diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-0.txt | 6423 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/75623-h.htm | 7929 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 667975 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/dropcap-a.jpg | bin | 0 -> 21509 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/dropcap-i.jpg | bin | 0 -> 23065 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/dropcap-n.jpg | bin | 0 -> 21535 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/dropcap-o.jpg | bin | 0 -> 41640 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/dropcap-t.jpg | bin | 0 -> 16707 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/illus1.jpg | bin | 0 -> 92545 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/illus2.jpg | bin | 0 -> 65741 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/illus3.jpg | bin | 0 -> 61759 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/illus4.jpg | bin | 0 -> 73793 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/illus5.jpg | bin | 0 -> 49365 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75623-h/images/illus6.jpg | bin | 0 -> 131987 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
17 files changed, 14369 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75623-0.txt b/75623-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1785350 --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6423 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75623 *** + + + + + +[Illustration: Charlotte’s Convoy.] + + + + +THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE. + +AUGUST, 1861. + + + + +Philip. + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +BREVIS ESSE LABORO. + +Never, General Baynes afterwards declared, did fever come and go so +pleasantly as that attack to which we have seen the Mrs. General advert +in her letter to her sister, Mrs. Major MacWhirter. The cold fit was +merely a lively, pleasant chatter and rattle of the teeth; the hot fit +an agreeable warmth; and though the ensuing sleep, with which I believe +such aguish attacks are usually concluded, was enlivened by several +dreams of death, demons, and torture, how felicitous it was to wake and +find that dreadful thought of ruin removed which had always, for the +last few months, ever since Dr. Firmin’s flight and the knowledge of +his own imprudence, pursued the good-natured gentleman! What! this boy +might go to college, and that get his commission; and their meals need be +embittered by no more dreadful thoughts of the morrow, and their walks +no longer were dogged by imaginary bailiffs, and presented a gaol in the +vista! It was too much bliss; and again and again the old soldier said +his thankful prayers, and blessed his benefactor. + +Philip thought no more of his act of kindness, except to be very +grateful, and very happy that he had rendered other people so. He could +no more have taken the old man’s all, and plunged that innocent family +into poverty, than he could have stolen the forks off my table. But other +folks were disposed to rate his virtue much more highly; and amongst +these was my wife, who chose positively to worship this young gentleman, +and I believe would have let him smoke in her drawing-room if he had +been so minded, and though her genteelest acquaintances were in the +room. Goodness knows what a noise and what piteous looks are produced if +ever the master of the house chooses to indulge in a cigar after dinner; +but then, you understand, _I_ have never declined to claim mine and my +children’s right because an old gentleman would be inconvenienced: and +this is what I tell Mrs. Pen. If I order a coat from my tailor, must I +refuse to pay him because a rogue steals it, and ought I to expect to be +let off? Women won’t see matters of fact in a matter-of-fact point of +view, and justice, unless it is tinged with a little romance, gets no +respect from them. + +So, forsooth, because Philip has performed this certainly most generous, +most dashing, most reckless piece of extravagance, he is to be held up +as a perfect _preux chevalier_. The most riotous dinners are ordered for +him. We are to wait until he comes to breakfast, and he is pretty nearly +always late. The children are to be sent round to kiss uncle Philip, +as he is now called. The children? I wonder the mother did not jump up +and kiss him too. _Elle en était capable._ As for the osculations which +took place between Mrs. Pendennis and her new-found young friend, Miss +Charlotte Baynes, they were perfectly ridiculous; two school children +could not have behaved more absurdly; and I don’t know which seemed to be +the youngest of these two. There were colloquies, assignations, meetings +on the ramparts, on the pier, where know I?—and the servants and little +children of the two establishments were perpetually trotting to and +fro with letters from dearest Laura to dearest Charlotte, and dearest +Charlotte to her dearest Mrs. Pendennis. Why, my wife absolutely went +the length of saying that dearest Charlotte’s mother, Mrs. Baynes, was a +worthy, clever woman, and a good mother—a woman whose tongue never ceased +clacking about the regiment, and all the officers, and all the officers’ +wives; of whom, by the way, she had very little good to tell. + +“A worthy mother, is she, my dear?” I say. “But, oh, mercy! Mrs. Baynes +would be an awful mother-in-law!” + +I shuddered at the thought of having such a commonplace, hard, ill-bred +woman in a state of quasi authority over me. + +On this Mrs. Laura must break out in quite a petulant tone—“Oh, how +_stale_ this kind of thing is, Arthur, from a man _qui veut passer pour +un homme d’esprit_! You are always attacking mothers-in-law!” + +“Witness Mrs. Mackenzie, my love—Clive Newcome’s mother-in-law. That’s a +nice creature; not selfish, not wicked, not——” + +“Not nonsense, Arthur!” + +“Mrs. Baynes knew Mrs. Mackenzie in the West Indies, as she knew all the +female army. She considers Mrs. Mackenzie was a most elegant, handsome, +dashing woman—only a little too fond of the admiration of our sex. There +was, I own, a fascination about Captain Goby. Do you remember, my love, +that man with the stays and dyed hair, who——” + +“Oh, Arthur! When our girls marry, I suppose you will teach their +husbands to abuse, and scorn, and mistrust _their_ mother-in-law. Will +he, my darlings? will he, my blessings?” (This apart to the children, if +you please.) “Go! I have no patience with such talk!” + +“Well, my love, Mrs. Baynes is a most agreeable woman; and when I have +heard that story about the Highlanders at the Cape of Good Hope a few +times more” (I do not tell it here, for it has nothing to do with the +present history), “I daresay I shall begin to be amused by it.” + +“Ah! here comes Charlotte, I’m glad to say. How pretty she is! What a +colour! What a dear creature!” + +To all which of course I could not say a contradictory word, for a +prettier, fresher lass than Miss Baynes, with a sweeter voice, face, +laughter, it was difficult to see. + +“Why does mamma like Charlotte better than she likes us?” says our dear +and justly indignant eldest girl. + +“I could not love her better if I were her _mother-in-law_,” says Laura, +running to her young friend, casting a glance at me over her shoulder; +and that kissing nonsense begins between the two ladies. To be sure the +girl looks uncommonly bright and pretty with her pink cheeks, her bright +eyes, her slim form, and that charming white India shawl which her father +brought home for her. + +To this osculatory party enters presently Mr. Philip Firmin, who has been +dawdling about the ramparts ever since breakfast. He says he has been +reading law there. He has found a jolly quiet place to read. Law, has he? +And much good may it do him! Why has he not gone back to his law, and his +reviewing? + +“You must—you _must_ stay on a little longer. You have only been here +five days. Do, Charlotte, ask Philip to stay a little.” + +All the children sing in a chorus, “Oh, do, uncle Philip, stay a little +longer!” Miss Baynes says, “I hope you will stay, Mr. Firmin,” and looks +at him. + +“Five days has he been here? Five years. Five lives. Five hundred years. +What do you mean? In that little time of—let me see, a hundred and twenty +hours, and at least a half of them for sleep and dinner (for Philip’s +appetite was very fine)—do you mean that in that little time his heart, +cruelly stabbed by a previous monster in female shape, has healed, got +quite well, and actually begun to be wounded again? Have two walks on +the pier, as many visits to the Tintelleries (where he hears the story +of the Highlanders at the Cape of Good Hope with respectful interest), a +word or two about the weather, a look or two, a squeezekin, perhaps, of +a little handykin—I say, do you mean that this absurd young idiot, and +that little round-faced girl, pretty, certainly, but only just out of the +schoolroom—do you mean to say that they have—— Upon my word, Laura, this +is too bad. Why, Philip has not a penny piece in the world.” + +“Yes, he has a hundred pounds, and expects to sell his mare for ninety +at least. He has excellent talents. He can easily write three articles a +week in the _Pall Mall Gazette_. I am sure no one writes so well, and it +is much better done and more amusing than it used to be. That is three +hundred a year. Lord Ringwood must be applied to, and must and shall +get him something. Don’t you know that Captain Baynes stood by Colonel +Ringwood’s side at Busaco, and that they were the closest friends? And +pray, how did _we_ get on, I should like to know? How did _we_ get on, +baby?” + +“How did we det on?” says the baby. + +“Oh, woman! woman!” yells the father of the family. “Why, Philip Firmin +has all the habits of a rich man with the pay of a mechanic. Do you +suppose he ever sate in a second-class carriage in his life, or denied +himself any pleasure to which he had a mind? He gave five francs to a +beggar girl yesterday.” + +“He had always a noble heart,” says my wife. “He gave a fortune to a +whole family a week ago; and” (out comes the pocket-handkerchief—oh, of +course, the pocket-handkerchief)—“and—‘God loves a cheerful giver!’” + +“He is careless; he is extravagant; he is lazy;—I don’t know that he is +remarkably clever——” + +“Oh, yes! he is your friend, of course. Now, abuse him—_do_, Arthur!” + +“And, pray, when did you become acquainted with this astounding piece of +news?” I inquire. + +“When? From the very first moment when I saw Charlotte looking at him, to +be sure. The poor child said to me only yesterday, ‘Oh, Laura! he is our +preserver!’ And their preserver he has been, under Heaven.” + +“Yes. But he has not got a five-pound note!” I cry. + +“Arthur, I am surprised at you. Oh, men, men are awfully worldly! Do you +suppose Heaven will not send him help at its good time, and be kind to +him who has rescued so many from ruin? Do you suppose the prayers, the +blessings of that father, of those little ones, of that dear child, will +not avail him? Suppose he has to wait a year, ten years, have they not +time, and will not the good day come?” + +Yes. This was actually the talk of a woman of sense and discernment when +her prejudices and romance were not in the way, and she looked forward to +the marriage of these folks, some ten years hence, as confidently as if +they were both rich, and going to St. George’s to-morrow. + +As for making a romantic story of it, or spinning out love conversations +between Jenny and Jessamy, or describing moonlight raptures and +passionate outpourings of two young hearts and so forth—excuse me, _s’il +vous plait_. I am a man of the world, and of a certain age. Let the young +people fill in this outline, and colour it as they please. Let the old +folks who read, lay down the book a minute, and remember. It is well +remembered, isn’t it, that time? Yes, good John Anderson, and Mrs. John. +Yes, good Darby and Joan. The lips won’t tell now, what they did once. +To-day is for the happy, and to-morrow for the young, and yesterday, is +not that dear and here too? + +I was in the company of an elderly gentleman, not very long since, who +was perfectly sober, who is not particularly handsome, or healthy, or +wealthy, or witty; and who, speaking of his past life, volunteered to +declare that he would gladly live every minute of it over again. Is a +man who can say that a hardened sinner, not aware how miserable he ought +to be by rights, and therefore really in a most desperate and deplorable +condition; or is he _fortunatus nimium_, and ought his statue to be put +up in the most splendid and crowded thoroughfare of the town? Would you, +who are reading this, for example, like to live _your_ life over again? +What has been its chief joy? What are to-day’s pleasures? Are they so +exquisite that you would prolong them for ever? Would you like to have +the roast beef on which you have dined brought back again to table, and +have more beef, and more, and more? Would you like to hear yesterday’s +sermon over and over again—eternally voluble? Would you like to get on +the Edinburgh mail, and travel outside for fifty hours as you did in your +youth? You might as well say you would like to go into the flogging-room, +and take a turn under the rods: you would like to be thrashed over again +by your bully at school: you would like to go to the dentist’s, where +your dear parents were in the habit of taking you: you would like to +be taking hot Epsom salts, with a piece of dry bread to take away the +taste: you would like to be jilted by your first love: you would like +to be going in to your father to tell him you had contracted debts to +the amount of _x_ + _y_ + _z_, whilst you were at the university. As I +consider the passionate griefs of childhood, the weariness and sameness +of shaving, the agony of corns, and the thousand other ills to which +flesh is heir, I cheerfully say for one, I am not anxious to wear it for +ever. No. I do not want to go to school again. I do not want to hear +Trotman’s sermon over again. Take me out and finish me. Give me the +cup of hemlock at once. Here’s a health to you, my lads. Don’t weep, +my Simmias. Be cheerful, my Phædon. Ha! I feel the co-o-old stealing, +stealing upwards. Now it is in my ankles—no more gout in my foot: now my +knees are numb. What, is—is that poor executioner crying too? Good-bye. +Sacrifice a cock to Æscu—to Æscula— ... Have you ever read the chapter in +Grote’s _History_? Ah! When the Sacred Ship returns from Delos, and is +telegraphed as entering into port, may we be at peace and ready! + +What is this funeral chant, when the pipes should be playing gaily as +Love, and Youth, and Spring, and Joy are dancing under the windows? Look +you. Men not so wise as Socrates have their demons, who will be heard +and whisper in the queerest times and places. Perhaps I shall have to +tell of a funeral presently, and shall be outrageously cheerful; or of an +execution, and shall split my sides with laughing. Arrived at my time of +life, when I see a penniless young friend falling in love and thinking of +course of committing matrimony, what can I do but be melancholy? How is a +man to marry who has not enough to keep ever so miniature a brougham—ever +so small a house—not enough to keep himself, let alone a wife and family? +Gracious powers! is it not blasphemy to marry without fifteen hundred +a year? Poverty, debt, protested bills, duns, crime, fall assuredly on +the wretch who has not fifteen—say at once two thousand a year; for you +can’t live decently in London for less. And a wife whom you have met a +score of times at balls or breakfasts, and with her best dresses and +behaviour at a country house;—how do you know how she will turn out; what +her temper is; what her relations are likely to be? Suppose she has poor +relations, or loud coarse brothers who are always dropping in to dinner? +What is her mother like; and can you bear to have that woman meddling and +domineering over your establishment? Old General Baynes was very well; a +weak, quiet, and presentable old man: but Mrs. General Baynes, and that +awful Mrs. Major MacWhirter,—and those hobbledehoys of boys in creaking +shoes, hectoring about the premises? As a man of the world I saw all +these dreadful liabilities impending over the husband of Miss Charlotte +Baynes, and could not view them without horror. Gracefully and slightly, +but wittily and in my sarcastic way, I thought it my duty to show up the +oddities of the Baynes family to Philip. I mimicked the boys, and their +clumping blucher-boots. I touched off the dreadful military ladies, +very smartly and cleverly as I thought, and as if I never supposed that +Philip had any idea of Miss Baynes. To do him justice, he laughed once +or twice; then he grew very red. His sense of humour is very limited; +that even Laura allows. Then he came out with strong expression, and +said it was a confounded shame, and strode off with his cigar. And when +I remarked to my wife how susceptible he was in some things, and how +little in the matter of joking, she shrugged her shoulders and said, +“Philip not only understood perfectly well what I said, but would tell it +all to Mrs. General and Mrs. Major on the first opportunity.” And this +was the fact, as Mrs. Baynes took care to tell me _afterwards_. She was +aware who was her _enemy_. She was aware who spoke ill of her, and her +blessed darling _behind our backs_. And “do you think it was to see _you_ +or any one belonging to your _stuck-up house_, sir, that we came to you +so often, which we certainly did, day and night, breakfast and supper, +and no thanks to you? No, sir! ha, ha!” I can see her flaunting out of +my sitting-room as she speaks, with a strident laugh, and snapping her +dingily-gloved fingers at the door. Oh, Philip, Philip! To think that you +were such a coward as to go and tell her! But I pardon him. From my heart +I pity and pardon him. + +For the step which he is meditating, you may be sure that the young man +himself does not feel the smallest need of pardon or pity. He is in +a state of happiness so crazy that it is useless to reason with him. +Not being at all of a poetical turn originally, the wretch is actually +perpetrating verse in secret, and my servants found fragments of his +manuscript on the dressing-table in his bedroom. _Heart_ and _art_, +_sever_ and _for ever_, and so on; what stale rhymes are these? I do not +feel at liberty to give in entire the poem which our maid found in Mr. +Philip’s room, and brought sniggering to my wife, who only said, “Poor +thing!” The fact is, it was too pitiable. Such maundering rubbish! Such +stale rhymes, and such old thoughts! But then, says Laura, “I daresay all +people’s love-making is not amusing to their neighbours; and I know who +wrote not very wise love-verses when he was young.” No, I won’t publish +Philip’s verses, until some day he shall mortally offend me. I can recall +some of my own written under similar circumstances with twinges of shame; +and shall drop a veil of decent friendship over my friend’s folly. + +Under that veil, meanwhile, the young man is perfectly contented, nay, +uproariously happy. All earth and nature smiles round about him. “When +Jove meets his Juno, in Homer, sir,” says Philip, in his hectoring way, +“don’t immortal flowers of beauty spring up around them, and rainbows of +celestial hues bend over their heads? Love, sir, flings a halo round the +loved one. Where she moves, rise roses, hyacinths, and ambrosial odours. +Don’t talk to me about poverty, sir! He either fears his fate too much or +his desert is small, who dares not put it to the touch and win or lose it +all! Haven’t I endured poverty? Am I not as poor now as a man can be—and +what is there in it? Do I want for anything? Haven’t I got a guinea in my +pocket? Do I owe any man anything? Isn’t there manna in the wilderness +for those who have faith to walk in it? That’s where you fail, Pen. By +all that is sacred, you have no faith; your heart is cowardly, sir; and +if you are to escape, as perhaps you may, I suspect it is by your wife +that you will be saved. Laura has a trust in heaven, but Arthur’s morals +are a genteel atheism. Just reach me that claret—the wine’s not bad. I +say your morals are a genteel atheism, and I shudder when I think of your +condition. Talk to _me_ about a brougham being necessary for the comfort +of a woman! A broomstick to ride to the moon! And I don’t say that a +brougham is not a comfort, mind you; but that, when it is a necessity, +mark you, Heaven will provide it! Why, sir, hang it, look at me! Ain’t I +suffering in the most abject poverty? I ask you is there a man in London +so poor as I am? And since my father’s ruin do I want for anything? I +want for shelter for a day or two. Good. There’s my dear Little Sister +ready to give it me. I want for money. Does not that sainted widow’s +cruse pour its oil out for me? Heaven bless and reward her. Boo!” (Here, +for reasons which need not be named, the orator squeezes his fists into +his eyes.) “I want shelter; ain’t I in good quarters? I want work; +haven’t I got work, and did you not get it for me? You should just see, +sir, how I polished off that book of travels this morning. I read some +of the article to Char——, to Miss ——, to some friends, in fact. I don’t +mean to say that they are very intellectual people, but your common +humdrum average audience is the public to try. Recollect Molière and his +housekeeper, you know.” + +“By the housekeeper, do you mean Mrs. Baynes?” I ask, in my _amontillado_ +manner. (By the way, who ever heard of _amontillado_ in the early +days of which I write?) “In manner she would do, and I daresay in +accomplishments; but I doubt about her temper.” + +“You’re almost as worldly as the Twysdens, by George, you are! Unless +persons are of a certain _monde_, you don’t value them. A little +adversity would do you good, Pen; and I heartily wish you might get it, +except for the dear wife and children. You measure your morality by +May-fair standards; and if an angel unawares came to you in pattens and +a cotton umbrella, you would turn away from her. _You_ would never have +found out the Little Sister. A duchess—God bless her! A creature of an +imperial generosity, and delicacy, and intrepidity, and the finest sense +of humour, but she drops her _h_’s often, and how could you pardon such a +crime? Sir, you are my better in wit and a dexterous application of your +powers; but I think, sir,” says Phil, curling the flaming mustachios, “I +am your superior in a certain magnanimity; though, by Jove, old fellow, +man and boy, you have always been one of the best fellows in the world +to P. F.; one of the best fellows, and the most generous, and the most +cordial,—that you have: only you _do_ rile me when you sing in that +confounded May-fair twang.” + +Here one of the children summoned us to tea—and “Papa was laughing, and +uncle Philip was flinging his hands about and pulling his beard off,” +said the little messenger. + +“I shall keep a fine lock of it for you, Nelly, my dear,” says uncle +Philip. On which the child said, “Oh, no! I know whom you’ll give it to, +don’t I, mamma?” and she goes up to her mamma, and whispers. + +Miss Nelly knows? At what age do those little match-makers begin to know, +and how soon do they practise the use of their young eyes, their little +smiles, wiles, and ogles? This young woman, I believe, coquetted whilst +she was yet a baby in arms, over her nurse’s shoulder. Before she could +speak, she could be proud of her new vermilion shoes, and would point +out the charms of her blue sash. She was jealous in the nursery, and her +little heart had beat for years and years before she left off pinafores. + +For whom will Philip keep a lock of that red, red gold which curls round +his face? Can you guess? Of what colour is the hair in that little locket +which the gentleman himself occultly wears? A few months ago, I believe, +a pale straw-coloured wisp of hair occupied that place of honour; now it +is a chesnut-brown, as far as I can see, of precisely the same colour +as that which waves round Charlotte Baynes’ pretty face, and tumbles +in clusters on her neck, very nearly the colour of Mrs. Paynter’s this +last season. So, you see, we chop and we change: straw gives place to +chesnut, and chesnut is succeeded by ebony; and, for our own parts, we +defy time; and if you want a lock of my hair, Belinda, take this pair of +scissors, and look in that cupboard, in the bandbox marked No. 3, and cut +off a thick glossy piece, darling, and wear it, dear, and my blessings go +with thee! What is this? Am I sneering because Corydon and Phyllis are +wooing and happy? You see I pledged myself not to have any sentimental +nonsense. To describe love-making is immoral and immodest; you know it +is. To describe it as it really is, or would appear to you and me as +lookers-on, would be to describe the most dreary farce, to chronicle +the most tautological twaddle. To take a note of sighs, hand-squeezes, +looks at the moon, and so forth—does this business become our dignity as +historians? Come away from those foolish young people—they don’t want +us; and dreary as their farce is, and tautological as their twaddle, you +may be sure it amuses them, and that they are happy enough without us. +Happy? Is there any happiness like it, pray? Was it not rapture to watch +the messenger, to seize the note, and fee the bearer?—to retire out of +sight of all prying eyes and read:—“Dearest! Mamma’s cold is better this +morning. The Joneses came to tea, and Julia sang. I did not enjoy it, +as my dear was at his _horrid dinner_, where I hope he amused himself. +Send me a word by Buttles, who brings this, if only to say you are your +Louisa’s own, own,” &c. &c. &c. That used to be the kind of thing. +In such coy lines artless Innocence used to whisper its little vows. +So she used to smile; so she used to warble; so she used to prattle. +Young people, at present engaged in the pretty sport, be assured your +middle-aged parents have played the game, and remember the rules of it. +Yes, under papa’s bow-window of a waistcoat is a heart which took very +violent exercise when that waist was slim. Now he sits tranquilly in +his tent, and watches the lads going in for their innings. Why, look at +grandmamma in her spectacles reading that sermon. In _her_ old heart +there is a corner as romantic still as when she used to read the _Wild +Irish Girl_ or the _Scottish Chiefs_ in the days of her misshood. And as +for your grandfather, my dears, to see him now you would little suppose +that that calm, polished, dear old gentleman was once as wild—as wild +as Orson.... Under my windows, as I write, there passes an itinerant +flower-merchant. He has his roses and geraniums on a cart drawn by a +quadruped—a little long-eared quadruped, which lifts up its voice, and +sings after its manner. When I was young, donkeys used to bray precisely +in the same way; and others will heehaw so, when we are silent and our +ears hear no more. + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +DRUM IST’S SO WOHL MIR IN DER WELT. + +Our new friends lived for a while contentedly enough at Boulogne, where +they found comrades and acquaintances gathered together from those many +regions which they had visited in the course of their military career. +Mrs. Baynes, out of the field, was the commanding officer over the +general. She ordered his clothes for him, tied his neckcloth into a neat +bow, and, on tea-party evenings, pinned his brooch into his shirt-frill. +She gave him to understand when he had had enough to eat or drink at +dinner, and explained, with great frankness, how this or that dish did +not agree with him. If he was disposed to exceed, she would call out, in +a loud voice: “Remember, general, what you took this morning!” Knowing +his constitution, as she said, she knew the remedies which were necessary +for her husband, and administered them to him with great liberality. +Resistance was impossible, as the veteran officer acknowledged. “The +boys have fought about the medicine since we came home,” he confessed, +“but she has me under her thumb, by George. She really is a magnificent +physician, now. She has got some invaluable prescriptions, and in India +she used to doctor the whole station.” She would have taken the present +writer’s little household under her care, and proposed several remedies +for my children, until their alarmed mother was obliged to keep them out +of her sight. I am not saying this was an agreeable woman. Her voice +was loud and harsh. The anecdotes which she was for ever narrating +related to military personages in foreign countries with whom I was +unacquainted, and whose history failed to interest me. She took her wine +with much spirit, whilst engaged in this prattle. I have heard talk not +less foolish in much finer company, and known people delighted to listen +to anecdotes of the duchess and the marchioness who would yawn over +the history of Captain Jones’s quarrels with his lady, or Mrs. Major +Wolfe’s monstrous flirtations with young Ensign Kyd. My wife, with the +mischievousness of her sex, would mimic the Baynes’ conversation very +drolly, but always insisted that she was not more really vulgar than many +much greater persons. + +For all this, Mrs. General Baynes did not hesitate to declare that we +were “stuck-up” people; and from the very first setting eyes on us, she +declared, that she viewed us with a constant darkling suspicion. Mrs. P. +was a harmless, washed-out creature with nothing in her. As for that high +and mighty Mr. P. and _his_ airs, she would be glad to know whether the +wife of a British general officer who had seen service in _every part +of the globe_, and met the _most distinguished_ governors, generals, +and their ladies, several of whom _were noblemen_—she would be glad to +know whether such people were not good enough for, &c. &c. Who has not +met with these difficulties in life, and who can escape them? “Hang it, +sir,” Phil would say, twirling the red mustachios, “I like to be hated by +some fellows;” and it must be owned that Mr. Philip got what he liked. +I suppose Mr. Philip’s friend and biographer had something of the same +feeling. At any rate, in regard of this lady the hypocrisy of politeness +was very hard to keep up; wanting us for reasons of her own, she covered +the dagger with which she would have stabbed us: but we knew it was +there clenched in her skinny hand in her meagre pocket. She would pay us +the most fulsome compliments with anger raging out of her eyes—a little +hate-bearing woman, envious, malicious, but loving her cubs, and nursing +them, and clutching them in her lean arms with a jealous strain. It was +“Good-bye, darling! I shall leave you here with your friends. Oh, how +kind you are to her, Mrs. Pendennis! How can I ever thank you, and Mr. P. +I am sure;” and she looked as if she could poison both of us, as she went +away, curtseying and darting dreary parting smiles. + +This lady had an intimate friend and companion in arms, Mrs. Colonel +Bunch, in fact, of the—the Bengal cavalry, who was now in Europe with +Bunch and their children, who were residing at Paris for the young folks’ +education. At first, as we have heard, Mrs. Baynes’ predilections had +been all for Tours, where her sister was living, and where lodgings +were cheap and food reasonable in proportion. But Bunch happening to +pass through Boulogne on his way to his wife at Paris, and meeting his +old comrade, gave General Baynes such an account of the cheapness and +pleasures of the French capital, as to induce the general to think of +bending his steps thither. Mrs. Baynes would not hear of such a plan. +She was all for her dear sister and Tours; but when, in the course of +conversation, Colonel Bunch described a ball at the Tuileries, where he +and Mrs. B. had been received with the most flattering politeness by the +royal family, it was remarked that Mrs. Baynes’ mind underwent a change. +When Bunch went on to aver that the balls at Government House at Calcutta +were nothing compared to those at the Tuileries or the Prefecture of +the Seine; that the English were invited and respected everywhere; that +the ambassador was most hospitable; that the clergymen were admirable; +and that at their boarding-house, kept by Madame la Générale Baronne +de Smolensk, at the Petit Château d’Espagne, Avenue de Valmy, Champs +Elysées, they had balls twice a month, the most comfortable apartments, +the most choice society, and every comfort and luxury at so many francs +per month, with an allowance for children—I say Mrs. Baynes was very +greatly moved. “It is not,” she said, “in consequence of the balls at the +ambassador’s or the Tuileries, for I am an old woman; and in spite of +what you say, colonel, I can’t fancy, after Government House, anything +more magnificent in any French palace. It is not for _me_, goodness +knows, I speak: but the children should have education, and my Charlotte +an entrée into the world; and what you say of the invaluable clergyman, +Mr. X——, I have been thinking of it all night; but above all, above all, +of the chances of education for my darlings. Nothing should give way to +that—nothing!” On this a long and delightful conversation and calculation +took place. Bunch produced his bills at the Baroness de Smolensk’s. The +two gentlemen jotted up accounts, and made calculations all through the +evening. It was hard even for Mrs. Baynes to force the figures into such +a shape as to make them accord with the general’s income; but, driven +away by one calculation after another, she returned again and again to +the charge, until she overcame the stubborn arithmetical difficulties, +and the pounds, shillings, and pence lay prostrate before her. They +could save upon this point; they could screw upon that; they _must_ make +a sacrifice to educate the children. “Sarah Bunch and her girls go to +Court, indeed! Why shouldn’t mine go?” she asked. On which her general +said, “By George, Eliza, that’s the point you are thinking of.” On which +Eliza said, “No,” and repeated “No” a score of times, growing more angry +as she uttered each denial. And she declared before Heaven she did _not_ +want to go to any Court. Had she not refused to be presented at home, +though Mrs. Colonel Flack went, because she did not choose to go to the +wicked expense of a train? And it was base of the general, _base_ and +_mean_ of him to say so. And there was a fine scene, as I am given to +understand; not that I was present at this family fight: but my informant +was Mr. Firmin; and Mr. Firmin had his information from a little person +who, about this time, had got to prattle out all the secrets of her young +heart to him; who would have jumped off the pier-head with her hand in +his if he had said “Come,” without his hand if he had said “Go:” a little +person whose whole life had been changed—changed for a month past—changed +in one minute, that minute when she saw Philip’s fiery whiskers and heard +his great big voice saluting her father amongst the commissioners on the +_quai_ before the custom-house. + +Tours was, at any rate, a hundred and fifty miles farther off than Paris +from—from a city where a young gentleman lived in whom Miss Charlotte +Baynes felt an interest; hence, I suppose, arose her delight that her +parents had determined upon taking up their residence in the larger and +nearer city. Besides, she owned, in the course of her artless confidences +to my wife, that, when together, mamma and aunt MacWhirter quarrelled +unceasingly; and had once caused the old boys, the major and the +general, to call each other out. She preferred, then, to live away from +aunt Mac. She had never had such a friend as Laura, never. She had never +been so happy as at Boulogne, never. She should always love everybody +in our house, that she should, for ever and ever—and so forth, and so +forth. The ladies meet; cling together; osculations are carried round +the whole family circle, from our wondering eldest boy, who cries, “I +say, hullo! what are you kissing me so about?” to darling baby, crowing +and sputtering unconscious in the rapturous young girl’s embraces. I +tell you, these two women were making fools of themselves, and they were +burning with enthusiasm for the “preserver” of the Baynes family, as they +called that big fellow yonder, whose biographer I have aspired to be. +The lazy rogue lay basking in the glorious warmth and sunshine of early +love. He would stretch his big limbs out in our garden; pour out his +feelings with endless volubility; call upon _hominum divumque voluptas, +alma Venus_; vow that he had never lived or been happy until now; declare +that he laughed poverty to scorn and all her ills; and fume against his +masters of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, because they declined to insert +certain love verses which Mr. Philip now composed almost every day. Poor +little Charlotte! And didst thou receive those treasures of song; and +wonder over them, not perhaps comprehending them altogether; and lock +them up in thy heart’s inmost casket as well as in thy little desk; and +take them out in quiet hours, and kiss them, and bless Heaven for giving +thee such jewels? I daresay. I can fancy all this, without seeing it. I +can read the little letters in the little desk, without picking lock or +breaking seal. Poor little letters! Sometimes they are not spelt right, +quite; but I don’t know that the style is worse for that. Poor little +letters! You are flung to the winds sometimes and forgotten with all +your sweet secrets and loving artless confessions; but not always—no, +not always. As for Philip, who was the most careless creature alive, and +left all his clothes and haberdashery sprawling on his bed-room floor, he +had at this time a breast-pocket stuffed out with papers which crackled +in the most ridiculous way. He was always looking down at this precious +pocket, and putting one of his great hands over it as though he would +guard it. The pocket did not contain bank-notes, you may be sure of that. +It contained documents stating that mamma’s cold is better; the Joneses +came to tea, and Julia sang, &c. Ah, friend, however old you are now, +however cold you are now, however tough, I hope you, too, remember how +Julia sang, and the Joneses came to tea. + +Mr. Philip stayed on week after week, declaring to my wife that she +was a perfect angel for keeping him so long. Bunch wrote from his +boarding-house more and more enthusiastic reports about the comforts of +the establishment. For his sake, Madame la Baronne de Smolensk would +make unheard-of sacrifices, in order to accommodate the general and his +distinguished party. The balls were going to be perfectly splendid that +winter. There were several old Indians living near; in fact, they could +form a regular little club. It was agreed that Baynes should go and +reconnoitre the ground. He did go. Madame de Smolensk, a most elegant +woman, had a magnificent dinner for him—quite splendid, I give you my +word, but only what they have every day. Soup, of course, my love; fish, +capital wine, and, I should say, some five or six and thirty made dishes. +The general was quite enraptured. Bunch had put his boys to a famous +school, where they might “whop” the French boys, and learn all the modern +languages. The little ones would dine early; the baroness would take +the whole family at an astonishingly cheap rate. In a word, the Baynes’ +column got the route for Paris shortly before our family-party was +crossing the seas to return to London fogs and duty. + +You have, no doubt, remarked how, under certain tender circumstances, +women will help one another. They help where they ought not to help. +When Mr. Darby ought to be separated from Miss Joan, and the best +thing that could happen for both would be a _lettre de cachet_ to whip +off Mons. Darby to the Bastille for five years, and an order from her +parents to lock up Mademoiselle Jeanne in a convent, some aunt, some +relative, some pitying female friend is sure to be found, who will +give the pair a chance of meeting, and turn her head away whilst those +unhappy lovers are warbling endless good-byes close up to each other’s +ears. My wife, I have said, chose to feel this absurd sympathy for the +young people about whom we have been just talking. As the days for +Charlotte’s departure drew near, this wretched, misguiding matron would +take the girl out walking into I know not what unfrequented bye-lanes, +quiet streets, rampart-nooks, and the like; and la! by the most singular +coincidence, Mr. Philip’s hulking boots would assuredly come tramping +after the women’s little feet. What will you say, when I tell you, that I +myself, the father of the family, the renter of the old-fashioned house, +Rue Roucoule, Haute Ville, Boulogne-sur-Mer—as I am going into my own +study—am met at the threshold by Helen, my eldest daughter, who puts her +little arms before the glass-door at which I was about to enter, and +says, “You must not go in there, papa! Mamma says we none of us are to go +in there.” + +“And why, pray?” I ask. + +“Because uncle Philip and Charlotte are talking secrets there; and nobody +is to disturb them—_nobody_!” + +Upon my word, wasn’t this too monstrous? Am I Sir Pandarus of Troy +become? Am I going to allow a penniless young man to steal away the heart +of a young girl who has not twopence halfpenny to her fortune? Shall I, I +say, lend myself to this most unjustifiable intrigue? + +“Sir,” says my wife (we happened to have been bred up from childhood +together, and I own to have had one or two foolish initiatory flirtations +before I settled down to matrimonial fidelity)—“Sir,” says she, “when you +were so wild—so spoony, I think is your elegant word—about Blanche, and +used to put letters into a hollow tree for her at home, I used to see the +letters, and I never disturbed them. These two people have much warmer +hearts, and are a great deal fonder of each other, than you and Blanche +used to be. I should not like to separate Charlotte from Philip now. It +is too late, sir. She can never like anybody else as she likes him. If +she lives to be a hundred, she will never forget him. Why should not the +poor thing be happy a little, while she may?” + +An old house, with a green old courtyard and an ancient mossy wall, +through breaks of which I can see the roofs and gables of the quaint +old town, the city below, the shining sea, and the white English cliffs +beyond; a green old courtyard, and a tall old stone house rising up in +it, grown over with many a creeper on which the sun casts flickering +shadows; and under the shadows, and through the glass of a tall gray +window, I can just peep into a brown twilight parlour, and there I see +two hazy figures by a table. One slim figure has brown hair, and one has +flame-coloured whiskers. Look! a ray of sunshine has just peered into the +room, and is lighting the whiskers up! + +“Poor little thing,” whispers my wife, very gently. “They are going away +to-morrow. Let them have their talk out. She is crying her little eyes +out, I am sure. Poor little Charlotte!” + +Whilst my wife was pitying Miss Charlotte in this pathetic way, and was +going, I daresay, to have recourse to her own pocket-handkerchief, as +I live, there came a burst of laughter from the darkling chamber where +the two lovers were billing and cooing. First came Mr. Philip’s great +boom (such a roar—such a haw-haw, or hee-haw, I never heard any other +_two_-legged animal perform). Then follows Miss Charlotte’s tinkling +peal; and presently that young person comes out into the garden, with +her round face not bedewed with tears at all, but perfectly rosy, fresh, +dimpled, and good-humoured. Charlotte gives me a little curtsey, and my +wife a hand and a kind glance. They retreat through the open casement, +twining round each other, as the vine does round the window; though +which is the vine and which is the window in this simile, I pretend not +to say—I can’t see through either of them, that is the truth. They pass +through the parlour, and into the street beyond, doubtless: and as for +Mr. Philip, I presently see _his_ head popped out of his window in the +upper floor with his great pipe in his mouth. He can’t “work” without his +pipe, he says; and my wife believes him. Work indeed! + +Miss Charlotte paid us another little visit that evening, when we +happened to be alone. The children were gone to bed. The darlings! +Charlotte must go up and kiss them. Mr. Philip Firmin was out. She did +not seem to miss him in the least, nor did she make a single inquiry for +him. We had been so good to her—so kind. How should she ever forget our +great kindness? She had been so happy—oh! so happy! She had never been +so happy before. She would write often and often, and Laura would write +constantly—wouldn’t she? “Yes, dear child!” says my wife. And now a +little more kissing, and it is time to go home to the Tintelleries. What +a lovely night! Indeed the moon was blazing in full round in the purple +heavens, and the stars were twinkling by myriads. + +“Good-bye, dear Charlotte; happiness go with you!” I seize her hand. I +feel a paternal desire to kiss her fair, round face. Her sweetness, her +happiness, her artless good-humour, and gentleness has endeared her to us +all. As for me, I love her with a fatherly affection. “Stay, my dear!” I +cry, with a happy gallantry. “I’ll go home with you to the Tintelleries.” + +You should have seen the fair round face _then_! Such a piteous +expression came over it! She looked at my wife; and as for that Mrs. +Laura she pulled the tail of my coat. + +“What do you mean, my dear?” I ask. + +“Don’t go out on such a dreadful night. You’ll catch cold!” says Laura. + +“Cold, my love!” I say. “Why, it’s as fine a night as ever——” + +“Oh! you—you _stoopid_!” says Laura, and begins to laugh. And there goes +Miss Charlotte tripping away from us without a word more! + +Philip came in about half an hour afterwards. And do you know I very +strongly suspect that he had been waiting round the corner. Few things +escape _me_, you see, when I have a mind to be observant. And, certainly, +if I had thought of that possibility and that I might be spoiling sport, +I should not have proposed to Miss Charlotte to walk home with her. + +At a very early hour on the next morning my wife arose, and spent, in my +opinion, a great deal of unprofitable time, bread, butter, cold beef, +mustard and salt, in compiling a heap of sandwiches, which were tied +up in a copy of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. That persistence in making +sandwiches, in providing cakes and other refreshments for a journey, is +a strange infatuation in women; as if there was not always enough to +eat to be had at road inns and railway stations! What a good dinner we +used to have at Montreuil in the old days, before railways were, and +when the diligence spent four or six and twenty cheerful hours on its +way to Paris! I think the finest dishes are not to be compared to that +well-remembered fricandeau of youth, nor do wines of the most dainty +vintage surpass the rough, honest, blue ordinaire which was served at +the plenteous inn-table. I took our bale of sandwiches down to the +office of the Messageries, whence our friends were to start. We saw six +of the Baynes family packed into the interior of the diligence; and the +boys climb cheerily into the rotonde. Charlotte’s pretty lips and hands +wafted kisses to us from her corner. Mrs. General Baynes commanded the +column, pushed the little ones into their places in the ark, ordered the +general and young ones hither and thither with her parasol, declined to +give the grumbling porters any but the smallest gratuity, and talked +a shrieking jargon of French and Hindustanee to the people assembled +round the carriage. My wife has that command over me that she actually +made me demean myself so far as to deliver the sandwich parcel to one +of the Baynes boys. I said, “Take this,” and the poor wretch held out +his hand eagerly, evidently expecting that I was about to tip him with a +five-franc piece or some such coin. _Fouette, cocher!