -you could see it now--so very lovely; the oak-trees so early, nearly in -leaf already (May 1). Your beloved blue hyacinths will soon be out, and -the cuckoo has come.... The breezes will bring fern seeds and plant -them, or rather sow them in such fashion as no human being can do. When -time and the showers brought by the west wind have mellowed it a little, -the tiny beginnings of mosses will be there. The sooner this can be done -the better.' She writes to him, too, about wrens and blackbirds, and her -pet squirrel, and other of her pensioners. There is one extract, -somewhat pathetic, yet sweetly patient, that must not be omitted: 'You -are so candid about your age that I shall tell you mine! I am -astonished to find myself sixty-eight--very near the Psalmist's -three-score-and-ten. Much illness and much sorrow, and then I woke to -find myself old, and as if I had lost a great part of my life. Let us -hope it was not all lost.' It was she who made the charming series of -extracts from 'Modern Painters,' published as 'Frondes Agrestes,' -respecting which he writes that they are 'chosen at her pleasure, by the -author's friend, the younger lady of the Thwaite, Coniston,' and adds -his absolute submission to her judgment, and his appreciation of the -grace she did him in writing out every word with her own hands. Over and -above her natural history pursuits and her association with John Ruskin, -she wrote, I am told, many short poems and leaflets on kindness to -animals. She died in 1893, and her grave adjoins her friend's. - -The Beevers were a Manchester family whose father, on his retirement -from business, settled, in 1831, at the Thwaite House. After his death -one of his sons, John, and three of his daughters, Mary, Margaret, and -Susanna, lived on there, unmarried, and contented, it is said of them, -with 'the harvest of a quiet eye.' Miss Margaret died before Ruskin knew -the circle. John Beever, like his sisters, was a naturalist. He was -especially fond of fly-fishing, and on the art of it he wrote a book, of -which a new edition has recently been issued, with a biographical sketch -by W. G. Collingwood, and notes and an extra chapter on char-fishing by -A. and A. R. Severn. Fishing has not directly added much of value to -English literature. The notable exception is, of course, Isaac Walton's -ever-living little book. Great statesmen and tired public men of all -kinds have found rest and change in handling rod and line, and many -pleasant little brochures exist of smaller men's experiences and -enjoyment of the gentle craft. To this order belongs Mr. Beever's book. -It is necessarily too technical for the general reader. There is nothing -in it so good as Walton's well-known remark about the nightingale--a -bird never heard, alas! in these northern regions, and therefore much -missed by a southerner like myself--but which 'airy creature breathes -such sweet loud music out of her little instrumental throat, that it -might make mankind to think miracles had not ceased. He that at -midnight, when the very labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have -often done, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and -falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted -above earth, and say, Lord, what music hast Thou provided for the saints -in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth!' Nor will -you find anything so racy as the 'Compleat Angler's' picture of an -otter-hunt, or as the other of the young milkmaid singing 'that smooth -song which was made by Kit Marlow, now at least fifty years ago.' He -has, however, some excellent passages of a literary savour, as, for -example, of the two gentlemen fishing the streams of the pastoral -Yarrow, and convincing the local piscator that 'grouse' was the proper -fly to catch with, and of Frank, the Matlock chaise-driver, who became -to him the revealer of Nature's demand for obedience to her laws--in -other words, he taught him the imitation and use of the actual living -flies on which the trout fed each consecutive day. The list of possible -flies to copy is a formidable one, but the way to make the copies is -fully explained--say, with a feather from the top of a woodcock's wing, -fur from a squirrel's cheek, and orange-silk, or perhaps a feather from -a sea-swallow or a seagull, pale-blue rabbit's fur, and -primrose-coloured silk, or some wool from beneath an old sheep. Then -there follows the method of making rods, the suitable wood, the -dimensions, and the art of securing temporary repairs. There are -appendices on the antiquity of fly-fishing, and on a day's angling in -France. To those of us for whom the mysteries of spring-backs, -spring-duns, March-browns, green-tails, ruddy-flies, and black-headed -reds, and iron-blues, have slight allurements, the more interesting -portions of his life are those spent in making himself acquainted with -the growth and habits of fish, and in constructing a pond behind his -house that he could stock with finny people from the tarns and becks--a -water colony wherein once each year he could handle and examine each -member to see how it progressed. The pond was also a reservoir for a -water-wheel that drove the machinery in his private workshop, where he -turned wooden articles for carving, and made elaborate inlaid mosaics. -There also he printed his sister's little books, and texts for the walls -of Sunday-schools. Children he was fond of, and for their sakes he made -himself--or was his talent innate--a wonderful story-teller, of 'quaint -imagination and humour.' He had seven years of illness, which laid him -aside from his active pursuits, and died no fewer than thirty-four years -before his youngest sister 'Susie.' He does not lie at Coniston, but in -the churchyard at Hawkshead, hard by the old sun-dial on the north side. -In the same graveyard lies another Lake celebrity, of whom something may -be said shortly. - -If fishermen deign to read these articles, let me inform them they can -get Mr. Beever's 'Practical Fly-fishing' through any local bookseller, -from Methuen, of London; and that another book for their perusal is Mr. -John Watson's 'Lake District Fisheries.' I cannot praise or dispraise -either, but competent and knowing men tell me both are the practical -experiences of practical fishermen, and are therefore of real value. - -Some readers may think that Miss Mary Beever has been slighted in favour -of her brother and her younger sister. 'She was,' says Ruskin, 'chiefly -interested in the course of immediate English business, policy, and -progressive science; while Susie lived an aerial and enchanted life, -possessing all the highest joys of imagination.' They were the Martha -and the Mary of the Coniston Bethany, its 'House of Dates,'--its place -of rest and refreshment, not for the incarnate Son of God, the Saviour -of mankind, but for a wearied reformer of human life and lover of all -good things that God has made in the perfection of beauty. They each -contributed their share to his comfort and renovation, and if he was -more attached to the one who could enter into his life-thoughts the most -thoroughly, there is nothing to wonder at in its being so. - - - - - FROM JONAH'S PRAYER - - - 'I will call on Jehovah from my prison, - And He will hear me; - From the womb of the grave I cry. - Thou hearest my voice. - Thou hast cast me into wide waters in the depths of the sea; - And the floods surround me; - All Thy dashing and Thy rolling waves - Pass over me.' - - - - - FROM HABAKKUK'S 'SONG IN PARTS' - - - 'Though the fig-tree did not blossom, - And there be no fruit on the vine; - Though the produce of the olive fail, - Though the parched field yield no food, - Though the flock be cut off from the fold, - And there be no cattle in the stalls; - Yet will I rejoice in Jehovah, - I will exult in God my Saviour. - Jehovah my Lord is my strength. - He will set my feet as the deer's, - He will make me walk in high places.' - ELIZABETH SMITH: _Hebrew Translations_. - - - - - XVIII - - A LEARNED YOUNG LADY - - ELIZABETH SMITH - - - 'What the vast multitudes of women are doing in the world's - activities, and what share their mothers and grandmothers, to the - remotest generations backward, have had in originating culture, is a - question which concerns the whole race.'--PROFESSOR MASON'S _Woman's - Share in Primitive Culture_. - - -Not a very distinctive name, you will say! Who was she? 'The blooming -Elizabeth Smith, whom to know was to revere,' writes the author of an -ancient book called 'Coelebs in Search of a Wife.' But this does not -carry us a long way further. Well, then, she was a young lady, born so -long ago as 1776, near the city of Durham, who lived for several years -at Coniston with her parents and died there when but twenty-nine years -of age. What made her remarkable was not so much her beauty or her -goodness--and she possessed both these physical and spiritual -qualities,--but also, and for our present purpose especially, her poetic -talent and her great linguistic powers and attainments. 