_ The horses squeal. +The huge machine jingles over the road, and rattles down the street. +Farewell, pretty Charlotte, with your sweet face and sweet voice and kind +eyes! But why, pray, is Mr. Philip Firmin not here to say farewell too? + +Before the diligence got under way, the Baynes boys had fought, and +quarrelled, and wanted to mount on the imperial or cabriolet of the +carriage, where there was only one passenger as yet. But the conductor +called the lads off, saying that the remaining place was engaged by a +gentleman, whom they were to take up on the road. And who should this +turn out to be? Just outside the town a man springs up to the imperial; +his light luggage, it appears, was on the coach already, and that luggage +belonged to Philip Firmin. Ah, monsieur! and that was the reason, was it, +why they were so merry yesterday—the parting day? Because they were not +going to part just then. Because, when the time of execution drew near, +they had managed to smuggle a little reprieve! Upon my conscience, I +never heard of such imprudence in the whole course of my life! Why, it is +starvation—certain misery to one and the other. “I don’t like to meddle +in other people’s affairs,” I say to my wife; “but I have no patience +with such folly, or with myself for not speaking to General Baynes on the +subject. I shall write to the general.” + +“My dear, the general knows all about it,” says Charlotte’s, Philip’s +(in my opinion) most injudicious friend. “We have talked about it, and, +like a man of sense, the general makes light of it. ‘Young folks will be +young folks,’ he says; ‘and, by George! ma’am, when I married—I should +say, when Mrs. B. ordered me to marry her—she had nothing, and I but my +captain’s pay. People get on, somehow. Better for a young man to marry, +and keep out of idleness and mischief; and, I promise you, the chap who +marries my girl gets a treasure. I like the boy for the sake of my old +friend Phil Ringwood. I don’t see that the fellows with the rich wives +are much the happier, or that men should wait to marry until they are +gouty old rakes.’ And, it appears, the general instanced several officers +of his own acquaintance; some of whom had married when they were young +and poor; some who had married when they were old and sulky; some who had +never married at all. And he mentioned his comrade, my own uncle, the +late Major Pendennis, whom he called a selfish old creature, and hinted +that the major had jilted some lady in early life, whom he would have +done much better to marry.” + +And so Philip is actually gone after his charmer, and is pursuing her +_summâ diligentiâ_? The Baynes family has allowed this penniless young +law student to make love to their daughter, to accompany them to Paris, +to appear as the almost recognized son of the house. “Other people, +when they were young, wanted to make imprudent marriages,” says my wife +(as if that wretched _tu quoque_ were any answer to my remark!) “This +penniless law student might have a good sum of money if he chose to press +the Baynes family to pay him what, after all, they owe him.” And so +poor little Charlotte was to be her father’s ransom! To be sure, little +Charlotte did not object to offer herself up in payment of her papa’s +debt! And though I objected as a moral man and a prudent man, and a +father of a family, I could not be very seriously angry. I am secretly of +the disposition of the time-honoured _père de famille_ in the comedies, +the irascible old gentleman in the crop wig and George-the-Second coat, +who is always menacing “Tom the young dog” with his cane. When the deed +is done, and Miranda (the little sly-boots!) falls before my squaretoes +and shoe-buckles, and Tom the young dog kneels before me in his white +ducks, and they cry out in a pretty chorus, “Forgive us, grandpapa!” I +say, “Well, you rogue, boys will be boys. Take her, sirrah! Be happy +with her; and, hark ye! in this pocket-book you will find ten thousand,” +&c. &c. You all know the story: I cannot help liking it, however old it +may be. In love, somehow, one is pleased that young people should dare +a little. Was not Bessy Eldon famous as an economist, and Lord Eldon +celebrated for wisdom and caution? and did not John Scott marry Elizabeth +Surtees when they had scarcely twopence a year between them? “Of course, +my dear,” I say to the partner of my existence, “now this madcap fellow +is utterly ruined, now is the very time he ought to marry. The accepted +doctrine is that a man should spend his own fortune, then his wife’s +fortune, and then he may begin to get on at the bar. Philip has a hundred +pounds, let us say; Charlotte has nothing; so that in about six weeks we +may look to hear of Philip being in successful practice——” + +“Successful nonsense!” cries the lady. “Don’t go on like a cold-blooded +calculating machine! You don’t believe a word of what you say, and a more +imprudent person never lived than you yourself were as a young man.” +This was departing from the question, which women will do. “Nonsense!” +again says my romantic being of a partner-of-existence. “Don’t tell ME, +sir. They WILL be provided for! Are we to be for ever taking care of the +morrow, and not trusting that we shall be cared for? _You_ may call your +way of thinking prudence. I call it _sinful worldliness_, sir.” When my +life-partner speaks in a certain strain, I know that remonstrance is +useless, and argument unavailing, and I generally resort to cowardly +subterfuges, and sneak out of the conversation by a pun, a side joke, +or some other flippancy. Besides, in this case, though I argue against +my wife, my sympathy is on her side. I know Mr. Philip is imprudent and +headstrong, but I should like him to succeed, and be happy. I own he is a +scapegrace, but I wish him well. + +So, just as the diligence of Laffitte and Caillard is clearing out of +Boulogne town, the conductor causes the carriage to stop, and a young +fellow has mounted up on the roof in a twinkling; and the postilion says, +“Hi!” to his horses, and away those squealing greys go clattering. And a +young lady, happening to look out of one of the windows of the intérieur, +has perfectly recognized the young gentleman who leaped up to the roof so +nimbly; and the two boys who were in the rotonde would have recognized +the gentleman, but that they were already eating the sandwiches which my +wife had provided. And so the diligence goes on, until it reaches that +hill, where the girls used to come and offer to sell you apples; and some +of the passengers descend and walk, and the tall young man on the roof +jumps down, and approaches the party in the interior, and a young lady +cries out, “La!” and her mamma looks impenetrably grave, and not in the +least surprised; and her father gives a wink of one eye, and says, “It’s +him, is it, by George!” and the two boys coming out of the rotonde, their +mouths full of sandwich, cry out, “Hullo! It’s Mr. Firmin.” + +“How do you do, ladies?” he says, blushing as red as an apple, and +his heart thumping—but that may be from walking up hill. And he puts +a hand towards the carriage-window, and a little hand comes out and +lights on his. And Mrs. General Baynes, who is reading a religious +work, looks up and says, “Oh! how do you do, Mr. Firmin?” And this is +the remarkable dialogue that takes place. It is not very witty; but +Philip’s tones send a rapture into one young heart: and when he is +absent, and has climbed up to his place in the cabriolet, the kick of +his boots on the roof gives the said young heart inexpressible comfort +and consolation. Shine stars and moon. Shriek grey horses through the +calm night. Snore sweetly, papa and mamma, in your corners, with your +pocket-handkerchiefs tied round your old fronts! I suppose, under all +the stars of heaven, there is nobody more happy than that child in that +carriage—that wakeful girl, in sweet maiden meditation—who has given her +heart to the keeping of the champion who is so near her. Has he not been +always their champion and preserver? Don’t they owe to his generosity +everything in life? One of the little sisters wakes wildly, and cries in +the night, and Charlotte takes the child into her arms and soothes her. +“Hush, dear! He’s there—he’s there,” she whispers, as she bends over +the child. Nothing wrong can happen with _him_ there, she feels. If the +robbers were to spring out from yonder dark pines, why, he would jump +down, and they would all fly before him! The carriage rolls on through +sleeping villages, and as the old team retires all in a halo of smoke, +and the fresh horses come clattering up to their pole, Charlotte sees a +well-known white face in the gleam of the carriage lanterns. Through the +long avenues, the great vehicle rolls on its course. The dawn peers over +the poplars: the stars quiver out of sight: the sun is up in the sky, and +the heaven is all in a flame. The night is over—the night of nights. In +all the round world, whether lighted by stars or sunshine, there were not +two people more happy than these had been. + +A very short time afterwards, at the end of October, our own little +sea-side sojourn came to an end. That astounding bill for broken glass, +chairs, crockery, was paid. The London steamer takes us all on board on +a beautiful, sunny autumn evening, and lands us at the Custom-house Quay +in the midst of a deep, dun fog, through which our cabs have to work +their way over greasy pavements, and bearing two loads of silent and +terrified children. Ah, that return, if but after a fortnight’s absence +and holiday! Oh, that heap of letters lying in a ghastly pile, and yet +so clearly visible in the dim twilight of master’s study! We cheerfully +breakfast by candlelight for the first two days after my arrival at home, +and I have the pleasure of cutting a part of my chin off because it is +too dark to shave at nine o’clock in the morning. + +My wife can’t be so unfeeling as to laugh and be merry because I have +met with an accident which temporarily disfigures me? If the dun fog +makes her jocular, she has a very queer sense of humour. She has a +letter before her, over which she is perfectly radiant. When she is +especially pleased I can see by her face and a particular animation and +affectionateness towards the rest of the family. On this present morning +her face beams out of the fog-clouds. The room is illuminated by it, and +perhaps by the two candles which are placed one on either side of the +urn. The fire crackles, and flames, and spits most cheerfully; and the +sky without, which is of the hue of brown paper, seems to set off the +brightness of the little interior scene. + +“A letter from Charlotte, papa,” cries one little girl, with an air of +consequence. “And a letter from uncle Philip, papa!” cries another; “and +they like Paris so much,” continues the little reporter. + +“And there, sir, didn’t I tell you?” cries the lady, handing me over a +letter. + +“Mamma always told you so,” echoes the child, with an important nod of +the head; “and I shouldn’t be surprised if he were to be _very rich_, +should you, mamma?” continues this arithmetician. + +I would not put Miss Charlotte’s letter into print if I could, for do you +know that little person’s grammar was frequently incorrect; there were +three or four words spelt wrongly; and the letter was so _scored_ and +_marked_ with _dashes_ under _every_ other _word_, that it is clear to +me her education had been neglected; and as I am very fond of her, I do +not wish to make fun of her. And I can’t print Mr. Philip’s letter, for +I haven’t kept it. Of what use keeping letters? I say, Burn, burn, burn. +No heart-pangs. No reproaches. No yesterday. Was it happy, or miserable? +To think of it is always melancholy. Go to! I daresay it is the thought +of that fog, which is making this sentence so dismal. Meanwhile there is +Madam Laura’s face smiling out of the darkness, as pleased as may be; and +no wonder, she is always happy when her friends are so. + +Charlotte’s letter contained a full account of the settlement of the +Baynes family at Madame Smolensk’s boarding-house, where they appear to +have been really very comfortable, and to have lived at a very cheap +rate. As for Mr. Philip, he made his way to a crib, to which his artist +friends had recommended him, on the Faubourg St. Germain side of the +water—the Hotel Poussin, in the street of that name, which lies, you +know, between the Mazarin Library and the Musée des Beaux Arts. In former +days, my gentleman had lived in state and bounty in the English hotels +and quarter. Now he found himself very handsomely lodged for thirty +francs per month, and with five or six pounds, he has repeatedly said +since, he could carry through the month very comfortably. I don’t say, +my young traveller, that _you_ can be so lucky now-a-days. Are we not +telling a story of twenty years ago? Aye marry. Ere steam-coaches had +begun to scream on French rails; and when Louis Philippe was king. + +As soon as Mr. Philip Firmin is ruined he must needs fall in love. In +order to be near the beloved object, he must needs follow her to Paris, +and give up his promised studies for the bar at home; where, to do him +justice, I believe the fellow would never have done any good. And he has +not been in Paris a fortnight when that fantastic jade Fortune, who had +seemed to fly away from him, gives him a smiling look of recognition, as +if to say, “Young gentleman, I have not quite done with you.” + +The good fortune was not much. Do not suppose that Philip suddenly drew +a twenty-thousand pound prize in a lottery. But, being in much want of +money, he suddenly found himself enabled to earn some in a way pretty +easy to himself. + +In the first place, Philip found his friends Mr. and Mrs. Mugford in a +bewildered state in the midst of Paris, in which city Mugford would never +consent to have a _laquais de place_, being firmly convinced to the day +of his death that he knew the French language quite sufficiently for all +purposes of conversation. Philip, who had often visited Paris before, +came to the aid of his friends in a two-franc dining-house, which he +frequented for economy’s sake; and they, because they thought the banquet +there provided not only cheap, but most magnificent and satisfactory. He +interpreted for them, and rescued them from their perplexity, whatever +it was. He treated them handsomely to caffy on the bullyvard, as Mugford +said on returning home and in recounting the adventure to me. “He can’t +forget that he has been a swell: and he does do things like a gentleman, +that Firmin does. He came back with us to our hotel—Meurice’s,” said Mr. +Mugford, “and who should drive into the yard and step out of his carriage +but Lord Ringwood—you know Lord Ringwood; everybody knows him. As he +gets out of his carriage—‘What! is that you, Philip?’ says his lordship, +giving the young fellow his hand. ‘Come and breakfast with me to-morrow +morning.’ And away he goes most friendly.” + +How came it to pass that Lord Ringwood, whose instinct of +self-preservation was strong—who, I fear, was rather a selfish +nobleman—and who, of late, as we have heard, had given orders to refuse +Mr. Philip entrance at his door—should all of a sudden turn round and +greet the young man with cordiality? In the first place, Philip had +never troubled his lordship’s knocker at all; and second, as luck would +have it, on this very day of their meeting his lordship had been to dine +with that well-known Parisian resident and _bon vivant_, my Lord Viscount +Trim, who had been governor of the Sago Islands when Colonel Baynes was +there with his regiment, the gallant 100th. And the general and his old +West India governor meeting at church, my Lord Trim straightway asked +General Baynes to dinner, where Lord Ringwood was present, along with +other distinguished company, whom at present we need not particularize. +Now it has been said that Philip Ringwood, my lord’s brother, and Captain +Baynes in early youth had been close friends, and that the colonel had +died in the captain’s arms. Lord Ringwood, who had an excellent memory +when he chose to use it, was pleased on this occasion to remember General +Baynes and his intimacy with his brother in old days. And of those old +times they talked; the general waxing more eloquent, I suppose, than his +wont over Lord Trim’s excellent wine. And in the course of conversation +Philip was named, and the general, warm with drink, poured out a most +enthusiastic eulogium on his young friend, and mentioned how noble and +self-denying Philip’s conduct had been in his own case. And perhaps Lord +Ringwood was pleased at hearing these praises of his brother’s grandson; +and perhaps he thought of old times, when he had a heart, and he and +his brother loved each other. And though he might think Philip Firmin +an absurd young blockhead for giving up any claims which he might have +on General Baynes, at any rate I have no doubt his lordship thought, +‘This boy is not likely to come begging money from me!’ Hence, when he +drove back to his hotel on the very night after this dinner, and in the +court-yard saw that Philip Firmin, his brother’s grandson, the heart of +the old nobleman was smitten with a kindly sentiment, and he bade Philip +to come and see him. + +I have described some of Philip’s oddities, and amongst these was a very +remarkable change in his appearance, which ensued very speedily after +his ruin. I know that the greater number of story readers are young, and +those who are ever so old remember that their own young days occurred but +a very, very short while ago. Don’t you remember, most potent, grave, +and reverend senior, when you were a junior, and actually rather pleased +with new clothes? Does a new coat or a waistcoat cause you any pleasure +now? To a well-constituted middle-aged gentleman, I rather trust a smart +new suit causes a sensation of uneasiness—not from the tightness of the +fit, which may be a reason—but from the gloss and splendour. When my late +kind friend, Mrs. ——, gave me the emerald tabinet waistcoat, with the +gold shamrocks, I wore it once to go to Richmond to dine with her; but +I buttoned myself so closely in an upper coat, that I am sure nobody in +the omnibus saw what a painted vest I had on. Gold sprigs and emerald +tabinet, what a gorgeous raiment! It has formed for ten years the chief +ornament of my wardrobe; and though I have never dared to wear it since, +I always think with a secret pleasure of possessing that treasure. Do +women, when they are sixty, like handsome and fashionable attire, and a +youthful appearance? Look at Lady Jezebel’s blushing cheek, her raven +hair, her splendid garments! But this disquisition may be carried to too +great a length. I want to note a fact which has occurred not seldom in my +experience—that men who have been great dandies will often and suddenly +give up their long-accustomed splendour of dress, and walk about, most +happy and contented, with the shabbiest of coats and hats. No. The +majority of men are not vain about their dress. For instance, within a +very few years, men used to have pretty feet. See in what a resolute +way they have kicked their pretty boots off almost to a man, and wear +great, thick, formless, comfortable walking boots, of shape scarcely more +graceful than a tub! + +When Philip Firmin first came on the town there were dandies still; there +were dazzling waistcoats of velvet and brocade, and tall stocks with +cataracts of satin; there were pins, studs, neck-chains, I know not what +fantastic splendours of youth. His varnished boots grew upon forests of +trees. He had a most resplendent silver-gilt dressing-case, presented to +him by his father (for which, it is true, the doctor neglected to pay, +leaving that duty to his son). “It is a mere ceremony,” said the worthy +doctor, “a cumbrous thing you may fancy at first; but take it about with +you. It looks well on a man’s dressing-table at a country house. It +_poses_ a man, you understand. I have known women come in and peep at it. +A trifle you may say, my boy; but what is the use of flinging any chance +in life away?” Now, when misfortune came, young Philip flung away all +these magnificent follies. He wrapped himself _virtute suâ_; and I am +bound to say a more queer-looking fellow than friend Philip seldom walked +the pavement of London or Paris. He could not wear the nap off all his +coats, or rub his elbows into rags in six months; but, as he would say +of himself with much simplicity, “I do think I run to seed more quickly +than any fellow I ever knew. All my socks in holes, Mrs. Pendennis; all +my shirt-buttons gone, I give you my word. I don’t know how the things +hold together, and why they don’t tumble to pieces. I suspect I must +have a bad laundress.” Suspect! My children used to laugh and crow as +they sewed buttons on to him. As for the Little Sister, she broke into +his apartments in his absence, and said that it turned her hair grey to +see the state of his poor wardrobe. I believe that Mrs. Brandon put in +surreptitious linen into his drawers. He did not know. He wore the shirts +in a contented spirit. The glossy boots began to crack and then to burst, +and Philip wore them with perfect equanimity. Where were the beautiful +lavender and lemon gloves of last year? His great naked hands (with +which he gesticulates so grandly) were as brown as an Indian’s now. We +had liked him heartily in his days of splendour; we loved him now in his +threadbare suit. + +I can fancy the young man striding into the room where his lordship’s +guests were assembled. In the presence of great or small, Philip has +always been entirely unconcerned, and he is one of the half-dozen men +I have seen in my life upon whom rank made no impression. It appears +that, on occasion of this breakfast, there were one or two dandies +present who were aghast at Philip’s freedom of behaviour. He engaged +in conversation with a famous French statesman; contradicted him with +much energy in his own language; and when the statesman asked whether +monsieur was membre du Parlement? Philip burst into one of his roars of +laughter, which almost breaks the glasses on a table, and said, “Je suis +journaliste, monsieur, à vos ordres!” Young Timbury of the embassy was +aghast at Philip’s insolence; and Dr. Botts, his lordship’s travelling +physician, looked at him with a terrified face. A bottle of claret was +brought, which almost all the gentlemen present began to swallow, until +Philip, tasting his glass, called out, “Faugh. It’s corked!” “So it is, +and very badly corked,” growls my lord, with one of his usual oaths. “Why +didn’t some of you fellows speak? Do you like corked wine?” There were +gallant fellows round that table who would have drunk corked black dose, +had his lordship professed to like senna. The old host was tickled and +amused. “Your mother was a quiet soul, and your father used to bow like a +dancing-master. You ain’t much like him. I dine at home most days. Leave +word in the morning with my people, and come when you like, Philip,” he +growled. A part of this news Philip narrated to us in his letter, and +other part was given verbally by Mr. and Mrs. Mugford on their return to +London. “I tell you, sir,” says Mugford, “he has been taken by the hand +by some of the tiptop people, and I have booked him at three guineas a +week for a letter to the _Pall Mall Gazette_.” + +And this was the cause of my wife’s exultation and triumphant “Didn’t +I tell you?” Philip’s foot was on the ladder; and who so capable of +mounting to the top? When happiness and a fond and lovely girl were +waiting for him there, would he lose heart, spare exertion, or be afraid +to climb? He had no truer well-wisher than myself, and no friend who +liked him better, though, I daresay, many admired him much more than I +did. But these were women for the most part; and women become so absurdly +unjust and partial to persons whom they love, when these latter are in +misfortune, that I am surprised Mr. Philip did not quite lose his head +in his poverty, with such fond flatterers and sycophants round about +him. Would you grudge him the consolation to be had from these sweet +uses of adversity? Many a heart would be hardened but for the memory of +past griefs; when eyes, now averted, perhaps, were full of sympathy, and +hands, now cold, were eager to soothe and succour. + + + + +The Dissolution of the Union. + + +Hardly any event, even in these days of great events, is more melancholy +or memorable than the disruption of the United States. The history of +England is entitled (with a doubtful exception in favour of that of Rome) +to be considered as the most important chapter in the annals of the human +race; for it describes the growth of institutions and the development +of principles by which the largest and far the most flourishing part +of mankind regulate their affairs. In another century, our language +and literature, and, to a great extent, our laws and institutions, +will express the thoughts and control the conduct of the population of +more than half the world; and we have, therefore, an interest closely +resembling that which connects blood relations in the prosperity of the +great nations sprung from the same stock as ourselves. + +To every one who takes this view of the feelings which ought to exist +between England and the United States, it must be matter of sincere +regret that anything should diminish the friendliness of our relations. +There is, however, reason to fear that the Americans have been deeply +mortified by the feeling with which the secession of the Southern States +has been regarded in this country; and if newspaper articles are taken +as sufficient evidence of public feeling on the subject, it must be +admitted that the feeling, if not wise, is at least intelligible. Our +principal journals have, no doubt, uniformly treated the disruption of +the Union and the prospect of civil war as great evils; but they have +frequently taken a ground which is not in itself reasonable, and which +to all Americans, and especially to all Northerners, must be excessively +offensive, respecting the whole dispute. They almost invariably discuss +the subject as if the case were the simple one of a dependency wishing +to free itself from the yoke of a superior, and they constantly dwell +upon that most inconclusive and irritating of all topics, the charge +of inconsistency. With what pretence of fairness, it is said, can you +Americans object to the secession of the Southern States, when your +own nation was founded in secession from the British empire? It would +be as reasonable to ask how a man, who has successfully defended one +action, can ever have the face to be plaintiff in another. The fact, +that resistance to a constituted government may sometimes be right, no +more proves that it can never be wrong, than the fact that it is right +to shoot an invader proves that there is no such crime as murder. The +analogy between George III. and Washington, and President Lincoln and +President Davis, is just near enough to be at once delusive and annoying. +If the object is to vex the Americans, and chuckle with more or less +ingenuity over their troubles, the course which our most influential +papers have taken is a wise one. If we wish to understand the merits of +the question, and the way in which it presents itself to those whom it +principally concerns, we must take a very different view of it. + +To Englishmen in general, American politics present a sort of maze +without a plan. The strange names of Indian places and rulers were +described by Sydney Smith as non-conductors of sympathy, and in American +politics a somewhat similar effect is produced by the opposite cause. +There is nothing impressive in the names of the politicians, and nothing +distinctive in their measures. Men are elected to high office, who, +beyond their own State, were utterly unknown; and the announcement of +their respective “platforms” and “tickets” leaves most English readers +of American news as hopelessly in the dark as if it were made in some +unknown tongue. + +Much of this confusion is undoubtedly due to the general ignorance which +prevails in this country as to the nature and gist of American politics. +Hardly any one knows what is the real nature of the Union—how it is +related to the individual States—what are the sort of questions which +arise out of that relation, and what would be implied in its disruption. +In the absence of a clear general view of these matters, it is idle to +attempt to form an opinion on the present condition of the seceding +States, or to criticize the policy of those who wish either to destroy or +to maintain the Union by force of arms. It is the object of this paper to +give a general sketch of these matters in relation to the present state +of affairs. The United States of America formed, up to the time of the +late secession, a body politic of an unexampled kind. Both in ancient +and modern times confederacies have frequently been established. The old +German empire, the existing Germanic Confederation, Switzerland, and the +Dutch United Provinces, are instances. The United States of America are +distinguished from other confederacies by the circumstance that they +exercise a direct jurisdiction not only over the States, but also over +the individuals who compose those States. This distinction is one of +practical and substantial importance; and without a distinct notion of +the way in which it works the character of the Union and its politics can +hardly be understood. Its leading features are shortly as follows. + +The colonial history of the United States supplies several instances +in which they associated themselves together for common defence. The +New England colonies did so in the seventeenth century, and their +association lasted without the notice of the mother country for forty +years. Another union of a somewhat similar kind was attempted in the +course of the eighteenth century, not out of any feeling of hostility +to Great Britain, but simply for purposes of mutual assistance. During +the War of Independence a third confederacy was formed, by the help of +which the struggle with England was brought to a successful conclusion. +Subsequently to the year 1783 the league between the thirteen States +continued under another form; but their connection, as in former cases, +was nothing more than a confederacy the units of which were States, +and not individuals. The constitution which is at present undergoing +the process of dissolution was framed by the principal statesmen of the +nation in 1787, and by June, 1790, was finally ratified and accepted +by all the States. No one who reads it with attention, and follows +out its practical application in the subsequent history and present +condition of the States, can fail to see that the language common +amongst Englishmen in relation to the dissolution of the Union proceeds +upon an inadequate notion of the importance of the benefits which the +constitution confers, the magnitude of the interests which it protects, +and the practical importance of the questions which would be at once +raised by its dissolution. There cannot be a greater mistake than that +of viewing the States as a mere league, some of the members of which are +struggling to retain the rest as allies against their will; or as a sort +of transatlantic Austria, insisting on the subjugation of a transatlantic +Venice. + +The following sketch of the principal provisions of the constitution may +serve to give a definite notion of what it is for which the Northerners +are preparing to fight. Every one knows that the United States are +governed by a President and a Congress, consisting of two Houses, +the Senate and the House of Representatives; but viewing them, as we +naturally do, principally from without, the way in which the powers of +government are divided between Congress and the State legislatures, and +the consequences which that division involves, are less familiar to us. + +The powers conferred by the constitution on Congress are as follows. It +may impose taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, which, however, must be +uniform on all the inhabitants of the States. It may borrow money on +the credit of the United States of America. It may regulate commerce, +lay down a general rule of naturalization, regulate the coinage, and +punish offences relating to it. It has also the care of post-offices +and post roads, and the superintendence of copyright, both in books +and in inventions. It has jurisdiction over offences committed at sea. +It has the power of war and peace, the control of the United States’ +army and navy, and military law. It regulates the calling out and the +organization of the State militia for common purposes. It is the sole +government of the district of Columbia, in which Washington is situated; +and it has power to make laws binding on the individual citizens of every +State in the Union, for the purpose of executing any of these powers. +All sovereign powers not included under these heads are reserved to the +individual States, but they are expressly prohibited from exercising +their sovereignty in certain ways. No State may enter into alliances, or +make peace or war, or emit bills of credit, or make anything but gold and +silver coin a tender in payment of debts, or pass any bill of attainder, +_ex post facto_ law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or +grant any title of nobility. + +It has not been uncommon in Europe for States to give themselves +constitutions which have been ridiculed in this country (often not +reasonably) on the ground that the provisions which had the largest +sound were in fact mere empty words. This cannot be said of the American +constitution. Its practical efficiency is secured by the only means which +can secure it—the institution of independent courts of justice bound +to put a judicial construction upon its provisions, and armed with the +powers necessary to make that construction prevail in fact. These courts +treat the constitution as they would treat any other law, and freely +exercise the power of deciding whether the acts of the individual States, +or even those of Congress itself, are unconstitutional and therefore +illegal. The courts in question are divisible into three classes. In +the first class stands the Supreme Court of the United States; in the +second are the circuit courts; and in the third, the district courts. +The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in diplomatic cases, in +admiralty and maritime cases, in cases arising between individual +States, and in cases in which the United States are a party. It also +entertains appeals from the circuit and district courts. The circuit +courts and district courts are local, and closely resemble each other in +the general character of their jurisdiction, though the circuit courts +are the more important of the two. They entertain all civil causes above +500 dollars in which the United States is a party, or in which an alien +is a party, or in which the citizen of one State sues the citizen of +another. They have also criminal jurisdiction in all cases in which the +offence is committed against the laws of the United States, and they +decide questions relating to revenue laws and the laws of patents and +copyrights. In the territories which are not yet formed into States the +law is administered by district courts. + +The consequence of this system is, that in relation to all the mass of +powers conferred upon Congress by the constitution, the citizens of the +United States are governed by, and are in their individual capacity +responsible to, the authorities of the United States to the exclusion of +those of their own States, and in many points they can appeal not only +from the law courts, but from the State legislatures, to the general law +of the United States. For example: Dartmouth College obtained from the +Supreme Court a decision that a law of the State of New Hampshire, by +which its charter was altered without its consent, was void, as being +opposed to that article of the constitution which prohibits the States +from “passing laws impairing the obligation of contracts.” In the same +manner another State assigned lands for the use of the Indians, and +declared that those lands should not be taxed. The land was afterwards +sold to other persons, and after the sale the State repealed the law +freeing the land from taxation. This law was held to be void on the same +ground. + +The constitutional right of Congress to tax carriages in a particular +manner, to tax unrepresented districts, to pass a law giving debts to +the United States priority over others, and to incorporate a national +bank, are instances of the sort of questions on which the Supreme Court +has given judicial decisions. These decisions, whether they are between +State and State, between the United States and some particular State, +or between States and individuals, are enforced by regular executive +officers like any other judicial decisions. + +The practical consequences of the system, of which these are a few of the +most prominent features, are far more important than the language which +we generally use about it would imply. We are so much accustomed to the +extraordinary rapidity with which the United States advance in wealth +and power, that we are a little apt to look upon their prosperity as an +ultimate fact requiring no explanation. In fact, like everything else, +it has its causes, and, no doubt, one of the most important of them is +the influence of the Union. There can be no doubt that it contributes +immensely to the prosperity of every State which belongs to it, and that +its maintenance forms almost the only means by which the settlement and +government of the continent can be provided for. In the first place, +so long as it exists, war between any of the States which compose it +is impossible. If we recollect what has been the general character of +the history of modern Europe, this in itself must be considered as an +advantage which can hardly be bought too dear. In the next place, it +provides every American citizen with a sphere of activity unequalled for +extent and variety in the history of mankind. He may make his choice +between more than thirty great nations, of any one of which he can, by +mere residence, constitute himself a citizen. In each of them he is as +much at home as an Englishman in Ireland, if not more. In each he is, +to a great extent, under the same laws; he enjoys the same political +rights; and the most important of these are guaranteed by all the other +members of the Union. Under any circumstances, these would be valuable +results; but, under the special circumstances of North America, their +value is greatly enhanced. The population is by far the most migratory +in the world. It is inordinately bent upon every kind of enterprise by +which money is to be made, and the consequence is that anything which +could shackle the free movement of the people to any part of the country, +or diminish the ease with which they can at present establish themselves +wherever they please, would be intolerable to them. The existence of the +Union favours these tendencies in the highest degree. Its dissolution +would place a serious check upon them. The existing constitution not +only protects the whole of the United States from intestine war, but +gives to each of them, and to all the citizens of each, rights which are +unexampled elsewhere. We are so much accustomed to think and speak of +the United States as a single nation, that we forget the means by which +they gained, and by which (if at all) they must retain, that character. +There is no other part of the world in which communities larger and +more powerful than most nations can settle their differences with each +other and with individuals by the ordinary course of law, in the proper +sense of the word, and not by diplomatic negotiations. It is, for many +purposes, as easy to sue or to be sued by the semi-sovereign States +of the American Union as to sue or be sued by an English corporation; +and this circumstance enables a set of relations to be formed amongst +them which do not exist elsewhere, and invests them, when they are +formed, with guarantees which but for the existence of the Union could +not be given. When we remember the vital importance which, under the +special circumstances of the country, attaches to roads, railways, the +navigation of the great rivers and lakes, and other matters, in each of +which numerous half-independent States have different and often jarring +interests, the practical importance of a system of judicature by which +their relations may be regulated becomes apparent. Probably there is +no considerable commercial company in the Union which would not find +the security of its property depreciated, and its power of enforcing +its rights and guaranteeing the discharge of its obligations sensibly +diminished, by the dissolution of the Union, and the closing of the +Federal courts. + +With regard to foreign politics, the matter is too plain for doubt. +The dissolution of the Union would go far to destroy altogether the +diplomatic influence and external political power of the United States; +and, indeed, some influential writers have gone so far as to maintain +that such a result ought to be regarded in this country not merely with +equanimity but with satisfaction. It would, we are told, diminish the +insolence and the swagger which so often offend foreigners. Whatever +truth there may be in this, it must be gall and wormwood to Americans. + +Such being the general nature and advantages of the Union, it is not to +be expected that the Americans in general should view its dissolution +with equanimity; nor can there be a doubt that if they mean to resist +it by force, now is the time at which that force must be used. If the +Southern States were allowed to secede without resistance, the Union +would be at an end, and it is impossible to predict where the process of +dissolution would stop. The history of the Union shows that slavery is by +no means the only question which may threaten its integrity. At the time +of the Hartford Convention the New England States seriously threatened +secession. If the Southerners succeed in their present undertaking, it is +highly probable that the Western States, of which the Mississippi is the +natural outlet, may follow their example, and if they did so the process +might easily go farther. + +These considerations explain the importance which the Americans attach to +the Union, and the necessity under which they are placed of defending it +by force at this point if they mean to defend it at all. It is urged in +opposition to this, that it is inconsistent in republicans to attempt to +force men to continue members of a community which they wish to leave, +and that it is particularly inconsistent in the Americans to do so, +because they owe their own national existence to a revolt against Great +Britain. There are several independent answers to this argument, each of +which ought to prevent either _bonâ-fide_ inquirers or accurate reasoners +from using it. In the first place, it proves nothing, for the question +is not whether the Americans are consistent, but whether they are +right—that is, whether they are taking the course which is, on the whole, +best and wisest. To charge them with inconsistency, even if the charge +were true, could produce nothing but irritation; for if such a charge +were made out, it would come to this: “You are quite right in trying to +reduce the South to obedience, but you must admit that the principles +which your grandfathers fought for in 1776 were false.” If they are +right, what is the use of vexing them about their grandfathers? If they +are wrong, why increase the difficulty of convincing them by undertaking +to show that the error is condemned by the example of their grandfathers? +The whole argument is invidious, and serves no other purpose than that of +creating prejudice and rancour. + +In the second place the charge is altogether untrue. The tone of jovial, +half-chuckling banter which is the curse of newspaper writing, so much +obscures the arguments which are put forward on this subject, that it is +generally difficult to do exact justice to them. Sometimes it appears as +if the writer meant to say that under a republican form of government +no one ought to be made to do anything he disliked. This, of course, +would be fatal not only to the rights of such governments to suppress +insurrection, but to their right to administer civil or criminal justice. +At other times the ground taken appears to be substantially this—that +republican institutions generally, and the government of the United +States in particular, are founded on the principle that every body of men +competent in point of number and local situation to form an independent +political body, has a right, as against any other body of which it forms +a part, to announce its intention of doing so, and immediately to carry +that intention into execution, and that the body of which it forms a +part has no right forcibly to prevent it. This, it is asserted, is the +only principle on which the American Declaration of Independence can be +justified, and it equally justifies the Confederate States in seceding +from the Union. + +This argument proceeds on an entire misconception of the principles +by which nations ought to regulate their relations to each other. +The conduct of independent communities towards each other must, on +all occasions of importance, be regulated not by rule, but by direct +reference to the principles upon which rules are founded; that is to +say, by the direct consideration of the consequences of the particular +act; and it is by this principle, and not in virtue of some imaginary +right, that successful resistance to constituted authorities is to be +justified. The establishment of American independence was, on the whole, +a good thing both for Great Britain and for the United States; and this, +and this only, was the justification of those who contributed to it. How +does it follow from this that the secession of the Southern States would +also be justifiable? The only intelligible meaning of which the principle +under consideration is capable is, that the original State ought always +to consider itself practically bound by the opinion of the revolting +State, that the success of their revolt is for the common good; which is +manifestly absurd. There are, in truth (as might be shown by independent +arguments), no such thing as rights between communities, and it is +therefore absurd to charge the United States with their violation. The +conduct of both, or of either party, may be wise, beneficial, honourable, +deceitful, foolish, or injurious; but, apart from the express rights +conferred by the constitution, which, as far as they go, are beyond all +doubt in favour of the Northern States, there is, and can be, no question +of right between them. + +This mode of viewing the subject is that which might properly be applied +to the case of a European power in which the relations between the +governors and the governed have never been explicitly determined, but +depend upon general principles of reasoning. For example, if Ireland were +to proclaim its independence, they would supply the means of forming an +opinion about it. In America the case is altogether different. There +is no question of oppression; there is no assertion that the South has +been in any way threatened or injured; and, on the other hand, there is +a constitution solemnly instituted only seventy-five years ago, under +which the Southerners have acted ever since, of which they have reaped +every advantage to the very utmost, and which they now claim a right to +throw to the winds, without assigning any other cause than their own will +to do so. Their case is not that of resistance to authority, legitimate +or illegitimate; it is the wrongful repudiation of a relationship which +they have no right to dissolve. It is as if a wife, after hen-pecking her +husband for twenty years, claimed a right to divorce him. + +The whole history of the question of slavery and of the party questions +connected with it for the last forty years are proofs of this.