'With scarcely -any assistance,' writes one who was intimate with her, 'she was well -acquainted with French, Italian, Spanish, German, Latin, Greek, and -Hebrew languages. She had no inconsiderable knowledge of Arabic and -Persian. She made also considerable philological collections of Welsh, -Chinese, African, and Icelandic words. She was well acquainted with -geometry, algebra, and other branches of the mathematics. She was a very -fine musician. She drew landscapes from nature extremely well, and was -mistress of perspective.' She was more retiring, and even timid, than -she was learned. Let it be remembered that she was born in the days -previous to any thought of the 'emancipation' of woman, or her -'equality' with man, and when the only sphere it was considered proper -for her to fill was that of wife and mother. She might--nay must--bake -and sew, and undertake all the domestic duties of the household, with -one or two 'accomplishments' allowed her, qualifying her to be agreeable -to her husband or father in his leisure moments, and to his guests. It -will be satisfactory to those, if any are left, who still hold the old -theories about the highest feminine virtues, that this talented young -lady, who could calculate the distances and periods of planets, write -verses in rhyme, or in imitation of Ossian, and translate the Book of -Job from the Hebrew, could also make a currant tart, or 'a gown, or a -cap, or any other article of dress, with as much skill' as she displayed -in the region of languages and mathematics. - -Her father was a banker whose business was in the West of England. He -was a wealthy man, and removed, while his daughter was young, from -Durham to one of the loveliest estates in Monmouthshire--Piercefield--on -the cliffs of the river Wye, close to Chepstow's ruined castle, and -within sight of the British Channel. - - 'There, twice a day, the Severn fills, - The salt sea-water passes by, - And hushes half the babbling Wye, - And makes a silence in the hills.' - -Through the length of the park a pathway traverses the winding summits -of the gray limestone rocks, which--clothed with wood, or rising in -naked spires from the water far into the sky--afforded resting-places -for occasional nightingales, and for all the commoner singing birds of -the land, as well as for ravens and innumerable daws. Here she could -find romantic spots at every turn that called forth all her poetical -aspirations and faculties, and filled her imagination with dreams of the -heroes of old Wales, and the stormy warfare of the Marches in the middle -ages. She had quietude enough, too, in the library of the mansion to -pursue her unusual studies successfully, and without interruption from -casual visitors. 'Miss Smith's power of memory,' says the 'National -Dictionary of Biography,' 'and of divination, must have been alike -remarkable, for she rarely consulted a dictionary.' - -At the beginning of William Pitt's great European wars, as well as some -quarter of a century later, after its close, the commercial world was -widely and deeply shaken--as it always is under circumstances that -enrich the few at the cost of the many--Smith's Bank was involved in -many losses, and failed to meet its own liabilities. The ruin of the -firm involved the sale of Piercefield, and the family's departure -therefrom, Mr. Smith purchasing a commission in the army. They went -first to London, and then followed the regiment to Ireland, where -everything was in ferment about the expected French invasion, and -insurrection of the Irish. It was at this period that another and more -famous literary lady was passing through her experiences, which are -recorded in some of the episodes in 'Castle Rackrent' and other famous -novels that delighted our parents. The Smiths were at first entertained -by Lord Kingston, but had shortly to take up their abode in barracks. -Elizabeth's calm cheerfulness and practical support to her mother were -edifying, and brought forth the reserve forces of her unassuming -character very satisfactorily. Her mother's description of their journey -on horseback in those wild regions, as they were in ante-locomotive -days, is worth transcribing from one of her letters to a lady friend. -After a twenty-mile ride they arrived dripping wet. 'Our baggage was not -come, and, owing to the negligence of the quarter-master, there was not -even a bed to rest on. The whole furniture of our apartments consisted -of a piece of a cart-wheel for a fender, a bit of iron, probably from -the same vehicle, for a poker, a dirty deal table, and three -wooden-bottomed chairs. It was the first time we had joined the -regiment, and I was standing by the fire, and perhaps dwelling too much -on the comforts I had lost, when I was roused from my reverie by -Elizabeth's exclaiming, "Oh, what a blessing!" "Blessing!" I replied, -"there seems none left!" "Indeed there is, my dear mother, for see here -is a little cupboard!" I dried my eyes, and endeavoured to learn -fortitude from my daughter.' - -After long wanderings, varied by residences at Bath and in North Wales, -the Smiths stayed for some months at Patterdale. While here the Captain -purchased a little farm, and hired a house at Coniston. The house, -according to the report of a visitor, was not very comfortable. 'The -situation is indeed enchanting, and during the summer months -inconveniences within doors are little felt, but it grieves me to be -convinced of what they must amount to in December.' Here Elizabeth -continued her studies and translations, especially from the German and -Hebrew, and probably at this time read Locke's philosophy, discovering -and criticising some of his inaccuracies. After a five years' most -thorough enjoyment of Coniston--walking, boating, reading--she, staying -out too long one evening beneath a favourite tree with a favourite book, -felt a sharp pain strike suddenly through her chest. She had very -considerably overtaxed her physical powers, and drawn too seriously on -her reserve of nervous energy. It was the beginning of the end. Within a -little more than twelve months she passed to her everlasting rest. Bath, -Matlock, and other places had been tried without avail. At length she -said: 'If I cannot recover here I shall not anywhere,' and refused to be -removed again. In her last letter she says: 'I have learned to look on -life and death with an equal eye, knowing where my hope is fixed.' Her -friend's reply was 'as to a Christian on the verge of eternity.' 'Her -whole life,' her mother adds, 'had been a preparation for death.' The -house called Tent Lodge--where Tennyson afterwards stayed--now stands on -the site where she lived in a tent pitched for her in her father's -grounds. The name is given to the house because of an exclamation of -hers that this would be such a magnificent situation for one. Whenever -we see it we remember the delight of the 'Angel-Spirit' (her mother's -words for her) at the prospect it commands. In the graveyard at -Hawkshead, in which Mr. Beever lies, was buried Elizabeth Smith in -August, 1806, and within the church is a small white marble tablet to -her memory, telling how 'she possessed great talents, exalted virtues, -and humble piety.' The situation of Hawkshead Church and graveyard are -thus described by a contemporary writer: 'On the north is a most awful -scene of mountains heaped upon mountains, in every variety of horrid -shape. Among them sweeps to the north a deep winding chasm, darkened by -overhanging rocks, that the eye cannot pierce, nor the imagination -fathom.... The church is situated on the front of an eminence that -commands the vale, which is floated with Esthwaite Water.' - -Miss Smith's poems were written on the models then in vogue, and would -hardly meet the taste of a generation that has since her days known a -Scott, a Byron, a Wordsworth, a Shelley, a Keats, a Tennyson, and her -stanzas are often long. This extract, descriptive of a calm at -Patterdale, after a mountain hurricane, may furnish some idea of her -style: - - 'The storm is past; the raging wind no more, - Between the mountains rushing, sweeps the vale, - Dashing the billows of the troubled lake - High into the air; the snowy fleece lies thick; - From every bough, from every jutting rock - The crystals hang; the torrents roar has ceased-- - As if that Voice that called creation forth - Had said "Be still." All nature stands aghast, - Suspended by the viewless power of cold.' - -Her translations from Hebrew were her favourite Sunday pursuits, and -those of Jonah's Prayer, and Habakkuk's 'Song in Parts' are, to my mind, -more poetical and more coherent than even our fine authorized version. -In this judgment I find myself confirmed by reading that Archbishop -Magee considered her rendering of 'Job' the best he knew. - -There is no space for lengthy quotations from her prose writings and her -letters, but some short sentences will have to serve as samples of her -manner and her thoughts: - -'To be good and disagreeable is high treason against virtue.' - -'A great genius can render clear and intelligible any subject within the -compass of human knowledge; therefore, what is called a deep book (too -deep to be understood) we may generally conclude is the produce of a -shallow understanding.' - -'Happiness is a very common plant, a native of every soil, yet is some -skill required in gathering it; for many noxious weeds look like it, and -deceive the unwary to their ruin.' - -'Wouldst thou know the true worth of time, employ one hour.' - -'Pleasure is a rose near which there ever grows the thorn of evil. It is -wisdom's work so carefully to cull the rose, as to avoid the thorn.' - -'Why do so many men return coxcombs from their travels? Because they set -out fools!' - -'As the sun breaking forth in winter, so is joy in the season of -affliction. As a shower in the midst of summer, so are the salutary -drops of sorrow mingled in our cup of pleasure.' - -'A happy day is worth enjoying; it exercises the soul for heaven. The -heart that never tastes of pleasure, shuts up, grows stiff, and -incapable of enjoyment. How, then, shall it enter the realms of bliss? A -cold heart can receive no pleasure even there.' - - - - - ON A SHOULDER OF THE 'OLD MAN' - - - 'The ascent becomes dismally laborious here, so much so, that you - are fain to lie down upon the soft, dry mountain grass, to recover - breath, and while doing so, what objection can you have to a little - conversation with the Old Man himself? Listen, then! - - - 'Old Man! Old Man! your sides are brant, - And fearfully hard to climb; - My limbs are weak, and my breath is scant, - So I'll rest me here and rhyme.' - - 'Yes, my sides are steep, and my dells are deep, - And my broad bald brow is high, - And you'll ne'er, should you rhyme till the limit of time, - Find worthier theme than I. - - 'My summit I shroud in the weltering cloud, - And I laugh at the tempest's din; - I am girdled about with stout rock without, - And I've countless wealth within. - - 'My silence is broke by the raven's croak, - And the bark of the mountain fox; - And mine echoes awake to the brown glead's shriek, - As he floats by my hoary rocks.' - - DR. A. C. GIBSON: _Ravings and Ramblings Round - Coniston_. - -[Illustration: - _Photo by Herbert Bell, Ambleside._ - - HAWKESHEAD, FROM ESTHWAITE WATER. - - The Residence of Dr. Gibson, - and Burial-place of Miss Elizabeth Smith. - - - - - XIX - - A COUNTRY DOCTOR AND HIS STORIES - (FOLK-SPEECH) - - DR. ALEXANDER CRAIG GIBSON - - - 'If you are _ill_ at this season, there is no occasion to send for - the doctor--only _stop eating_. Indeed, upon general principles, it - seems to me to be a mistake for people, every time there is a little - thing the matter with them, to be running in such haste for the - "doctor," because, if you are going to die, a doctor can't help you, - and if you are not, there is no occasion for him.'--HONE'S _Table - Book_. - -There are three paragraphs about him--appreciative ones--in Mr. -Bradley's 'Highways and Byways in the Lake District,' and the first of -the three shall furnish me with my own introductory one. 'And who may -Craig Gibson be? Ninety-nine out of a hundred readers will most -assuredly demand to be told. His portrait figures in no shop windows, -nor can his biography in concentrated form be purchased for a penny at -the local stationer's, nor is the house he occupied an item in the round -of the enterprising char-a-banc. Poor Gibson, in short, is not reckoned -among the immortals of the Lake Country, by outsiders at any rate; but, -unlike any of these except Wordsworth, he was a native of it and a -product of the soil. Gibson was, in fact, a country doctor, whose -practice carried him far and wide through hill and dale, among all -classes of people. He had a wonderful knowledge of the country folk, -among whom he laboured until he was forty, and a vast fund of sympathy -and humour, which endeared him to all. With this he combined a passion -for dialect studies, and some genius for writing poems, both of a -humorous and pathetic nature. No man who ever lived had such a mastery -of the varying dialects of Cumberland and Westmorland, or better knew -the inner character and the humour of their rugged people.' - -The only sketch of his life I have been able to find is Mr. Nicholson's -in the 'National Dictionary of Biography,' and that gives no clue to -anything fuller. From this it appears he was born in 1813 at Harrington, -Cumberland, now a town of some 3,000 inhabitants on the London and -North-Western Railway, and on the seashore between Whitehaven and -Workington. An old coloured engraving of it about contemporary with -Gibson's youth shows it as a harbour nearly land-locked by hilly -promontories, and possessing a small stone-built pier. The village, more -ancient than the harbour, was half a mile inland. Gibson's father was -named James, and his mother was Mary Stuart Craig, a member of a Moffat -family. His early education was probably quite local, at any rate we -find that he got his first knowledge of medicine by serving his time -with a practitioner at Whitehaven, and from thence he went to Edinburgh -University to study and to take his diploma, commencing on his own -account at Branthwaite and Ullock, near Cockermouth, when twenty-eight -years of age. He did not remain there long, but in 1843 removed to -Coniston, and married Miss Sarah Bowman of Lamplough the following -year. He remained at Coniston for six years, and then removed to -Hawkshead, where he dwelt for another eight, and then, finding the -country practice, with long rides and exposure to all kinds of mountain -weather, becoming too hard and too heavy for him, he removed to -Bebington in Cheshire, where he remained for fifteen years more, and -when failing health and three score years of life compelled it, lived -there retired until his death in 1874. He is interred in the churchyard -of that village in the neighbourhood of Birkenhead. This is practically -all that is known, and, indeed, is all that need concern us of his -outward biography. His inner is indicated by his books. From them we -gather that he was a pleasant and genial man, who readily found his way -to the hearts of the 'statesmen' and peasantry among whom his -professional calling carried him every day of his life, and with whom he -would hold colloquies in the vernacular, and from whose fireside talks -he would gather the stories and legends he afterwards put together in -prose or verse, to illustrate both the Scandinavian dialects and the -folklore of the north-western shires, as William Barnes has in later -times done for the Saxon speech and thought-modes of the Dorsetshire -people. We are sure, too, that wherever he rode he was a keen observer -and investigator of natural objects among the rocks, and birds, and -flowers, as well as of castles, churches, mansions, schools, and ancient -earthworks. He was a learned geologist, and if you want to be assured of -this you have but to procure a copy of Harriet Martineau's 'Guide to the -Lakes,' and you will find the chapters on geology and mineralogy were -his compilation, though there is no further acknowledgment of the fact -than the presence of his initials, A. C. G., at the end. It is not the -hand of a mere scientific smatterer that can condense with ability into -some dozen or thirteen pages the earth treasures and stratification of -such a mountain-land as ours, respecting which he says, 'As no district -of similar extent displays such a variety of natural beauties in its -external aspect, so does no district present within equally limited -bounds such diversity of geological formation and arrangement, or a like -variety of mineral productions.' He was an excellent botanist, writing -upon the flora of Cumberland, though possibly his knowledge of -ornithology would be little more than that of any intelligent, -nature-loving country doctor almost always in the open. An antiquarian -he certainly was of no mean standing, being a Fellow of the Society of -Antiquaries--a society that asks, unlike many other 'learned' -associations, 'what has he done?' before receiving a member--and he was -a frequent contributor to the 'Transactions of the Historic Society of -Lancashire and Cheshire.' A good example of the quality of his -contributions is that on 'Hawkshead Town, Church, and School.' It is -interesting, and in a small space very enlightening. He tells us that -this is one of the smallest market towns in the kingdom, and he -describes it in a couplet of his own, a 'pattering' rhyme: - - 'A quaint old town is Hawkshead, and an ancient look it - bears, - Its church, its school, its dwellings, its streets, its lands, its - squares, - Are all irregularities--all angles, twists, and crooks, - With penthouses and gables over archways, wents, and nooks.' - -It really has two small 'squares' and one street 'of varying contour, -and width frequently and awkwardly encroached upon by gabled shops -standing at right angles to the roadway and houses by aggressive corners -and low upper stories projected far beyond the foundation-line of the -buildings.' Altogether an eccentric town. Then, after speaking of its -lake, he points out to us the old glacier moraines, and its green -water-meadows, and next branches off into the story of the 'Pilgrimage -of Grace' in 1537, and the tale of the Plague in 1577, and of the -opening of the Quaker cemetery on the picturesque hillside in 1658, and -the founding and upkeep of the parish church with its peal of six bells, -each with its inscription, from which we can transcribe only the first: - - 'Awake, arise, the day's restored, - Awake, arise, to praise the Lord, - Regard, look to, the peal I lead. - 1765.' - -He has, too, many sage remarks to make about 'Drunken Barnaby's' visit, -of which, perhaps, I shall say more in another article. - -But the two books the worthy doctor has specially made his mark with as -regards the general public are 'Folk-Speech Tales and Rhymes of -Cumberland and Districts Adjacent,' and 'The Old Man, or Ravings and -Ramblings around Coniston.' The first has passed through several -editions, and is to be had quite cheaply through second-hand -booksellers; the second is scarcer and dearer. Of the first the -_Saturday Review_ wrote: 'Few people will dare to attack this -odd-looking book, with its unusual accents and its rude phonetic -spelling, and if they do they will not understand it if they have not -had some previous education. But to those who can read it it is full of -racy jokes and rich humour, and will afford infinite amusement when -intelligently undertaken.' This seems to be a tolerably correct -estimate, for, as he tells us in his preface, the tales relating to -Cumberland and Dumfriesshire are in pure Cumbrian--unadulterated, old -Norse-rooted Cumbrian vernacular--and pure Scotch folk-speech. The High -Furness dialect, he says, is rendered impure by the influx of emigrants -from across Morecambe Sands. How can I find specimens short enough? 