[1] It is +far less familiar to Englishmen than from its importance it deserves to +be. The names, indeed, of the Missouri Compromise, Mason and Dixie’s +Line, the Border Ruffians, and the War in Kansas, are familiar enough +to us all, but hardly any one attaches any definite meaning to them. +The subject, however, forms a connected whole, and when its bearings +are understood, it throws great light on the present proceedings, both +of the North and of the South. In order to understand the matter, it +is necessary to say a few words as to the constitution of Congress. +Each State has in the House of Representatives one member for every +30,000 inhabitants. Three-fifths of the slaves count as inhabitants, +and by this means the Southerners, though their white population is +far smaller than the population of the Northern States, have about as +many representatives. Moreover, each State, large or small, sends two +representatives to the Senate. + +When the constitution was established, slave-holding was nearly +universal; but it was acknowledged by all the leading statesmen of the +day, that it was an evil, though they described it as an inherited, and +for the time an inevitable one. In the Northern States, where the slaves +were few, and where white labour could obviously compete with that of +negroes, slavery was rapidly abolished, and by degrees the distinction +between slave and free States came to coincide with the distinction +between North and South. As this gradually became the leading feature in +American politics, the Southern States exerted themselves to the utmost +to obtain a majority, or, at any rate, to secure an equality of votes, +in the Senate. The only way in which this could be done was by adding +to the Union as many slave States as possible. As Miss Martineau truly +says, “the key to the entire policy of the United States for the last +quarter of a century is the effort of the South to maintain a majority in +the Senate at Washington.” The original United States, as is well known, +were thirteen in number, namely, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, +Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia, +North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Maryland. The western +boundaries of several of these, and especially those of Virginia, were +almost entirely undefined. Soon after the recognition of independence, +the boundaries of Virginia were fixed, the lands excluded thrown into a +common stock, and an arrangement was made that slavery should never be +established on them. Whether or no this arrangement was constitutional, +is a question which has been much discussed, but it was made and has been +acted on. Several States, including Ohio, Kentucky, and others, were +formed out of them. + +In 1803, the immense territory of Louisiana, which included not only the +State so named, but districts subsequently formed into several others, +was purchased by the United States from France; and in 1819, the State of +Missouri, which had formed part of this territory, applied for admission +to the Union, and a great debate arose as to the terms on which it was +to be admitted. If it was admitted as a slave State, slavery would be +in a majority in the Senate; if not, in a minority. Ultimately, it was +admitted as a slave State; but, at the same time, it was provided that +slavery should be prohibited in every other part of the Union north of +36° 30′ north latitude (which is known as Mason and Dixie’s line). This +arrangement was made in 1819, and is the well-known Missouri compromise. +Its effect was to make slavery distinctly a Southern institution, and +from that time the great effort of Southern politicians has been to get +into the Union as many States as possible south of 36° 30′. This was the +object of almost all Southern policy for many years, and in particular +was the secret of the annexation of Texas, which it was intended to form +into five States, sending ten members to the Senate. At last the North, +which in political warfare has always been far inferior in skill and +energy to the South, tried to counteract this by adding free States on +the other hand. This gave rise to what was known as the compromise of +1850. California was added on the terms of choosing its own constitution, +and it chose against slavery; but this was counterbalanced by the +enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law. In 1854, the Missouri compromise +was repealed, and new States, whether north or south of 36° 30′, were +allowed to choose whether they would permit slavery or not. This was at +the time when Kansas and Nebraska, both of which lay to the north of that +line, were on the point of becoming States. Great efforts were made, both +by the North and by the South, to determine the inhabitants of Kansas to +vote for slavery. On the one side, the Northerners supplied settlers; on +the other, the Southerners instigated the “mean whites,” who form the +most degraded class in the Southern States, to enter the territory and +force the choice of the electors—an object which they effected after +outrages of various kinds, which broke out at one time into a sort of +small civil war. + +Such have been the leading events of the controversy between the North +and the South during the last forty years. Throughout the greater part, +and especially throughout the latter part of it, the South have had, +beyond all comparison, the larger share of the influence and power of +the Union. Every successive President, for many years past, has more or +less represented Southern views. The whole course of Federal legislation +has been in the interests of the South. The foreign policy of the Union, +especially its American policy, has been usually dictated principally +by their wish to add new slave States to the Union; and even the +decrees of the Supreme Court have not been free from traces of Southern +influence. Many circumstances have contributed to put the South in this +position; the most remarkable being the comparatively small number and +superior adroitness of the Southern planters, who have much greater +political aptitude and more independence than the Northern statesmen—the +simplicity and directness of their political objects—and, above all, +their comparative indifference to the maintenance of the Union. Though +they have enjoyed to the utmost all the advantages which the Union +had to give—though they have directed its policy, forced the Northern +States, in the case of the Fugitive Slave Law, to discharge humiliating +functions for them, and gone far towards effecting the object, to +borrow a well-known expression, of “making slavery national and freedom +sectional,” they care far less about the Union than the Northerners. +They enjoy over them all the advantages which a simple society has over +one which is at once wealthy, ambitious, and complex. The planter’s +pursuits are so simple that the considerations which influence other +Americans affect him but slightly. Whatever becomes of the rest of the +Union, he can grow and sell his cotton, so long as he has slaves and +customers. He cares, and has reason to care, comparatively little for the +enterprises which excite a passionate enthusiasm amongst the Northerners, +and which tend to the conversion of the whole continent, in the shortest +possible space of time, into one enormous hive of moderate comfort. +To the North, the dissolution of the Union means the establishment of +internal frontiers, the destruction of the Federal jurisdiction, and with +it a severe shock to all sorts of commercial enterprises, the opening +of fruitful sources of jealousy, and the diminution of the external +prestige of the nation. To the South it means nothing very formidable. +As secession would be their act, and not that of their rivals, it would +not hurt, but rather flatter, their national pride. They would have it in +their power to reopen the slave trade; and as their internal enterprises +are few, in comparison with those of the North, they would care +comparatively little for the destruction of the Federal jurisdiction. +These circumstances have enabled the Southerners for years to hold the +threat of dissolving the Union over the North as a means of coercion, and +there can be no doubt at all that the threat has been most effective. For +a long period Northern politicians have made every sort of concession to +the South, in order to avoid the question which is now forced upon them, +for no assignable reason except that for the first time for the last +quarter of a century a Northern president has been chosen. + +It is scarcely possible to imagine any state of things more insufferable +to men of spirit, than such a course of conduct as this. Indeed in many +of the steps of the long struggle between the North and the South it is +impossible to deny that the Northerners showed great want of resolution, +and down to the attack on Fort Sumter they continued to display a degree +of forbearance which was hardly dignified. It is of course difficult, if +not impossible, for any one who was not in America, or who had not an +intimate personal knowledge of the state of feeling there, to express any +positive opinion as to the course of the extraordinary change which that +transaction produced. It seems, however, to be like the case of a man +who, after putting up with all sorts of hard words and rough conduct, is +interrupted in the midst of expostulations and offers of compromise by +a box on the ear. Some ridicule was cast by the English papers on what +was described as the unstatesmanlike and technically legal view of the +question between the North and South, and of the way in which it was to +be treated, which the President put forward in his proclamation on taking +office. Some of our most influential newspaper writers thought that it +fell below the occasion, and that a manifesto announcing a course of +policy based on general considerations would have been more appropriate. +Such criticisms betray ignorance of the fundamental principles of the +American constitution. The consequence of the institution of the Supreme +and Federal courts, and of the reduction of the constitution to the form +of a written document technically interpreted by professional lawyers, +has been to remove numerous questions which we treat as questions of +policy to the domain of strict law, and to invest legal doctrines with +a prominence and importance unknown to any other nation. So long as +no actual physical force was applied to the property or forces of the +Union, the Federal law was not broken. The crime of treason is defined +to consist in “levying war against the United States, or adhering +to their enemies only.” The President has well-defined legal powers +and responsibilities, and is bound by oath to act upon them. It is, +therefore, natural enough that both he and the Northern States generally +should have submitted patiently to acts on the part of the Southern +States which no Continental government would have permitted on the part +of any member of the nation, and which even in the British Islands would +have been illegal. + +The eagerness with which the Northerners deprecated “coercion” in the +early stages of the business, probably showed little more than reluctance +to strike the first blow. A parallel might have arisen in England in the +days of the Irish volunteers before the Union. It would have been quite +consistent, then, for the newspapers and men of business to entreat +the Government to take every possible means of avoiding collision, +to allow the volunteers to assemble and the Irish Parliament to pass +any resolutions it pleased, and yet to burst out into any degree of +indignation and excitement if the English troops had been actually +attacked and the Lord Lieutenant shipped back to England. It is very +probable that Englishmen would have been less forbearing before the blow +was struck, and less noisy afterwards; but this is a mere question of +temperament. + +These remarks show that the Northerners are entitled to more sympathy +than they have received from the most influential part of the English +press. They are fighting for an object of real importance. If they were +to fight at all, now is their time, and they have received for many +years past a series of provocations of the most exasperating kind. It +does not, however, follow from this that they are wise in fighting, nor +does it follow that they have any just ground to complain of the conduct +which our Government has pursued towards them. The wisdom of fighting +depends principally on the prospect of success; and on that point, there +can be no doubt of the great weight of the arguments pressed on the +Northern States by several English papers, and especially with admirable +vigour and great knowledge by the _Economist_. These difficulties may +be summed up in one. The constitution of the United States proceeds on +the assumption that each member of the Union wishes to maintain it. To +enforce it _in invitos_ is very like a contradiction in terms. Suppose +that the South is utterly defeated and crushed in the field, and that +Mr. Davis and some others are hanged for treason; and, further, suppose +that in the year 1864 the South succeeds, as it has so often succeeded, +in electing a Southern President and out-manœuvring the North: the result +would be grotesque if it were not so melancholy. It would be precisely +as if a man sued successfully for the restitution of conjugal rights +against a woman who, after making his life a burden to him, had left him +without cause. No doubt he would get the advantage of her company at bed +and board, but who would wish for it? To enforce conjugal rights against +a woman bent on making her husband wretched, is in a most emphatic way +cutting off one’s nose to be revenged on one’s face, and, to a cool +observer, the process now going on in the States is of much the same +character. This assumes success, but another familiar proverb shows how +doubtful even such success as this must be. One man may take a horse to +the water, but twenty cannot make him drink. If they are so minded, the +North have a fair prospect of being able to crush the Southern armies, to +take their forts, and to reduce any cities which may hold out; but how +will they make them send members to Congress, recognize the jurisdiction +of the Federal courts, and admit the Federal officers who administer the +offices vested by the constitution in the Congress? A permanent military +occupation of every town and village in all the Southern States would be +necessary to carry out these objects; and this seems to English observers +to be altogether out of the question. If this difficulty were overcome, +the State legislatures would still be protected by the very constitution +which the army of occupation would come to enforce; nor would it be +possible, without fatal inconsistency, to prohibit free discussion in +newspapers, public meetings, and the like. All this would be fatal to +continuous compulsion. + +These observations are so obvious and weighty, that any considerate +Englishman would, as far as his private opinion went, be decided by them; +but those who insist upon them with so much force ought to remember that +there is another side to the subject. To advise brave and high-spirited +men to permit, or not to resist, the forcible, wrongful destruction of +institutions to which they rightly attach the highest value, on the +ground that it is extremely difficult to maintain them, is what men who +recognize the claims of courage and spirit ought to be loth to do. That +the North has right on its side, there can be no doubt. That it has +sustained grievous wrongs and insults, is equally plain. Surely it is +a question rather for them than for us, whether there is a reasonable +prospect of redressing those wrongs by force of arms. A nation, like an +individual, may easily overrate difficulties. It is by no means clear +that the tone of the South will be so haughty as it is at present, or +that their determination to resist will be unanimous after they have +felt the weight of the Northern army. There is no doubt on each side a +superabundance of the very fiercest kind of talk, and of protestations of +unflinching constancy; but it by no means follows that it would survive +the horrors of battles and sieges, and the awful prospect of servile +insurrection. At any rate, no one can know whether it will or not till +they try. Ireland would have been independent long ago if we had taken +the advice of disinterested foreigners about it. In 1857 many writers on +the Continent and in the United States supposed that they had proved in +the most convincing manner that we never could reconquer India. Nothing +that is worth keeping in this world can be kept without an effort; and it +is premature to say that fighting is of no use till it has been fairly +tried. We have a fair right to dwell on all the difficulties and horrors +of the task; but in common justice it must be admitted that the North are +fighting in a good cause and for a high stake. + +Though it would be hard to deny that some injustice has been done to +the Northerners by the tone of the most influential of our newspapers, +nothing can be more false in substance or rude in manner than the +imputations thrown by the Americans on the policy of the English +government. There is something so puerile in the notion that the +recognition of the belligerent rights of the Southerners involves an +approval of their proceedings, that it is difficult to argue seriously +against it. Unless the Northerners mean to execute their prisoners as +murderers and traitors, they must treat them as belligerents. That is, +they must recognize the very rights which they blame us for recognizing. +No doubt their real grievance is that their vanity has been wounded by +the manner in which their performances have been criticized by English +writers. The preceding observations are intended to show how far they +have a just cause of complaint, but it is highly probable that the fact +that we have not taken their demonstrations in quite the same heroic +vein as that in which they are made has had as much to do with their +ill-temper and bad manners, as the misconception as to the true state of +the case, which certainly has pervaded much of our current literature. +For this cause of offence no apology and no regret is due. One of the +principal services which one nation can render to another, especially +where their language and literature are identical, is that of letting +them know when they are exposing themselves. In America, both politics +and periodical literature have fallen, to a great extent, into the hands +of an ill-educated class. The excessive vulgarity of a great part of +what they say and write gives far too low a notion of the strong points +of the American character, and has a fatal tendency to make their policy +as unworthy a representative of the real powers of their minds as their +literature unquestionably is. It is very desirable that every reasonable +opportunity should be taken of showing the noisy and ill-bred people +who have constituted themselves the representatives of the opinions and +feelings of the United States, that we rate them exactly at what they +are worth, and that their brag and fustian have just as much and just +as little effect upon us as the raw-head-and-bloody-bones swagger which +were the precursors of the famous battle of the cabbage-garden in 1848. +The proposal that the North and South should forget their differences +in a joint piratical attack upon Canada and Cuba, is worthy only of +the infamous source from which it proceeds. Those who make it ought to +recollect that something more than newspaper articles will be wanted to +conquer a British colony. Hard words seem at present to be more in their +line than broken bones, and they are much less to the purpose. + + +FOOTNOTES + +[1] _See_ Miss Martineau’s pamphlet, _A History of the American +Compromises_. Reprinted, with additions, from the _Daily News_. Chapman, +1856. + + + + +Burlesques. + + +It is a long stride from Aristophanes to the young men who write the +satirical dramatic pieces of the present day—and yet but one step. It +might be a safe thing to say that that one step is from the sublime to +the ridiculous; but it would scarcely be just. In one important respect +Aristophanes and the burlesque writers of the present day are, like Cæsar +and Pompey in the estimation of the learned negro, very much alike, +especially Aristophanes. Aristophanes, who was certainly the father of +the burlesque, claimed to have a moral purpose in his buffoonery; but +any one who reads over his _Frogs_ or _Clouds_ must inevitably arrive at +the conclusion of the candid German critic, Mueller—that in every word +he wrote, and every piece of “business” he set down, the Greek author +had it chiefly in view to make his audience laugh. George the Third may +have been excused for regarding Wilkes as a Wilkesite; but no one knew, +or ought to have known, better than Aristophanes, that Socrates was not +a sophist. The burlesque writers of our day crack jokes upon Alderman +Carden and Mr. Tupper, not with any hope, or design, of making the one +a juster magistrate, or the other a better poet, but simply to get a +laugh for the actors and for themselves. That Aristophanes had often no +other aim is abundantly proved in every scene of the _Frogs_ and the +_Clouds_. In the former, he claimed to have a very high purpose—nothing +less than the reform of the Greek drama, which, though then only in its +infancy, was said to be in a state of decline. We, in these days, deplore +the decline of the drama when the stage is more than two thousand years +old. Aristophanes lamented its decline when it was yet associated with +wine lees and a cart. We talk fondly and regretfully of the good old +days of Kemble and Kean. Aristophanes and his fellows talked of the good +old times of Æschylus and Euripides. No doubt the critics in Euripides’ +day sighed for the past glories of the age of Thespis. But let us see +how Aristophanes set about reforming the Greek drama by means of his +burlesques. In the _Frogs_, which is especially devoted to that object, +we find Bacchus lamenting the decline of the tragic art. He has a great +longing for Euripides, and determines to visit the infernal world and +bring that much-regretted poet back to earth. He sets out in company +with his servant, Xanthias, crosses the Acherusian lake in Charon’s +boat, serenaded on his way by a chorus of frogs, and arrives in the +Shades. Here he finds Æschylus and Euripides, and proposes that they +should give him a taste of their quality. Pluto takes the chair, and +the two poets stand opposite to each other and deliver the most pompous +specimens of their poetical powers. They sing, they declaim, and each +tries to outdo the other in fine words and ponderous sentences. They are +both so very grand and so very heavy, that Bacchus is quite unable to +decide between them. In this difficulty he calls for a pair of scales, +and proceeds to weigh separate verses of each poet against each other; +when, notwithstanding all the efforts of Euripides to produce ponderous +lines, those of Æschylus always make those of his rival kick the beam. +Bacchus, in the meantime, has become a convert to the merits of Æschylus, +though he had sworn to Euripides to take him back with him to the upper +world. So, dismissing Euripides with a parody of one of his own verses +in the _Hippolytus_, Bacchus returns to the living world with Æschylus. +The whole idea of this burlesque is undoubtedly well conceived, and Greek +scholars can tell with what admirable felicity Aristophanes imitates the +peculiarities of style of Æschylus and Euripides in the speeches he puts +into their mouths; but they must, at the same time, confess that there is +more of fun and banter about the whole proceeding than earnest purpose. +You are made to laugh _at_ the two poets; and we can well imagine how +some actor of the time, by a pompous air and manner in representing +Æschylus, may have produced shouts of laughter at that poet’s expense. +A parallel scene to that in the infernal regions is often witnessed in +actual life in the Slave States of America. Two niggers will sit opposite +to each other and talk, one against the other, for hours at a stretch, +each trying to outdo his opponent in long words and fine-sounding +sentences. Aristophanes just puts the two great Greek tragic poets in +this ridiculous position. The ignorant who witnessed this burlesque of +the _Frogs_ must have come away with the notion, not that Æschylus and +Euripides were very fine and impressive poets, but that they were two +pompous and ridiculous old fogies. After that affair of the scales, one +is sadly inclined to question Aristophanes’ respect for these two poets. + +There is a double purpose in the _Frogs_—to reform dramatic composition, +and also to reform the practices of the stage. In this latter task +Aristophanes shows, even more unmistakeably than in the former, that his +chief aim is to raise a laugh. The Greek dramatic authors of the time +had been in the habit of resorting to certain expedients of a gross and +filthy character, in order to sustain the flagging interest of their +plays. When Bacchus and Xanthias come on in the _Frogs_, a colloquy +ensues as to the value of these expedients, and the propriety of using +them. Xanthias is desirous to indulge in the usual “gags” to make the +audience laugh; but Bacchus, who is anxious to reform the stage, protests +against them. “Let us have no more of this sort of thing,” he says, +“it is filthy and gross, and altogether unworthy of the dramatic art.” +Aristophanes, however, takes good care that his two characters shall talk +sufficiently about these gross practices, and he raises as much laughter +by talking about them, as though he had embodied them in the dialogue +and action of his play, and adopted them as his own. In the scene where +Hercules pops his head out at the door and frightens Bacchus, the author +forgets his high moral purpose altogether, and makes Bacchus do the very +things which the _Frogs_ was written to reprobate and put down. So in +the _Babylonians_ and _Acharnians_, where he attacks the demagogue Cleon, +and in the _Clouds_, where he attacks Socrates, he is obviously bent +upon nothing so much as the amusement of his audience at the expense of +two well-known public characters. The Greek scholar, however, will judge +Aristophanes by another standard. His mastery over the Attic dialect was +complete, and it was all the more striking when placed in contrast with +the rude Greek pronunciation and the broken Greek of foreigners. Perhaps +no writer of any age combined so much exuberant wit, broad humour, +playful fancy, and originality of invention, as Aristophanes. He also +stands alone in his power of twisting language into new and grotesque +forms. His droll imitations of animal sounds, and his eccentric verses +formed of the grunts of pigs and the croaking of frogs, are quite in the +spirit of our modern punning. Still it is not easy to regard him as a +reformer and a regenerator of public morals, even though St. Chrysostom +was wont to keep his plays under his pillow. Plutarch admired neither his +puns nor his purpose. That high authority was evidently of Dr. Johnson’s +opinion with respect to a punster. He regards Aristophanes’ antitheses +and plays upon words as an outrage upon the language, and adds, that +the “audiences which admired such a poet must have been morally and +intellectually depraved.” Critics say the same thing of the audiences +which admire the burlesques of the present day, but possibly with less +justification. + +The stage method adopted by the burlesque writers of our time is +strikingly similar to that followed by Aristophanes. Scenes of dialogue +and scenic display are alternated in both. In the modern burlesque, the +front scenes are enlivened by broad comic duets and nigger dances. Then +the “flats” are drawn off, and we have an elaborate “set”—a castle, a +mountain pass, or a picturesque sea-shore, where the ballet takes the +place of the Greek chorus. Thus, in the _Frogs_, we have a front scene +of broad comic business between Bacchus and Xanthias, and then a grand +full stage “set” of the Acherusian lake, with Charon coming alongside +in his boat. Lastly, we have what the modern playbill calls a “grand +transformation scene,” in the infernal regions, where blue-fire would +have come in very appropriately, had it been then invented. Although the +Greeks, probably, did not use scenes, but dropped the curtain between +the divisions of their plays, yet some of the burlesques of Aristophanes +will be found to be well adapted to the modern method. Substituting an +æsthetical critic for Bacchus, and Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, or Samuel +Johnson and John Dryden, for Æschylus and Euripides, very good fun might +be got out of a version of the _Frogs_ at the Olympic or the Strand. It +might be a question, however, if the gods would understand it. Still, if +the æsthetical critic had a comic servant, and said and did such things +as Bacchus says and does, he could not fail to make them laugh. + +We have said that it is but one step from Aristophanes to the burlesque +writers of the present time. That is, as near as possible, the truth. +The Romans had no burlesque drama, in the Aristophanic sense. Their most +extravagant comedies never dealt with real personages; but aimed at +representing life and manners, and teaching morals by means of a dramatic +fable, which was exemplary, and not didactic. They were comedies of real +life, in the truest sense of the word; the puns and witticisms in which, +though sometimes rather coarse and broad, as in Plautus, never bordered +upon the outrageous and the extravagant. In the search for specimens of +burlesque dramatic literature of the kind we are now considering, we +may hop almost from Aristophanes to Gay, from the _Æolosicon_ to the +_Beggar’s Opera_. As Aristophanes claimed, in the _Frogs_, to have the +purpose of ridiculing the bad tragedies of the time, so Gay professed, in +his _Beggar’s Opera_, to declare war against the Italian opera, which, at +that time, was asserting its sway over the public taste, to the serious +damage of the legitimate drama. Witnessing the _Beggar’s Opera_, as it +is performed in our day, we can readily understand its great popularity +on its first production. Its songs are enough to account for that. But +it is certainly not easy to understand how it came to be regarded as a +telling and pungent burlesque upon Italian opera. It does not turn the +laugh against opera, in the shape it now assumes. When Macheath sings +song after song to Polly, with a few unmeaning words of prose “dialogue” +between, we have no suspicion that he is ridiculing the absurd formula +of the Italian opera. The actor does nothing to indicate anything of the +kind. He is solely intent on singing his songs well, and we are solely +intent on hearing them sung. Instead of being a burlesque upon opera, +it is an opera itself, recommended only in that it possesses the one +enjoyable element of an opera—good music. This is only another proof that +the burlesque writer can never trust to his satire and his “purpose,” +to make his piece “go” with the public. Aristophanes introduced the +gross jokes, which he condemned, to rescue his satire from dulness; and +Gay adopted sprightly airs, for the same purpose. Walker, who first +played Macheath, was a better actor than he was a singer; and it is +probable that, to this circumstance, the _Beggar’s Opera_ owes its great +reputation as a burlesque. Walker imitated the manner of the Italian +actors to perfection, and caused roars of laughter by gestures and by +mimicry of operatic action, which are now altogether lost sight of. Had +Quin, for whom the part was originally intended, played Macheath, the +burlesque of the piece would, probably, never have been brought out; and +the _Beggar’s Opera_ would have been originally what it is now—simply a +pleasing burletta. The most opposite opinions were expressed with regard +to the piece at the time. Swift said, “It placed all kinds of vice in +the strongest and most odious light.” Another critic asserted that, +“after an exhibition of the _Beggar’s Opera_, the gains of robbers were +multiplied.” Dr. Johnson declares both these decisions to be exaggerated, +and hits the real truth—a truth which applies to the burlesque drama +universally. “The play,” he says, “was written only to divert, without +any moral purpose, and is therefore not likely to do good; nor can it be +conceived, without more speculation than life requires and admits, to be +productive of much evil. Highwaymen and housebreakers seldom frequent +the playhouse, or mingle in elegant diversions; nor is it possible for +any one to imagine that he may rob in safety, because he sees Macheath +reprieved upon the stage.” The doctor’s first remark was literally true. +The piece was written solely to divert. Gay aimed at a “purpose” in his +original design, and when he had carried it out, Colley Cibber rejected +the piece. Gay’s friends, Swift and Spence, did not think the piece would +succeed, though the Duke of Argyle (with a preternatural perception of +jokes for a Scotchman) swore that it would. It was not until Gay subdued +his “purpose,” and put in some extra ballads, that Rich accepted the +piece; and then, in this shape, it made “Gay rich and Rich gay,” as the +jokers said at the time. + +Having hopped from Aristophanes to Gay, we may now skip from Gay to +Sheridan without overleaping any remarkable example of the burlesque +drama. The _Critic_ is possibly the smartest burlesque ever written; +and yet its purpose is a shallow pretence. Like the _Beggar’s Opera_, +the _Critic_ was written to amuse, and it fulfils no other object. It +cannot be said to be a satire upon the critics of the period, since the +remarks of Dangle and Sneer, during the rehearsal of the tragedy, are +pointedly framed with the view of calling forth a smart response from +Puff, and are not in any way examples of the theatrical criticism of the +time. Sheridan arranges everything to give occasion for an exhibition of +his own smartness. He spreads the stage with crackers, as it were, and +cares not who steps upon them and sets them banging for the amusement of +the audience. Thus the tragedy opens with two sentinels asleep, to give +occasion for a joke when they awake:— + + _Dang._ Hey! why, I thought these fellows had been asleep? + + _Puff._ Only a pretence; there’s the art of it: they were spies + of Lord Burleigh’s. + + _Sneer._ But isn’t it odd they were never taken notice of, not + even by the commander-in-chief? + + _Puff._ O Lud, sir! if people who want to listen, or overhear, + were not always connived at in a tragedy, there would be no + carrying on any plot in the world. + + _Dang._ That’s certain. + +Here a laugh is raised at the artificiality of the stage; but the satire +suggests no remedy. Both speakers are satisfied that these things must be +so in a tragedy. In every instance where the satire is directed against +the practices of the stage, the remarks, though highly diverting, are +simply truisms. Thus, when Leicester asks the knights if they are all +resolved to conquer or be free, and they answer, “All,” Dangle chimes in, +“_Nem. con._ egad.” To which Puff replies, “Oh, yes! where they do agree +on the stage, their unanimity is wonderful.” This remark never fails +to produce a hearty laugh; and yet it would be difficult to say what +we laugh at. The dramatic art inexorably demands that where unanimity +is to be expressed it should be expressed as briefly and _unanimously_ +as possible. If we laugh at anything here, it is at the fixed and +unalterable canons of the dramatic art, which the peculiar turn of +Sneer’s remark places in a ridiculous light. It is hard to discover at +what particular folly or vice the _Critic_ is aimed. All the characters +are satirists by turns; Puff pokes his fun at the drama; and Sneer and +Dangle poke their fun at Puff, only to encounter a sharper retort. All +are so confoundedly witty, that you cannot tell which are the butts and +which the sharp-shooters. Nothing is more apparent in the dialogue of the +tragedy than the desire of the author to show off his own cleverness. +Some passages which are intended as burlesques of fine writing are as +near as possible the real thing. Thus, England’s fate at the approach of +the Armada— + + “Like a clipp’d guinea, trembles in the scale.” + +The guinea is certainly a vulgar image, but the thought is a happy one. +The whole of the passage in which this occurs contains no hint of the +ridiculous until we come to the “trembling guinea,” and that but very +slightly turns the scale to the side of absurdity. When Sheridan tried +fine writing in earnest he was not so successful. His own _Pizarro_ was +a greater burlesque than Mr. Puff’s _Spanish Armada_. _Pizarro_, in its +highest flights, is “downright booth at a fair.” + +Travelling downwards from Sheridan’s time, we meet with no notable +example of a burlesque in dramatic form until we come to _Bombastes +Furioso_, first produced about the year 1809. We have never been able +to discover that the author of this production had any special moral, +political, literary, or other “purpose” whatever. At any rate, he claims +none for himself; and we do not know that any one has made the claim +for him. Bombast in general would seem to be the mark at which the +arrows are let fly; but the incidents of the piece are so extravagant +and capricious, that we are tempted to believe the author sat down to +write without having any fixed idea what he was going to make it. A +king and a general making love to a cook-maid in a kitchen presents +but a very vulgar and commonplace antithesis, and would be altogether +offensive, but for the mock chivalry which is sustained in the demeanour +and language of the king and the general. The conduct of these two +characters accords with a kind of harmless lunacy which is natural in so +far as it exists in nature. Two lunatics of this class might extemporize +the challenge and duel scene in their ward at Bedlam, and the random +performance would be very funny. We are, therefore, inclined to regard +_Bombastes Furioso_ as a “lune.” Still, the piece is characterized by +many merits. Its thorough-paced extravagance is not the least of them. +The peculiar diction, too, is singularly well suited to burlesque. Wit, +there is little or none; but its place is more than supplied by humorous +expression and absurd similitudes. + +The entrance of Bombastes, followed by his army, consisting of one +drummer, one fifer, and two soldiers of unequal stature, is in the true +spirit of burlesque. In the whole range of burlesque-dramatic literature, +there is, perhaps, no single passage which produces so much effect as +Bombastes’ address to his army. Yet it consists of only three lines— + + _Bombas._ (_confidentially_). + + Meet me this ev’ning at the Barley-Mow; + I’ll bring your pay—you see I’m busy now. + (_In a loud, commanding tone_) + Begone, brave army, and don’t kick up a row! + +Nor could anything be more ludicrous than the entrance of Bombastes +in the wood, intent on suicide, preceded by a fifer playing “Michael +Wiggins:” + + _Bombas._ + + Gentle musician, let thy dulcet strain + Proceed—play “Michael Wiggins” o’er again. + Music’s the food of love—give o’er, give o’er, + For I must batten on that food no more. + +Who has not enjoyed the whimsical idea of challenging the whole human +race by hanging a pair of jack boots on a tree, and writing on them— + + Who dares this pair of boots displace, + Must meet Bombastes face to face. + +In _Bombastes Furioso_, we have burlesque clothed in its proper dress, +not in the toga of a didactic philosopher, but in the spangled frippery +of a mummer. For the first time it discards “purpose,” and speaks in its +own proper language—doggrel rhyme. + +Mr. Planché was the pioneer of the new school, and his sole purpose was +to divert holiday audiences (chiefly composed of boys and girls home for +the Christmas and Easter vacations) with appropriate dramatic versions +of pretty fairy tales. His compositions were rather extravaganzas than +burlesques, and depended for their success more upon the romantic +interest of the story and the wit of the dialogue than upon their satire. +Mr. Planché may claim the merit—if merit it be—of having first introduced +the pun into these compositions: and it must be allowed that he punned +with discretion; which is certainly more than we can say of his younger +successors in the craft of joke-making. When Mr. Planché was at the +height of his fame as a burlesque writer, these pieces were brought out +only at holiday time; in some cases as a substitute for the pantomime, +which, in certain quarters, was beginning to be voted low and vulgar. It +sufficed then to tell the dramatic story in sprightly rhymes, slightly +sprinkled with puns and allusions to the events of the day. Ballet, +glittering fairy scenery, parodies set to popular airs and red and blue +fire, did the rest. The satire contained in these pieces was of a very +harmless kind, and rarely aimed at any game higher than the Thames Tunnel +or the Lord Mayor’s show. Of late years, however, pieces of this class +have asserted a much more extended sway. They are now played in season +and out of season, and at one, if not two theatres they hold the stage +all the year round, and constitute the chief attraction. The young school +of burlesque writers follow a method peculiarly their own, though, of +course, they are largely indebted to the traditions of their immediate +predecessors. The chief elements which enter into the composition of +these pieces are, pretty scenery, negro melodies, “break-down” dances, +and outrageous puns. It is also a necessary condition to their success, +that one or more saucy actresses with good legs should be employed in +their performance. The music and the scenery go for much, the puns +go for more, but the comic dance goes for most of all. The literature +which enters into the composition of the more successful pieces of this +description is not by any means to be despised as an intellectual effort. +The young men who can so industriously torture the English language into +such strange and startling meanings, through a thousand lines of rhyme, +evidently possess an amount of talent and application which, if properly +directed, might be of real service to letters; or, if not to letters, +to some industrial pursuit. Tom Hood, who was considered the prince of +punsters, in his day, could have had no conception of the height to which +punning has attained (or, perhaps, we ought to say the depth to which +it has fallen) in our time. A pun a day would, perhaps, have been the +extent of the indulgence which Hood would have allowed himself; but these +burlesque writers fire them off in volleys, and glory in startling the +English language from its propriety. As regards punning, the whole tribe +of jokers follow exactly the same method, as may be seen by reference to +the burlesques of the present season. Hear how Mr. William Brough, in his +burlesque of _Endymion_, clatters his _pans_:— + + _Pan._ + + Oh! long-ear’d but short-sighted fauns, desist; + To the great Pan, ye little pitchers, list; + Pan knows a thing or two. In point of fact, + He’s a deep Pan, and anything but cracked; + A perfect _oracle_ Pan deems himself; he + Is earthenwarish; so, of course, is delfy (Delphi). + Trust then to Pan your troubles to remove— + A warming-Pan he’ll to your courage prove; + A prophet, he foresees the ills you fear; + So for them all you have your Pan a seer (panacea). + +Here every thought is designed as a peg whereon to hang a pun. The author +would seem to have been fearful of having nothing but his punning for his +pains in two instances, where he finds it necessary to add explanatory +notes. Now see with what labour Mr. Byron, in his _Cinderella_, carries +coals to the joke market:— + + _Cind._ + + Cinders and coals I am accustomed to, + They seem to me to tinge all things I view. + + _Prince._ + + The fact I can’t say causes me surprise, + For _Kohl_ is frequently in ladies’ eyes. + + _Cind._ + + At morn, when reading, as the fire up burns, + The printer’s stops to semi-_coal-uns_ turns; + I might as well read _Coke_. + + _Prince._ + + Quite right you are. + He’s very useful reading at the _bar_. + Who is your favourite poet? _Hobbs?