'Joe -and the Geologist' is in the Cumberland mode. It tells of a lad hired by -a Savant to carry the stones and fossils collected in a two days' -excursion, and how the lad, thinking one stone as good as another, -emptied the leather bag on the sly, filled it again from a -stone-breaker's heap, earned his meals and half a sovereign for his -'hard work,' and managed to send his employer off by coach none the -wiser till he should reach home. - -'When I com nar to Skeal-hill, I fund oald Aberram Achisson sittin' on a -steul breckan steans to mend rwoads wid, an' I axt him if I med full my -ledder pwokes frae his heap. Aberram was varra kaim't an' tell't ma to -tak them as wasn't brocken if I want'd steans, sooa I tell't hoo it was -an' oa' aboot it. T' oald maizlin was like to toytle of his steul wid' -laughin', and said me mudder sud tak gud care on ma, for I was ower -sharp a chap to leeve varra lang i' this warld; but I'd better full ma -pwokes as I liked an' mak on wid' them.' 'The Skulls of Calgarth,' a -North Country Naboth vineyard story with additions, is the only tale in -Westmorland talk. - - 'A house ligs la' an' leansome theear, doon in that oomer dark, - Wi' wide, heigh-risin' chimla-heads, la' roof, an' crumlin' wo', - O' wedder-gra'n an' weed-be grown--for time hes setten t' mark - O' scooers an' scooers o' wearin' years on hantit Co'garth Ho'.' - -To the reader uninstructed in the vernacular his little work, entitled -'The Old Man; or, Ravings and Ramblings Round Coniston,' is more -interesting than 'Folk-Speech.' It contains capital descriptive -passages, some in pointed prose, and some in rhyme. Example of the -latter may be found in 'The Sunken Graves.' - - 'Near Esthwaite Head, remote and lone, - Where crag-born Dudden chafes and raves-- - Unblest by priest--unmarked by stone-- - Were lengthened rows of dateless graves.' - -Of the prose, take these words about Coniston: 'Nowhere else have you -seen wood and water, hill and valley, green-sward and purple heather, -rugged crag and velvet lawn, gray rock and bright-blossoming shrub, -waving forest and spreading coppice brought under the eye at once in -such magnificent proportion and in such bewildering contrast.' He -narrates some exciting fox-hunting experiences of the fell-side farmers -and their hounds; he has some pithy tales of the native peasantry and -their folklore and their customs, as well as of their parsons, poor as -Goldsmith's 'Christian Hero'--passing rich at £40 a year, yet learned -and of cultured minds, though dressed in homespun, and toiling on the -land to eke out a living. His own adventures as a medical man in mists -and storms sweeping across the mountains are sometimes graphic. This -paragraph must suffice us: 'There had been a heavy snow, which for a day -or two, under the influence of soft weather and showers, had been -melting; the whole country was saturated with wet--every road was a -syke, every syke a beck, and every beck a river. The high lands were -covered with a thick, cold, driving, suffocating mist, which every now -and then thinned a little to make way for one of those thorough-bred -mountain showers, of which none can have any conception who have not -faced them on the fells in winter--wetting to the skin and chilling to -the marrow in three seconds, and piercing exposed parts like legions of -pins and needles. The hollows in the roads, which are neither few nor -far between, were filled with snow in a state of semi-fluidity, cold as -if it had been melted with salt, through which I splashed and struggled, -dragging my floundering jaded pony after me with the greatest -difficulty.' - - - - - WRITTEN IN THE WORDSWORTH COUNTRY - - - 'He is dead, and the fruit-bearing day - Of his race is past on the earth; - And darkness returns to our eyes. - For, oh! is it you, is it you, - Moonlight and shadow, and lake, - And mountains, that fill us with joy, - Or the poet who sings you so well? - Is it you, O beauty, O grace, - Or the voice that reveals what you are? - Are ye, like daylight and sun, - Shared and rejoiced in by all? - Or are you immersed in the mass - Of matter, and hard to extract, - Or sunk at the core of the world - Too deep for the most to discern? - Like stars in the deep of the sky, - Which arise on the glass of the sage, - But are lost when their watcher is gone.' - MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Youth of Nature_. - - -[llustration: - - _Photo by Herbert Bell, Ambleside._ - - FOX HOW, AMBLESIDE. - - The Home of the Arnolds.] - - - - - XX - - TWO PIONEER EDUCATIONISTS - - THOMAS AND MATTHEW ARNOLD - - - 'Speaking of the Arnolds, he (Hartley Coleridge) said they are a - most gifted family. I asked what specially in their education - distinguished them. He rose from the dinner-table, as his manner is, - and answered, "Why, they were suckled on Latin and weaned upon - Greek!"'--CAROLINE FOX'S _Journal_. - -Do not the Ambleside and Grasmere char-a-bancs proclaim on their -back-boards in letters large and ugly that they will 'return by Fox How, -the residence of Dr. Arnold'? And is not the advertised route a pretty -one, despite the disadvantage of its being frequented by thousands of -'trippers' to whom the Arnolds are not even names, and who can hardly be -much illuminated by the drivers? - -When Arnold of Rugby bought the property and built the house for a -holiday home, with the hope of some day retiring permanently to it, he -wrote of its being 'a mountain nest of sweetness.' Even his son Matthew, -more of an introversive than a descriptive poet, more inclined to utter -a thought of Goethe's or quote a song of Beranger's than to dwell on the -inwardness of natural scenery, must perforce write of 'Rotha's living -wave'--the stream that 'sparkles through fields vested for ever with -green,' and of - - 'Moonlight, and shadow, and lake, - And mountains that fill us with joy.' - -The father died in harness, and was buried in Rugby Chapel, and not in -Grasmere, by the Wordsworth graves, as he had hoped. The son spent his -boyhood at Fox How, and returned to it often in later life, for Mrs. Dr. -Arnold remained there--a widow--for many years. - -Thomas Arnold, born in 1795, at Cowes, Isle of Wight, was the son of the -Collector of Customs in that little port. He was educated first at -Westminster, and then for four years at Winchester. As a child he was -stiff, shy, and formal, says Dean Stanley, and after entering Oxford, -indeed until mature life, was a 'lie-a-bed.' Still, he was forward at -school, strong in history and geography, took early to his pen, and had -a good memory for poetry. At the University, a scholar at Corpus -Christi, Fellow of Oriel, he took a first-class in Classics, and two -Chancellor's Prizes in 1815 and 1817. Corpus Christi was a small, -intellectual community, and this fact helped to form his character. He -was, and remained, a Liberal in a society of convinced Tories. Outside -his companionship and his necessary studies the formative influences of -that period of his life were Aristotle, Thucydides, and Wordsworth. He -took 'orders,' and settled at Laleham, near Staines, where he remained -nine years, taking youths as pupils to prepare them for the -Universities. Here six of his children were born, including Matthew, and -here he developed his theories of education, to become so important a -factor in English life by-and-by. Here, too, he pursued diligently his -own deeper studies in the Bible, in theology, and in Roman history. Some -of the sermons preached at this village are incorporated with those, -afterwards so celebrated, delivered to the Rugby School. He became -Head-master of Rugby in 1827. At that time most of the great public -schools with clerical headmasters were in low condition, and upper-class -education was poor. The rich Churchmen held possession of the national -Universities, and social rather than intellectual status was the chief -thing aimed at. Of course there were many noble exceptions among the -undergraduates to this general truth, and Arnold was one of them, and -his compeers at Corpus Christi were others. Rugby as a school was in a -very poor state when he took hold of it. He raised it into one of the -first schools of its kind in the kingdom, and provoked the others into a -healthy competition. It is impossible here to give more than the barest -outline of his magnificent scholastic career. The ordinary reader may -judge for himself of its character by reading Thomas Hughes' 'Tom -Browne's School Days,' and the more studious Stanley's 'Life' of the -Doctor. It has been my own privilege to know several clergymen who were -Arnold's pupils. They reverenced his memory, they spoke of their -intellectual and spiritual obligations to their master in the warmest -terms, and in every case were among the most liberal-minded and cultured -men I have known. They were but examples of hundreds, cleric and lay, of -his excellent modelling. The key to his influence and reforms is found -in his own high Christian character, and, as one biographer says, in the -fact that 'the most strongly-marked feature of his intellect was the -strength and clearness of his conceptions. It seemed the possession of -an inward light so intense that it penetrated on the instant every -subject laid before him, and enabled him to grasp it with the vividness -of sense and the force of reality.' His administrative methods -revolutionized the discipline and the punishments. He relied on the -honour of the boys, and their Christian and gentlemanly characters, and -especially on the right leadership of the older ones, whom he trusted -implicitly, unless found untrustworthy. He had also, and this, -doubtless, was part of his secret, an unusual faculty of right -discernment in the selection of his masters. Character was the basis of -his system--upon that he could build scholarship, without it he would -not try to. 'It is not necessary,' he once said to his pupils, 'that -this school should be a school of 300, or 100, or 50 boys; but it is -necessary it should be a school of Christian gentlemen.' Through good -and evil report, opposition and scoffing, he went on his way, and -conquered. He took his part, too, in liberalizing the Anglican Church. -For defending Bishop Hampden of Hereford, to whose appointment a violent -outcry was raised for alleged unorthodoxy, Arnold nearly lost his own -post. Earl Howe, one of the champions of the narrow-minded heresy -hunters, moved a condemnatory resolution at the Board of -Governors--there being four for, and four against, and none possessing a -casting vote, the headmaster was not suspended, and did not resign. In -1841 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History, and his -lectures remain in their published form as evidences of his accuracy and -lucidity. The next year, however, he was seized with angina pectoris, -and he died just about the time he was intending to retire from his -fourteen years' successful pioneering of the modern methods of secondary -and higher education. His character was well estimated by a writer in -the _Edinburgh Review_, albeit the comparison of Arnold with Milton is -not altogether felicitous in other respects. He says: 'They both so -lived in their great Task-master's eye as to verify Bacon's observation, -in his 'Essay on Atheism,' making themselves akin to God in spirit, and -raising their natures by means of a higher nature than their own.' -Matthew alludes to his father in his poem on Rugby Chapel. This poem is -in awkward metre, and the query might have been answered more positively -than he has ventured to do, if there is any truth whatsoever in the -Christian doctrine of immortality and a 'labour-house vast' seems a poor -substitute for scriptural imagery of the unseen spirit world. - - 'Oh, strong soul, by what shore - Tarriest thou now? For that force, - Surely, has not been left vain! - Somewhere, surely, afar, - In the sounding labour-house vast - Of being is practised that strength, - Zealous, beneficent, firm.' - -Another appreciation of the father by the son is interesting. 'He was -the first English clergyman who could speak as freely on religious -subjects as if he had been a layman.' - -Of Matthew himself there needs little to be said. From whom did he -inherit his strange temperament? His poetry lacks the warmth of feeling -his father would have put into it. His muse is cold, classical, joyless. -His criticisms are keen, incisive, often just, more often marred by -foolish prejudices, almost brutally expressed. To Dissenters he was -intolerant, and never lost a chance of sneering at them, especially for -their want of that culture, or rather that special form of culture, -which he personally affected, and which his own Church had debarred them -from obtaining at the Universities. He laid himself open to the retort -of a leading Nonconformist, who spoke of Mr. Arnold's belief in the -well-known preference of the Almighty for University men. Mr. Herbert -Paul is not wide of the mark when he writes of his re-translations of -the Bible 'making one feel as if one had suddenly swallowed a -fish-bone.' Certainly the perusal of most of his books, such as 'Essays -in Criticism,' 'Culture and Anarchy,' 'Paul and Protestantism,' -'Literature and Dogma,' 'God and the Bible,' gives to the thoughtful -reader a sensation of being drawn by a swift, high-mettled, blood horse, -trying to get his head, and to run away with you over a stony road--the -pace is exhilarating, but the jolting is terrible. His best -contributions to the commonwealth are some of his educational theories -and suggestions, and most of his reports on foreign education, and on -his experience as an Inspector of Schools. In the latter capacity he -laboured for thirty-five years, and the impress of his genius abides. - -Some of his forecasts of the future have come true, others are certain -yet to be fulfilled. He was the real founder of University Extension, -and he urged that the University of London should be made a teaching -institution only. Mr. Paul's estimate of him we may cordially assent to: -'Of all education reformers in the last century, not excepting his -father, Mr. Arnold was the most enlightened, the most far-sighted, and -the most fair-minded.' 'Fair-minded' he assuredly was when dealing with -the practical side of his profession. 'Fair-minded' he always believed -he was. 'Fair-minded' he seldom was on purely political or academic -matters, for then his extraordinary prejudices asserted their -sovereignty over him, and he was helpless beneath their sway. Mr. -Gladstone he disliked so intensely that we should hardly be wrong in -saying he hated him and all his works. - -He exhibited a supercilious contempt for what he chose to brand as the -provincialism of the 'Low Church' and the Free Church; for the -aristocracy, who to him were 'barbarians' for preferring field sports to -the improvement of their minds; for the masses of the community, whom he -dismissed with the epithet 'the populace,' while the middle-classes were -'Philistines' (a word he borrowed from the Germans), because they were -'respectable' and kept gigs! Really all this shows too small a mind, too -circumscribed an outlook on humanity, to qualify Matthew Arnold for a -place among philosophers or national reformers. It is satisfactory to -turn from him as politician and critic of the Bible, of literature, and -of society, to his status as a poet, which, though really secondary to -that as an educationist, he will naturally be most widely remembered by. -His letters, too, recently published, show the pleasant side of his -private life. 'He was a poet of the closet,' is Mr. Stedman's summary of -him. Arthur Clough preferred Alexander Smith (practically a forgotten -minor poet) to the author of 'Empedocles,' and complained of the -obscurity and 'pseudo-Greek inflation' of 'Tristram and Iseult.' 'The -Scholar-Gipsy' is his best elegiac poem; 'The Forsaken Merman' his best -narrative piece; 'Bacchanalia, or the New Age,' his best lyric. This is -from 'The Merman': - - 'Children dear, was it yesterday - We heard the sweet bells over the bay? - In the caverns where we lay, - Through the surf, and through the swell, - The far-off sound of a silver bell? - Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, - Where the winds are all asleep; - Where the spent lights quiver and gleam, - Where the salt weed sways in the stream, - Where the sea-breeze, ranged all round, - Feed in the ooze of their pasture ground; - Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, - Dry their mail, and bask in the brine; - Where great whales come sailing by, - Sail, and sail, with unshut eye, - Round the world for ever and aye? - When did music come this way? - Children dear, was it yesterday?' - -Herein are lines more melodious, and ideas more English, than in other -verses, just because he 'let himself go' more than usual. He was -generally too self-conscious to do this at all. - -His schools were Winchester and Rugby. His college was Balliol. For a -short time he was master under his father. For four years he acted as -private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, and in 1857 was made Inspector of -Schools. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1857 to 1867. He died -suddenly of inherited heart disease while running to catch a tram at -Liverpool in 1888, at sixty-six years of age. All this may be read in -any Dictionary of Biography, and really there is little more to note of -events in his life outside the daily routine of his official career. He -was buried at Laleham, where he was born. Something better might be his -epitaph than his own pessimistic lines: - - 'Creep into this narrow bed, - Creep, and let no more be said.' - - - - - PHILARETVS, HIS INSTRUCTIONS TO HIS - SONNE - - - 'Deare Sonne, as thou art tender to mee, remember these - advertisements of thy careful father. - 'Bee zealous in the service of thy God; ever recommending - in the prime houre of the day all thy ensuing actions to - His gracious protection. - 'Bee constant in thy Resolves, ever grounded on a - religious feare, that they may bee seconded by God's - favour. - 'Bee serious in thy Studies; with all humility crave the - assistance of others, for thy better proficiency. - 'Bee affable to all; familiar to few. - 'Bee to such a constant consort where thou hast hope - to bee a daily proficient. - 'Bee provident and discreetly frugal in thy expense. - 'Honour those in whose charge thou art instructed. - 'And, sweet Jesu, with Thy grace enrich him, to Thy - glory, my comfort. - - 'Thy deare Father, - - 'PHILARETVS.' - - - '_Essais upon the Five Senses, Revived by a new Supplement, - with a pithy one upon Detraction, continued - with sundry Christian Resolves, etc._, by RIC. BRATHVVAYT, - ESQ. (1635). - -[Illustration: - _Photo by Gilbert Hogg, Kendal._ - - BURNESIDE HALL, NEAR KENDAL. - - The Home of Richard Braithwaite.] - - - - - XXI - - DRUNKEN BARNABY - - RICHARD BRAITHWAITE - - - 'A self-deluded fool is he who deems - The head is innocent that moves the hand. - A fount impure may taint a thousand streams. - The devil did not do the work he planned. - He is the very worst of evil pests - Who fears to execute, and but suggests.' - S. C. HALL: _The Trial of Sir Jasper_. - -A mile or so from the picturesque town of Kendal is a village, standing -on both sides of the rushing little river Kent, now called Burneside, -though anciently Barnside. It has a church of old foundation, rebuilt -early in last century, chiefly by private subscription, but partly by -enforced church rates, after the custom of that age. It has a fine -bridge crossed by the road leading to the mountain heights and the long, -deep valleys, so wildly beautiful, and beginning to be so far-famed -through Mrs. Humphrey Ward's romances. Adjoining the bridge is a large -paper-mill, where formerly stood a worsted-mill and patent candle-wick -cutting factory. The