_ + + _Cind._ + + Not quite; + No; I think _Cole_ridge is my favourite; + His melan-_coally_ suits my situation; + My dinner always is a _coald coal_-lation. + Smoke pictures all things seem, whate’er may be ’em, + A cyclorama, through the _Coal I see ’em_. + + _Prince._ + + Is there no way from out a path so black? + + _Cind._ + + There’s no way out; my life’s a _cul_ de sac. + +Of course, authors who have so little respect for the legitimate meaning +of English words cannot be expected to pay regard to the rules of English +grammar; nor is it to be imagined that their course of solid reading has +been such as to enable them to know that Hobbes was not particularly +distinguished for his poetry. But all this is included in the broad, +general licence which these poets take out. In another piece, _Bluebeard +from a New Point of Hue_,—the puns you see even extend to the playbill +and the title-page of the production—the same author takes occasion, on +the same principle, to pun until all is _blue_. Fatima calls Abomilique a +“blue bore.” + + _Abom._ + + Everything takes that colour in my eyes; + This, ’stead of being fash’nablest of flies, + And red, when I look at it, in two twos, + Changes its form and colour—it’s a _blouse_. + ’Stead of yellow covering, my foot + Seems, in my eyes, clad in a _Blu_cher boot. + Every hotel I may put up at, boasts + The selfsame sign—of course, it’s the _Blue_-Posts. + Whene’er a portrait-painter I employ, + He makes me look like Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. + My palanquin, the one I bought for you, + Becomes an omnibus, the Royal _Blue_. + Ladies seem blue-stockings and bloomers through it; + Each song I hear appears composed by _Blewitt_; + In my siesta, every afternoon, + I dream I’m in the air in a big _b’loon_. + +This is simply a long punning exercise, of a sustained effort to the +jingling of words of similar sound, but wholly destitute of similarity of +sense. There is not that startling conjunction of similar dissimilarities +which constitutes the true pun. It cannot be said that there is any wit +in making Bluebeard see everything blue, because his beard is blue. If he +had been remarkable for his blue eyes, there might have been some point +in it. + +Sydney Smith, who was as little accustomed to found his jokes upon a just +estimate of things as any of the burlesque writers, once said that it +required a surgical operation to get a joke into the head of a Scotchman. +Yet plain James Hogg has given us a better specimen of a pun than any of +these professional English wits. Some one at table mentioned that it was +reported Dr. Parr had married a woman beneath him in station. “Ay, ay,” +said Hogg, “she is, nae doot, below Parr.” Here is a pun perfect in all +its parts, preserving at once exactness of sound and sense, and giving +at the same time a humorous colouring to a commonplace fact. The above +specimens, however, are the best in the pieces before us. The majority +of the puns are of the most audacious kind, many of them suggestive of a +joker in the last stage of drivelling senility. + +This excessive and bad punning upon words merely is a poor substitute +for true wit and humour. Half of the puns are lost upon the audience +owing to their obscurity and the rapidity with which they follow upon +each other’s heels. And even when they are “taken,” the delight they give +is simply of the kind which is afforded by a Chinese puzzle: they are +ingenious, and that is all. Punning upon words merely is not a difficult +thing, if you could only condescend to give your mind to it. The art +might be taught in six easy lessons, as Mr. Smart teaches writing, and as +other professors teach crochet and Berlin-wool work. We can quite imagine +how any of these burlesque writers might have improved James the First +in the art. James was a great punster; but his style would be considered +primitive in these days. On one occasion, his Majesty made a punning +speech to the professors of the University of Edinburgh.[2] They had been +engaged in a philosophical disputation, and his Majesty complimented +them one after the other by name. We may give this as a specimen of his +Majesty’s style before receiving lessons:— + +“Methinks these gentlemen by their very names have been destined for the +acts which they have had in hand to-day. Adam was the father of all, and +very fitly Adamson had the first part in this act. The defender is justly +called Fairly: his thesis had some fair lies, and he defended them very +fairly and with many fair lies given to his oppugners. And why should not +Mr. Lands be the first to enter the lands? but now I clearly see that +all lands are not barren, for certainly he hath shown a fertile wit. +Mr. Young is very old in Aristotle. Mr. Reed need not be red (oh!) with +blushing for his actions this day. Mr. King disputed very kingly and of +a kingly purpose anent the royal supremacy of reason over anger and all +passions.” + +After six lessons his Majesty would have come out in the following +flowing style:— + +“Adam having been the _fust_ man, it is only natural that Adamson +should talk _fust_ian. We are in hopes, however, that _Adam_son will +_Eve_ntually _Cain_ (explanatory note: _gain_) experience, and be _Abel_ +to do better; for it is fit and proper that Adamson should be the first +man in learning, re_garden_ him in connection with _Eden_burgh. Mr. +Young is _youngry_ after knowledge, and we fear is in some danger, +through studying Aristotle too much, of coming to be _’ung_ before he +is much _older_. We were afraid that Mr. Reed would have been _red_uced +for an argument; but we perceive he is _red_ivivus, and has _red_eemed +his character from being _red_iculous. Verily, Mr. Fairly”—but enough; +this would have been quite sufficient for the punning preceptor to frame +and glaze and put in his window as a testimony to his skill in teaching +the whole art of pun-making. It is on record, that King James prepared +himself for his jokes by a course of study and stimulants, and did not +venture to fire them off until after the sixth bottle. If such simple +exercises required so much stimulation, what must be the process which +the punsters of our day find it necessary to resort to? The Turkish bath +is said to bring out a vast amount of latent and unsuspected filth from +the skin. Is there any similar process for acting upon the brain? + +Satire is a weapon which has been used with good effect by skilful hands +in books and in speeches, both in ancient and modern times; but we cannot +discover that it has done any great or signal execution when wielded +by the burlesque writer on the stage. Aristophanes certainly did not +revive the palmy days of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. It is true +it has been asserted that he did; but will any one please to mention +the successors of these three great masters who are worthy to be named +in the same category? It might be easier to specify the harm than to +estimate the good which flowed from the comedies of Aristophanes. Not +only the Greek drama, but Greece itself, dated its decline from those +days. And, besides, it is not at all certain that when Aristophanes +exhibited Socrates suspended in a basket, spouting incomprehensible +doctrine—incomprehensible at that time—he did not sow the seeds of the +hemlock to which the greatest of all the Greeks was condemned. It is true +that Socrates was not sentenced until nearly twenty years afterwards; +but Aristophanes was one of the first to throw mud at him, and it was +only through the persistency with which his detractors followed the +dramatist’s example that some of the mud eventually stuck. The Athenians +knew and felt, when it was too late, that the most virtuous man of their +age had been sacrificed to an idle and reckless clamour. Here then, to +begin with, is a suspicion of murder attaching to burlesque. In the +present day, the only murder of which it can be found guilty is the +murder of the English language. + +If Dr. Johnson were alive to pronounce sentence, we know what would +become of the burlesque writers: they would swing every man Jack—or +shall we say Joe?—of them. It is to be laid to their charge that they +have familiarized the educated public with the use of slang. Slang words +and phrases are now of frequent occurrence in our literature. We meet +with them not alone in a low class of publications, but in the leading +articles of newspapers, in the orations of senators, and even in books +of a solid and standard character. If these burlesques have done us this +amount of harm, and have done us no other good than to excite the “loud +laugh” indiscriminately at the expense of things worthy and unworthy, +what shall we say of them? May we not sigh for those palmy days of the +drama which are past and gone? + +Nevertheless, we can have no sympathy with those who complain that +these burlesques have elbowed the legitimate drama off the stage. The +true legitimacy of the drama may well be questioned, when it cannot +maintain its claims against this bastard pretender. We have seen (on rare +occasions) that good sterling plays will always draw the public; and if, +in default of these, the public prefer comparatively harmless puns and +parodies to the pollution of translations from the French, perhaps it may +be allowed that, of the two evils, they choose the least. + + +FOOTNOTES + +[2] _History of University of Edinburgh._ + + + + +When thou Sleepest. + + + When thou sleepest, lulled in night, + Art thou lost in vacancy? + Does no silent inward light, + Softly breaking, fall on thee? + Does no dream on quiet wing + Float a moment mid that ray, + Touch some answering mental string, + Wake a note, and pass away? + + When thou watchest, as the hours + Mute and blind are speeding on, + O’er that rayless path, where lowers + Muffled midnight, black and lone; + Comes there nothing hovering near, + Thought or half reality, + Whispering marvels in thine ear, + Every word a mystery, + + Chanting low an ancient lay, + Every plaintive note a spell, + Clearing memory’s clouds away, + Showing scenes thy heart loves well? + Songs forgot, in childhood sung, + Airs in youth beloved and known, + Whispered by that airy tongue, + Once again are made thine own. + + Be it dream in haunted sleep, + Be it thought in vigil lone, + Drink’st thou not a rapture deep + From the feeling, ’tis thine own? + All thine own; thou need’st not tell + What bright form thy slumber blest;— + All thine own; remember well + Night and shade were round thy rest. + + Nothing looked upon thy bed, + Save the lonely watch-light’s gleam; + Not a whisper, not a tread + Scared thy spirit’s glorious dream. + Sometimes, when the midnight gale + Breathed a moan and then was still, + Seemed the spell of thought to fail, + Checked by one ecstatic thrill; + + Felt as all external things, + Robed in moonlight, smote thine eye; + Then thy spirit’s waiting wings + Quivered, trembled, spread to fly; + Then th’ aspirer wildly swelling + Looked, where mid transcendency + Star to star was mutely telling + Heaven’s resolve and fate’s decree. + + Oh! it longed for holier fire + Than this spark in earthly shrine; + Oh! it soared, and higher, higher, + Sought to reach a home divine. + Hopeless quest! soon weak and weary + Flagged the pinion, drooped the plume, + And again in sadness dreary + Came the baffled wanderer home. + + And again it turned for soothing + To th’ unfinished, broken dream; + While, the ruffled current smoothing, + Thought rolled on her startled stream. + I have felt this cherished feeling, + Sweet and known to none but me; + Still I felt it nightly healing + Each dark day’s despondency. + + CHARLOTTE BRONTË. + + + + +The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson. + +BY ONE OF THE FIRM. + + +CHAPTER I. + +PREFACE. + +It will be observed by the literary and commercial world that, in this +transaction, the name of the really responsible party does not show on +the title-page. I—George Robinson—am that party. When our Mr. Jones +objected to the publication of these memoirs unless they appeared as +coming from the firm itself, I at once gave way. I had no wish to offend +the firm, and, perhaps, encounter a lawsuit for the empty honour of +seeing my name advertised as that of an author. We talked the matter over +with our Mr. Brown, who, however, was at that time in affliction, and +not able to offer much that was available. One thing he did say: “As we +are partners,” said Mr. Brown, “let’s be partners to the end.” “Well,” +said I, “if you say so, Mr. Brown, so it shall be.” I never supposed that +Mr. Brown would set the Thames on fire, and soon learnt that he was not +the man to amass a fortune by British commerce. He was not made for the +guild of Merchant Princes. But he was the senior member of our firm, and +I always respected the old-fashioned doctrine of capital in the person of +our Mr. Brown. + +When Mr. Brown said, “Let’s be partners to the end. It won’t be for long, +Mr. Robinson,” I never said another word. “No,” said I, “Mr. Brown; +you’re not what you was—and you’re down a peg; I’m not the man to take +advantage and go against your last wishes. Whether for long or whether +for short we’ll pull through in the same boat to the end. It shall be put +on the title-page—‘By One of the Firm.’” “God bless you, Mr. Robinson,” +said he; “God bless you.” + +And then Mr. Jones started another objection. The reader will soon +realize that anything I do is sure to be wrong with Mr. Jones. It +wouldn’t be him else. He next declares that I can’t write English, and +that the book must be corrected, and put out by an editor? Now, when I +inform the discerning British Public that every advertisement that has +been posted by Brown, Jones, and Robinson, during the last three years +has come from my own unaided pen, I think few will doubt my capacity to +write the “Memoirs of Brown, Jones, and Robinson,” without any editor +whatsoever. + +On this head I was determined to be firm. What! after preparing, and +correcting, and publishing such thousands of advertisements in prose and +verse and in every form of which the language is susceptible, to be told +that I couldn’t write English! It was Jones all over. If there is a party +envious of the genius of another party in this sublunary world that party +is our Mr. Jones. + +But I was again softened by a touching appeal from our senior partner. +Mr. Brown, though prosaic enough in his general ideas, was still +sometimes given to the Muses; and now, with a melancholy and tender +cadence, he quoted the following lines:— + + “Let dogs delight,” said he, “to bark and bite,” said he, + “For ’tis their nature to— + But ’tis a shameful sight to see when partners of one firm like we + Fall out, and chide, and fight!” + +So I gave in again. + +It was then arranged that one of Smith and Elder’s young men should look +through the manuscript, and make any few alterations which the taste of +the public might require. It might be that the sonorous, and, if I may +so express myself, magniloquent phraseology in which I was accustomed to +invite the attention of the nobility and gentry to our last importations +was not suited for the purposes of light literature, such as this. “In +fiction, Mr. Robinson, your own unaided talents would doubtless make you +great,” said to me the editor of this Magazine; “but if I may be allowed +an opinion, I do think that in the delicate task of composing memoirs a +little assistance may perhaps be not inexpedient.” + +This was prettily worded; so what with this, and what with our Mr. +Brown’s poetry, I gave way; but I reserved to myself the right of an +epistolary preface in my own name. So here it is. + + LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—I am not a bit ashamed of my part in + the following transaction. I have done what little in me lay + to further British commerce. British commerce is not now what + it was. It is becoming open and free like everything else + that is British—open to the poor man as well as to the rich. + That bugbear Capital is a crumbling old tower, and is pretty + nigh brought to its last ruin. Credit is the polished shaft + of the temple on which the new world of trade will be content + to lean. That, I take it, is the one great doctrine of modern + commerce. Credit—credit—credit. Get credit, and capital will + follow. Doesn’t the word speak for itself? Must not credit be + respectable? And is not the word “respectable” the highest term + of praise which can be applied to the British tradesman? + + Credit is the polished shaft of the temple. But with what are + you to polish it? The stone does not come from the quarry + with its gloss on: man’s labour is necessary to give it that + beauteous exterior. Then wherewith shall we polish credit? + I answer the question at once. With the pumice-stone and + sand-paper of advertisement. + + Different great men have promulgated the different + means by which they have sought to subjugate the world. + “Audacity—audacity—audacity,” was the lesson which one hero + taught. “Agitate—agitate—agitate,” was the counsel of a second. + “Register—register—register,” of a third. But I say—Advertise, + advertise, advertise! And I say it again and again—Advertise, + advertise, advertise! It is, or should be, the Shibboleth + of British commerce. That it certainly will be so I, George + Robinson, hereby venture to prophesy, feeling that on this + subject something but little short of inspiration has touched + my eager pen. + + There are those—men of the old school, who cannot rouse + themselves to see and read the signs of the time, men who + would have been in the last ranks, let them have lived when + they would—who object to it that it is untrue,—who say that + advertisements do not keep the promises which they make. But + what says the poet,—he whom we teach our children to read? + What says the stern moralist to his wicked mother in the play? + “Assume a virtue if you have it not?” And so say I. “Assume a + virtue if you have it not.” It would be a great trade virtue in + a haberdasher to have forty thousand pairs of best hose lying + ready for sale in his warehouse. Let him assume that virtue if + he have it not. Is not this the way in which we all live, and + the only way in which it is possible to live comfortably. A + gentleman gives a dinner party. His lady, who has to work all + day like a dray-horse and scold the servants besides, to get + things into order, loses her temper. We all pretty well know + what that means. Well; up to the moment when she has to show, + she is as bitter a piece of goods as may be. But, nevertheless, + she comes down all smiles, although she knows that at that + moment the drunken cook is spoiling the fish. She assumes a + virtue, though she has it not; and who will say she is not + right? + + Well; I say again and again to all young tradesmen—Advertise, + advertise, advertise;—and don’t stop to think too much about + capital. It is a bugbear. Capital is a bugbear; and it is + talked about by those who have it,—and by some that have not so + much of it neither,—for the sake of putting down competition, + and keeping the market to themselves. + + There’s the same game going on all the world over; and it’s + the natural game for mankind to play at. They who’s up a bit + is all for keeping down them who is down; and they who is down + is so very soft through being down, that they’ve not spirit to + force themselves up. Now I saw that very early in life. There + is always going on a battle between aristocracy and democracy. + Aristocracy likes to keep itself to itself; and democracy is + just of the same opinion, only wishes to become aristocracy + first. + + We of the people are not very fond of dukes; but we’d all like + to be dukes well enough ourselves. Now there are dukes in + trade as well as in society. Capitalists are our dukes; and as + they don’t like to have their heels trod upon any more than + the other ones, why they are always preaching up capital. It + is their star and garter, their coronet, their ermine, their + robe of state, their cap of maintenance, their wand of office, + their noli me tangere. But stars and garters, caps and wands, + and all other noli me tangeres, are gammon to those who can + see through them. And capital is gammon. Capital is a very nice + thing if you can get it. It is the desirable result of trade. A + tradesman looks to end with a capital. But it’s gammon to say + that he can’t begin without it. You might as well say a man + can’t marry unless he has first got a family. Why, he marries + that he may have a family. It’s putting the cart before the + horse. + + It’s my opinion that any man can be a duke if so be it’s born + to him. It requires neither wit nor industry, nor any pushing + nor go-ahead whatsoever. A man may sit still in his arm-chair, + half asleep half his time, and only half awake the other, + and be as good a duke as need be. Well; it’s just the same + in trade. If a man is born to a dukedom there, if he begins + with a large capital, why, I for one would not thank him to be + successful. Any fool could do as much as that. He has only to + keep on polishing his own star and garter, and there are lots + of people to swear that there is no one like him. + + But give me the man who can be a duke without being born to it. + Give me the man who can go ahead in trade without capital; who + can begin the world with a quick pair of hands, a quick brain + to govern them, and can end with a capital. + + Well, there you are; a young tradesman beginning the world + without capital. Capital, though it’s a bugbear, nevertheless + it’s a virtue. Therefore as you haven’t got it, you must + assume it. That’s credit. Credit I take to be the belief of + other people in a thing that doesn’t really exist. When you go + into your friend Smith’s house, and find Mrs. S. all smiles, + you give her credit for the sweetest of tempers. Your friend + S. knows better; but then you see she’s had wit enough to + obtain credit. When I draw a bill at three months, and get it + discounted, I do the same thing. That’s credit. Give me credit + enough, and I don’t care a brass button for capital. If I could + have but one wish, I would never ask a fairy for a second or + a third. Let me have but unreserved credit, and I’ll beat any + duke of either aristocracy. + + To obtain credit the only certain method is to advertise. + Advertise, advertise, advertise. That is, assume, assume, + assume. Go on assuming your virtue. The more you haven’t got + it, the more you must assume it. The bitterer your own heart + is about that drunken cook and that idle husband who will do + nothing to assist you, the sweeter you must smile. Smile sweet + enough, and all the world will believe you. Advertise long + enough, and credit will come. + + But there must be some nous in your advertisements; there must + be a system, and there must be some wit in your system. It + won’t suffice now-a-days to stick up on a black wall a simple + placard to say that you have forty thousand best new hose just + arrived. Any wooden-headed fellow can do as much as that. That + might have served in the olden times that we hear of, twenty + years since; but the game to be successful in these days must + be played in another sort of fashion. There must be some + finish about your advertisements, something new in your style, + something that will startle in your manner. If a man can make + himself a real master of this art, we may say that he has + learnt his trade, whatever that trade may be. Let him know how + to advertise, and the rest will follow. + + It may be that I shouldn’t boast; but yet I do boast that I + have made some little progress in this business. If I haven’t + yet practised the art in all its perfections, nevertheless I + flatter myself I have learned how to practise it. Regarding + myself as something of a master of this art, and being actuated + by purely philanthropic motives in my wish to make known my + experience, I now put these memoirs before the public. + + It will, of course, be urged against me that I have not been + successful in what I have already attempted, and that our house + has failed. This is true. I have not been successful: our house + has failed. But with whom has the fault been? Certainly not in + my department. + + The fact is, and in this my preface I will not keep the truth + back from a discerning public, that no firm on earth—or indeed + elsewhere—could be successful in which our Mr. Jones is one of + the partners. There is an overweening vanity about that man + which is quite upsetting. I confess I have been unable to stand + it. Vanity is always allied to folly, and the relationship + is very close in the person of our Mr. Jones. Of Mr. Brown I + will never bring myself to say one disrespectful word. He is + not now what he was once. From the bottom of my heart I pity + his misfortunes. Think what it must be to be papa to a Goneril + and a Regan—without the Cordelia. I have always looked on Mrs. + Jones as a regular Goneril; and as for the Regan, why it seems + to me that Miss Brown is likely to be Miss Regan to the end of + the chapter. + + No; of Mr. Brown I will say nothing disrespectful; but he + never was the man to be first partner in an advertising firm. + That was our mistake. He had old-fashioned views about capital + which were very burdensome. My mistake was this—that in joining + myself with Mr. Brown, I compromised my principles, and held + out as it were a left hand to capital. He had not much, as will + be seen; but he thought a deal of what he had got, and talked a + deal of it too. This impeded my wings. This prevented me from + soaring. One cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. I have been + untrue to myself in having had any dealings on the basis of + capital; and hence has it arisen that hitherto I have failed. + + I make these confessions hoping that they may be serviceable + to trade in general. A man cannot learn a great secret, and + the full use of a great secret, all at once. My eyes are now + open. I shall not again make so fatal a mistake. I am still + young. I have now learned my lesson more thoroughly, and I yet + anticipate success with some confidence. + + Had Mr. Brown at once taken my advice, had his few thousand + pounds been liberally expended in commencing a true system of + advertising, we should have been—I can hardly surmise where we + should have been. He was for sticking altogether to the old + system. Mr. Jones was for mixing the old and the new, for + laying in stock and advertising as well, with a capital of + 4,000_l._ What my opinion is of Mr. Jones I will not now say, + but of Mr. Brown I will never utter one word of disparagement. + + I have now expressed what few words I wish to utter on my own + bottom. As to what has been done in the following pages by the + young man who has been employed to look over these memoirs and + put them into shape, it is not for me to speak. It may be that + I think they might have read more natural-like had no other + cook had a finger in the pie. The facts, however, are facts + still. These have not been altered. + + Ladies and gentlemen, you who have so long distinguished our + firm by a liberal patronage, to you I now respectfully appeal, + and in showing to you a new article I beg to assure you with + perfect confidence that there is nothing equal to it at the + price at present in the market. The supply on hand is immense, + but as a sale of unprecedented rapidity is anticipated, may I + respectfully solicit your early orders? If not approved of the + article shall be changed. + + Ladies and gentlemen, + + We have the honour to subscribe ourselves, + + With every respect, + + Your most obedient humble servants, + + BROWN, JONES, and ROBINSON, + Per GEORGE ROBINSON. + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE EARLY HISTORY OF OUR MR. BROWN, WITH SOME FEW WORDS OF MR. JONES. + +O Commerce, how wonderful are thy ways, how vast thy power, how invisible +thy dominion! Who can restrain thee and forbid thy further progress? +Kings are but as infants in thy hands, and emperors, despotic in all +else, are bound to obey thee! Thou civilizest, hast civilized, and wilt +civilize. Civilization is thy mission, and man’s welfare thine appointed +charge. The nation that most warmly fosters thee shall ever be the +greatest in the earth; and without thee no nation shall endure for a +day. Thou art our Alpha and our Omega, our beginning and our end; the +marrow of our bones, the salt of our life, the sap of our branches, the +corner-stone of our temple, the rock of our foundation. We are built +on thee, and for thee, and with thee. To worship thee should be man’s +chiefest care, to know thy hidden ways his chosen study. + +One maxim hast thou, O Commerce, great and true and profitable above all +others—one law which thy votaries should never transgress. “Buy in the +cheapest market and sell in the dearest.” May those divine words be ever +found engraved on the hearts of Brown, Jones, and Robinson! + +Of Mr. Brown, the senior member of our firm, it is expedient that +some short memoir should be given. At the time at which we signed our +articles in 185-, Mr. Brown had just retired from the butter trade. It +does not appear that in his early youth he ever had the advantage of an +apprenticeship, and he seems to have been employed in various branches +of trade in the position, if one may say so, of an outdoor messenger. In +this capacity he entered the service of Mr. McCockerell, a retail butter +dealer in Smithfield. When Mr. McCockerell died, our Mr. Brown married +his widow, and thus found himself elevated at once to the full-blown +dignity of a tradesman. He and his wife lived together for thirty years, +and it is believed that in the temper of his lady he found some alloy to +the prosperity which he had achieved. The widow McCockerell, in bestowing +her person upon Mr. Brown, had not intended to endow him also with entire +dominion over her shop and chattels. She loved to be supreme over her +butter tubs, and she loved also to be supreme over her till. Brown’s +views on the rights of women were more in accordance with the law of the +land as laid down in the statutes. He opined that a _femme couverte_ +could own no property, not even a butter tub;—and hence quarrels arose. + +After thirty years of contests such as these Mr. Brown found himself +victorious, made so not by the power of arguments, nor by that of his +own right arm, but by the demise of Mrs. Brown. That amiable lady died, +leaving two daughters to lament their loss, and a series of family +quarrels by which she did whatever lay in her power to embarrass her +husband, but by which she could not prevent him from becoming absolute +owner of the butter business, and of the stock in trade. + +The two young ladies had not been brought up to the ways of the counter; +and as Mr. Brown was not himself especially expert at that particular +business in which his money was embarked, he prudently thought it +expedient to dispose of the shop and goodwill. This he did to advantage; +and thus at the age of fifty-five he found himself again on the world +with 4,000_l._ in his pocket. + +At this period one of his daughters was no longer under his own charge. +Sarah Jane, the eldest of the two, was already Mrs. Jones. She had been +captivated by the black hair and silk waistcoat of Mr. Jones, and had +gone off with him in opposition to the wishes of both parents. This, she +was aware, was not matter of much moment, for the opposition of one was +sure to bring about a reconciliation with the other. And such was soon +the case. Mrs. Brown would not see her daughter, or allow Jones to put +his foot inside the butter-shop; Mr. Brown consequently took lodgings for +them in the neighbourhood, and hence a close alliance sprung up between +the future partners. + +At this crisis Maryanne devoted herself to her mother. It was admitted +by all who knew her that Maryanne Brown had charms. At that time she was +about twenty-four years of age, and was certainly a fine young woman. +She was particularly like her mother, a little too much inclined to +corpulence, and there may be those who would not allow that her hair was +auburn. Mr. Robinson, however, who was then devotedly attached to her, +was of that opinion, and was ready to maintain his views against any man +who would dare to say that it was red. + +There was a dash about Maryanne Brown at that period which endeared her +greatly to Mr. Robinson. She was quite above anything mean, and when +her papa was left a widower in possession of four thousand pounds, she +was one of those who were most anxious to induce him to go to work with +spirit in his new business. She was all for advertising; that must be +confessed of her, though her subsequent conduct was not all that it +should have been. Maryanne Brown, when tried in the furnace, did not come +out pure gold; but this, at any rate, shall be confessed in her behalf, +that she had a dash about her, and understood more of the tricks of trade +than any other of her family. + +Mrs. McCockerell died about six months after her eldest daughter’s +marriage. She was generally called Mrs. McCockerell in the neighbourhood +of Smithfield, though so many years had passed since she had lost her +right to that name. Indeed, she generally preferred being so styled, as +Mr. Brown was peculiarly averse to it. The name was wormwood to him, and +this was quite sufficient to give it melody in her ears. + +The good lady died about six months after her daughter’s marriage. She +was struck with apoplexy, and at that time had not been reconciled to +her married daughter. Sarah Jane, nevertheless, when she heard what had +occurred, came over to Smithfield. Her husband was then in employment +as shopman at the large haberdashery house in Skinner Street, and lived +with his wife in lodgings in Cowcross Street. They were supported nearly +entirely by Mr. Brown, and therefore owed to him at this crisis not only +obedience, but dutiful affection. + +When, however, Sarah Jane first heard of her mother’s illness, she +seemed to think that she couldn’t quarrel with her father fast enough. +Jones had an idea that the old lady’s money must go to her daughters, +that she had the power of putting it altogether out of the hands of her +husband, and that having the power she would certainly exercise it. On +this speculation he had married; and as he and his wife fully concurred +in their financial views, it was considered expedient by them to lose no +time in asserting their right. This they did as soon as the breath was +out of the old lady’s body. + +Jones had married Sarah Jane solely with this view; and, indeed, it was +highly improbable that he should have done so on any other consideration. +Sarah Jane was certainly not a handsome girl. Her neck was scraggy, +her arms lean, and her lips thin; and she resembled neither her father +nor her mother. Her light brown, sandy hair, which always looked as +though it were too thin and too short to adapt itself to any feminine +usage, was also not of her family; but her disposition was a compound of +the paternal and maternal qualities. She had all her father’s painful +hesitating timidity, and with it all her mother’s grasping spirit. If +there ever was an eye that looked sharp after the pence, that could weigh +the ounces of a servant’s meal at a glance, and foresee and prevent the +expenditure of a farthing, it was the eye of Sarah Jane Brown. They say +that it is as easy to save a fortune as to make one, and in this way, if +in no other, Jones may be said to have got a fortune with his wife. + +As soon as the breath was out of Mrs. McCockerell’s body, Sarah Jane was +there, taking inventory of the stock. At that moment poor Mr. Brown was +very much to be pitied. He was always a man of feeling, and even if his +heart was not touched by his late loss, he knew what was due to decency. +It behoved him now as a widower to forget the deceased lady’s faults, +and to put her under the ground with solemnity. This was done with the +strictest propriety; and although he must, of course, have been thinking +a good deal at that time as to whether he was to be a beggar or a rich +man, nevertheless he conducted himself till after the funeral as though +he hadn’t a care on his mind, except the loss of Mrs. B. + +Maryanne was as much on the alert as her sister. She had been for the +last six months her mother’s pet, as Sarah Jane had been her father’s +darling. There was some excuse, therefore, for Maryanne when she +endeavoured to get what she could in the scramble. Sarah Jane played the +part of Goneril to the life, and would have denied her father the barest +necessaries of existence, had it not ultimately turned out that the +property was his own. + +Maryanne was not well pleased to see her sister returning to the house +at such a moment. She, at least, had been dutiful to her mother, or, if +undutiful, not openly so. If Mrs. McCockerell had the power of leaving +her property to whom she pleased, it would be only natural that she +should leave it to the daughter who had obeyed her, and not to the +daughter who had added to personal disobedience the worse fault of having +been on friendly terms with her father. + +This, one would have thought, would have been clear at any rate to Jones, +if not to Sarah Jane; but they both seemed at this time to have imagined +that the eldest child had some right to the inheritance as being the +eldest. It will be observed by this and by many other traits in his +character that Mr. Jones had never enjoyed the advantages of an education. + +Mrs. McCockerell never spoke after the fit first struck her. She +never moved an eye, or stirred a limb, or uttered a word. It was a +wretched household at that time. The good lady died on a Wednesday, and +was gathered to her fathers at Kensal Green Cemetery on the Tuesday +following. During the intervening days Mr. Jones and Sarah Jane took on +themselves as though they were owners of everything. Maryanne did try to +prevent the inventory, not wishing it to appear that Mrs. Jones had any +right to meddle; but the task was too congenial to Sarah Jane’s spirit to +allow of her giving it over. She revelled in the work. It was a delight +to her to search out hidden stores of useless wealth,—to bring forth to +the light forgotten hoards of cups and saucers, and to catalogue every +rag on the premises. + +The house at this time was not a pleasant one. Mr. Brown, finding that +Jones, in whom he had trusted, had turned against him, put himself very +much into the hands of a young friend of his, named George Robinson. Who +and what George Robinson was will be told in the next chapter. + +“There are three questions,” said Robinson, “to be asked and +answered:—Had Mrs. B. the power to make a will? If so, did she make a +will? And if so, what was the will she made?” + +Mr. Brown couldn’t remember whether or no there had been any signing of +papers at his marriage. A good deal of rum and water, he said, had been +drunk; and there might have been signing too,—but he didn’t remember it. + +Then there was the search for the will. This was supposed to be in the +hands of one Brisket, a butcher, for whom it was known Mrs. McCockerell +had destined the hand of her younger daughter. Mr. Brisket had been +a great favourite with the old lady, and she had often been heard to +declare that he should have the wife and money, or the money without the +wife. This she said to coerce Maryanne into the match. + +But Brisket, when questioned, declared that he had no will in his +possession. At this time he kept aloof from the house and showed no +disposition to meddle with the affairs of the family. Indeed, all through +these trying days he behaved honestly, if not with high feeling. In +recounting the doings of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, it will sometimes +be necessary to refer to Mr. Brisket. He shall always be spoken of as an +honest man. He did all that in him lay to mar the bright hopes of one who +was perhaps not the most insignificant of that firm. He destroyed the +matrimonial hopes of Mr. Robinson, and left him to wither like a blighted +trunk on a lone waste. But he was, nevertheless, an honest man, and so +much shall be said of him. Let us never forget that “An honest man is the +noblest work of God.” + +Brisket, when asked, said that he had no will, and that he knew of none. +In fact there was no will forthcoming, and there is no doubt that the old +woman was cut off before she had made one. It may also be premised that +had she made one it would have been invalid, seeing that Mr. Brown, as +husband, was, in fact, the owner of the whole affair. + +Sarah Jane and Maryanne, when they found that no document was +forthcoming, immediately gave out that they intended to take on +themselves the duties of joint heiresses, and an alliance, offensive +and defensive, was sworn between them. At this time Mr. Brown employed +a lawyer, and the heiresses, together with Jones, employed another. +There could be no possible doubt as to Mr. Brown being the owner of the +property, however infatuated on such a subject Jones and his wife may +have been. No lawyer in London could have thought that the young women +had a leg to stand upon. Nevertheless, the case was undertaken, and Brown +found himself in the middle of a lawsuit. Sarah Jane and Maryanne both +remained in the house in Smithfield to guard the property on their own +behalf. Mr. Brown also remained to guard it on his behalf. The business +for a time was closed. This was done in opposition both to Mr. Brown and +Maryanne; but Mrs. Jones could not bring herself to permit the purchase +of a firkin of butter, unless the transaction could be made absolutely +under her own eyes; and even then she would insist on superintending the +retail herself and selling every pound, short weight. It was the custom +of the trade, she said; and to depart from it would ruin them. + +Things were in this condition, going from bad to worse, when Jones came +over one evening, and begged an interview with Mr. Brown. That interview +was the commencement of the partnership. From such small matters do great +events arise. + +At that interview Mr. Robinson was present. Mr. Brown indeed declared +that he would have no conversation with Jones on business affairs, unless +in the presence of a third party. Jones represented that if they went +on as they were now doing, the property would soon be swallowed up by +the lawyers. To this Mr. Brown, whose forte was not eloquence, tacitly +assented with a deep groan. + +“Then,” said Jones, “let us divide it into three portions. You shall have +one; Sarah Jane a second; and I will manage the third on behalf of my +sister-in-law, Maryanne. If we arrange it well, the lawyers will never +get a shilling.” + +The idea of a compromise appeared to Mr. Brown to be not uncommendable; +but a compromise on such terms as those could not of course be listened +to. Robinson strongly counselled him to nail his colours to the mast, and +kick Mr. Jones downstairs. But Mr. Brown had not spirit for this. + +“One’s children is one’s children,” said he to Robinson, when they went +apart into the shop to talk the matter over. “The fruit of one’s loins, +and the prop of one’s age.” + +Robinson could not help thinking that Sarah Jane was about as bad a prop +as any that ever a man leant on; but he was too generous to say so. +The matter was ended at last by a compromise. “Go on with the business +together,” said Robinson; “Mr. Brown keeping, of course, a preponderating +share in his own hands.” + +“I don’t like butter,” said Jones. “Nothing great can be done in butter.” + +“It is a very safe line,” said Mr. Brown, “if the connection is good.” + +“The connection must have been a good deal damaged,” said Robinson, +“seeing that the shop has been closed for a fortnight. Besides, it’s a +woman’s business, and you have no woman to manage it,” added he, fearing +that Mrs. Jones might be brought in, to the detriment of all concerned. + +Jones suggested haberdashery; Robinson, guided by a strong idea that +there is a more absolute opening for the advertising line in haberdashery +than in any other business, assented. + +“Then let it be haberdashery,” said Mr. Brown, with a sigh. And so that +was settled. + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE EARLY HISTORY OF MR. ROBINSON. + +And haberdashery it was. But here it may be as well to say a few words +as to Mr. Robinson, and to explain how he became a member of the firm. +He had been in his boyhood—a bill-sticker; and he defies the commercial +world to show that he ever denied it. In his earlier days he carried +the paste and pole, and earned a livelihood by putting up notices of +theatrical announcements on the hoardings of the metropolis. There was, +however, that within him which Nature did not intend to throw away on the +sticking of bills, as was found out quickly enough by those who employed +him. The lad, while he was running the streets with his pole in his hand, +and his pot round his neck, learned first to read, and then to write what +others might read. From studying the bills which he carried, he soon +took to original composition; and it may be said of him, that in fluency +of language and richness of imagery few surpassed him. In person Mr. +Robinson was a genteel young man, though it cannot be said of him that +he possessed manly beauty. He was slight and active, intelligent in his +physiognomy, and polite in his demeanour. Perhaps it may be unnecessary +to say anything further on this head. + +Mr. Robinson had already established himself as an author in his own +line, and was supporting himself decently by his own unaided abilities, +when he first met Maryanne Brown in the Regent’s Park. She was then +walking with her sister, and resolutely persisted in disregarding all +those tokens of admiration which he found himself unable to restrain. + +There certainly was a dash about Maryanne Brown that at certain moments +was invincible. Hooped petticoats on the back of her sister looked +like hoops, and awkward hoops. They were angular, lopsided, and lumpy. +But Maryanne wore her hoops as a duchess wears her crinoline. Her +well-starched muslin dress would swell off from her waist in a manner +that was irresistible to George Robinson. “Such grouping!” as he said +to his friend Walker. “Such a flow of drapery! such tournure! Ah, my +dear fellow, the artist’s eye sees these things at a glance.” And then, +walking at a safe distance, he kept his eyes on them. + +“I’m sure that fellow’s following us,” said Sarah Jane, looking back at +him with all her scorn. + +“There’s no law against that, I suppose,” said Maryanne tartly. So much +as that Mr. Robinson did succeed in hearing. + +The girls entered their mother’s house; but as they did so, Maryanne +lingered for a moment in the doorway. Was it accident, or was it not? Did +the fair girl choose to give her admirer one chance, or was it that she +was careful not to crush her starch by too rapid an entry? + +“I shall be in Regent’s Park on Sunday afternoon,” whispered Robinson, +as he passed by the house, with his hand to his mouth. It need hardly be +said that the lady vouchsafed him no reply. + +On the following Sunday George Robinson was again in the park, and +after wandering among its rural shades for half a day, he was rewarded +by seeing the goddess of his idolatry. Miss Brown was there with a +companion, but not with Sarah Jane. He had already, as though by +instinct, conceived in his heart as powerful an aversion for one sister +as affection for the other, and his delight was therefore unbounded when +he saw that she he loved was there, while she he hated was away. + +’Twere long to tell, at the commencement of this narrative, how a +courtship was commenced and carried on; how Robinson sighed, at first in +vain and then not in vain; how good-natured was Miss Twizzle, the bosom +friend of Maryanne; and how Robinson for a time walked and slept and fed +on roses. + +There was at that time a music class held at a certain elegant room +near Osnaburgh Church in the New Road, at which Maryanne and her friend +Miss Twizzle were accustomed to attend. Those lessons were sometimes +prosecuted in the evening, and those evening studies sometimes resulted +in a little dance. We may say that after a while that was their habitual +tendency, and that the lady pupils were permitted to introduce their male +friends on condition that the gentlemen paid a shilling each for the +privilege. It was in that room that George Robinson passed the happiest +hours of his chequered existence. He was soon expert in all the figures +of the mazy dance, and was excelled by no one in the agility of his +step or the endurance of his performances. It was by degrees rumoured +about that he was something higher than he seemed to be, and those best +accustomed to the place used to call him the Poet. It must be remembered +that at this time Mrs. McCockerell was still alive, and that as Sarah +Jane had then become Mrs. Jones, Maryanne was her mother’s favourite, +and destined to receive all her mother’s gifts. Of the name and person +of William Brisket, George Robinson was then in happy ignorance, and the +first introduction between them took place in that Hall of Harmony. + +’Twas about eleven o’clock in the evening, when the light feet of the +happy dancers had already been active for some hour or so in the worship +of their favourite muse, that Robinson was standing up with his arm round +his fair one’s waist, immediately opposite to the door of entrance. +His right arm still embraced her slight girdle, whilst with his left +hand he wiped the perspiration from his brow. She leaned against him +palpitating, for the motion of the music had been quick, and there had +been some amicable contest among the couples. It is needless to say that +George Robinson and Maryanne Brown had suffered no defeat. At that moment +a refreshing breeze of the night air was wafted into the room from the +opened door, and Robinson, looking up, saw before him a sturdy, thickset +man, with mottled beefy face, and by his side there stood a spectre. +“It’s your sister,” whispered he to Maryanne, in a tone of horror. + +“Oh, laws! there’s Bill,” said she, and then she fainted. The gentleman +with the mottled face was indeed no other than Mr. Brisket, the purveyor +of meat, for whose arms Mrs. McCockerell had destined the charms of her +younger daughter. Conduct baser than that of Mrs. Jones on this occasion +is not perhaps recorded in history. She was no friend of Brisket’s. +She had it not at heart to forward her mother’s views. At this period +of their lives she and her mother never met. But she had learned her +sister’s secret, and having it in her power to crush her sister’s +happiness, had availed herself of the opportunity. + +“There he is,” said she, quite aloud, so that the whole room should +hear. “He’s a bill-sticker!” and she pointed the finger of scorn at her +sister’s lover. + +“I’m one who have always earned my own living,” said Robinson, “and never +had occasion to hang on to any one.” This he said knowing that Jones’s +lodgings were paid for by Mr. Brown. + +Hereupon Mr. Brisket walked across the room, and as he walked there was +a cloud of anger on his brow. “Perhaps, young man,” he said,—and as he +spoke he touched Robinson on the shoulder,—“perhaps, young man, you +wouldn’t mind having a few words with me outside the door.” + +“Sir,” said the other with some solemnity, “I am not aware that I have +the honour of your acquaintance.” + +“I’m William Brisket, butcher,” said he; “and if you don’t come out when +I asks you, by jingo, I’ll carry you.” + +The lady had fainted. The crowd of dancers was standing round with +inquiring faces. That female spectre repeated the odious words, still +pointing at him with her finger, “He’s a bill-sticker!” Brisket was full +fourteen stone, whereas Robinson might perhaps be ten. What was Robinson +to do? + +“Are you going to walk out, or am I going to carry you?” said the +Hercules of the slaughter-house. + +“I will do anything,” said Robinson, “to relieve a lady’s embarrassment.” + +They walked out on to the landing-place, whither not a few of the +gentlemen and some of the ladies followed them. + +“I say, young man,” said Brisket, “do you know who that young woman is?” + +“I certainly have the honour of her acquaintance,” said Robinson. + +“But perhaps you haven’t the honour of knowing that she’s my wife,—as is +to be. Now you know it.” And then the coarse monster eyed him from head +to foot. “Now you may go home to your mother,” said he. “But don’t tell +her anything of it, because it’s a secret.” + +He was fifteen stone at least, and Robinson was hardly ten. Oh, how vile +is the mastery which matter still has over mind in many of the concerns +of life! How can a man withstand the assault of a bull? What was Robinson +to do? He walked downstairs into the street, leaving Maryanne behind with +the butcher. + +Some days after this he contrived a meeting with his love, and he then +learned the history of that engagement. + +“She hated Brisket,” she said. “He was odious to her. He was always +greasy and smelt of meat;—but he had a respectable business.” + +“And is my Maryanne mercenary?” said Robinson. + +“Now, George,” said she, “it’s no use you scolding me, and I won’t be +scolded. Ma says that I must be civil to him, and I’m not going to +quarrel with ma. At any rate not yet.” + +“But surely, Maryanne——” + +“It’s no good you surelying me, George, for I won’t be surelyed. If you +don’t like me, you can leave me.” + +“Maryanne, I adore you.” + +“That’s all very well, and I hope you do; but why did you make a row with +that man the other night?” + +“But, dearest love, he made the row with me.” + +“And when you did make it,” continued Maryanne, “why didn’t you see it +out?” + +Robinson did not find it easy to answer. That matter has still dominion +over mind, though the days are coming when mind shall have dominion over +matter, was a lesson which, in after days, it would be sweet to teach +her. But at the present moment the time did not serve for such teaching. + +“A man must look after his own, George, or else he’ll go to the wall,” +she said, with a sneer. And then he parted from her in anger. + +But his love did not on that account wax cool, and so in his misery he +had recourse to their mutual friend, Miss Twizzle. + +“The truth is this,” said Miss Twizzle, “I believe she’d take him, +because he’s respectable and got a business.” + +“He’s horribly vulgar,” said Robinson. + +“Oh, bother!” said Miss Twizzle. “I know nothing about that. He’s got a +business, and whoever marries Brisket won’t have to look for a bed to +sleep on. But there’s a hitch about the money.” + +Then Mr. Robinson learned the facts. Mrs. McCockerell, as she was still +called, had promised to give her daughter five hundred pounds as her +marriage portion, but Mr. Brisket would not go to the altar till he got +the money. “He wanted to extend himself,” he said, “and would not marry +till he saw his way.” Hence had arisen that delay which Maryanne had +solaced by her attendance at the music-hall. + +“But if you’re in earnest,” said Miss Twizzle, “don’t you be down on your +luck. Go to old Brown, and make friends with him. He’ll stand up for you, +because he knows his wife favours Brisket.” + +George Robinson did go to Mr. Brown, and on the father the young man’s +eloquence was not thrown away. + +“She shall be yours, Mr. Robinson,” he said, after the first fortnight. +“But we must be very careful with Mrs. B.” + +After the second fortnight Mrs. B. was no more! And in this way it came +to pass that George Robinson was present as Mr. Brown’s adviser when that +scheme respecting the haberdashery was first set on foot. + + + + +At Westminster. + + +This is Westminster Hall. You know it at once. To your left is one door +for Parliament; to your right are seven, for the lawyers. If you peep +into the first of these legal entrances, you will probably see the +cake-woman; and if the court is sitting you will certainly find an eager +knot of grey-bearded, spectacled, wigged, and gowned barristers, engaged +on “three corners,” Bath buns, and pennyworths of plum gingerbread. +Passing through this reminiscence of schooldays, you will bewilder +yourself among a series of doors that shut one upon another. You will +possibly avoid the cross-cutting and divergent passages, and, with the +help of a sad policeman, lifting a heavy crimson curtain, you will take +off your hat, and find yourself in a court of justice. The first thing +you look for is a “place,” which you find high up in the back seats; +and when this has been climbed into, with more or less noise, you find +yourself facing the bench. By the bench, of course I mean the judges. +They are peculiar. Their dress is rather startling at first, till you get +used to it; but it is nothing to their caps, which are represented by a +little black spot on the top of the wig, and, therefore, may be said to +out-muffin the muffin cap of the Bluecoat boy. You may, perhaps, imagine +that a remorseful, or, perhaps, shamefaced feeling on the part of the +last invented judge has led to his contenting himself with a mere white +spot. But be this as it may, from reasons of either dress or feature, +our judges do not quite look like ordinary human beings; at all events, +the casual observer is sure to deny them that privilege. One likens a +celebrated dispenser of justice to a benevolent and intellectual gorilla; +another believes that all judges give one some dim idea of a blinking, +dozy kind of barn owl; a third suggests good old ladies—motherly persons, +given to advice and management, and the having of their own way; while +one more daring has even compared the celebrated and, as I said before, +“newly invented” summer up, to a jolly apple-cheeked old maid, sitting +in judgment upon her married sisters. Perhaps it is not until these +humourists see them as judges in their own cause that they discover them +to be neither blind, weak, nor old-womanish. + +[Illustration: The Plaintiff. + +The Defendant.] + +[Illustration: The Jury.] + +But between the back seats and the bench, look for the bar, and if you +don’t exactly see the bar, you will the counsel, which is the same thing. +Possibly you may hear them—for they are given to talking; to each other, +if they have no better resource; but to the jury, or at all events to the +judge, if they can find an occasion: some who, curiously enough, have +round noses, round eyes, round mouths, and double chins, are sonorous, +emphatic, and what we will call portwiney: others are ponderous, slow, +chest-speaking men, but these are mostly tall, lank, and coarse-haired, +with terrible noses—long, from the bridge downward, and blunt at the +point; some, again, of the sharp, acid, suspicious sort—shriek a great +deal; while there are a few—great men these—who are so confidential and +communicative, that they seem (using a colloquial phrase) to talk to the +jury “like a father.” + +Among the counsel who having nothing to say either for self or client, +and who (as I suppose, consequently) amuse themselves with a great deal +of light-porter’s work, in carrying fat bags, full of important papers; +there are many who make a great show of extracting valuable precedents +from thick calf-bound law books, and having neither briefs to study nor +motions to make, engage themselves in inditing the obscurest directions +for further thick volumes, on the smallest slips of paper procurable, +which slips—folded into the semblance of pipe-lights—they, at the hazard +of turning illegal summersaults, pass on to the short usher with the bald +head. + +But do not, for one moment, imagine that when you have looked at the +judges and the counsel and taken in the general aspect and bearings of +the court, that you have at all exhausted its points of interest; on the +contrary, the “interest” is all to come. You wish to know what is going +on—is it debt or slander? breach of promise or breach of contract? and +curiously enough, it is generally the latter. Contracts of all sorts, +that are supposed to form a kind of barrier against law, and which, at +all events, are held as safeguards or talismans, are mostly the direct +road to that monosyllabic mantrap; some people never think of breaking a +contract so long as it is merely implied, but reduced to black and white +they want to tear a hole in it directly,—indeed, in the sense in which +it has been said that all mischief is caused by woman, you will find +that every action at law has a “document” lying at the bottom of it—from +promissory notes up to architects’ estimates, this will always hold good. + +Well, having seen both Bench and Bar, and wishing to understand what they +are both engaged in, let us suppose a case. We will say that an obstinate +man, one Bullhead, has his action against a plausible man, one Floater. +Now the unconvincible Bullhead, who thinks that he has never yet been +taken in, has somehow at various times, and upon the flimsiest of all +possible pretences, handed over to said Floater sums of money to the +amount of—say two hundred pounds: between the possible inconvenience of +losing so large a sum of money and the wish to show that his wisdom is +equal to his obstinacy, he has brought the little dispute out of his own +frying-pan into the judicial fire. + +There he stands, or rather leans in the witness-box, carefully checking +off his short answers with his forefinger on the sleeve of his coat, and +screwing his face on one side, as if to concentrate all his intellect +into the left eye that is so widely open; he looks very untractable, with +his stumpy brows knitted closely over his thick stumpy nose; but what +chance can he possibly have against such a cool hand as the defendant, +Floater, Esq., with his very white stick-up hair bearing witness to +his respectability, and his very black lay-down eyebrows covering the +unbarnacled portion of those side-glancing eyes? How gently his jewelled +fingers are laid on the edge of the witness-box! how shockingly informal +the “document”—of whatever sort—proves to be during his examination—what +a respectable man he is! Three letters after his name. Do you think +he would have trusted himself in such a lion’s den as this if he were +not assured of getting the best of it? Oh, no! this is the sort of +thing—either in court or out of court—that he lives on, and lives very +well too. Barring anxieties and worries, which all are liable to—with the +exception of constant flitting, which, to some people, is a mere matter +of health; put on one side a few visits to the Queen’s Bench, and this is +a highly prosperous man! He has his spring lamb out of its due season; +asparagus; five suits of clothes and three servants; he has managed +somehow to rear a large family, and, what is more, to dispose of them in +various ways; he will, most probably, fail in accumulating money, may, +perhaps, die in extreme poverty—there is no knowing; but as he is not a +miser, as he began life without a farthing, and as, moreover, he is an +easy-going sort of philosopher in his way, he may content himself to the +last; and contentment, as we know, is a very hard thing to compass after +all. + +Of course, and as usual, the jury hardly know what to make of it; +the stout foreman inclines to the plaintiff in despite of law; but +he is evidently puzzled all the same; the thin man with the bridgy +nose, the cold man with the round head, and the argumentative juryman +with the mutton-chop whisker, all look at it, as they say, “legally,” +and decide in favour of the defendant. The jocular “party,” with the +curly red hair and the two tufts of chin-growing beard, treats it all +as good fun, and is ready to give his verdict for the defendant too, +because as he says:—“He is such a jolly old humbug, you know,” which +mode of settlement, however, is not looked upon as sufficient by his +two neighbours, to whom it is a much more serious matter. One of these +is trying to make up his mind, a feat he has never yet successfully +accomplished, so I suppose that as usual it will be made up for him by +somebody else; as for the other, after three hours’ reflection he has +really come to a decision, but, unfortunately, it is entirely opposed to +everything that the judge will tell them in his summing up, and of course +they will all be led by his lordship. + +My lord is neither a mumbling nor a short-tempered judge; he will +take them in hand kindly, explain away both counsel for plaintiff and +for defendant, and read them a great deal of his notes, which are a +thousandfold clearer, fuller, and more accurate than the reporter’s +“flimsy,” although during the trial he has been distinctly seen to write +four long letters, has gone twice to sleep, and has made seven recondite +legal jokes, including the famous ever-recurring and side-splitting +innuendo of calling upon the usher to cry silence, or “Sss-h,” whenever +the somewhat indistinctly speaking junior for the plaintiff rises—there +will be no withstanding his clear-headedness. + +[Illustration: The Judge. + +The Counsel.] + +As you would imagine, these jurors have been in turn led away by the +opposing counsel. For the plaintiff; they were made to admire the +consummate common sense and discretion of the plaintiff, Bullhead, who +having diluted his ordinary keenness with that admirable faith in human +nature, which is the keystone of all commercial transactions in this +arcadian world, has for the first time in his life, found his confidence +misplaced by the conduct of the defendant. Said the advocate: far be it +from him to call Floater, Esq., M.Q.S., by any derogatory appellations; +he was not a swindler, he was not a rogue, he was not a wolf in sheep’s +clothing, he was perhaps the victim of a misconception or a want of +memory, but a very honourable man all the same—an opinion which the jury +would endorse by giving full damages to his discreet and sensible client. + +[Illustration: The Attorneys.] + +But, said the counsel for the defendant—a foxy man with reddish hair, +angular eyes, and a mouth that seems to have a hole punched in each end +of it: he would not call Mr. Bullhead a villain of the deepest die, he +would not say that he had laid a plot to blast the happiness of the +domestic health of his unfortunate, his scrupulously respectable, and +he would add his distinguished client; no, not he—far from it, he would +suppose that an obtuseness of intellect on the part of the, at all +events, short-tempered plaintiff, had led him to imagine, and so forth. +And by the way, notice how these foxy counsel do cuddle themselves +up, how they look askance, and wriggle about to show their honesty and +straightforwardness,—for indeed I suppose we must admit that they are +honest and straightforward from their point of view, although they do +shake their heads at his lordship whenever a particularly damaging +statement is put forward by the opposite side, and although they do paint +black with a grey tint, and find a few spots upon the purest white. Thank +goodness, they have the attorneys to throw the blame upon when there +happens to be any, and the attorneys sitting under the bar, and putting +their heads together, have, I suppose, shoulders broad enough to bear it. + +These two do not look ingenuous: here is the smooth and the rough. The +rough one never seems to believe a word that is said to him, while the +smooth one appears to take in everything. The one, half shutting his +eyes, draws his face down and his forehead up, into all the fifty lines +of unbelief, while Smoothman drags his cheeks into such a lovely smiling +look of faith in everything you have to propose, that you really begin +to wonder how that underhung jaw and knitted brow came into the same +company. Well, there is not very much to choose between them—if Diogenes +is given to sharp practice, Smoothman is a very bulldog for holding on +wherever he gets his teeth in; and for twisting a grievance into court, +for sublimating an action into a verdict, and a verdict into bills of +costs, I think they are equally to be trusted. + +So we will say that this trial has gone against the angry plaintiff; that +it is one more feather in the cap of Foxy Q.C., and money in the purse to +Floater, M.Q.S.; that the jury are aware of having supported the glory of +the English nation and the majesty of the law; that the learned judge, +disrobed and unwigged, is no longer a good old lady, but a distinguished +gentleman; and the ushers having cried Ssss-h all the day, which seems to +be their responsible and arduous and only duty, are going home to dinner, +leaving the reporters to pack up and follow. + +One word about the “Press” before we part. Just one word to note the +elderly press-man, who is of a shrewd, parroty appearance, and who has +sat in court so many years reporting, that his grey hair has at last +taken the form, colour, and texture of a judge’s wig: his aspect is +severe; he seems to have imbibed the spirit of that justice which he has +passed his life in recording. + + + + +Agnes of Sorrento. + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE ARTIST MONK. + +On the evening when Agnes and her grandmother had returned from the +convent, as they were standing after their supper looking over the +garden parapet into the gorge, their attention was caught by a man in an +ecclesiastical habit, slowly climbing the rocky pathway towards them. + +“Isn’t that brother Antonio?” asked Dame Elsie, leaning forward to +observe more narrowly. “Yes, to be sure it is.” + +“Oh, how glad I am!” exclaimed Agnes, springing up with vivacity, and +looking eagerly down the path by which the stranger was approaching. + +A few moments more of clambering, and the stranger met the two women at +the gate with a gesture of benediction. He was apparently a little past +the middle point of life, and entering on its shady afternoon. He was +tall and well proportioned, and his features had the spare delicacy of +the Italian outline. The round brow fully developed in all the perceptive +and æsthetic regions, the keen eye shadowed by long dark lashes, the +thin flexible lips, the sunken cheek, where on the slightest emotion +there fluttered a brilliant flush of colour,—all were signs telling of +the enthusiast in whom the nervous and spiritual predominated over the +animal. At times, his eye had a dilating brightness, as if from the +flickering of some inward fire which was slowly consuming the mortal +part, and its expression was brilliant even to the verge of insanity. +His dress was the simple, coarse, white stuff gown of the Dominican +friars, over which he wore a darker travelling garment of coarse cloth, +with a hood, from whose deep shadows his bright mysterious eyes looked +like jewels from a cavern. At his side dangled a great rosary and cross +of black wood, and under his arm he carried a portfolio secured with a +leathern strap, which seemed stuffed to bursting with papers. + +Father Antonio, whom we have thus introduced to the reader, was a +travelling preaching monk from the convent of San Marco in Florence, on a +pastoral and artistic tour through Italy. + +Convents in the Middle Ages were the retreats of multitudes, of different +natures, who did not wish to live in a state of perpetual warfare and +offence, and all the elegant arts flourished under their protecting +shadows. Ornamental gardening, pharmacy, drawing, painting, carving in +wood, illumination, and calligraphy, were not unfrequent occupations of +the holy fathers, and the convent has given to the illustrious roll of +Italian art some of its most brilliant names. No institution in modern +Europe had a more established reputation in all these respects than the +convent of San Marco in Florence. In its best days, it was as near an +approach to an ideal community, associated to unite religion, beauty, +and utility, as ever has existed on earth. It was a retreat from the +commonplace prose of life into an atmosphere at once devotional and +poetic; and prayers and sacred hymns consecrated the elegant labours +of the chisel and the pencil, no less than the more homely ones of the +still and the crucible. San Marco, far from being that kind of sluggish +lagoon often imagined in conventual life, was rather a sheltered hotbed +of ideas—fervid with intellectual and moral energy, and before the age +in every radical movement. At this period, Savonarola, the poet and +prophet of the Italian religious world of his day, was Superior of +this convent, pouring through all the members of the Order the fire +of his own impassioned nature, and seeking to lead them back to the +fervours of more primitive and evangelical ages, and in the reaction of +a worldly and corrupt Church was beginning to feel the power of that +current which at last drowned his eloquent voice in the cold waters of +martyrdom. Savonarola was an Italian Luther—differing from him as the +more ethereally strung and nervous Italian differs from the bluff and +burly German; and like Luther he became in his time the centre of every +living thing in society about him. He inspired the pencils of artists, +guided the councils of statesmen, and, a poet himself, was an inspiration +to poets. Everywhere in Italy the monks of his Order were travelling, +restoring the shrines, preaching against the voluptuous and unworthy +pictures with which sensual artists had desecrated the churches, and +calling the people back by their exhortations to the purity of primitive +Christianity. + +Father Antonio was a younger brother of Elsie, and had early become a +member of the San Marco, enthusiastic not less in religion than in art. +His intercourse with his sister had few points of sympathy, Elsie being +as decided a utilitarian as any old Yankee female born in the granite +hills of New Hampshire, and pursuing with a hard and sharp energy her +narrow plan of life for Agnes. She regarded her brother as a very +properly religious person, considering his calling, but was a little +bored with his exuberant devotion, and absolutely indifferent to his +artistic enthusiasm. Agnes, on the contrary, had from a child attached +herself to her uncle with all the energy of a sympathetic nature, and +his yearly visits had been looked forward to on her part with intense +expectation. To him she could say a thousand things which instinctively +she concealed from her grandmother; and Elsie was well pleased with +the confidence, because it relieved her a little from the vigilant +guardianship that she otherwise held over the girl: when Father Antonio +was about, she had leisure now and then for a little private gossip of +her own. + +“Dear uncle, how glad I am to see you once more!” was the eager +salutation with which the young girl received the monk, as he gained the +little garden; “and you have brought your pictures,—oh, I know you have +so many pretty things to show me!” + +“Well, well, child,” said Elsie, “don’t begin upon that now: a little +talk of bread and cheese will be more in point. Come in, brother, and +wash your feet, and let me beat the dust out of your cloak, and give you +something to stay nature; for you must be fasting.” + +“Thank you, sister,” said the monk; “and as for you, pretty one, never +mind what she says. Uncle Antonio will show his little Agnes everything +by-and-by.—A good little thing it is, sister.” + +“Yes, yes, good enough,—and too good,” said Elsie, bustling about;—“roses +can’t help having thorns, I suppose.” + +“Only our ever-blessed Rose of Sharon, the dear mystical Rose of +Paradise, can boast of having no thorns,” said the monk, bowing and +crossing himself devoutly. + +Agnes clasped her hands on her bosom and bowed also, while Elsie stopped +with her knife in the middle of a loaf of black bread, and crossed +herself with somewhat of impatience,—like a worldly-minded person of our +day, who is interrupted in the midst of an observation by a grace. + +After the rites of hospitality had been duly observed, the old dame +seated herself contentedly at her door with her distaff, resigned Agnes +to the safe guardianship of her uncle, and had a feeling of security +in seeing them sitting together on the parapet of the garden, with +the portfolio spread out between them; the warm twilight glow of the +evening sky lighting up their figures as they bent in ardent interest +over its contents. The portfolio showed a fluttering collection of +sketches,—fruits, flowers, animals, insects, faces, figures, shrines, +buildings, trees; all, in short, that might strike the mind of a man +to whose eye nothing on the face of the earth is without beauty and +significance. + +“Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed the girl, taking up one sketch, in which a +bunch of rosy cyclamen was painted rising out of a bed of moss. + +“Ah, that, indeed, my dear!” said the artist. “Would you had seen the +place where I painted it! I stopped there to recite my prayers one +morning; ’twas by the side of a beautiful cascade, and all the ground was +covered with these lovely cyclamens, and the air was musky with their +fragrance. Ah, the bright rose-coloured leaves! I can get no colour like +them, unless some angel would bring me some from those sunset clouds +yonder.” + +“And oh, dear uncle, what lovely primroses!” pursued Agnes, taking up +another paper. + +“Yes, child; but you should have seen them when I was coming down the +south side of the Apennines;—these were everywhere so pale and sweet, +they seemed like the humility of our most Blessed Mother in her lowly +mortal state. I am minded to make a border of primroses to the leaf in +the Breviary where is the ‘Hail, Mary!’ for it seems as if that flower +doth ever say, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord!’” + +“And what will you do with the cyclamen, uncle? does not that mean +something?” + +“Yes, daughter,” replied the monk, readily entering into that symbolical +strain which permeated all the heart and mind of the religious of +his day; “I _can_ see a meaning in it. For you see that the cyclamen +puts forth its leaves in early spring deeply engraven with mystical +characters, and loves cool shadows and moist, dark places, but comes at +length to wear a royal crown of crimson; and it seems to me like the +saints who dwell in convents and other prayerful places, and have the +word of God graven in their hearts in youth, till their hearts blossom +into fervent love and they are crowned with royal graces.” + +“Ah!” sighed Agnes, “how beautiful and blessed to be among such!” + +“Thou sayest well, dear child. Blessed are the flowers of God that grow +in cool solitudes, and have never been profaned by the hot sun and dust +of this world!” + +“I should like to be such a one,” said Agnes. “I often think, when I +visit the sisters at the convent, that I long to be one of them.” + +“A pretty story!” cried Dame Elsie, who had heard the last words. “What! +go into a convent and leave your poor grandmother all alone, when she has +toiled night and day for so many years to get a dowry for you and find +you a worthy husband!” + +“I don’t want any husband in this world, grandmamma,” said Agnes. + +“What talk is this? Not want a good husband to take care of you when your +poor old grandmother is gone? Who will provide for you?” + +“He who took care of the blessed Saint Agnes, grandmamma.” + +“Saint Agnes, to be sure! That was a great many years ago, and times have +altered since then;—in these days girls must have husbands.” + +“But if the darling hath a vocation?” suggested the artist, mildly. + +“Vocation! I’ll see to that! She shan’t have a vocation! Do you suppose +I’m going to toil, and spin, and wear myself to the bone, and have her +slip through my fingers at last with a vocation? No, indeed!” + +“Indeed, dear grandmother, don’t be angry!” pleaded Agnes. “I will do +just as you say,—only I don’t want a husband.” + +“Well, well, my little heart,—one thing at a time; you shan’t have him +till you say yes willingly,” said Elsie, in a mollified tone. + +Agnes turned again to the portfolio and busied herself with it, her eyes +dilating as she ran over the sketches. + +“Ah! what pretty, pretty bird is this?” she asked. + +“Knowest thou not that bird, with his little red beak?” said the artist. +“When our dear Lord hung bleeding and no man pitied Him, this bird, +filled with tender love, tried to draw out the nails with his poor little +beak—so much better were the birds than we hard-hearted sinners!—hence he +hath honour in many pictures. See here—I shall put him in the office of +the Sacred Heart, in a little nest curiously built in a running vine of +passion-flower. See here, daughter—I have a great commission to execute +a breviary for our house, and our holy father was pleased to say that +the spirit of the blessed Angelico had in some little humble measure +descended on me, and now I am busy day and night; for not a twig rustles, +not a bird flies, nor a flower blossoms, but I begin to see therein some +hint of holy adornment to my blessed work.” + +“Oh, uncle Antonio, how happy you must be!” exclaimed Agnes, her large +eyes dilating and filling with tears. + +“Happy!—child, am I not?” returned the monk, looking up and crossing +himself. “Holy Mother, am I not? Do I not walk the earth in a dream of +bliss, and see the footsteps of my most Blessed Lord and his dear Mother +on every rock and hill? I see the flowers rise up in clouds to adore +them. What am I, unworthy sinner, that such grace is granted me? Often +I fall on my face before the humblest flower where my dear Lord hath +written his name, and confess I am unworthy the honour of copying his +sweet handiwork.” + +The artist spoke these words with his hands clasped and his fervid eyes +upraised, like a man in an ecstasy; nor can our more prosaic English give +an idea of the fluent simplicity and grace with which such images melt +into that lovely tongue that seems made to be the natural language of +poetry and enthusiasm. + +Agnes looked up to him with awe, as to some celestial being; but there +was a sympathetic glow in her face, and she crossed her hands on her +bosom, as her manner often was when much moved, and, drawing a deep sigh, +ejaculated:—“Would that such gifts were mine!” + +“They are thine, sweet one,” replied the monk. “In Christ’s dear kingdom +is no ‘mine’ or ‘thine,’ but all that each hath is the property of +the others. I never rejoice so much in my art as when I think of the +communion of saints; and that all that our Blessed Lord will work through +me is the property of the humblest soul in his kingdom. When I see one +flower rarer than another, or a bird singing on a twig, I take note of +the same, and say, ‘This lovely work of God shall be for some shrine, or +the border of a missal, or the foreground of an altar-piece, and thus +shall his saints be comforted.’” + +“But,” said Agnes, fervently, “how little can a poor young maiden do! Ah, +I do so long to offer myself up in some way to the dear Lord who gave +Himself for us, and for his most Blessed Church!” + +As Agnes spoke these words, her cheek, usually so clear and pale, became +suffused with a tremulous colour, and her dark eyes beamed with a deep, +divine expression; a moment after, the colour slowly faded, her head +drooped, and her long dark lashes fell on her cheek, while her hands +were folded on her bosom. The eye of the monk was watching her with an +enkindled glance. + +“Is she not the very presentment of our Blessed Lady in the +Annunciation?” said he to himself. “Surely, this grace is upon her for +this special purpose. My prayers are answered.” + +“Daughter,” he began, in a gentle tone, “a glorious work has been done of +late in Florence under the preaching of our blessed Superior. Could you +believe it, daughter, in these times of backsliding and rebuke there have +been found painters base enough to paint the pictures of vile, abandoned +women in the character of our Blessed Lady; yea, and princes have been +found wicked enough to buy them and put them up in churches, so that the +people have had the Mother of all Purity presented to them in the guise +of a vile harlot. Is it not dreadful?” + +“How horrible!” ejaculated Agnes. + +“Ah, but you should have seen the great procession through Florence, when +all the little children were inspired by the heavenly preaching of our +blessed Master. These dear little ones, carrying the blessed cross and +singing the hymns our Master had written for them, went from house to +house and church to church, demanding that everything that was vile and +base should be delivered up to the flames; and the people, beholding, +thought that the angels had indeed come down, so they brought forth all +their loose pictures and vile books, such as Boccaccio’s romances and +other defilements, and the children made a great bonfire of them in +the Grand Piazza, and thus thousands of vile things were consumed and +scattered. And then our blessed Master exhorted the artists to give their +pencils to Christ and his Mother, and to seek for her image among pious +and holy women living a veiled and secluded life, like that our Lady +lived before the blessed Annunciation. ‘Think you,’ he continued, ‘that +the blessed Angelico obtained the grace to set forth our Lady in such +heavenly wise, by gazing about the streets on mincing women tricked out +in all the world’s bravery?—Did he not find her image in holy solitudes, +among modest and prayerful saints?’” + +“Ah,” exclaimed Agnes, drawing in her breath with an expression of awe, +“what mortal would dare to sit for the image of our Lady!” + +“Dear child, there be women whom the Lord crowns with beauty when they +know it not, and our dear Mother sheds so much of her spirit into their +hearts that it shines out in their faces; among such must the painter +look. Dear little child, be not ignorant that our Lord hath shed this +great grace on thee. I have received a light that thou art to be the +model for the ‘Hail, Mary!’ in my Breviary.” + +“Oh, no, no, no! it cannot be!” cried Agnes, covering her face. + +“My daughter, thou art very beautiful, and this beauty was given thee not +for thyself, but to be laid like a sweet flower on the altar of thy Lord. +Think how blessed, if, through thee, the faithful be reminded of the +modesty and humility of Mary, so that their prayers become more fervent! +Would it not be a great grace?” + +“Dear uncle,” replied Agnes, “I am Christ’s child. If it be as you +say,—which I did not know,—give me some days to pray and prepare my soul, +that I may offer myself in all humility.” + +During this conversation Elsie had left the garden and gone a little way +down the gorge, to have a few moments of gossip with an old crony of +hers. The light of the evening sky had gradually faded away, and the full +moon was pouring a shower of silver upon the orange-trees. As Agnes sat +on the parapet, with the moonlight streaming down on her young, spiritual +face, now tremulous with deep suppressed emotion, the painter thought he +had never seen any human creature that looked nearer to his conception of +a celestial being. + +They both sat awhile in that kind of quietude which often falls between +two who have stirred some deep fountain of emotion. All was so still +around them, that the drip and trickle of the little stream which +fell from the garden wall into the dark abyss of the gorge, could be +distinctly heard as it pattered from one rocky point to another, with a +light, lulling sound. Suddenly their revery was disturbed by the shadow +of a figure which passed into the moonlight and seemed to have risen +from the side of the gorge. A man, enveloped in a dark cloak with a +peaked hood, stepped across the moss-grown garden parapet, stood a moment +irresolute, then the cloak dropped suddenly from him, and the cavalier +appeared in the moonlight before Agnes. He bore in his hand a tall stalk +of white lily, with open blossoms and buds and tender fluted green +leaves, such as one sees in a thousand pictures of the Annunciation. The +moonlight fell full upon his face, revealing his haughty yet beautiful +features, agitated by some profound emotion. The monk and the girl were +both too much surprised for a moment to utter a sound; and when, after +an instant, the monk made a half-movement as if to speak, the cavalier +raised his right hand with a sudden authoritative gesture which silenced +him. Then turning toward Agnes, he knelt, and kissed the hem of her robe, +and laying the lily in her lap, exclaimed, “Holiest and dearest—oh! +forget not to pray for me!” He rose again in a moment, and, throwing his +cloak around him, sprang over the garden wall, and was heard rapidly +descending into the shadows of the gorge. + +All this passed so quickly that it seemed to both the spectators like a +dream. The splendid man, with his jewelled weapons, his haughty bearing +and air of easy command, bowing with such solemn humility before the +peasant girl, reminded the monk of the barbaric princes in the wonderful +legends he had read, who had been drawn by some heavenly inspiration to +come and render themselves up to the teachings of holy virgins, chosen of +the Lord, in divine solitudes. In the poetical world in which he lived +such marvels were possible: there were a thousand precedents for them in +that dream-land of the devout, “The Lives of the Saints.” + +“My daughter,” he said, after looking vainly down the dark shadows to +track the path of the stranger, “have you ever seen this man before?” + +“Yes, uncle; yesterday evening I saw him for the first time, when sitting +at my stand at the gate of the city. It was at the Ave Maria; he came up +there and asked my prayers, and gave me a diamond ring for the shrine of +Saint Agnes, which I carried to the convent. + +“Behold, my dear daughter, the confirmation of what I have just said to +thee! It is evident that our Lady hath endowed thee with the great grace +of a beauty which draws the soul upward toward the angels, instead of +downward to sensual things, like the beauty of worldly women. What saith +the blessed poet Dante of the beauty of the holy Beatrice?—that it said +to every man who looked on her, ‘_Aspire!_’ Great is the grace; and thou +must give special praise therefor.” + +“I would,” said Agnes, thoughtfully, “that I knew who this stranger is, +and what is his great trouble and need,—his eyes are so full of sorrow. +Giulietta said he was the king’s brother, and was called the Lord Adrian. +What sorrow can he have, or what need for the prayers of a poor maid like +me?” + +“Perhaps the Lord hath pierced him with a longing after the celestial +beauty and heavenly purity of paradise, and wounded him with a divine +sorrow, as happened to Saint Francis and to the blessed Saint Dominic,” +said the monk. “Beauty is the Lord’s arrow, wherewith He pierceth to +the inmost soul, with a divine longing and languishment which find rest +only in Him. Hence, thou seest, the wounds of love in saints are always +painted by us with holy flames ascending from them. Have good courage, +sweet child, and pray with fervour for this youth: there be no prayers +sweeter before the throne of God than those of spotless maidens. The +Scripture saith, ‘The beloved feedeth among the lilies.’” + +At this moment was heard the sharp, decided tramp of Elsie re-entering +the garden. + +“Come, Agnes,” she cried, “it is time for you to begin your prayers, or, +the saints know, I shall not get you to bed till midnight. I suppose +prayers are a good thing,” she added, seating herself wearily; “but if +one must have so many of them, one must get about them early: there’s +reason in all things.” + +Agnes, who had been sitting abstractedly on the parapet, with her head +drooped over the lily-spray, now seemed to collect herself. She rose up +in a grave and thoughtful manner, and, going forward to the shrine of the +Madonna, removed the flowers of the morning, and, holding the vase under +the spout of the fountain all feathered with waving maidenhair, filled it +with fresh water, the drops falling from it in a thousand little silver +rings in the moonlight. + +“I have a thought,” said the monk to himself, drawing from his girdle a +pencil and hastily sketching by the moonlight. What he drew was a fragile +maiden form, sitting with clasped hands on a mossy ruin, gazing on a +spray of white lilies which lay before her. He called it, The Blessed +Virgin pondering the Lily of the Annunciation. + +“Hast thou ever reflected,” he asked of Agnes, “what that lily might be +like which the angel Gabriel brought to our Lady?—for, trust me, it was +no mortal flower, but grew by the river of life. I have often meditated +thereon, that it was like unto living silver with a light in itself, +like the moon—even as our Lord’s garments in the Transfiguration, which +glistened like the snow. I have cast about in myself by what device a +painter might represent so marvellous a flower.” + +“Now, brother Antonio,” Elsie broke in, “if you begin to talk to the +child about such matters, our Lady alone knows when we shall get to bed. +I am sure I’m as good a Christian as anybody; but, as I said, there’s +reason in all things: one cannot always be wondering and inquiring into +heavenly matters—as to every feather in Saint Michael’s wings, and as to +our Lady’s girdle and shoestrings and thimble and work-basket; and when +one gets through with our Lady, then one has it all to go over about her +mother, the blessed Saint Anne (may her name be ever praised!) I mean no +disrespect, but the saints are reasonable folk, and must see that poor +folk must live, and, in order to live, must think of something else now +and then besides _them_. That’s my mind, brother.” + +“Well, well, sister,” returned the monk, placidly, “no doubt you are +right. There shall be no quarrelling in the Lord’s vineyard: every one +hath his manner and place, and you follow the lead of the blessed Saint +Martha, which is holy and honourable.” + +“Honourable! I should think it might be!” retorted Elsie. “I warrant me, +if everything had been left to Saint Mary’s doings, our Blessed Lord and +the Twelve Apostles might have gone supperless. But it’s Martha gets all +the work, and Mary all the praise.” + +“Quite right, quite right,” said the monk, abstractedly, while he stood +out in the moonlight busily sketching the fountain. By just such a +fountain he thought our Lady might have washed the clothes of the Blessed +Babe. Doubtless there was some such in the court of her dwelling, all +mossy and with sweet waters for ever singing a song of praise. + +Elsie was now heard within the house making energetic commotion, rattling +pots and pans, and effecting decided movements among the simple furniture +of the dwelling; probably with a view to preparing for the night’s repose +of her guest. + +Meanwhile Agnes, kneeling before the shrine, was going through, with +great feeling and tenderness, the various manuals and movements of +nightly devotion which her own religious fervour and the zeal of +her spiritual advisers had enjoined upon her. Christianity, when it +entered Italy, came among a people every act of whose life was coloured +and consecrated by symbolic and ritual acts of heathenism. The only +possible way to uproot this was in supplanting it by Christian ritual +and symbolism equally minute and pervading. Besides, in those ages when +the Christian preacher was utterly destitute of all such help as the +press now gives in keeping under the eye of converts the great inspiring +truths of religion, it was one of the first offices of every saint whose +preaching stirred the heart of the people, to devise symbolic forms, +signs, and observances, by which the mobile and fluctuating heart of +the multitude might crystallize into habits of devout remembrance. The +rosary, the crucifix, the shrine, the banner, the processions, were +catechisms and tracts invented for those who could not read, wherein +the substance of pages was condensed and gave itself to the eye and +the touch. Let us not, from the height of our day, with the better +appliances which a universal press gives us, sneer at the homely rounds +of the ladder by which the first multitudes of the Lord’s flock climbed +heavenward. + +If there seemed somewhat mechanical in the number of times which Agnes +repeated the “Hail, Mary!”—in the prescribed number of times she rose, +or bowed, or crossed herself, or laid her forehead in low humility on +the flags of the pavement, it was redeemed by the earnest fervour which +inspired each action. However foreign to the habits of a Northern mind +or education such a mode of prayer may be, these forms to her were all +helpful and significant; her soul was borne by them Godward, and often, +as she prayed, it seemed to her that she could feel the dissolving of all +earthy things, and the pressing nearer and nearer of the great cloud of +witnesses who ever surround the humblest member of Christ’s mystical body. + + “Sweet loving hearts around her beat, + Sweet helping hands are stirred, + And palpitates the veil between + With breathings almost heard.” + +Certain English writers, looking entirely from a worldly and +philosophical stand-point, are utterly at a loss to account for the +power which certain Italian women of obscure birth came to exercise in +the councils of nations merely by the force of a mystical piety; but the +Northern mind of Europe is entirely unfitted to read and appreciate the +psychological religious phenomena of Southern races. The temperament +which in our modern days has been called the mediæval, and which with +us is only exceptional, is more or less a race-peculiarity of Southern +climates, and gives that objectiveness to the conception of spiritual +things from which grew up a complete ritual and a whole world of +religious art. The Southern saints and religious artists were seers—men +and women of that peculiar fineness and delicacy of temperament which +made them peculiarly apt to receive and project outward the truths of +the spiritual life; they were in that state of “divine madness” which is +favourable to the most intense conception of the poet and artist, and +something of this influence descended through all the channels of the +people. + +When Agnes rose from prayer, she had a serene, exalted expression, like +one who walks with some unseen excellence and meditates on some untold +joy. As she was crossing the court to come towards her uncle, her eye +was attracted by the sparkle of something on the ground, and, stooping, +she picked up a heart-shaped locket, curiously made of a large amethyst, +and fastened with a golden arrow. As she pressed upon this, the locket +opened and disclosed to her view a folded paper. Her mood at this moment +was so calm and elevated that she received the incident with no start or +quiver of the nerves. To her it seemed a providential token, which would +probably bring to her some further knowledge of this mysterious being who +had been so especially confided to her intercessions. + +Agnes had learned of the superior of the convent the art of reading +writing, which would never have been the birthright of the peasant-girl +in her times, and the moonlight had that dazzling clearness which +revealed every letter. + +She stood by the parapet, one hand lying in the white blossoming alyssum +which filled its marble crevices, while she seriously read and pondered +the contents of the paper. + + TO AGNES. + + Sweet saint, sweet lady, may a sinful soul + Approach thee with an offering of love, + And lay at thy dear feet a weary heart + That loves thee, as it loveth God above? + If blessed Mary may without a stain + Receive the love of sinners most defiled, + If the fair saints that walk with her in white + Refuse not love from earth’s most guilty child, + Shouldst thou, sweet lady, then that love deny + Which all-unworthy at thy feet is laid? + Ah, gentlest angel, be not more severe + Than the dear heavens unto a loving prayer! + Howe’er unworthily that prayer be said, + Let thine acceptance be like that on high! + +There might have been times in Agnes’ life when the reception of this +note would have astonished and perplexed her; but the whole strain +of thought and conversation this evening had been in exalted and +poetical regions, and the soft stillness of the hour, the wonderful +calmness and clearness of the moonlight, all seemed in unison with the +strange incident that had occurred, and with the still stranger tenor +of the paper. The soft melancholy and half-religious tone of it was +in accordance with the whole undercurrent of her life, and prevented +that start of alarm which any homage of a more worldly form might have +excited. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that she read it +many times with pauses and intervals of deep thought, and then with a +movement of natural and girlish curiosity examined the rich jewel which +had enclosed the paper. At last, seeming to collect her thoughts, she +folded the paper and replaced it in its sparkling recess, and, unlocking +the door of the shrine, laid the gem with its inclosure beneath the +lily-spray, as another offering to the Madonna. “Dear Mother,” she +prayed, “if indeed it be so, may he rise from loving me to loving thee +and thy dear Son, who is Lord of all! Amen!” Thus praying, she locked the +door and turned thoughtfully to her repose, leaving the monk pacing up +and down in the moonlit garden. + +Meanwhile the cavalier was standing on the velvet mossy bridge which +spanned the stream at the bottom of the gorge, watching the play of +moonbeams on layer after layer of tremulous silver foliage in the clefts +of the black, rocky walls on either side. The moon rode so high in the +deep violet-coloured sky, that her beams came down almost vertically, +making green and translucent the leaves through which they passed, and +throwing strongly marked shadows here and there on the flower-embroidered +moss of the old bridge. There was that solemn, plaintive stillness in the +air which makes the least sound—the hum of an insect’s wing, the cracking +of a twig, the patter of falling water—distinct and impressive. + +It needs not to be explained how the cavalier, following the steps of +Agnes and her grandmother at a distance, had threaded the path by which +they ascended to their little sheltered nook—how he had lingered within +hearing of Agnes’ voice, and moving among the surrounding rocks and +trees, and drawing nearer and nearer as evening shadows drew on, had +listened to the conversation, hoping that some unexpected chance might +gain him a moment’s speech with his enchantress. + +The reader will have gathered from a previous chapter that the conception +which Agnes had formed as to the real position of her admirer from +the reports of Giulietta was false, and that in reality he was not +Lord Adrian, the brother of the king, but an outcast and landless +representative of one branch of an ancient and noble Roman family, whose +estates had been confiscated and whose relations had been murdered, to +satisfy the boundless rapacity of Cæsar Borgia, the infamous favourite of +the notorious Alexander VI. + +The natural temperament of Agostino Sarelli had been rather that of the +poet and artist than of the warrior. In the beautiful gardens of his +ancestral home it had been his delight to muse over the pages of Dante +and Ariosto, to sing to the lute, and to write in the facile flowing +rhyme of his native Italian the fancies of the dream-land of his youth. + +He was the younger brother of the family and the favourite son and +companion of his mother; who, being of a tender and religious nature, had +brought him up in habits of the most implicit reverence and devotion for +the institutions of his forefathers. + +The storm which swept over his house and blasted all his worldly +prospects, blasted, too, and withered all those religious hopes and +beliefs by which alone sensitive and affectionate natures can be healed +of the wounds of adversity without leaving distortion or scar. For his +house had been overthrown, his elder brother cruelly and treacherously +murdered, himself and his retainers robbed and cast out, by a man who had +the entire sanction and support of the head of the Christian Church, the +Vicar of Christ on Earth. So said the current belief of his times—the +faith in which his sainted mother died; and the difficulty with which a +man breaks away from such ties is in exact proportion to the refinement +and elevation of his nature. + +In the mind of our young nobleman there was a double current. He was a +Roman, and the traditions of his house went back to the time of Mutius +Scævola; and his old nurse had told him often that grand story of how +the young hero stood with his right hand in the fire rather than betray +his honour. If the legends of Rome’s ancient heroes cause the pulses of +colder climes and alien races to throb with sympathetic heroism, what +must their power be to one who says, “_These were my fathers?_” Agostino +read Plutarch, and thought, “_I_, too, am a Roman!” and then he looked +on the power that held sway over the Tarpeian Rock and the halls of the +old “Sanctus Senatus,” and asked himself, “By what right does it hold +these?” He knew full well that, in the popular belief, all those hardy +and virtuous old Romans, whose deeds of heroism so transported him, were +burning in hell for the crime of having been born before Christ; and he +asked himself, as he looked on the horrible and unnatural luxury and vice +which defiled the papal chair and ran riot through every ecclesiastical +Order, whether such men, without faith, without conscience, and without +even decency, were indeed the only authorized successors of Christ and +his Apostles? + +To us, of course, from our modern stand-point, the question has an easy +solution; but not so in those days, when the Christianity of the known +world was in the Romish Church, and when the choice seemed to be between +that and infidelity. Not yet had Luther flared aloft the bold, cheery +torch which showed the faithful how to disentangle Christianity from +Ecclesiasticism. Luther in those days was a star lying low in the gray +horizon of a yet unawakened dawn. + +All through Italy at this time there was the restless throbbing and +pulsating, the aimless outreach of the popular heart, which marks +the decline of one cycle of religious faith and calls for some great +awakening and renewal. Savonarola, the priest and prophet of this dumb +desire, was beginning to heave a great heart of conflict towards that +mighty struggle with the vices and immoralities of his times, in which +he was yet to sink a martyr; and even now his course was beginning to be +obstructed by the full energy of the whole aroused serpent brood which +hissed and knotted in the holy places of Rome. + +Here, then, was our Agostino, with a nature intensely fervent and +poetic—every fibre of whose soul and nervous system had been from +childhood skilfully woven and intertwisted with the ritual and faith of +his fathers,—yearning towards the grave of his mother; yearning towards +the legends of saints and angels with which she had lulled his cradle +slumbers and sanctified his childhood’s pillow, and yet burning with the +indignation of a whole line of old Roman ancestors against an injustice +and oppression wrought under the full approbation of the head of that +religion. Half his nature was all the while battling the other half. +Would he be Roman, or would he be Christian? All the Roman in him said, +“No!” when he thought of submission to the patent and open injustice +and fiendish tyranny which had disinherited him, slain his kindred, and +held its impure reign by torture and by blood. He looked on the splendid +snow-crowned mountains whose old silver senate engirdle Rome with an +eternal and silent majesty of presence, and he thought how often in +ancient times they had been a shelter to free blood that would not endure +oppression; and so gathering to his banner the crushed and scattered +retainers of his father’s house, and offering refuge and protection to +multitudes of others whom the crimes and rapacities of the Borgias had +stripped of possessions and means of support, he fled to a fastness +in the mountains between Rome and Naples, and became an independent +chieftain, living by his sword. + +The rapacity, cruelty, and misgovernment of the various regular +authorities of Italy at this time, made brigandage a respectable and +honoured institution in the eyes of the people; though it was ostensibly +banned both by Pope and Prince. Besides, in the multitude of contending +factions which were every day wrangling for supremacy, it soon became +apparent, even to the ruling authorities, that a band of fighting-men +under a gallant leader, advantageously posted in the mountains and +understanding all their passes, was a power of no small importance to be +employed on one side or the other; therefore it happened, that, though +nominally outlawed or excommunicated, they were secretly protected on +both sides, with a view to securing their assistance in critical turns of +affairs. + +Among the common people of the towns and villages their relations were +of the most comfortable kind, their depredations being chiefly confined +to the rich and prosperous; who, as they wrung their wealth out of the +people, were not considered particular objects of compassion when the +same kind of high-handed treatment was extended towards themselves. + +The most spirited and brave of the young peasantry, if they wished to +secure the smiles of the girls of their neighbourhood and win hearts past +redemption, found no surer avenue to favour than in joining the brigands. +The leaders of these bands sometimes piqued themselves on elegant tastes +and accomplishments; and one of them is said to have sent to the poet +Tasso, in his misfortunes and exile, an offer of honourable asylum and +protection in his mountain-fortress. + +Agostino Sarelli saw himself, in fact, a powerful chief; and there were +times when the splendid scenery of his mountain-fastness, its inspiring +air, its wild eagle-like grandeur, independence, and security, gave +him a proud contentment, and he looked at his sword and loved it as a +bride. But then again there were moods when he felt all that yearning and +disquiet of soul which the man of wide and tender moral organization must +feel who has had his faith shaken in the religion of his fathers. To such +a man the quarrel with his childhood’s faith is a never-ending anguish; +especially is it so with a religion so objective, so pictorial, and so +interwoven with the whole physical and nervous nature of man, as that +which grew up and flowered in modern Italy. + +Agostino was like a man who lives in an eternal struggle of +self-justification,—his reason for ever going over and over with its plea +before his regretful and never-satisfied heart, which was drawn every +hour of the day by some chain of memory towards the faith whose visible +administrators he detested with the whole force of his moral being. When +the vesper-bell, with its plaintive call, sounded amid the purple shadows +of the olive-silvered mountains,—when the distant voices of chanting +priest and choir reached him solemnly from afar,—when he looked into a +church with its cloudy pictures of angels and its window-panes flaming +with venerable forms of saints and martyrs,—he experienced a yearning +anguish, a pain and conflict, which all the effort of his reason could +not subdue. How to be a Christian and yet defy the authorized Head of +the Christian Church, or how to be a Christian and recognize foul men +of obscene and rapacious deeds as Christ’s representatives, was the +inextricable Gordian knot which his sword could not divide. He dared +not approach the sacrament, he dared not pray; he sometimes felt wild +impulses to tread down in riotous despair every fragment of a religious +belief which seemed to live in his heart only to torture him. He had +heard priests scoff over the wafer they consecrated,—he had known them +to mingle poison for rivals in the sacramental wine,—and yet God had +kept silence and not struck them dead. Like the Psalmist of old he +cried, “Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in +innocency. Is there a God that judgeth in the earth?” + +The first time he saw Agnes bending like a flower in the slanting evening +sunbeams by the old gate of Sorrento, while he stood looking down the +street lined with kneeling forms, and striving to hold his own soul in +the sarcastic calm of utter indifference, he felt himself struck to +the heart by an influence he could not define. The sight of that young +face, with its clear beautiful lines and its tender fervour, recalled a +thousand influences of the happiest and purest hours of his life, and +drew him with an attraction he vainly strove to hide under an air of +mocking gallantry. + +When she looked him in the face with such grave, surprised eyes of +innocent confidence, and promised to pray for him, he felt a remorseful +tenderness, as if he had profaned a shrine. All that was passionate, +poetic, and romantic in his nature was awakened, to blend itself in a +strange mingling of despairing sadness and of tender veneration about +this sweet image of perfect purity and faith. Never does love strike +so deep and immediate a root as in a sorrowful and desolated nature; +there it has nothing to dispute the soil, and soon fills it with its +interlacing fibres. + +In this case it was not merely Agnes that he sighed for, but she stood to +him as the fair symbol of that life-peace, that rest of soul, which he +had lost, it seemed to him, for ever. + +“Behold this pure, believing child,” he said to himself,—“a true member +of that blessed Church to which thou art a rebel! How peacefully this +lamb walketh the old ways trodden by saints and martyrs, while thou +art an infidel and unbeliever!” And then a stern voice within him +answered,—“What then? Is the Holy Ghost indeed alone dispensed through +the medium of Alexander and his scarlet crew of cardinals? Hath the power +to bind and to loose in Christ’s Church been indeed given to whoever can +buy it with the wages of robbery and oppression? Why does every prayer +and pious word of the faithful reproach me? Why is God silent? Or is +there any God? Oh, Agnes, Agnes! dear lily, fair lamb, lead a sinner into +the green pastures where thou restest!” + +So wrestled the strong nature, tempest-tossed in its strength,—so slept +the trustful, blessed in its trust,—then in Italy, as now in all lands. + + + + +A County Ball. + + +Amongst the pleasures in pursuit of which it is the custom to undergo +an extraordinary amount of hardship and suffering, the County Ball +is entitled to be mentioned, inasmuch as it happens often at a time +of year when frost and snow prevail; and that enthusiasm will carry +carriage-loads of people a distance of twelve or even twenty miles, +that they may dance in a crowd, denser even than that of a London ball, +if that is possible, and not go home till morning, when daylight has +probably appeared. + +It generally takes place at the Town Hall, or at the best inn’s +best room, which is decorated with garlands and banners, on which +are represented the arms of the noble and influential families of +the neighbourhood; and there are portraits of aldermen and other +distinguished citizens of the town, illustrious for their civic virtues +or for having made their fortunes. And if you have not provided yourself +with a ticket beforehand, you have the privilege of being able to pay at +the door. + +The music, when not supplied by the kind permission of the colonel of the +nearest regiment, is formed of the town band, and is remarkable chiefly +for the fact that, as the evening proceeds, their intonation becomes +more uncertain, but their performance generally more spirited and wilder +in execution. The company is composed partly of visitors and partly of +natives; the visitors being mostly swells from London and other distant +places, and having the conventional manners and customs of such; but the +natives may be distinguished by something more of distinct individual +character, and there is just a tinge of the rural in their aspect. + +The native comes out strong in waistcoats—his array in that respect being +gorgeous. In ordinary “society” the waistcoat may be said to be, as it +were, merged in the man—a uniform sombreness pervading the entire evening +dress. But the country gentleman evidently cherishes his waistcoat—has +his favourite waistcoats, which he brings out on great occasions; and it +is evident that he has expended much thought on the selection, and that +as he expands his chest so as to display as much as possible of that +portion of his person, he is proportionately proud of the result. + +[Illustration: BIRD’S-EYE VIEWS OF SOCIETY. NO. V. A County Ball.] + +The County Ball is a great opportunity for the exhibition of uniforms, +militia, deputy lieutenant, and other fancy dresses; and it is probable +that there are few men with any position at all, who don’t find an excuse +for becoming something or other that entitles them to wear a little gold +embroidery on their coat, or a silver stripe down their trousers. As for +Scotchmen, it is believed that none are to be found, however mild in +appearance or manners, who, if their wardrobes were searched, would not +be found to possess, only waiting an opportunity to be worn, a complete +Highland suit, kilt and etceteras—if, indeed, the word complete can ever +be properly applied to that description of costume. + +When the usual quantity of quadrilles, waltzes, lancers, country dances, +cotillons, reels, and “pop-go-the-weasels,” have been danced or struggled +through, in the nature of things comes supper, and then you will +observe that a comic man, generally recognized as such, and evidently a +great favourite in that part of the country, is called upon to make a +speech—returning thanks for the toast of “The Ladies,” probably; and he +rises to do so with the air of one who feels that he is the right man, +and the confidence following from a conviction that he is in the right +place. He proceeds to deliver a speech, which the county paper afterwards +describes as “replete with wit and humour,” and as received by the +delighted company with “one continued roar of laughter.” + +I began by saying something about hardship and suffering, but those words +are now withdrawn. What does it matter, if people are good-humoured, and +bent upon being amused and amusing others, whether they are driven to +the scene of the festivity one or twenty miles, or if the state of the +weather is many degrees above freezing point? If the party be a merry +one, the longer the journey the better. May County Balls continue and +flourish! + + + + +My Scotch School. + + +I have read a good deal of late, in this Magazine and elsewhere, about +English public schools, their advantages and disadvantages, their merits +and their shortcomings. Have the public any ears to hear something about +the public schools of Scotland? Professor John Stuart Blackie has written +often and with great force about the Scottish universities, showing that +they exhibit the very defects which “Paterfamilias” has pointed out as +existing in the public schools of England, with some others to boot. I am +not aware that any one has treated in the same way of the Scottish public +schools. I am desirous to supply this defect for two—as I think—good +reasons. First, because I myself received the rudiments of my education +at one of those Scottish schools, and therefore know something of the +subject; and, secondly, because there is a great deal of misapprehension +in England with respect to Scotch schools and Scotch education generally. +The popular idea here seems to be that Scotland, as regards education, +is a sort of Tom Tiddler’s ground, a place where the people, both high +and low, roll and wallow in education—a land where the rivers run with +fertilizing lore; where all the pines are trees of knowledge; where +grammar is raked out of the ditches; and where even Greek roots are to be +had on the barren hill-sides for the trouble of digging. If this be true, +Scotland stands not where it did when I went to school. + +Let me premise that I am not going to enter into a disquisition on the +subject, to analyze the plan of Scottish education, nor to be didactic +in any way whatever. I am simply about to give a sketch of my Scotch +school—the school I went to to be prepared for the university. There were +penny postage-stamps when I went to my Scotch school; the Reform Bill +had been passed eight years previously; daguerrotypes and the electric +telegraph were coming in. So it was but the other day. My school was the +parochial, or parish school, the school of all Scotch boys who dwell +in the country, whether high or low, gentle or simple. Here in England +the word “parish” is associated with all kinds of indignity—with the +Workhouse, the lock-up, the pound, the pauper’s allowance. It may, +therefore, seem to the English reader, ignorant of Scottish matters, when +I say I went to the parish school, that I wore a muffin cap and premature +knee-breeches (if the English mind can associate Scotland with these +nether integuments in any shape), and was educated at the public expense. +Let me dissipate this popular error. + +The parochial school in Scotland claims equal dignity with the parish +Kirk. It is the chief educational establishment—the public school in +fact—of the district, and is part of the national system for spreading +education and enlightenment among the people of Scotland. The Kirk in +Scotland, that is to say, the Established Kirk, is supported by a levy +upon the occupiers of the land. The tax, however, is an indirect one, +and therefore does not provoke the discontent caused by tithes and +church-rates in England. The heritors, that is to say the landowners, +pay the amount (on a scale in proportion to the price of grain), and +repay themselves out of the rents of their tenants. This payment is not +set down as a separate item in the rent-charge, and so the tenant pays +his tithes and rates as he pays the tax upon his tea and tobacco. He is +bled without knowing it. The parish school shares in this revenue with +the parish kirk, but to a limited extent. Turning to the statistical +account of my parish—written by the hand which directed the earliest +calligraphical exercises of the one which now pens this—I find that +the said parish is six miles long by five miles broad, and contains—or +did contain then—a population of 1,661 souls. Those English persons +who indulge in extravagant notions of the abundance of educational +provision in the North may be a little surprised to learn that for this +widely-scattered population there were only two schools, each capable +of accommodating no more than sixty or seventy scholars. The endowments +of these educational establishments were by no means magnificent. The +allowance to the master of the parochial school (who was required to be +a college man of considerable classical attainments) was 34_l._ 4_s._ +4_d._ per annum, with a dwelling-house and garden, and the fees of the +scholars.[3] The fees ranged from 10_s._ to 1_l._ per annum—ten shillings +for reading, writing, and arithmetic, and an extra ten for the classics. +The master of the other school—an auxiliary seminary established by the +General Assembly—received 25_l._ per annum and a cow’s keep, with the +fees, averaging about ten shillings per annum for each scholar. It was +not required that the master of this establishment should be a high +classic, or indeed a classic at all. The appointment was vested in the +minister, who was well content to select the candidate, whose letter, +soliciting the appointment, exhibited the fewest errors in orthography. +Perfection in that branch of grammar he never looked for and never got; +for how could you expect irreproachable orthography for 25_l._ a year +and a cow’s keep? The worthy man—the minister—made great exertions to +establish and carry on this school; but it was always a great source of +trouble to him. College men, of course, disdained to accept so trifling a +salary; or to undertake so undignified a duty as the instruction of poor +cottars’ children in the alphabet. The minister was, therefore, obliged +to accept the services of any half-educated aspirant for the honours +of a dominie, who could bring testimony to his respectability, and +write a tolerable letter. Most of the teachers—for there were frequent +changes—were Highlanders, who were more conversant with Gaelic than with +English, and who had learned the latter language as a foreign tongue. +They all spoke with a fearful Highland twang, all were married, all had +slatternly wives, and unreasonably large families. The cow that was kept +at the public expense for the sustenance (lacteally) of the General +Assembly’s schoolmaster had a hard time of it. Provender was scarce, and +the demand for milk excessive; and the schoolmaster’s cow generally died +of exhaustion, after a year or two of self-sacrifice. + +I remember once going with the minister to pay a visit to the Assembly’s +Institute in these parts. When we arrived the academic grove was +deserted, and we were informed that the “squeelmaister and the loons +were oot on the peat moss.” There we found them, the dominie putting his +pupils through a very novel kind of military exercise. He had collected +his army on his own division of the moss, where his peats lay in stacks, +ready to be carted home, when he could afford to pay for the cartage. +We arrived on the scene just as the review began. “Now, poys,” said the +dominie, taking up a peat in each hand, “this is a sword and this is a +cun”—the Highland pronunciation of “gun”—“shoulder arms, poys.” Here +the “poys” took a peat in each hand and shouldered them. “March, poys,” +said the dominie, flourishing his peat sword; and away marched the boys +with their peats, until they reached the school-house, when the dominie +made them defile into a shed and ground arms; that is to say, lay down +their peats in a heap convenient for the domestic use. This was what +the dominie called his gymnastic exercises, which, he boasted, combined +amusement and exercise with instruction; but a suspicion arising that +these gymnastics were nothing more nor less than a Highland device for +carrying home the dominie’s fuel on an economical principle, an order was +issued from head-quarters that such military instruction should only take +place in play-hours, and should not be included in the regular curriculum +of study. + +But I am wandering away from my own school, nestling five miles off among +the trees under the shadow of the old kirk. It is a plain one-storey +building divided into two parts; the one, consisting of three rooms +and a kitchen, forming the home of the schoolmaster, and the other the +schoolroom,—a tolerably large and airy apartment, with roughly plastered +walls, and furnished with deal desks and forms of the universal school +fashion. I do not remember that there were, at any time, more than sixty +scholars. They were gathered together from all parts of the parish. Some +of them came from a distance of four or five miles, and brought their +dinners with them, the provision invariably consisting of a little tin +can of milk and a bag of oat-cakes. It was a rule that each scholar +should contribute a load or two of peats every quarter for the school +fire; but some of them chose to bring a peat with them every morning. +These scholars made their morning’s journey to school rather heavily +loaded, having to carry, besides their satchel, the tin can of milk, the +white calico bag of oat-cake, and the peat. We were of all ages, sexes, +and conditions in this school. There was the son of the laird, the heir +to an ancient baronetcy. He wore corderoys like the rest of us, and had +five rows of broad-headed nails in his shoes. There were several sons of +the minister, all destined for one or other of the learned professions; +there were the sons of gentlemen farmers and the sons of poor cottars, +their dependants; and with these, on terms of the broadest academic +equality, mingled the grandson of the parish sexton and bell-ringer, the +son of a widow occasionally receiving parochial relief, and the sons and +daughters of carpenters, blacksmiths, and farm-servants, including the +female descendant of old Lizzy—pauper and egg vendor—who lit the school +fire and swept the school floor in discharge of young Lizzy’s fees. No +distinction of rank was preserved in any way whatever. The laird’s son +and the grave-digger’s son stood up in the same class side by side, and +I remember that the expectant baronet was often “taken down” by the +heir of the mortuary mattock. In the reading classes the boys and girls +were all mingled together, and I have often seen a big, hulking fellow +of eighteen—some ambitious cottar’s son who had taken to education +late—standing next to a little girl in short petticoats and heel-strapped +shoes. There was little jealousy on the score of religious belief in the +parish. There were several Roman Catholic boys among us, and they joined +in all our exercises, except the reading of the Bible and the saying of +the Shorter Catechism. At these times the Roman Catholic boys sat in +their seats and amused themselves; and not unfrequently, when memory +failed with regard to Justification, Sanctification, and Adoption, we, +Protestants, smarting under the consequences, were tempted to wish from +the bottom of our hearts that we had been brought up Papists. + +There was one feature of our school which appears very startling to me +now, but which was never regarded as extraordinary by any of us at the +time. It was this. Illegitimate mingled with the legitimate offspring of +the same parents. Our parish was rather celebrated for irregularity in +the matter of births, owing entirely to a local proneness to irregularity +in the matter of marriage. This was not confined to the lower classes. +Gentlemen farmers, who moved in the minister’s own circle, occasionally +appeared before the Session to be admonished, and this sometimes led to +the scandalous anomaly of a gentleman farmer dining at the manse one week +and sitting on the stool of repentance the next. As there was only one +school in the neighbourhood, and as it was considered imperative that +every child, no matter what the circumstances of its birth, or position, +should be educated, it constantly happened that there were several +duplicates of families at the parochial school. In several instances, +that I well remember, the illegitimate scion lived in perfect harmony +with the legitimate in the bosom of the same family, and not unfrequently +the illegitimate member was regarded as the flower of the flock. I can +call up before me now two Marys and two Peters. The two Marys lived under +the same roof as sisters, and I never heard a word of reproach cast at +the elder Mary, albeit she was prettiest, cleverest, and illegitimate. +It was different with the two Peters. Peter the First lived with his +mother, Hagar, in the desert, an outcast from the paternal roof. But +on the common ground of the parochial school, he sat on the same form, +stood up in the same class, and shared equally in the Justification and +Adoption of the Shorter Catechism with Peter the true-born. Peter the +Base often enjoyed the satisfaction of giving Peter the True a “good +licking;” but these quarrels never originated in resentment, arising +out of their invidious relationship. So, you see, we were a strange, +heterogeneous assemblage at this Scotch school. + +A stranger aspect still was occasionally presented when two or three +grown men and women took their places among us. I remember Betty, the +laird’s nurse, coming for a quarter to improve her handwriting; and, +nearly at the same time, the grown-up son of a neighbouring farmer, who +had an ambition to become acquainted with mensuration and surveying. +Betty had scarcely got to “round hand,” before the farmer’s son, who +was accustomed to pursue his studies on the opposite side of the desk, +fell in love with her, and the upshot of it was that the farmer’s son +and Betty threw learning to the winds, and went and got married before +the quarter was out. When Betty was squaring her elbows out at the large +text, the laird’s son was wont to take great delight in walking past her +and jogging her arm, in revenge for the ruthless way in which Betty used +to clean out his ears with a piece of rough flannel on washing nights. + +An almost universal circumstance tends to make every Scottish parochial +schoolmaster discontented with his position and impatient of his +duties. The parish-school is the stepping-stone to the kirk, and each +schoolmaster when he is installed at the dominie’s desk, begins to long +for the day when he will “wag his head in the poopit.” The school-house +is the hard shell of the chrysalis; the manse, the flowery elysium of the +full-fledged butterfly. When I went to school, our schoolmaster was in +full cry after a kirk and a cure of souls. He spent a good deal of his +time in reading the newspapers, and, as it appeared to me, in looking out +for the demise of neighbouring ministers. Every morning after prayers, he +read the newspapers for about an hour, during which time, we, the pupils, +sat and learned our lessons, or more often amused ourselves, as quietly +as we could. When any unusual disturbance took place, the master threw +the “tag”—a piece of a gig trace burnt at the end to make it hard—at the +offender. The pupil hit by it—no matter whether he was the real culprit +or not—was expected to carry the instrument of punishment to the master +and to accept flagellation, commonly on the hands, but not unfrequently +(when the prospect of a kirk looked hazy and dim) upon a part of the body +which required preliminary untrussing of points to be got at. It fell to +the lot of Lizzy, the sweeper’s granddaughter, most frequently to have +to take up the “tag.” Lizzy, it is true, was a very “limb” in point of +trouble; but she had always more than her fair share of the gig trace. +The way in which our schoolmaster lifted his hand against the female sex +would have wholly disqualified him, in a nautical drama, from claiming +the name of a British tar. The English reader may think that it equally +disqualified him for the position of a British schoolmaster; but I do not +remember that any one was shocked by these proceedings at the time. If a +parent complained, it was not on the score of the indignity, but because +the “tag” left its marks. + +The course of instruction pursued at our school included reading, +writing, arithmetic, geography, and the classics. In the general branches +all sorts, sizes, and sexes, stood up together in the same classes, +according to their relative state of advancement. The Greek and Latin +classes only were select, they being composed of some half-dozen boys of +superior station destined to go to college when they had mastered Latin +enough to enable them to spell through Cæsar and Virgil. With these the +master took considerable pains for his own credit’s sake; for it would +have been an eternal disgrace to him had his pupils been rejected on +their first easy examination at Aberdeen. In the other branches the +method pursued was one entirely of routine. Nothing was explained in +a rational or intelligible way. The only reading books in the school +were the Bible and McCulloch’s first, second, and third _Courses of +Reading_, three progressive volumes of badly selected extracts from +various authors; and at these we hammered away day after day, and over +and over again, from the moment we entered the school until the moment +we left it. There was not a single History in the school—not even a +History of England in its most modest form of abridgment. As for myself, +my early knowledge of English history was entirely derived from a sheet +of coloured portraits of the English kings pasted up on the wall of my +box-bed at home. My knowledge of the dates of their reigns, and the order +of their succession, is even now vividly associated with that coloured +sheet. Geography was taught from a book. We learned boundaries and the +names of countries by heart, and chattered them like parrots; but of the +characteristics of countries and their inhabitants we learned nothing +beyond that such and such a people “were a hardy race, who devoted +themselves to agriculture,” and the like. Arithmetic was taught in the +same way. When we had, by an entirely mechanical and illogical process, +committed to memory the multiplication table, we were given over to +somebody’s “Arithmetic,” to puzzle over rules and make our answers to +the questions tally, by any means whatever, with those in the book. I +remember, with regard to the rule of three, that we used to try one +position after the other, until we worked out the right answer. The +dominie never condescended to explain the simple logic of the process. +The result is, as regards myself, that I am to this day the greatest +dunce at figures in the world. I believe I have been detected refusing to +purchase oranges at two for three halfpence, but readily agreeing to take +five for sixpence, with the idea that it was a better bargain. + +At the time of which I speak it was a rule of faith with all Scotch +schoolmasters that flagellation was the primary and most important agent +in the work of education. “Spare the rod, and you spoil the child,” +should have been written over the door of every parochial school. Every +boy who entered the portals of my Scotch school with a consciousness +of being imperfect in any lesson, left all hope of immunity from the +tag behind him. The slightest mistake in spelling, or in saying the +Shorter Catechism—that hated Shorter Catechism!—was punished by one or +more strokes of the tag on the extended hand. I have seen the order go +down a whole class, “Hold out your hand, sir.” And crack, crack, crack +went the tag on our unflinching palms. We knew if we flinched we should +get a double dose, and perhaps on another and more sensitive part of +our bodies. I think I may safely say that a day never passed without +a flogging. Two or three times a week the “tag” was the occasion of a +regular scene. This was when some spirited or big boy refused to hold +out his hand or untruss. I remember one notable occasion when the master +attempted to inflict the “extreme punishment” on a big ploughman of +eighteen or nineteen. There was a regular fight between them: and several +times master and pupil went down together on the floor, rolling and +struggling with all the desperation of men engaged in a mortal combat. +Both parties called upon the pupils to come to their assistance; but +we, small boys, were too much alarmed to side with either, albeit our +sympathies were decidedly with the ploughman. The result of this conflict +was highly agreeable to us all. The dominie was laid up for a week with +bruised legs, and during that time there was “no school.” The terror +inspired by the tag caused the boys to frequently play the truant; in +the vernacular this was called “fugieing.” Scarcely a day passed that +some boy did not “fugie,” or fly the school. There was one boy who was +particularly distinguished for this art. He had been punished for it over +and over again, and beaten at all points until he was black and blue, +but still he would “fugie.” He would come away from home in the morning +with his satchel and dinner; but, instead of going to school, would +betake himself to the forest, and spend the day in birds’-nesting, or +in devouring “blaeberries.” When his retreat was discovered, the master +started one morning in pursuit of him, followed by all the scholars in +a pack. We had a regular hunt, and greatly we enjoyed the sport, not +caring so much for the fate of the fugitive, as for the holiday and the +exemption for a few hours from lessons and the tag. Sandy, for that was +the fugitive’s name, was unearthed like a fox, and hunted like one, all +through the wood, and over the burn, and up the hill-side to a clump +of tall fir-trees, where, finding the dominie close upon him, with the +tag vengefully waved aloft, Sandy clambered up the smooth stem of a +tall larch-tree, and perched himself triumphantly among its topmost +branches. The dominie, who was not deficient in pluck when upholding the +prerogative of the tag, immediately made the attempt to follow him; but +finding the branches rather too slight to bear his weight, he was glad +to slide down again, after having successfully climbed the stem. Having +in vain commanded Sandy to come down, the dominie held a council of war +with himself for a few minutes, and suddenly resolved upon his strategy. +One of the boys was despatched to a neighbouring farm-house for an axe. +When it was brought, the dominie set to work at the root of the tree, +and, when he had given it two or three strokes, called out once more +to Sandy—“Will you come down, sir?” Sandy looked cautiously over from +his nest among the branches to see what probability there was of the +dominie’s being able to fell the tree, and, apparently, coming to the +conclusion that he couldn’t do it, contemptuously answered—“Na, I winna +come doon.” Once more the dominie laid the axe at the root of Sandy’s +citadel, and though he made little progress in cutting it, the tree shook +at every stroke, until Sandy, becoming rather uncomfortable, consented +to come down. He had no sooner reached the ground, than he was collared +and marched off to the school in triumph, and was duly whipped by extreme +process. + +Our parents rarely interfered to protect us from the tag, when it was +administered in moderation; though occasionally some noise was made +when a boy was sent home utterly incapacitated from occupying a sitting +position. The miller’s wife—a strong-minded dame of the “rampaging” +order—so far from being maternally indignant when her son, Johnny, was +sent home in a state of pulp, would occasionally call in to enjoin the +dominie not to spare him. This lady was a chief actor in one of our most +memorable “scenes.” Her son Johnny had “fugied” for several days running, +and had been found out and duly whipped by the maternal order. Some time +after this the good lady found Johnny hiding in the mill, about the +middle of the day, when he ought to have been at school. I remember well +what came of that discovery. Late one afternoon we were startled from our +studies by a noise of wheels, the clattering of some iron instrument, +and the accents of a shrill, angry voice. The master immediately ran out +to see what was the matter, and we, the pupils, took the opportunity to +rush to the windows. It was the miller’s wife, who had arrived with her +son Johnny in a cart, keeping guard over him with the kitchen tongs. +The next minute Johnny was driven into the schoolroom by his infuriate +parent, who banged him with the tongs as he ran. I shall never forget the +scene that ensued. “Now have your wull o’ him,” said the Spartan parent +to the dominie. The dominie thus licensed, got out the tag; but Johnny +no sooner caught sight of that instrument than he was nerved to the most +desperate resistance. The moment the dominie advanced to seize him Johnny +scrambled over a desk and dodged him; and when the dominie ran round +after him he scrambled back again. The miller’s wife now came to the +dominie’s assistance, and for nearly a quarter of an hour both together +hunted Johnny over the desks and forms, hitting out at him with the tag +and the tongs, while the books, and slates, and milk-cans were scattered +all over the floor like broken armour on a battle-field. It was not until +Johnny was fairly out of breath that he gave in; and then he lay down +on his back on the floor, and turning himself rapidly round as on a +pivot, menaced first the dominie and then his mother with his iron-shod +feet. Johnny managed to resist the extreme penalty designed for him, but +what with the bumps he received in riding over the desks, and the random +blows from the tongs and the tag, he had punishment enough and to spare. +Of course, as we all saw and felt that this constant flagellation was +both cruel and unjust, we were never any better for it, and bore it or +resisted it manfully, as martyrs bear and resist persecution. + +But notwithstanding the loose and desultory, not to say brutal, system +pursued at our school, the pupils of all degrees managed, in some way or +other, to acquire a very respectable quantum of knowledge, or, if not +knowledge itself, the groundwork of knowledge. The boys who learned Greek +and Latin went to college and took their degrees; the farmers’ sons went +home to give a higher intellectual life to the society in which their +families moved; and the humbler class of scholars carried away with them +to the plough’s tail, the carpenter’s bench, and the smithy, just enough +of the rudiments of learning to enable them to cultivate themselves by +after study. This fact may seem a contradiction to the picture I have +given of my Scotch school. In Scotland, however, bad teaching and a +high state of mental cultivation among the masses are quite consistent. +The fact is, the middle and lower classes in Scotland have a passion +for learning. The dearest ambition of the poor cottar is to educate his +children, and, if possible, to give one, at least, such an amount of +schooling as will fit him for a higher station than that occupied by his +parents. A poor hillside crofter will starve himself and his family for +ten years of their life to send one of the boys to college and qualify +him for the kirk. Such boys, however, learn more poring over their books +by the humble fireside at home, or out in the fields in the intervals of +their farm work, than at the school. They learn under every disadvantage, +because they are spurred on by a love of knowledge and a desire to raise +themselves. It is this universal thirst after knowledge and intellectual +cultivation that gives Scotland so decided a pre-eminence as regards +general education. Persons who can neither read nor write are common +enough in England, not alone in the country districts, but also in the +great towns. I doubt if you could find one such in all Scotland. The +classes corresponding to the “hinds” and “navvies” of England, cannot +only read and write, but are capable of enjoying literature in its higher +developments. Our farming-men at home used to spend their evenings, +after their frugal supper of kail brose, in reading the newspapers and +discussing the debates in Parliament. Our herd-boy taught himself the +elements of astronomy out in the fields, while tending the cattle. He was +the first to tell me the names of the planets and point them out to me. +I taught him, in return, a little Latin; and I remember, during my last +year at college, meeting this herd-boy in the quadrangle, arrayed in the +red toga. I have since heard that he carried off the first mathematical +prize. + + +FOOTNOTES + +[3] In an abstract of a bill for bettering the condition of the +schoolmasters of Scotland, passed at the beginning of the century, it is +laid down that “the amount of salary to each parochial schoolmaster shall +not be less than the average annual wages of a day labourer, nor above +that of two day labourers.” + + + + +The Convict out in the World. + + +At stated periods, the governor of a convict prison gives audience to +such inmates of his mansion as may have complaints to make, or petitions +to prefer; and of the demands most commonly heard, from old and young, +one of the commonest is: “Please, sir, may I grow?” It sounds odd to hear +the naïve request put by some square-shouldered grey-haired fellow; but +it is usually found so reasonable that, after a word or two of inquiry, +the governor consents. The man wishes to let his hair grow within the +next three or four months before his leaving the prison; and it is the +first step towards his release, whether it be on the expiry of his +sentence, or on his earning a “conditional pardon.” Subsequently, the +chaplain of the prison sends forth certain formal questions as to the +man’s prospect of obtaining honest employment out of doors; and about a +month before the date of his departure, the chaplain addresses a letter +to any person by whom the prisoner hopes to be employed, describing the +man’s state of health, stating his conduct in prison, and asking whether +his report upon the subject of employment is true, or whether he has +any other means of support. In the majority of cases, I am told, the +replies are “satisfactory;” but, in some instances, they are otherwise, +and, in some, the man can give no reference. Within my own very limited +range of individual observation, I have observed in England the same +circumstance which I have noticed in Ireland—that the prisoner often +has a dread of returning to his friends, not only because he fears that +his character will be known, but because he is too well aware that +those with whom he has been acquainted before he entered the prison +will draw him back into evil courses. At once, then, we perceive a very +unexpected symptom of improvement: the desire of the prisoner to cut all +connection with his family, and to avow that he has no means, no chance +of obtaining help or employment, is one of the most tangible results of +his reformation. In cases where the reply is unsatisfactory, or the man +can give no reference, the governor and chaplain fill up a form in which +they express an opinion whether he is able to earn his livelihood. From +these inquiries and records returns are made to the Secretary of State, +specifying the men who are eligible to be recommended for release under +a conditional pardon. On receiving the order of the Secretary of State, +the licence is printed on a small parchment form, and on the back of that +form is the following schedule of conditions:— + + “1. The power of revoking or altering the licence of a convict + will most certainly be exercised in case of his misconduct. + + “2. If, therefore, he wishes to retain the privilege which, by + his good behaviour under penal discipline, he has obtained, he + must prove, by his subsequent conduct, that he is really worthy + of her Majesty’s clemency. + + “3. To produce a forfeiture of the licence, it is by no means + necessary that the holder should be convicted of any new + offence. If he associate with notoriously bad characters, + leads an idle and dissolute life, or has no visible means of + obtaining an honest livelihood, &c., it will be assumed that + he is about to relapse into crime, and he will be at once + apprehended, and recommitted to prison under his original + sentence.” + +Dressed in clothes provided for him by the prison, and suited to his +probable occupation, whether as an artisan or a labourer, his parchment +licence in his pocket, and the first instalment of his gratuity—probably +2_l._, more or less—with a soldier’s railway pass for the place of +his destination, the prisoner sets out. In less lucky instances, he +simply walks forth into space “to take his chance”—that is, to beg for +employment from those who are too busy to attend to him, or to supply +his necessities by some more familiar means. Upon the whole, however, +we might classify the prisoners into three classes: those who return +to their friends, those who proceed at once to some familiar place of +resort, and those who seek the “Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society.” + +I have already explained that those persons who were convicted under +the Peel’s Servitude Act of 1853, which accidentally omitted to provide +for the conditional pardon, form a class which has occasioned some +perplexity, but is gradually dying out. The men of this class are +divided into four “stages:” those in the second stage have sixpence a +week towards their gratuity, in the third ninepence, in the fourth one +shilling. Men sentenced under the amended Act of 1857 are divided into +three “stages:” in the second stage they receive fourpence a week, and +in the third eightpence. The larger sums given to the men of the first +class, together with some other indulgences in prison, are allowed as a +compensation for their losing the chance of getting a ticket-of-leave, +either in the colonies or at home. The accumulated gratuity sometimes +rises to a considerable amount. A friend who has studied the subject +minutely has found it to range as high as 27_l._ or 28_l._; usually it +ranges from 8_l._ to 20_l._; and he computes the average to be about +12_l._ As you already know, this is not handed to the man in one sum. +Supposing his gratuity to be of the average amount, on leaving the +prison he will receive 2_l._, with the deduction of a few pence for +postage which will be incurred on his account after his departure. Ten +days later he will receive 2_l._ more, at the end of two months 4_l._, +and at the end of three months the balance of 4_l._; so that he will be +five months and a half before he can draw the whole sum. Thus, if he is +discharged on the 1st of January, he will not have cleared his prison +account until the end of June. He cannot draw any of the instalments +without obtaining the endorsement of a clergyman, magistrate, or some +known persons, to a form which shows that he is living respectably and +supporting himself by honest work. Some time since, I am told by the +same friend, the discharged prisoners were often unable to obtain any of +their gratuity, and in most instances could not arrive at the closing +balance. It too frequently happened that the man would return to his +friends, recover his original character—that is, become a vagabond +and a thief—and so lose the power to procure the valuable endorsement +of a magistrate or clergyman. Another danger attended all convicts, +and still, I fear, attends the most hardened or the most desolate. At +every post where the man was likely to emerge from his seclusion was +stationed an agent appointed by the very worst of all “the dangerous +classes”—some Fagin or Fagin’s man, the caterer for criminal customers. +This functionary is of the same genus with those who tout at the +landing-pier of watering-places, with vocal cards issuing from their +mouths in praise of certain inns. The gentleman sallying forth from one +of her Majesty’s mansions, found himself suddenly courted as a welcome +customer, a “distinguished person,” with every convenience offered to him +for spending the money in his pocket as fast as possible, and perhaps for +discounting the great expectations of the next few months. + +It was a knowledge of these facts which, in 1857, induced Mr. Whitbread, +the Member for Bedford, at present one of the Lords of the Admiralty, +to suggest the establishment of an Association for the express purpose +of holding out a helping hand to the discharged prisoner. He invited +Mr. William Bayne Rankin and other friends to assist him. Some lent +him their names, which were in themselves of great value; others gave +him their money, and some few rendered active co-operation. Mr. Rankin +became the honorary secretary of the Association, and Mr. F. Partridge +its secretary. By degrees the “Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society,” which +is still an independent charitable body, has become a sort of volunteer +auxiliary to the Convict Department. The Association prepared forms, +which were sent to every convict prison in England; the nature of the +society is explained to each prisoner before his discharge; and he +accepts the help or not entirely according to his own free choice. In +early days, many prisoners hesitated to comply with the first peremptory +condition imposed by the society—that the whole of the gratuity should be +placed in its hands. Judged by graduates in a school not calculated to +afford the happiest study of human motives, the charitable gentlemen in +Westminster were regarded as a great joint-stock crimping establishment; +and the newly released suspected that they were to be as much victimized +as the German “redemptioners” were in America. By degrees, however, this +suspicion wore off; a knowledge of the manner in which the society worked +spread amongst the class on whose behalf it acted, and the business of +the corporation has expanded accordingly. At first, there would be two or +three cases a week; there are now three or four a day. At first, there +was scarcely work enough for one secretary; now the society employs a +secretary, two clerks, and one or two agents, and finds the machinery +altogether insufficient for its exigencies. During the last year, the +moneys passing through the hands of the society have amounted to an +aggregate between 10,000_l._ and 12,000_l._, composed principally of the +prisoners’ own money; for it must be confessed that no society has ever +done so much with such a narrow modicum of means. The list of actual +subscribers is slender, and we observed that the heaviest share of the +burden falls upon a very few in that short list. At the same time, +gentlemen at a distance do not scruple to claim the co-operation of the +society in helping forward individuals who may have excited a local or +individual interest. + +The prisoner comes to the office of the society, at 39, Charing Cross, +with the papers of his discharge, including one of the forms stating +that he is recommended by the governor of the prison which he has left. +This paper specifies his registered number in the prison, his name and +sentence, his age on conviction, religion and education, date and place +of conviction, nature of crime, previous convictions and nature of +crimes, character in separate confinements, character on public works, +trade and degree of proficiency, capacity for hard labour, the employment +desired, the prisoner’s willingness to emigrate, amount of gratuity +due, probable period of discharge, with any remarks which the governor +may think fit to add. The society disposes of its clients in three +ways—first, by obtaining employment for them; secondly, by enabling them +to return to their friends; and thirdly, by assisting them to emigrate. +The first case which came before the society was in May, 1857; in the +interval it has helped more than 1,900 prisoners. The secretaries believe +that, of the total number, not more than 100 have been re-convicted. +There are no positive data to establish this fact, but there are hopes +that hereafter it may be tested by direct record. With regard to the +men who are helped, they may be subdivided into two classes—those for +whom situations are found by the advice of the society; and those who +obtain work themselves, and are helped to procure tools or materials for +work. The women remain at a “Home” provided for them, and in most cases +enter as domestic servants. Where the society itself recommends its +client for employment, and gives him a character, his antecedents are +distinctly mentioned; but where he obtains work by his own independent +search, his circumstances are not disclosed. I have inspected the books +of the society, and have traced a considerable number of cases, both +of men and women. Out of the whole number, I have before me a list of +twenty-five, and I am able to say that they are not exceptional, but +may be paralleled by far more in the books for the current year. The +kinds of employment are as various as that indicated in the _London +Directory_. The men are engaged as bakers, milkmen, painters, builders, +cabinet-makers, commercial travellers, fishmongers, engineers, watermen, +hawkers, goldsmiths, &c. The cases to which I refer range over periods of +more than a year; some very few are a little less, some extend to three +or four years. A few men have been placed in independent business. In two +instances a business was purchased for a man, and in both those instances +the person assisted is going on well. In all these cases there is +complete information down to the latest date in the present year. In one +instance, a man who appears to have squandered a part of his gratuity, +came to the society at the eleventh hour in want of five shillings to +procure tools. There was something in the earnestness of the man which +attracted attention; on inquiry, his story proved to be correct; the +tools were furnished him, and he is now employed by a great building +firm. He learned the particular handicraft in which he is engaged, at +Portland. Another instance falls under my personal observation, and it +is interesting for special reasons. It is that of a young man who, since +his discharge, has obtained work under an old employer, to whom he told +all that had happened to him. By his discipline in prison, by acquiring +a consciousness of his powers as a workman, with an insight into the +opening offered through industry and energy, the man had evidently +surmounted the original sense of the degradation. When I met him, +accidentally, I observed no desire to parade himself, nor do I suppose +he would have preferred to see his departure from his late residence +announced in the _Court Circular_; but he did rather seek my notice, +no doubt as that of a witness to his working skill, his diligence, and +his substantial advancement; and he seemed to feel that the character +which he had acquired at Portland was a substantial testimony to his +capacity, industry, and resolution. The man is a very good specimen of a +sharp Englishman. I have met, of course quite casually, with one or two +instances of the same kind. + +Another prisoner, assisted by the society, was discharged more than +three years and a half ago. He found employment for himself; but after +the society had assisted him, he came back to it for a character. He +was warned that, if it were given, his employer must be told of his +antecedents, but he still seemed to think the character necessary. The +person who was about to engage him, a tradesman in a considerable way of +business, called upon the secretary of the society. The instant he heard +that his servant had been a convict, he turned away, declaring that it +was useless to think of engaging him. The secretary stopped him, and +inquired the amount of risk which the employer would incur; it turned +out that the man would probably have 2_l._ or 3_l._ in his hands at a +time, and that a guarantee of 5_l._ would cover the risk. The secretary +undertook to guarantee that amount; and the man has remained in the +same place for considerably more than three years, with such thorough +satisfaction to his employer that that gentleman has spontaneously +released the society from its liability. This case also is peculiarly +interesting, as showing how the employing classes may be made to learn, +by their own inquiry and practical experience, that a fellow-creature who +is once a criminal needs not always be so. + +Special arrangements are made for disposing of the women who leave the +Refuge at Fulham. This place, as well as other portions of our English +system, is pointed out as analogous to the “Intermediate” stage in +Ireland, but the analogy is very faint. I mentioned the half-pint of beer +allowed to the fourth class at Portland, as one amongst other indulgences +to compensate for the loss of transportation for prisoners convicted +between 1853 and 1857. Objections might be made to the dietary at Fulham, +as being on too high a scale; and it is wholly unlike the homely fare +which contents the hard-worked labourer at Lusk, or the penitent at +the Golden Bridge in Dublin. The Fulham Refuge is also distinguished +from the Intermediate prisons of Ireland by less liberty of action, +and by containing within itself places of punishment. Still, it is an +improvement on older prisons, and is not without _proportionate_ results. +From the 1st of January to the end of May, 1861, seventy-two women were +discharged from the Fulham Refuge, and were thus distributed:—Sent to +parents, eighteen; sent to husbands, seven; to other relatives, fifteen; +to friends, three; to service, direct from the Refuge, one; to the +Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, with a view to service or emigration, +twenty-six; sent out on their own account, having no home, eight. The +reports of the first four classes are pronounced to be “satisfactory,” +with the exception of two in the first class and one in the second. Of +the first class three had no home, but had children in workhouses, whom +they went to rejoin. Three others have joined friends under anything but +hopeful circumstances. One is at service in the house of a clergyman; +and another, whose husband is a convict in Australia, is understood to +be “going on well.” When any woman is sent out from the Refuge, steps +are taken to ascertain where she will be received, and to secure her +safe arrival, with authenticated reports of the fact. Communication is +always made with the clergyman of the district to which the discharged +prisoner proceeds; and, says Mrs. Harpour, the lady superintendent of +the Refuge at Fulham, in a letter to Sir Joshua Jebb, “much is learned +in this mode of the sad and miserable way in which these poor creatures +have been brought up, and the temptations with which they were surrounded +immediately on their return to their deplorable haunts. It excites our +sympathy, and makes us feel that something must be done by the public, +or all our efforts cannot but be fruitless in many cases. I can only +hope and pray that the publicity which is now being given to the convict +system, will induce the Christian public to lend us a helping hand. We +do not ask for their money, but for their sympathy and a little of their +time.” I have statements of cases in which prisoners who have left the +Refuge have done well; but, in this as in other instances, I am cautioned +against their publication, lest exaggerated inferences should be drawn +from contracted data. And at the Refuge, as throughout the English +establishments, I have failed to obtain anything like the same full, +detailed, and long-continued information about convicts at large, which I +was enabled to obtain by my own personal examination in Ireland. + +One grand resource for the disposal of English convicts, especially of +men whose term of incarceration may be shortened by “ticket-of-leave,” +is transportation. Theoretically, transportation is still continued +to Bermuda, Gibraltar, and Western Australia; but the transport of +convicts to Bermuda has been indefinitely suspended. Of the Australian +arrangements the most recent account is afforded me in an extract from +the unpublished Report to the Directors of Convict Prisons, by the +religious instructor, who sailed in the convict ship _Palmerston_, and +landed his charges at Fremantle in February. + + “_Millbank Prison, May 27, 1861._ + + “... I visited the prison on the third or fourth day after + the men were landed. The chaplain and deputy superintendent + kindly accompanied me. It resembles Portland more than any + other I know. The cells are small in size, and the interior + arrangements on the same principle as at that prison. + + “There were two large association rooms occupied, I believe, + at night by artisans whom I found employed in the smiths’ + forge and carpenters’ shop, which are very extensive, and + where work on a large scale was being carried on under the + superintendence of the Royal Engineer department. Some large + rooms on the basement floor were fitted up as printing-offices, + and prisoners were employed here in doing all the Government + printing required for the colony. + + “There were, I believe, about 400 men in the prison at this + time, including about eighty landed from the _Palmerston_. + These last were employed, some few in the workshops, and the + remainder on the roads, working in gangs. + + “The rations were abundant, and of excellent quality; served, + precisely as they are at Millbank, to the men in their cells. + + “On the general parade, I noticed that the reconvicted, or men + remitted to the establishment, and the men sent up for short + sentences from the police-office, were paraded apart, and + distinguished from the general prisoners by a different dress. + + “Being desirous of seeing how the remainder of the men who had + come out under our charge in the _Palmerston_ were disposed + of, and how the probationary period of six months (through + which all convicts are required to pass before they can + receive the greater degree of freedom of a ticket-of-licence) + is passed through, I visited, in company with Dr. Watson, the + surgeon superintendent, four of the out-stations. We found all + these stations occupied by men who also had come out in the + _Palmerston_; and I was informed that, for some time previous + to the arrival of that ship, the road-making had been much + interrupted for want of men. + + “The parties consisted of from 40 to 80 men, lodged in huts. + They were in charge of a warder; and in most places there was + one of the Royal Engineers to direct the works on the roads, + and two or three convict constables to preserve order and + superintend the men at work and in their quarters. The men work + on the roads from four to five miles each way, and, whenever I + saw them, appeared to be diligently employed. + + “Their sleeping-places were divided by partitions of slanting + boards, and they took their meals in messes of six or eight + at separate tables; the rations being supplied from the + chief stations, Perth and Guildford, and the whole from the + Commissariat in the first instance. They are also allowed + tobacco. + + “The men at these stations were cheerful and industrious; they + made no complaints, except in reference to the heat of the + climate and mosquitoes. Those within reach of the river were + permitted to bathe in it in the morning. The hours of labour + were from six to six—one hour, I believe, for breakfast, and + one and a half for dinner were allowed. + + “However desirable it may be to execute works of this nature at + a distance from where a proper degree of control may be kept + up, I cannot but say that I felt anxious for the welfare of + the prisoners who, during their detention in these huts, would + be exposed to great temptation and demoralization. In fact, + these stations were, in every respect, inferior to the larger + and more regularly-arranged stations which I recollect to have + visited in Tasmania peninsula. It is also obvious that the + sooner the men who go out in a convict-ship can be separated, + after they are disembarked, the better for them in every way. + + “The men at these stations appeared perfectly aware of the + uselessness of attempting escape in a colony which has no + known outlet to any other. In point of fact, were the attempt + made, their footsteps in the sand would be unerringly traced + by the extraordinary sagacity of the natives attached to each + police-station for the purpose; they would be captured, or + perish for want of water. + + “I shall now endeavour to describe their prospects of + employment when liberated on a ticket-of-leave, from what came + under my own observation. + + “A few men who were sent out in the _Palmerston_, having + completed a large portion of their sentence at home (two + of them with commuted sentence), were discharged from the + establishment in about eight days after their arrival. They + were supplied with a ticket-of-leave dress, a portion of their + gratuity, and a pass for twenty-four hours, to enable them to + seek employment. I travelled in the steamboat from Fremantle to + Perth on the day some of them left the prison.... + + “The social status of the sober and industrious convict settler + is perfectly assured. In the country districts no difference is + made between him and the free settler. + + “I am, gentlemen,” &c. &c. + +After reading only this brief, sober, and most authentic report, the +reader will begin to doubt whether transportation can be what it was +once supposed to be—a very terrible penalty, severance of natural ties, +death to family associations, and so forth. It has had its terrors, and +at more than one season, but the season has always been limited. In July, +1827, came into operation an Act extending transportation to various +felonious offences. In the following year there was a great decline in +such offences—the new Act had stricken terror; but in the very next year +the influence of the punishment had declined; by degrees transportation +ceased to be regarded with alarm, and now it is admitted to be a positive +reward. Writing years back, Archbishop Whately shows the dawn of this +feeling. He quotes the words of convicts, crying out with delight at +the accommodation on board ship; thanking God for having been carried +to a country where they were well off; writing home with presents to +masters whom they had robbed, and even offering patronage and assistance +in a country where a man is sure to make his fortune. The keen-sighted +teacher of logic foresaw that such dangerous knowledge must spread in the +mother-country. + +If no longer available as a deterrent, is transportation a purely +beneficial auxiliary? Let us look into _that_ question. During the +present session of Parliament, Mr. Childers, the Member for Pontefract, +obtained a Select Committee “to inquire into the present system of +transportation, its utility, and effect upon colonization, and to report +whether any improvement could be effected therein.” The committee was, +upon the whole, well manned. Mr. Childers himself has a practical +knowledge of the subject, from his connection with Australia; and I +believe one purpose of the inquiry was to show that, in consideration +for the Australian colonies generally, transportation ought to be wholly +abandoned, even to Western Australia. The net result of the report is, +that the committee advises no interference, but delicately suggests that +transportation should continue as it is carried on now, under the actual +circumstances of the day. These circumstances are remarkable. It has been +resolved to suppress the convict prisons in Bermuda and Gibraltar. The +gross number of convicts in England, as well as in Ireland, appears to be +actually diminishing. The free colonies of Australia have passed laws for +preventing the admission of any licence-holder or expiree, under severe +penalties to be inflicted upon any ship-master who shall infringe the +local law. Some convicts have escaped from Western Australia, but not +in great numbers, and the alarm on the subject appears to have subsided, +though the feeling of repugnance is as strong as ever. + +It comes out in evidence, that the Western Australians can employ a +certain amount of convict labour, but cannot employ much more than they +now have, at the present rate of annual supply. Many employers prefer +convicts, as more tractable than free labourers, and they are decidedly +pleased at the exclusion Acts of the free colonies. Mr. Burgess and +other witnesses declare that crime has not increased in proportion to +the number of convicts, a considerable proportion of the men having +behaved well; but they draw marked distinctions between a bad order of +convicts and a better order, strongly hinting that a careful selection +should be made; and I am disposed to believe that these hints will not be +lost upon the head office in Parliament Street. Several of the colonists +had desired the introduction of convicts, because they looked forward +to the official expenditure on account of the establishment, &c.; and +these speculators have been disappointed. They were particularly annoyed +because provisions for convicts were furnished from other colonies, +whereas they claimed a protective system of trade, as the correlative +of the convict burden. Amongst eastern colonists are many who formerly +approved of transportation, but they found “the character of the +convicts grow worse as the criminal laws of England were ameliorated and +softened.” A very curious lesson is brought out incidentally. “Formerly,” +says Mr. Hewitt, of Tasmania—the last colony in which convictism was +abolished, much to the chagrin of Governor Denison and the authorities +in England—“we got men sent to us for political offences, for poaching, +machine-breaking, and so on; and there was always a very large body of +convicts who prided themselves that they were not thieves and rogues; but +since the alteration of the laws in this country, it seems to me that +every man who comes out has committed some grave offence.” + +On one point all appear to be agreed: that the old assignment system, +and _à fortiori_ any Norfolk Island system, which tends to mass +convicts together in bodies undiluted by the elements of ordinary +society, can never more be tolerated. Those who view the subject with +a practical knowledge, and yet without local predilections, believe +that transportation cannot be continued much longer, even to Western +Australia. I am well aware that the Irish as well as the English +authorities desire that that outlet should be retained, and I see +objections to any _sudden_ closing of it; but that it ought to be +abolished within a comparatively few years I am convinced. I have the +very highest authority for the avowal, that the crime, which irresistibly +impelled Sir William Molesworth’s Committee to pronounce the doom of +convictism in Australia generally, cannot be prevented or effectively +controlled in Western Australia, even now. One of the most experienced +officials, Mr. Thomas Frederick Elliot, of the Colonial Office, was +amongst those who stood against the abolition proceedings of 1837; +but “further observation,” he says, “has altered my opinion.” The +convicts who remained in Sydney and New South Wales have done harm. +Western Australia may profit from the expedient while the colony is +in a languishing state, but it can never be a substitute for ordinary +colonization. The relief is not “beneficial to this country”—“the +numbers sent out are too trifling to be of any account,” either to the +mother country or to the colony. “In every point of view I think that +transportation as a system has come to an end, and that its day is past.” + +Before I proceed to close this series of papers with the conclusions +which have been forced upon me in my survey of the whole, in Ireland +and England, I must refer once more to the case set forth on behalf +of the English system. The fate of my last paper appears to have been +curious. In some quarters it has been regarded as too favourable to +the English system, while the chief conductors of that system think +that I have “not done them justice.” I am told that I have fallen into +many errors, and that the comparison which I have made between England +and Ireland is disparaging to England. In the most explicit terms that +could be employed I have invited correction of errors. I have avowed my +readiness to incorporate in this third paper any emendations with which +I can be supplied; my object being, not to advocate one system or to +disparage another, but simply to lay before your readers, as far as my +examination of the two systems and your space would permit, the facts +themselves. The communications upon the subject have been very numerous +and protracted. Throughout all, I have been met by Sir Joshua Jebb with +the most handsome consideration and a generous frankness. The result, +however, is that I have a lengthened statement, from his pen, going over +the ground from the time when “sound principles were laid down in 1842 by +the then Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, for establishing probationary +periods of discipline at home, in order to the disposal of the convict +by transportation;” and this statement I now take bodily, with some very +slight curtailment. + + “The difficulties which occurred at that time in Van Diemen’s + Land prevented the development of these principles, and led to + a modified arrangement under Earl Grey and Sir George Grey. + Under the system as it was then settled, from 1847 to 1853, a + printed notice was communicated to every convict, telling him + that the first period of probation would be passed in solitary + confinement for some time; and employment on the public works + for the second period; the third stage under a ticket-of-leave + in one of the colonies. The incentives to industry and good + conduct, during the two first periods, were very fully + explained in this document. They consisted of remissions of + the imprisonment, gratuities, badges marking the progress of + each individual, and other records, by which a man’s fate was + placed in his own hands, and was mainly dependent upon his own + exertions. + + “In regard to the third period of probation, however, + with a ticket-of-leave, the following conditions were + promulgated:—‘The holder of a ticket-of-leave will be required + to remain within a certain district; he will not be released + from the custody of the Government until engaged to serve + an employer for twelve months; he will then be placed under + the supervision of the police, will be required to register + his place of abode, and periodically report himself to the + police,’ &c. Pentonville and Portland afford the fullest means + of judging of the system of discipline and the results of the + two periods which were to be enforced in this country. The + commissioners of the former prison, after anxiously watching + the moral effects of the great experiment conducted for five + years under their superintendence, thus recorded the conclusion + at which they had arrived, in a report dated in 1847:—‘We feel + warranted in expressing our firm conviction, that the moral + results of the discipline have been most encouraging, and + attended with a success which, we believe, is without parallel + in the history of penal discipline.’ + + “With respect to Portland, Captain Whitty, in his report for + 1850, after stating his conviction that the system of following + up a period of separate confinement by associated labours, was + working well, states:—‘The subdued, improved, and disciplined + state in which the convicts generally arrive at Portland from + the stage of separate confinement, appears to be an admirable + preparation for their transfer to the greater degree of freedom + unavoidable on public works.’ Captain Knight, who succeeded + Captain Whitty as Governor, remarks in his report for 1851:—‘I + have frequently watched the working parties from positions in + which I could not have been seen by them, and I have seldom + seen a greater amount of willingness or industry displayed + by men whose livelihood depended upon their exertions.’ [I + myself was a witness of the same degree of cheerful industry, + in 1861.] It appears from the returns, that 400 men are at the + present time quarrying and loading from the great ditch of + the fortress about three tons a man, for which a contractor + had previously received 1_s._ 5_d._ a ton. The net saving to + the Government, after deducting 4_d._ for the cost of plant, + would give 3_s._ 3_d._ a day as the net earnings of each man + in the working parties; whilst the entire cost, exclusive of + buildings, will not exceed 1_s._ 9_d._ a head. Were it not + that a proportion of the convicts are detained at school, + and employed as cooks, tailors, &c., the prison would be + self-supporting; and had there been opportunity for the full + development of convict labour, at least one-half of the usual + cost of such works would have been saved. + + “Though Portland is only known to the general public as a + place where an outbreak occurred some years ago; and though + the discipline has endured the rudest shocks from the changes + consequent on the cessation of transportation,—which not only + disappointed the expectations that had been held out to the + men, but entirely shook their confidence, and was the cause + of the outbreak referred to,—the establishment never was in + a much higher state of discipline and efficiency than at the + present time. The breakwater and fortifications, too, are + advancing towards completion, and already constitute a grand + and imperishable monument of what can be effected by convict + labour. + + “From 1848 to 1853, during which time alone the established + system appears to have been in full operation, everything went + on swimmingly. It was ‘all right,’ in the English prisons of + Pentonville and Portland; and we have it on the authority of + Sir W. Denison, the Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, that in 1851 + the convicts sent from public works were generally conducting + themselves as honestly and industriously as unconvicted + farm-servants in England. Every interest was then satisfied. + The mother-country annually got rid of some 3,000 of her + criminal population, and the colony obtained the advantage of + cheap labour. This was the culminating point of a sound and + carefully devised system of penal and reformatory discipline. + [Sir Joshua Jebb states, in one of his reports, that we never + may hope to see the like again. The last ship sailed in 1852; + and though he must have cast a lingering look after it, he + appears to have manfully set to work to repair the breach made + in the system of discipline.] + + “An Act was passed in 1853, under the provisions of which a + large proportion of convicts might be sentenced to ‘penal + servitude,’ instead of transportation. It will not escape + notice that, during the whole period of a convict’s being + employed on public works, he is placed in a condition + intermediate between imprisonment and liberty. During this + portion of the sentence, as I described in a former article, + the men work in association; good order being preserved by + the presence of an officer with each party; and their return + from distant works in the open quarries at Portland, or from + dockyards or fortifications at Portsmouth or Chatham, being + insured by watchfulness of guards. With a view to afford + greater encouragement, it was considered desirable to divide + this probationary period into four progressive stages, to each + of which certain ameliorations and privileges were attached. + In the last stage, especially, a proportion of the men are + selected for ‘special service,’ in which they pursue their + several avocations, relieved from any direct supervision. At + Portland, they may be seen passing to and fro with tools, + attending points on the railways, &c.; at Dartmoor, they attend + cattle on the hills, and perform various farm operations, + independent of control. A large body of these men have also + been employed at Woking assisting in the completion of the new + prison, and others are to be sent to Broadmoor. + + “We now come to the consideration of the third period of the + system, with a probation pass or a ticket-of-leave designed + for a distant colony, but now forced on our attention at home. + Here the range is limited to the few convicts who since 1852 + have been sent to Western Australia, and the English system + in its entirety requires to be judged by the few openings + afforded in that colony. Here we see an intermediate system, + expressly designed to fit the man for colonial life and labour, + in full operation, on a plan suggested by Sir Joshua Jebb + in 1849. It is well known to any one who has experience of + convicts, that release from imprisonment will alone afford + any sure test of character; and it is to this test, in the + face of all the difficulties which had to be encountered, that + an appeal has necessarily been made. The system of granting + pardons, revocable on certain conditions, popularly known as + tickets-of-leave, has been adopted from the colonial stage, an + a precautionary measure; and the benevolent assistance of the + public has been sought in every way that has been possible. + On mature consideration, however, and on very sufficient + grounds, it has been deemed inexpedient to do more, either + in giving effect to the principle of the probation gangs, + or the supervision of police. There is scarcely an officer + in the convict service who does not strongly entertain this + conviction. [After alluding to the help afforded by the + chaplains and the Prisoners’ Aid Society, the statement + proceeds.] Thousands have been rescued from criminal courses + and tided over their greatest difficulties, by these most wise + and economical preventive measures. + + “We now come to the results, which are given in the + accompanying comprehensive tabular returns. [The tables are + placed at the end of this article.] + + “If the results be carefully consulted, it must be confessed + they have been more favourable than could have been + anticipated; for though twenty, or perhaps even twenty-five, + per cent., may have returned upon the hands of the Government + in seven or eight years, it is a fact that the number sentenced + has diminished from 3,311 in 1848, when the great majority were + transported to Van Diemen’s Land,[4] to an average, during the + last three years, of 2,226, when the great majority have been + released at home. Many causes must have combined to produce a + result so wholly subversive of all previous calculations;[5] + but a sound, deterrent, and, at the same time, an enlightened + and Christian discipline, steadily persevered in under the + authority of every Secretary of State since 1838, may fairly be + allowed to claim its share. + + “In an admirable article which appeared in the _Times_ of + the 18th of April last, the writer has ‘hit the right nail + on the head.’ After a graphic description of desperate and + highly-skilled ruffians returning to their malpractices, after + confinement, with greater zest than ever, he states—‘These + constitute the ugly percentage of convicts with which nothing + can be done, the true blackamoors of the system who can never + be washed white.’ Here it is, and, perhaps, here only we fail. + + “We find the following, in Sir Joshua Jebb’s report for + 1849:—‘In connexion with the subject of modification of the + present system, I would submit the expediency of establishing + a more severe system of discipline, and of enforcing a more + protracted term of imprisonment, in the case of all men + convicted of heinous offences, especially such as were + accompanied by violence, and in certain cases. It is impossible + to state the precise operations of such measures, or the + extent to which they might be applied; but if the very worst + characters were imprisoned for the whole term of life, or + during their respective sentences, at some penal establishment + at home, or in the colonies, others disposed of by + tickets-of-leave in Western Australia, and the residue released + at home with conditional pardons, or encouraged to emigrate, + I believe that no sensible inconvenience could possibly be + experienced.’ + + “The foregoing is a brief sketch of the English system and + its results, deprived as it is of its mainstay, namely, a + satisfactory means of disposing of the convicts who are subject + to the two first probationary stages; and defective, as it + is admitted to be, in the means of dealing with the ‘true + blackamoors of the system.’” + +This document is, as I have said, the statement of Sir Joshua Jebb, very +slightly curtailed to bring it within your space. I have abridged a small +portion of the retrospect at the commencement, and have shortened the +transitions here and there; and that is all the change. The writer has +not allowed himself to take the broadest view of the subject; which we +shall not quite understand, unless we glance at the chronic controversy +between the two systems of England and Ireland. In 1857, Sir Joshua +Jebb made a report professing to describe the Irish system, and stating +his own opinion upon it. I certainly could not adopt Sir Joshua Jebb’s +description of the arrangements in Ireland; nor can I entirely agree +with what he supposes to be the object of inquiry: namely, to ascertain +whether the probationary prisoners should be withdrawn from the higher +stages on public works, and congregated in the huts of the intermediate +stage; whether discharged prisoners could not be placed under the +supervision of the police, and whether employment could not be found +for prisoners released on licence as in Ireland. Sir Joshua meets these +questions in the negative, and I believe I am correct in stating his +conclusions thus:— + + “Firstly. The character of the convicts in this country, and + the circumstances, differ so much from those of Ireland, that + any plan for congregating them together under less control than + is at present exercised, would not be calculated to render them + more fit for discharge, or give the officers to whose care they + might be consigned better, or even the same, opportunities of + judging their character as those which exist at present. + + “Secondly. That even if such objects could be promoted by + removing selected convicts into separate, small, intermediate + establishments, with diminished control and more voluntary + action, the exhibition of convict discipline in such a form + would impair the exemplary character and deterrent effects of a + sentence of penal servitude, which, on all accounts, it is most + essential to preserve as the most formidable of our secondary + punishments. + + “Thirdly. That any general superintendence of the police would + be impossible in England, without obstructing the employment of + the men. + + “Fourthly. That if such measures could be systematically + organized, it would be very desirable to afford convicts + some special information or instruction in connection with + their future prospects during the last few months of their + confinement—not in separate, intermediate establishments + disconnected from the prisons, but in the stage of discipline + which precedes discharge.” + +I have already said, that controversy in the subjunctive mood is totally +worthless. You can establish no logical conclusion except by a statement +of facts, which, like the figures in an arithmetical sum, render the +ultimate fact, the _x_ to be proven, a matter of moral certainty. +Undoubtedly there are great differences in the character of Englishmen +and of Irishmen, and, therefore, in the character of the convicts of +the two countries; but the points of resemblance between all civilized +communities are more numerous than the points of difference. This is +peculiarly the case with races under the same governments and laws; and +when we select a special class, formed by the aberrant tendencies of all +humanity, we increase the ratio of resemblance. The treatment of convicts +in the two countries might vary; we have no reason to assume that it +should be fundamentally opposed. + +Secondly, there is reason to doubt whether the deterrent element ever has +much force in the operation of penal servitude, of imprisonment, or of +any penalty save those involving acute physical suffering for very short +periods. The deterrent effect is severe in the case of hanging, flogging, +torture, and the like. In the case of correctional discipline, the effect +seems to be produced, far more, by a sort of compulsory teaching. Through +the force of facts, the involuntary student is made to learn that a +dishonest line of conduct cannot be pursued, but must sooner or later be +frustrated; therefore that an honester course of life is unavoidable, +and the attempt to avoid it foolish. At one time transportation, was a +penalty accounted “secondary” to death alone; but I have already shown +you that in 1861 it is accounted an actual boon, an increase to the +opportunities and enjoyments of life. Indeed it is, literally, in this +auxiliary sense that transportation to Western Australia, which still +tolerates the practice, is now recommended. In England, as well as in +Ireland, it is claimed as usefully completing that round of correctional +discipline which ends in reformation—holding out a hope to the reformed +convict of employment in a sphere where he will have the reward of +industry without disgrace. But in Ireland, we see that as the criminal +advances through his course of penal servitude, the whole system is made +to have the character of correction, and to awaken the hope of betterment +through honest exertion. + +Thirdly, the statement that the general superintendence of the police +would be impossible in England, without obstructing the employment of +the men or without converting the men into spies and tyrants, is thus +far a pure assumption. Not a shadow of evidence to establish it has been +shown to me. I know that policemen have interfered injuriously, but they +have not yet been instructed in a different line of conduct; and I also +know that there are, amongst the chief officers of the police in the +counties, those who are perfectly competent to study such a subject, and +who are prepared to begin the inquiry in a favourable spirit. But we must +also remember that the police do not represent the only class of public +servants who might be employed to act in this behalf, and report the +conduct of men out on licence. + +The fourth objection applies, in some degree, to the English arrangement, +in which the teaching of trades is by no means systematic; for it is +principally confined to the earlier stages of imprisonment, while the +employment of the vast majority on public works sends them into the +world only as common labourers. In Ireland, the adaptation of the +instruction is much more individualized, and the Intermediate stages turn +out a much greater variety of callings. + +A fifth objection on which the English authorities lay very great stress +is, that if the English convict be suffered to go at large, as he is at +Lusk, he will, perhaps in the very first hour of his freedom, run away +to rejoin his friends; particularly if he be a married man: nothing +will restrain him from decamping to rejoin his wife and family! “The +introduction of the Irish system into this country, the first element +being imperfect liberty granted to a man whose own act could make it +absolute in a moment, and would debar the married man from the society +of his wife and children, would do so much violence to every feeling +of his mind, that we could not be surprised if the slight barrier were +instantly broken which held him from the world. One of our most deserving +prisoners, lately discharged, of whose sincerity I have the highest +opinion, told me some months since that if 10,000_l._ were offered to +him to stay for twelve months, with nothing if he insisted on going to +his wife and children, then he would prefer the liberty to the money.” +So writes the chaplain of Portland Prison, in an unpublished report +forwarded to me, with his usual kindness and frankness, by Sir Joshua +Jebb; who also insists strongly on the same point. + +Now, at several of the prisons I have been shown convicts who are +employed on “special service,” and whom I have confounded with the +more numerous body of prisoners working at large on Southsea Common. +This mistake is corrected by a friendly note from the Governor of +Portsmouth Prison. “The greater number of the men,” he says, “were +ordinary prisoners—in the ordinary stages, and still under the usual +surveillance.” The man I referred to, who wished to be transferred from +that spot, was not in the special class at all. “Had he been so,” writes +Captain Rose, “the privilege of change of labour would probably have been +accorded to him. He merely asked for a transfer of party—a very common +demand, and rarely founded on any sufficient reason. Another point in +which I wish to correct you, or I should rather say, to make myself more +clear than perhaps I did during our far too hurried interview, relates +to the adoption of an ‘Intermediate stage,’ from which it might be +inferred that I advocated the Irish system in its integrity (the word +being there employed). I was careful to guard myself against this; and +in saying that I would willingly enlarge the special class to one or two +hundred men, for the purpose of employing them on Portsdown Hill, without +prison dress, and merely attended by a few picked officers as general +superintendents (equally undistinguished by any distinctive dress), I +reserved the important question whether they should be there located +as in Ireland, or be still subjected to the ordinary routine of prison +discipline and restraint, going to and returning from their distant +labour daily by special train. The difference would be most important, +and, in fact, constitutes the point mainly at issue between Sir Joshua +Jebb and Captain Crofton. Should you write again, perhaps you will make +this more clear.”[6] + +From these corrections with which I have been favoured, we gather two +things. First, that the special class are exempted from surveillance: +they are employed in carrying messages, and in other duties which send +them abroad into the world, like the trusted members of the Intermediate +class in Ireland. The application of the principle, indeed, is so +fractional, that all comparisons which I see attempted between it and the +Irish Intermediate system are untenable. But, secondly, the corrections +appear to me to show that in England there is no resistless impulse +to break through the moral restraint, and that in this respect the +Englishman is quite as amenable as the Irishman. I have never been told, +with regard either to Portsmouth or any other English prison, that they +limit this privilege to bachelors. + +Another incident appears to me sufficient not only to corroborate my +doubt, but to annihilate the official presumption in England. Recently +there have been those very important extensions of the Convict Prison +at Woking, to which Sir Joshua Jebb alludes in the statement I have +embodied. The work was carried on, in part at least, by convicts from +another prison—from Portland, I believe. The men were not taken from +those on special service; they were not selected even from those +accustomed to labour out of bounds; they were, I have been told, “just +the ordinary prisoners.” I have not visited Woking, but I am also +informed that they were diligent at their work; and that there was no +escape, nor any serious attempt at escape, if any at all. The prisoners +were fifty in number; and, again, I was not told that they were all +selected from the unmarried class. It appears to me, therefore, that this +imputed family _storge_ is a myth. + +I have bestowed great attention and pains on the endeavour to find out if +the leading objectors in the English system had actually made themselves +masters of the Irish system in its details, even so far as I have done +myself. I have sometimes feared that I pressed my questions upon them +further than was courteous; though I must confess that I have uniformly +been met with a frankness as candid as it was kind. I have not only found +that the study of the Irish system has been very partial, and that the +judgment against it has been formed on arguments in the subjunctive mood +and the most arbitrary assumptions, but I have also observed that even +with regard to the English system, there is not the same mastery of the +whole process in detail that I noticed in Ireland. For instance, I am not +aware that the leading authorities of the English system have personally +examined the working of the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, or have in +many instances personally traced the behaviour of discharged convicts out +in employment. + +The investigation of the subject, in one respect, is neither easy nor +inviting. I have myself observed amongst discharged English prisoners +an unbecoming levity, mingled with a marked ill feeling towards the +prison authorities; and I am not satisfied that all the prisoners who +seek the aid of the society in Charing Cross, are conscious of the +obligations which they owe to it. I felt less pained at the exhibition +for the sake of the society and its officers, than for the sake of the +men who thus betrayed their total unfitness to guide themselves through +the world into which they were again thrown. My hearing is considerably +keener than most men’s, and probably the applicants for succour were +not aware that I could hear every word of the conversation which was +going forward between them in groups; but I did, and the whispered talk +related to plans of amusement, of social meetings, of sports by no means +elevating, and of gambling. I have forborne to ask the secretary whether +ingratitude is the rule, because no such questioning should be instituted +without an authority to compel which should absolve the respondent +from responsibility; but I believe that no investigation could be more +interesting than one into the conduct of prisoners whom the society has +relieved, and particularly into their bearing towards those who have +helped them. I doubt whether the authorities of our convict system have +examined into this part of the matter at all. It is impossible not to +make a comparison between the peculiar bearing of the English prisoners +and the entirely opposite demeanour of the prisoners in Ireland. The +manner there is more free, the men speak with less reserve, and they +look less “cowed,” but they are much graver; and, if they do not deal in +professions of gratitude, they permit you to see that the treatment that +they have received and the opportunities opened to them are taken very +much to heart. + +The fact is, that the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society requires to be +placed on a much broader basis. In order that it should act with thorough +efficacy, it ought to be converted into a public department, with +authority to take cognizance of all prisoners leaving prison, to follow +up its information respecting discharged prisoners, and to dispose of +them with a freer choice than it can at present command. As I have before +remarked, there are several public organizations which might supply an +agency, but it is not for me to dictate any particular arrangement. In my +three reports on the convict systems, I have limited myself to a plain +statement of such facts as I was able to verify, and as I could group +into a summary of the general subject. Another change needed to render +the society efficient, and therefore secure of public support and of its +future position, is that the prisoners who seek its aid should be trained +to a greater variety of callings, so that no opportunities may be lost +through the over supply in one particular branch of industry or a want in +another branch. But, thirdly, and most chiefly, the discharged prisoners +who are candidates for the patronage of the society should come to it +in a condition of better moral training. They should have learned, not +simply the outward fashion of their behaviour, but the facts concerning +themselves which would suffice alone to prompt better feelings; and they +should have been more thoroughly taught, by the mode of discipline, to +appreciate the kindness so spontaneously extended to them. + +The requirements which appear to me necessary for the complete efficiency +of the society, and, therefore, for its stability, imply two radical +changes in its position. The first is a more distinct legislative and +official recognition of it as a constituent part of the English convict +system. For either the society is surplusage, or it is an essential; +and if it is essential, it should be brought into a more universal and +co-ordinate working with the rest of the establishment. The second change +is, that the convicts should pass through something analogous to the +Intermediate stage of the Irish system.[7] + +It seems to me quite time that the rivalry, displayed in the reports +on both sides of the Channel, should be absolutely and finally +discontinued. I must confess that the documents before me go to show +that the initiative of aggression was taken on the English side,—that +representations with regard to the working of the Irish system were put +forward with a high official authority on this side of the Channel, and +that they called for rectification from the other side; but it is idle +to enter into any retrospective award upon the merits of that obsolete +controversy. Our business is to take things as we find them _now_, and +to do the best we can both for England and for Ireland. I have already +said, that the Irish system appears to me to be the best; and I ascribe +its excellence to these three reasons—that, being the most recent +invention, it comprises the chief advantages of previous systems, with +new applications and extensions of tried principles admirably designed by +Captain Crofton; that it is planned upon a consideration of the objects +to be attained, irrespectively of difficulties or predilections; and that +it is carried out by men who are personally familiar with its details in +every part. + +I am not prepared to say that all details of the arrangement in Ireland +are essential to the completeness of an equally good system in England; +but the principles upon which the Irish system relies are applicable +over the whole globe, and they are consequently drawing the attention +of the most intelligent and active criminal reformers in distant +countries. I know that their progress is watched from Heidelberg, which +has itself been a great centre of prison improvement, under that able +and enthusiastic lawyer, Professor Mitternaier. Among the reforms which +have been pushed forward by the immortal Cavour, is a system of convict +discipline established at Pianosa, a small island lying south of Elba. +Tuscany has always been celebrated for reforms of the kind; and it is +not losing its reputation in our own day. One of the distinguishing +traits in the Pianosa system is the introduction of the Intermediate +stage, which Cavour had thoroughly studied; and the Superintendent of +the Prisons, M. de Peri, reports with great satisfaction on the working +of the new plan. A little farther east, at Corfu, we see M. Cozziris, +the Inspector-general of the Prisons in the Ionian Islands, diligently +following out the same work. His report for the year, which is now before +me, shows a thorough acquaintance with the Intermediate system, and a +proportionate admiration of it.[8] While I was in the United States, I +had the opportunity of visiting some of those prisons which have often +been mentioned as examples of modern improvement, and such unquestionably +they were a few years back. It is no reproach to the intelligence of +the American reformers that, in great part by their help, we have since +surpassed them; and it must be allowed that they might have made more +progress than they have, but for that unlucky working of their government +system, which so periodically and thoroughly removes the higher officers +in all departments of the State. Amongst the leading managers of +these prisons, however, I found considerable interest excited by the +reference to the Irish system, and a ready disposition to enter into its +advantages; which have been the subject of a special explanation in the +_Philadelphia Journal of Prison Discipline_ for January of the present +year. In other countries, therefore, even more remote from Ireland than +England, there is no reluctance to study the newest experiment, and to +profit by its instruction. + +I can well understand that there are difficulties in altering the +arrangements of any system; and our arrangements in England have been +particularly designed to suit a past state of circumstances, and to +attain particular objects. The leading objects were—the construction +of prisons so designed as to facilitate the ready inspection of large +numbers; the mustering of very numerous bodies of men upon public +works, which was thought to be an economical and beneficial employment +of convict labour; and the ultimate disposal of the convict by +transportation. Transportation has nearly ceased; we have arrived at the +perception that labouring on public works is not exclusively the best +discipline for all criminals; and we have learned that the best system +of our day attains its striking success by subdividing the prisoners +into small bodies and dealing with them in detail individually. A show +of transportation exists to tantalize the English officials, the system +of public works goes on with as much success as ever, and we have large +prisons on our hands; to say nothing of the fact, that the authors of +the living picture are naturally proud of the high development which has +been given to it. To get rid of these accessories of the system is the +greatest difficulty in any change, and I admit it in its fullest force. + +Other difficulties have been alleged—the greater delicacy of the +Englishman who has been criminal in concealing his shame, and, therefore, +in shrinking from any Intermediate stage; his impatience, under the +enforcement of conditions, to the ticket-of-licence, and the indomitable +impetuosity which will make every married convict break bounds the +instant he is placed in a state of half freedom; the reluctance of +English employers to co-operate, and other special distinctions ascribed +to the English character. But, on closer scrutiny, the force of these +difficulties is refuted by facts which I have stated in the foregoing +pages. Indeed, I have found the raw materials for the Irish system +scattered throughout English prisons, only they are not turned to +account, and are not placed in their natural order. I have expressed +my readiness to put forward any facts to prove that the English system +attains results equal to those which exist in Ireland, but I have been +supplied with no such facts. What we claim in England, by all the +rights of urgent necessity, of national intelligence, and of national +resources, is the most perfect system of convict system that the world +can supply,—whether we call that system “Irish,” or, as I should prefer +to call it, British. The one step needed for the introduction of those +tried principles amongst us is, to institute a thorough inquiry; and, +undoubtedly, Parliament is bound to inquire, and, having inquired, to +deal with the ascertained facts. Until that be done, we English are left +with a system not so good as the one we might have; we are compelled to +suffer for more crime than would otherwise exist in the country; and +uneducated misguided multitudes are suffered to stray into destruction, +from which they might otherwise be rescued. + + * * * * * + +Subjoined are the tables mentioned at page 240. The following facts are +necessary to complete the information conveyed in the first table:— + + No. 1.—9,180 orders of licence have been issued to the + directors for the release of male convicts from the different + convict prisons since the commencement of the system in + October, 1853, out of which 834 have had their licences + revoked and 1,038 have been reconvicted to penal servitude or + transportation, making a total of 1,872 who have forfeited + their licence; being an average percentage of 20.3, or an + average of 2.2 per annum, during the seven and a half years of + its operation. + + No. 2.—9,180 orders of licence have been issued; out of which + number, 1,363, or 14.8 per cent., were returned to convict + prisons for larceny and light offences, and 509, or 5.5 per + cent., for offences of a graver character, in seven and a half + years; being 1.9 per cent. per annum of light offences, and 0.7 + per cent. per annum of more serious crimes. + + No. 3.—3,307 convicts have been transported to Western + Australia during the years 1853 to 1861; out of which, it may + be assumed from the reports received, that from 5 to 8 per + cent. only may have relapsed into crime. This, if taken into + account, would reduce the average results of the English system. + +RETURN of the NUMBER of MALE CONVICTS released under ORDERS of LICENCE in +each Year, from October 1853, to April 1861; showing the NUMBER returned +to the CONVICT PRISONS, either by having had their LICENCES REVOKED +for trifling Offences, or by being sentenced to PENAL SERVITUDE or +TRANSPORTATION. + + --------+--------+-------------------------------------------------- + | | Number of MALE CONVICTS whose Licences have been + | | revoked, or who have been reconvicted. + | +---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ + Years. | No. | 1853. | 1854. | 1855. | 1856. | 1857. | + |Licensed+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ + | | | | | | | | | | | | + | |Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.| + | | | | | | | | | | | | + --------+--------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ + | | | | | | | | | | | | + 1853[9] | 335 | 1 | | 7 | 10 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 5 | + 1854 | 1,895 | | | 14 | 19 | 63 | 53 | 38 | 64 | 19 | 33 | + 1855 | 2,528 | | | | | 40 | 47 |126 |190 | 99 | 64 | + 1856 | 2,007 | | | | | | | 49 |131 |122 |106 | + 1857 | 674 | | | | | | | | | 15 | 34 | + 1858 | 318 | | | | | | | | | | | + 1859 | 260 | | | | | | | | | | | + 1860 | 818 | | | | | | | | | | | + 1861[10]| 345 | | | | | | | | | | | + --------+--------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ + Totals | 9,180 | 1 | | 21 | 29 |106 |105 |215 |389 |257 |242 | + --------+--------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ + + ---------------------------------------------------------+---------+---- + Number of MALE CONVICTS whose Licences have been | Per | + revoked, or who have been reconvicted | Centage.| P + ---------+---------+---------+---------+-----+-----+---- +----+----+ e + 1858. | 1859. | 1860. | 1861. |Total|Total|Grand| | | r + ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ Rev.| Rec.|Total| | | i + | | | | | | | | | | |Rev.|Rec.| o + Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.| | | | | | d + | | | | | | | | | | | | | . + ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+---- + | | | | | | | | | | | | |Y.M. + | | | | | | | | 15 | 24 | 39 | 4.5| 7.1|7 6 + 5 | 10 | 2 | 3 | 2 | | | | 143 | 182 | 325 | 7.5| 9.6|7 3 + 36 | 24 | 12 | 15 | 1 | 7 | | 1 | 314 | 348 | 662 |12.5|13.7|6 3 + 52 | 52 | 26 | 33 | 8 | 13 | | 2 | 257 | 337 | 594 |12.8|16.7|5 3 + 31 | 20 | 14 | 22 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 69 | 82 | 151 |10.2|12.1|4 3 + 7 | 10 | 12 | 12 | 6 | 4 | | | 25 | 26 | 51 | 7.8| 8.1|3 3 + | | 5 | 4 | 3 | 10 | | 1 | 8 | 15 | 23 | 3.0| 6.1|2 3 + | | | | 2 | 15 | | | 2 | 15 | 17 | 0.2| 1.8|1 3 + | | | | | | 1 | 9 | 1 | 9 | 10 | 0.2| 2.6|0 3 + ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+---- + 131 |116 | 71 | 89 | 30 | 54 | 2 | 14 | 834 |1,038|1,872| 9.0|11.3| + ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+---- + +The following shows the percentage per annum of Male Convicts returned +to Convict Prisons, either by revocation of licence, or under fresh +sentences, to Penal Servitude or Transportation, during the 7½ years the +system has been in operation:— + + licensed Per ct. Yrs. Per ct. + Of the Number 335 from Oct. + to 31st Dec. 1853 11.6 or in 7½ 1.5 per ann. + ” 1,895 in the year 1854 16.11 ” 7¼ 2.2 ” + ” 2,528 ” 1855 26.2 ” 6¼ 4.1 ” + ” 2,007 ” 1856 29.5 ” 5¼ 5.5 ” + ” 674 ” 1857 22.3 ” 4¼ 5.1 ” + ” 318 ” 1858 15.9 ” 3¼ 4.5 ” + ” 200 ” 1859 9.1 ” 2¼ 4.0 ” + ” 818 ” 1860 2.0 ” 1¼ 1.5 ” + ” 34 to 31st March 1861 2.8 ” 3 mos. 0.12 ” + +As regards the nature of the Crimes for which the 834 Male Convicts had +their licences only revoked, and the 1,038 who have been re-convicted for +fresh offences, the following is an analysis:— + +MINOR OFFENCES. + + Larceny 650 + Offences against vagrant act 126 + Assaults on police 34 + Desertion 18 + Picking pockets 27 + Wilful damage 14 + Assault 118 + Offences against game laws 21 + Theft, misdemeanour, and other offences 355 + ----- + Total 1,363 + +OFFENCES OF A GRAVER CHARACTER. + + Murder 2 + Forgery, uttering forged notes or base coin 44 + Burglary 106 + Robbery 41 + Robbery with violence 16 + Highway robbery 6 + Cutting and wounding with intent 6 + Felony, housebreaking, sheep-stealing, &c. 284 + Arson 4 + ----- + Total 509 + Minor offences 1,363 + ----- + Total 1,872 + +RETURN of the NUMBER of FEMALE CONVICTS released under ORDERS of LICENCE +in each Year, from October 1853, to June 1861; showing the NUMBER +returned to CONVICT PRISONS, either by having had their LICENCES REVOKED +for trifling Offences, or by being sentenced to PENAL SERVITUDE or +TRANSPORTATION. + + --------+--------+-------------------------------------------------- + | |Number of FEMALE CONVICTS whose Licences have been + | | revoked, or who have been reconvicted. + | +---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ + Years. | No. | 1853. | 1854. | 1855. | 1856. | 1857. | + |Licensed+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ + | | | | | | | | | | | | + | |Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.| + | | | | | | | | | | | | + --------+--------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ + | | | | | | | | | | | | + 1853[11]| — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | + 1854 | 40 | | | | | 1 | | 1 | 1 | | | + 1855 | 115 | | | | | 2 | 1 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 2 | + 1856 | 221 | | | | | | | 10 | 11 | 14 | 8 | + 1857 | 55 | | | | | | | | | 5 | 3 | + 1858 | 18 | | | | | | | | | | | + 1859 | 29 | | | | | | | | | | | + 1860 | 183 | | | | | | | | | | | + 1861[12]| 103 | | | | | | | | | | | + --------+--------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ + Totals | 764 | | | | | 3 | 1 | 21 | 19 | 24 | 13 | + --------+--------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ + + ---------------------------------------------------------+---------+---- + Number of FEMALE CONVICTS whose Licences have been | Per | + revoked, or who have been reconvicted | Centage.| P + ---------+---------+---------+---------+-----+-----+---- +----+----+ e + 1858. | 1859. | 1860. | 1861. |Total|Total|Grand| | | r + ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ Rev.| Rec.|Total| | | i + | | | | | | | | | | |Rev.|Rec.| o + Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.|Rev.|Rec.| | | | | | d + | | | | | | | | | | | | | . + ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+---- + | | | | | | | | | | | | |Y.M. + — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | —| —| — + | | | | | | | | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5. | 1.5|7 8 + 1 | 3 | | 1 | | | | | 18 | 14 | 32 |14.7|12.1|6 5 + 7 | 9 | 2 | 1 | | 1 | | | 33 | 30 | 63 |14.9|13.5|5 5 + 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | 2 | | | 7 | 7 | 14 |12.7|12.7|4 5 + | 1 | | | | 1 | | | | 2 | 2 | |11.1|3 5 + | | 1 | | | 1 | | | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3.4| 3.4|2 5 + | | | | 4 | 3 | | 5 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 2.1| 4.2|1 5 + | | | | | | | 2 | | 2 | 2 | | 1.9|0 5 + ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+---- + 9 | 14 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 8 | | 7 | 65 | 65 | 130 | 8.5| 8.5| + ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+---- + +The following shows the percentage per annum of Female Convicts returned +to Convict Prisons, either by revocation of licence, or under fresh +sentences, to Penal Servitude or Transportation, during the seven years +and eight months the system has been in operation:— + + licensed Per ct. Yrs. M. Per ct. + Of the No. 40 from Oct. 1853 + to 31st Dec. 1854 6.5 or in 7 8 0.8 per ann. + ” 115 in the year 1855 26.8 ” 6 5 4.0 ” + ” 221 ” 1856 28.4 ” 5 5 5.2 ” + ” 55 ” 1857 25.4 ” 4 5 5.9 ” + ” 18 ” 1858 11.1 ” 3 5 3.2 ” + ” 29 ” 1859 6.8 ” 2 5 3.3 ” + ” 183 ” 1860 6.3 ” 1 5 4.4 ” + ” 103 to 1st June 1861 1.9 ” 0 5 ” + +As regards the nature of the Crimes for which the 65 Female Convicts had +their licences only revoked, and the 65 who have been re-convicted for +fresh offences, the following is an analysis:— + +MINOR OFFENCES. + + Larceny 72 + Wilful damage 2 + Breach of peace 3 + Vagrancy 5 + Theft 26 + Disorderly conduct 4 + Picking Pockets 4 + ---- + Total 116 + +OFFENCES OF A GRAVER CHARACTER. + + Uttering base coin 2 + Unlawful possession 3 + Horse-stealing 1 + Robbery 2 + Receiving stolen goods 1 + Wounding 1 + Housebreaking 4 + ---- + Total 14 + Minor offences 116 + ---- + Total 130 + + +FOOTNOTES + +[4] In the years from 1841 to 1845, the average annual number of convicts +sent to Van Diemen’s Land was 3,527. + +[5] One of the official calculations laid before the Government was, that +in the event of transportation being abolished, it would be necessary to +provide accommodation for 28,000 offenders, in addition to that which +then existed. + +[6] There were two other clerical errors in the part of the paper +referring to Portsmouth. The thirty-three convicts were fulfilling +sentence not under the new, but under the old Act; and in lieu of +seventy-three under report for misconduct, it should have been +thirteen—an important difference. + +[7] The annual report of the Directors of Convict Prisons for 1860, +published recently, more than confirms the report which I made to you, +and which was published in your April number. The excellent working +and progress of the Irish system continue with increasing force. The +Government prisons contain accommodation for 3,000 convicts; the +total number incarcerated in the first year of the new system, 1854, +exclusively of the 345 convicts in the county prisons, and several +hundreds in Bermuda or Gibraltar, was 3,933, and it has decreased, by a +steady progress, to 1,492. In 1861 the number convicted has decreased +from 710 to 331. This is the more remarkable, since the deportation +of convicts from Ireland ranged from 600 to 1,540 in the five years +preceding 1854. Out of 5,500 convicts discharged in the last seven +years, 1,462 were discharged on licence; 89 licences have been revoked, +amounting to seven per cent. “We do not,” say the Directors, “believe +a single case can be proved of a convict having been reported for +infringing the condition of his licence, and still remaining at large in +this country.” + +[8] Statistica del Penitenziario di Corfu, per gli Anni 1857, 1858, 1859. +Compilata da Giovanni Cozziris, Governatore del Penitenziario di Corfu, +ed Inspettore Generale delle Prigioni dello Stato Ionio. + +[9] From October to December 31st, 1853. + +[10] To 31st March, 1861. + +[11] From October, 1853. + +[12] To June, 1861. + + + + +Roundabout Papers.—No. XV. + +OGRES. + + +I daresay the reader has remarked that the upright and independent +vowel, which stands in the vowel-list between E and O, has formed the +subject of the main part of these essays. How does that vowel feel +this morning?—fresh, good-humoured, and lively? The Roundabout lines, +which fall from this pen, are correspondingly brisk and cheerful. Has +anything, on the contrary, disagreed with the vowel? Has its rest been +disturbed, or was yesterday’s dinner too good, or yesterday’s wine not +good enough? Under such circumstances, a darkling, misanthropic tinge, no +doubt, is cast upon the paper. The jokes, if attempted, are elaborate and +dreary. The bitter temper breaks out. That sneering manner is adopted, +which you know, and which exhibits itself so especially when the writer +is speaking about women. A moody carelessness comes over him. He sees +no good in any body or thing; and treats gentlemen, ladies, history, +and things in general, with a like gloomy flippancy. Agreed. When the +vowel in question is in that mood; if you like airy gaiety and tender +gushing benevolence—if you want to be satisfied with yourself and the +rest of your fellow-beings; I recommend you, my dear creature, to go +to some other shop in Cornhill, or turn to some other article. There +are moods in the mind of the vowel of which we are speaking, when it is +ill-conditioned and captious. Who always keeps good health, and good +humour? Do not philosophers grumble? Are not sages sometimes out of +temper? and do not angel-women go off in tantrums? To-day my mood is +dark. I scowl as I dip my pen in the inkstand. + +Here is the day come round—for everything here is done with the utmost +regularity:—intellectual labour, seventeen hours; meals, thirty-two +minutes; exercise, a hundred and forty-eight minutes; conversation with +the family, chiefly literary, and about the housekeeping, one hour and +four minutes; sleep, three hours and fifteen minutes (at the end of the +month, when the Magazine is complete, I own I take eight minutes more); +and the rest for the toilette and the world. Well, I say, the _Roundabout +Paper Day_ being come, and the subject long since settled in my mind, an +excellent subject—a most telling, lively, and popular subject—I go to +breakfast determined to finish that meal in 9¾ minutes, as usual, and +then retire to my desk and work, when—oh, provoking!—here in the paper +is the very subject treated, on which I was going to write! Yesterday +another paper which I saw treated it—and of course, as I need not tell +you, spoiled it. Last Saturday, another paper had an article on the +subject; perhaps you may guess what it was—but I won’t tell you. Only +this is true, my favourite subject, which was about to make the best +paper we have had for a long time; my bird, my game that I was going to +shoot and serve up with such a delicate sauce, has been found by other +sportsmen; and pop, pop, pop, a half-dozen of guns have banged at it, +mangled it, and brought it down. + +“And can’t you take some other text?” say you. All this is mighty well. +But if you have set your heart on a certain dish for dinner, be it cold +boiled veal, or what you will; and they bring you turtle and venison, +don’t you feel disappointed? During your walk you have been making up +your mind that that cold meat, with moderation and a pickle, will be a +very sufficient dinner: you have accustomed your thoughts to it; and +here, in place of it, is a turkey, surrounded by coarse sausages, or a +reeking pigeon-pie, or a fulsome roast-pig. I have known many a good and +kind man made furiously angry by such a _contretemps_. I have known him +lose his temper, call his wife and servants names, and a whole household +made miserable. If, then, as is notoriously the case, it is too dangerous +to baulk a man about his dinner, how much more about his article? I +came to my meal with an ogre-like appetite and gusto. Fee, faw, fum! +Wife, where is that tender little Princekin? Have you trussed him, and +did you stuff him nicely, and have you taken care to baste him and do +him, not too brown, as I told you? Quick! I am hungry! I begin to whet +my knife, to roll my eyes about, and roar and clap my huge chest like a +gorilla; and then my poor Ogrina has to tell me that the little princes +have all run away, whilst she was in the kitchen, making the paste to +bake them in! I pause in the description. I won’t condescend to report +the bad language, which you know must ensue, when an ogre, whose mind is +ill-regulated, and whose habits of self-indulgence are notorious, finds +himself disappointed of his greedy hopes. What treatment of his wife, +what abuse and brutal behaviour to his children, who, though ogrillons, +are children! My dears, you may fancy, and need not ask my delicate pen +to describe, the language and behaviour of a vulgar, coarse, greedy, +large man with an immense mouth and teeth, that are too frequently +employed in the gobbling and crunching of raw man’s meat. + +And in this circuitous way you see I have reached my present +subject, which is, Ogres. You fancy they are dead or only fictitious +characters—mythical representatives of strength, cruelty, stupidity, and +lust for blood? Though they had seven-leagued boots, you remember all +sorts of little whipping-snapping Tom Thumbs used to elude and outrun +them. They were so stupid that they gave into the most shallow ambuscades +and artifices: witness that well-known ogre who, because Jack cut open +the hasty-pudding, instantly ripped open his own stupid waistcoat and +interior. They were cruel, brutal, disgusting with their sharpened teeth, +immense knives, and roaring voices: but they always ended by being +overcome by little Tom Thumbkins, or some other smart little champion. + +Yes; that they were conquered in the end, there is no doubt. They plunged +headlong (and uttering the most frightful bad language) into some pit +where Jack came with his smart _couteau de chasse_ and whipped their +brutal heads off. They would be going to devour maidens, + + “But ever when it seemed + Their need was at the sorest, + A knight, in armour bright, + Came riding through the forest.” + +And, down after a combat, would go the brutal persecutor with a lance +through his midriff. Yes, I say, this is very true and well. But you +remember that round the ogre’s cave, the ground was covered, for hundreds +and hundreds of yards, _with the bones of the victims_ whom he had lured +into the castle. Many knights and maids came to him and perished under +his knife and teeth. Were dragons the same as ogres? Monsters dwelling +in caverns, whence they rushed, attired in plate armour, wielding pikes +and torches, and destroying stray passengers who passed by their lair? +Monsters, brutes, rapacious tyrants, ruffians, as they were, doubtless +they ended by being overcome. But, before they were destroyed, they did +a deal of mischief. The bones round their caves were countless. They had +sent many brave souls to Hades, before their own fled, howling, out of +their rascal carcasses, to the same place of gloom. + +There is no greater mistake than to suppose that fairies, champions, +distressed damsels, and by consequence ogres have ceased to exist. It may +not be _ogreable_ to them (pardon the horrible pleasantry, but, as I am +writing in the solitude of my chamber, I am grinding my teeth—yelling, +roaring, and cursing—brandishing my scissors and paper-cutter, and, as +it were, have become an ogre). I say there is no greater mistake than +to suppose that ogres have ceased to exist. We all _know_ ogres. Their +caverns are round us, and about us. There are the castles of several +ogres within a mile of the spot where I write. I think some of them +suspect I am an ogre myself. I am not: but I know they are. I visit +them. I don’t mean to say that they take a cold roast prince out of the +cupboard, and have a cannibal feast before _me_. But I see the bones +lying about the roads to their houses, and in the areas and gardens. +Politeness, of course, prevents me from making any remarks; but I know +them well enough. One of the ways to know ’em is to watch the scared +looks of the ogres’ wives and children. They lead an awful life. They +are present at dreadful cruelties. In their excesses those ogres will +stab about, and kill not only strangers who happen to call in and ask a +night’s lodging, but they will outrage, murder, and chop up their own +kin. We all know ogres, I say, and have been in their dens often. It is +not necessary that ogres who ask you to dine should offer their guests +the _peculiar dish_ which they like. They cannot always get a Tom