village possesses an institute and library, and a -public-house of the Earl Grey type. The people seem contented and -intelligent, and as the number of them has grown from 650 in 1830 to -over 1,000 within fifty years, we may fairly point to it as an -object-lesson for those who desire to see village industries and 'garden -manufacturing villages' multiplied, and through them the neighbouring -farming interests improved and enriched. - -A short stroll towards the northern uplands brings the visitor to a -ruined, ivy-clad Peel-tower, one of those relics of border-warfare days -with which these regions abound. As in many other cases, so in this, -when the times became more settled, a manor-house grew up around the -grim, square-built battlemented tower, which mansion is now, in still -later and quieter days, a farmhouse. To the manor and dwelling succeeded -the subject of this sketch on his father's death in 1610, or shortly -afterwards. He came of a race of Westmorland landed gentry, owning -estates here, and at Ambleside and Appleby. It is not known where he was -born. He was entered as a gentleman commoner at Oriel College, Oxford, -as a native of Northumberland, and it is, of course, possible that his -father, a wealthy man, held residential property in that county. The -internal evidence of his writings, however, has been of late held to be -sufficiently strong to prove him a native of Kendal. His words, in an -address to 'The Aldermen of Kendall,' seem very explicit: - - 'Within that native place where I was born, - It lies in you, dear townsmen, to reforme.' - -Anthony a'Wood, in his 'Athenæ Oxoniensis,' tells how Braithwaite--or, -as he spells the name, Brathwayte--was sent to the University at sixteen -years of age in 1604. He remained there three years, 'avoiding as much -as he could the rough pathes of Logic and Philosophy, and tracing those -smooth ones of Poetry and Roman History, in which at length he did -excell.' Thence he went to Cambridge, studying literature 'in dead and -living authors.' From Cambridge he proceeded to London to read law in -the Inns of Court. In his father's will there are indications, and in -his own later writings there are sorrowful confessions, that, for a -while, at all events, he lived a wild, roystering life in the -Metropolis. 'The day seemed long wherein I did not enjoy these -pleasures; the night long wherein I thought not of them. I knew what -sinne it was to sollicit a maid into lightnesse; or to be drunken with -wine, wherein was excesse; or to suffer mine heart to be oppressed with -surfetting and drunkennesse; yet for all this, run I on still in mine -evil wayes.' His father's death-bed doubts of him, and the tying up of -the estate bequeathed to him, till he had amended, seem to have brought -him to himself. While living at Burneside Hall, during the early days of -the Civil Wars he was made a Captain of the local Royalist trained -bands, a Deputy-Lieutenant, and J.P. for the county, and spent his -leisure in composing and publishing the more serious of his books. Seven -years after entering on his possessions, he married Miss Frances Lawson, -of Darlington, but surreptitiously, probably because of objections -raised by the young lady's parents. It seems to have been more than a -love-match--a happy union of sixteen years' duration--producing a family -of nine--six sons and three daughters. Six years of widowhood, and then -he married a Yorkshire lady, who brought him another manor, Catterick, -where for the future he resided till his death. The sole issue of this -second marriage was a son--Strafford--who was knighted, and was killed -in an engagement with an Algerian man-of-war--in the ship _Mary_, of -which Sir Roger Strickland was commander. In 1673 Richard Braithwaite -died, and was buried in Catterick Parish Church, a mural monument duly -setting forth the fact in customary Latin. Anthony a'Wood says he bore -during his steady years 'the character of a well-bread (_sic_) gentleman -and a good neighbour.' Mr. Haslewood, his most competent editor, has -collected, I know not from whence, some oral traditions of his personal -appearance, interesting as a picture of the seventeenth-century northern -gentry, as well as of the individual. He was, although below the common -stature, one of the handsomest men of the time, and well proportioned, -remarkable for ready wit and humour, and of polished manners and -deportment. He usually wore a light gray coat, a red waistcoat, leather -breeches, and a high-crowned hat. From a full-length portrait in the -first edition of his 'English Gentleman,' which is believed to be his -likeness, he wore also boots, spurs, sword, belt, and cloak. He was so -neat in his appearance, and lively in manner, that his equals bestowed -upon him the nickname of 'Dapper Dick.' - -He earned from later generations a far less enviable soubriquet--that of -'Drunken Barnaby.' This is because he is--and rightly so, without -doubt--credited with the authorship of a notorious book called by him -originally 'Barnabæ Itinerarium, or Barnabee's Journal.' It was done in -Latin and English on opposite pages, to 'most apt numbers reduced, and -to the old tune of Barnabe commonly chanted.' The poem would seem to -have passed out of general recollection, till in 1716 it was -republished by London booksellers under the title of 'Drunken Barnaby's -Four Journeys to the North of England,' and alleged to have been found -among some musty old books that had a long time lain by in a corner, and -now at last 'made publick.' This was a fabricated title with the -intention of catching the public taste, because of a popular ballad of -the same name then current. The Itinerary may well have been the -production of his muse during his London wild-oat days. Drunken and -licentious the traveller certainly was. He gives a rough, coarse picture -of the depraved manners of the times, against which zealous Puritans -were preaching and vigorously protesting. - -Mr. Atkinson, in his 'Worthies of Westmorland,' calls him a 'strolling -minstrel.' A stroller he was, of course, but not a minstrel in any other -sense than as a keeper of a rhyming diary. He also says that 'Drunken -Barnaby' was a nickname of his own choice. This is too cruel! -Braithwaite never called himself so, and the term, when more than a -quarter of a century after his death it was invented for trade purposes, -was supposed to belong, not to Braithwaite at all, but to a certain -'Barnaby Harrington,' a supposed Yorkshire schoolmaster and -horse-dealer. 'Barnabæ Itinerarium' has little merit as poetry. It is -mainly of interest to moderns for the light it throws--like -the water-poet, Taylor's, 'Penniless Pilgrimage,' and his -'Merry-wherry-ferry Voyage'--on the social condition of Stuart and -Commonwealth England, as well as for its local allusions. Take of the -latter, for example, these: - - 'Thence to Sedbergh, sometimes joy-all, - Gamesome, gladsome, richly royal, - But those jolly boys are sunken, - Now scarce once a year one drunken; - There I durst not well be merry, - Farre from home old Foxes werry.[B] - - * * * * * - - 'Thence to Kendall, pure her state is, - Prudent too her magistrate is, - In whose Charter to them granted. - Nothing but a Mayor is wanted;[C] - Here it likes me to be dwelling, - Bousing, loving, stories telling.' - - * * * * * - - 'Thence to Garestang, where are feeding - Heards with large fronts freely breeding; - Thence to Ingleforth I descended, - Where choice bull-calfs will be vended; - Thence to Burton's boundiers pass I, - Faire in flocks, in pastures grassie. - - * * * * * - - 'Thence to Lonesdale, where were at it - Boys that scorn'd quart-ale by statute, - Till they stagger'd, stammer'd, stumbled, - Railed, reeled, rowled, tumbled, - Musing I should be so stranged, - I resolv'd them, I was changed. - - 'To the sinke of sin they drew me, - Where like Hogs in mire they tew me, - Or like Dogs unto their vomit, - But their purpose I o'recommed; - With shut eyes I flung in anger - From those Mates of death and danger.' - -[B] (Old foxes are wary when far from home.) - -[C] It seems a Mayor was granted subsequently. - -On another journey he came to 'Kendall,' and there he did 'what men call -spend all,' drinking 'thick and clammy ale,' and, passing on to -Staveley, drank again all night. He might in those days have well -deserved to be ear-marked for a 'drunken' vagabond, yet it is not fair -to the memory of any man to brand him only and for ever with frolics and -follies and evil deeds of which he afterwards repented, and would gladly -have atoned for. - -We, at all events, would prefer to think of Richard Braithwaite at his -best, and not at his worst. He was the author of fully three score -volumes of prose and poetry, in Latin and in English, essays, sonnets, -madrigals. The titles of only a few can be quoted--'A Strappado for the -Devil,' 'Love's Labyrinth,' 'Shepherd's Tales or Eclogues,' 'Nature's -Embassie,' 'The English Gentleman,' 'The English Gentlewoman,' -'Whimsies, or a New Cast of Characters.' There is a good deal of telling -satire in the last of these: - -'An Almanack-maker is the most notorious knave pickt out of all these, -for under colour of astrology he practices necromancy.' - -'A Gamester--professes himself honest, and publishes himself Cheat upon -discovery. - -'A Traveller is a fraud, if he travaile to novellize himself and not to -benefit his country. - -'A Launderer is also one if she wash her skinne, but staine her soule, -and so soile her inward beauty.' - -In 'A Spiritual Spicerie' he begins a poem: - - 'Morall mixtures or Divine - Aptly culled, and Couch'd in order, - Are like Colours in a Shrine, - Or choice flowers set in a border.' - -In 'Holy Memorials' he bemoans his past waywardness and looseness, and -speaks of being sore perplexed when his own wanton verses were repeated -in his hearing, and 'though I did neither own them nor praise them, yet -must I in another place answer for them, if Hee, on whom I depend, -shall not in these teares which I shed drowne the memory of them.' Like -many of his pious contemporaries, he tried his hand at turning the -Psalms of David into English verse. If they fall short in his -translations of the beauty and strength of our prose versions--and they -have in no degree gripped the churches--these sacred hymns helped to -ripen his own character and faith, and he is very sincere in concluding -his efforts with: - - 'Praise to the God of Heaven, - Be given by Mee a Worme, - That David's numbers in this forme, - To Mee a Worme hath given.' - -Adding on the last leaf, 'Other errours favourably excuse, and amend at -pleasure.' - -The quaintness of his spelling, of his metres, of his expressions, -commend his works to lovers of old literature. Some are reprinted, -others are scarce. The first edition of 'Barnaby' is almost -unobtainable, and that of 'A Survey of History,' a quarto volume with -portrait, has just been offered me for £2. - - - - - SWARTHMORE HALL - - - 'I went through a gate and found myself in a little green paddock, - where there was not even one rose left "to mark where a garden had - been." There were the principal windows--one little window looking - out from George Fox's study; the other two were old-fashioned - bay-windows, much larger. From the uppermost windows Fox used to - preach, sometimes, to his friends in the garden below. Near the - bay-window is the little old doorway, to which two rude stone steps - led up. All else was plain and unpretending. Inside I was shown the - "hall," a quaint, flagged apartment, on the ground-floor, with a - great, old-fashioned fireplace, and with a kind of stone daïs in the - recess of the mullioned window. Here I was told the earliest - meetings of the "Friends" were held. From this room, two steps led - up to a little sanctuary, which was Fox's study; and I felt as if - every footfall there was an intrusion, for that dim-lighted room, - with its tiny lattice and quaint furniture, was the cell of a saint, - "of whom the world was not worthy."'--EDWIN WAUGH: _Rambles in the - Lake Country_. - - -[Illustration: - _Photo by Herbert Bell, Ambleside._ - - SWARTHMORE HALL, ULVERSTONE. - -The Home of Judge and Margaret Fell, and afterwards of George Fox.] - - - - - XXII - - LAST WORDS ABOUT OUR CELEBRITIES - - - 'Adjust your proposed amount of reading to your time and - inclination; but whether that amount be large or small, let it be - varied in its kind, and widely varied. If I have a confident opinion - on any one point connected with the improvement of the human mind, - it is on this.'--DR. THOMAS ARNOLD. - - -This lovely land of lake and mountain, dale and fell, in which my lot is -happily cast in old age, is too full of literary and artistic memories, -as well as ethnological and historic associations for anything to be -given in great detail. Over and above the beauty of its scenery and the -wealth of its natural productions, it offers to the traveller such -visions and glimpses of eminent men and women in the world of letters as -no other spot in the British Islands can show. Almost every village and -hamlet has some connection with a departed worthy of whom it is still -proud. Not to speak for the moment of the relation of Keswick to -Coleridge and Southey, or of Grasmere to De Quincey and the Wordsworths, -or of Coniston to Ruskin, of Ambleside to the Arnolds, or of Windermere -to 'Christopher North,'--of all whom I have treated at length--we have -roadside cottages, pleasant villas, and town houses, laying claim to -special distinction because someone of whom the nation is proud was -born, or lived, or died there. At Ambleside, for instance, near to Fox -How, dwelt William Edward Forster, the unfortunate statesman who would -have been more happily remembered in Ireland, and in connection with -national education by a larger section of his fellow countrymen, had he -entertained, during his public career, the enlightened views of his -devoted father, and the circle in which he and John Bright were trained. -Near there, too, for a time, Felicia Hemans found a peaceful home, after -her many trials, in a cottage still marked on the map as 'Dove's Nest,' -a lovely retreat for a poetess, in good sooth. The archæologist -Nicholson, poor in this world's gear, but rich in ancient lore, helps to -complete the galaxy of 'bright particular stars' that clustered about -the water-head of Winander. - -Here in Kendal we have a tablet on the front of the house where Romney, -the portrait painter, died, carefully and undeservedly (as some think) -tended by the wife whom he had left alone so long. We show the yard in -which was the shop wherein he learned his first trade, and in our town -hall are several valuable pictures of his which will amply repay -visitors for a pilgrimage to our borough. Here lived Dr. Dalton, the -great chemist, once a tutor in our ancient Friends' School; and here -also Gough, the blind botanist, who knew any and every flower by the -feel of it upon his fingers and lips. Mrs. Humphrey Ward has given us -delightful word-pictures of the dales whose gateways we see from our -hillside garden as we look to the mighty summits across the verdant -valley of the Kent. Within a walk from our house stands the old -Baronial Hall where Agnes Strickland gathered material for her 'Queens -of England,' and where she wrote 'copy' for her publishers. The -straggling village of Troutbeck, just beneath yonder huge mountain-dome, -whereon the Baal-fires used to be lighted every midsummer eve, was the -ancestral home of the Hogarths; and in that valley Charlotte Brontë -pondered some of her best works, and sketched her backgrounds from the -moorland heights. Not all her scenery is Yorkshire, whatever Yorkshire -folk may imagine. - -Further afield still, and across the watershed of our Westmorland -ramparts, on the edge of Thirlmere, Hall Caine spent his days in -producing 'The Shadow of a Crime.' - -Away to the westward of us, at the foot of Windermere, where we often -take our Southern friends for afternoon tea in the sweet summer-time, is -Newby Bridge--a place that, with its river and its woods, would have -surely inspired in Kingsley, had he seen it as we have done, another -song like 'Clear and Cool.' - -Here Mrs. Gaskell indited her charming novels of old-world, homely -people, and their ways. Here came up Nathaniel Hawthorne from his -Liverpool Consulate to compose his essays and write appreciative notes -upon the district. - -To the north of us, just beyond the farthest loop of the steep and -winding railway incline, up and down which two-engined trains career all -day long, is Shap, the birthplace of antediluvian glaciers and the -celebrated Egyptologist, Wilkinson. - -Mrs. Ratcliffe, the romancist; Grey, the elegist; William Watson, of -'Wordsworth's Grave'; Turner, the artist; Gilpin, the lover of rough -woodlands; and another Gilpin, 'the Apostle of the North,' in Queen -Mary's days; George Fox and his farmer preachers--founders of Quakerism; -Philip Sidney's sister, the lovely Countess of Pembroke--all these -belong more or less to the Lake Counties, and the homes of most of them, -while resident here, are yet to be seen. Brantwood looks over Coniston -Water to the quaint round chimneys and the gables of the century-stained -hall of the Le Flemings, and beyond it towers the gigantic cone of the -Old Man mountain. Dove Cottage, with its pretty garden laid out by the -hands of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, nestles beneath the wooded hill -at Grasmere. Greta Hall yet stands in Keswick, and the row of -lodging-houses where the author of 'Thorndale' and of 'Gravenhurst' met -the wife who proved the soul of his soul, and has written so sweetly of -her spouse. William Clarkson's retreat is on Ullswater's shore-lands; -and the honeymoon home of Tennyson, 'Tent Lodge,' on those of Coniston. - -Yet long, long after the last stone of all these honoured buildings has -been overthrown to form part of a cottage or a mansion for someone of a -future generation--long, long after the poets' bones laid in Grasmere -burial-ground have mouldered into dust and become part of the life of -the overshadowing trees--long, long after the commemorative marbles in -Crossthwaite Church have become marred beyond recognition--the hills and -streams whose glories were chanted by our Minnesingers of prose and -verse will remain virtually unchanged though with an added glory not -theirs in olden days--the glory of the human soul awakened by them to -truth and beauty--the glory of art and song shining on every valley and -peak. - -There are still some few living amongst us in this 'playground of -England' who are carrying on the literary traditions peculiar to it, of -whom another hand than mine will write hereafter, for they will be men -of mark ere their life-work closes. They have begun well and will finish -better. Nor are the possibilities of further expansions of poetry, or -legend, or history, or prose idylls yet exhausted. There are fields -unbroken awaiting the arrival of him who shall help to brighten a new -age. There are romances, and novels, and epic poems still stored away in -the narrative of the Roman Conquest and occupation; of the creeping -northward of the Saxons from land and sea; of the coming of the -fair-haired Norsemen in their long ships from the north seashores; of -the Kingdom of Strathclyde, with its varying fortunes; of the medieval -barons and their castles; of the dark-age church and its abbeys. There -are odes and lyrics still lingering among the heath-clad fells, and the -sounding forces, and the purling becks, that will be captured and given -to the world some day through the help of him by whom the in-breathing -of the spirit is felt. Our snow-fields on wintry uplands, in sunshine -or glimmering moonlight, are awaiting the pen that can adequately -picture them. - -There are tales of border-raids, and Arthurian legends, and wealth of -fairy lore to be gathered, and 'country memories rich inlaid' by one who -shall be born here, or choose our shires for his home, and shall put on -singing-robes of sufficient quality and colour. 'I would I were a poet -happy-mad,' exclaims one of those whose lives I have epitomized: - - 'I would I were a poet happy-mad, - Up like a lark i' the morning of the times, - To sing above the human harvesters; - Drop fancies, dainty-sweet, to cheer their toil, - And hurry out a ripe luxuriance - Of life in song, as though my heart would break - And sing them sweet and precious memories, - And golden promises, and throbbing hopes; - Hymn the great future with its mystery, - That startles us from out the dark of time, - With secrets numerous as a night of stars.' - - - THE END - - - _Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, London, E.C._ - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Celebrities of the English -Lake-District, by Frederick Sessions - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY CELEBRITIES *** - -***** This file should be named 42476-8.txt or 42476-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/4/7/42476/ - -Produced by Eric Skeet, sp1nd and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project -Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you -charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you -do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the -rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose -such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and -research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do -practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is -subject to the trademark license, especially commercial -redistribution. - - - -*** START: FULL LICENSE *** - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project -Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at -http://gutenberg.org/license). - - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy -all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. -If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the -terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or -entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement -and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" -or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the -collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an -individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are -located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from -copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative -works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg -are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project -Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by -freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of -this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with -the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by -keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project -Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in -a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check -the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement -before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or -creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project -Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning -the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United -States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate -access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently -whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, -copied or distributed: - -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 - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived -from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is -posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied -and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees -or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work -with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the -work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 -through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the -Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or -1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional -terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked -to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the -permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any -word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or -distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than -"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version -posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), -you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a -copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon -request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other -form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided -that - -- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is - owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he - has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the - Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments - must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you - prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax - returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and - sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the - address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to - the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." - -- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or - destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium - and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of - Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any - money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days - of receipt of the work. - -- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set -forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from -both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael -Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the -Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm -collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain -"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or -corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual -property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a -computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by -your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with -your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with -the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a -refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity -providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to -receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy -is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further -opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER -WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO -WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. -If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the -law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be -interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by -the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any -provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance -with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, -promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, -harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, -that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do -or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm -work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any -Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. - - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers -including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists -because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from -people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. -To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 -and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive -Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at -http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent -permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. -Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered -throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at -809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email -business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact -information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official -page at http://pglaf.org - -For additional contact information: - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To -SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any -particular state visit http://pglaf.org - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. -To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate - - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm -concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared -with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project -Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. - - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. -unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |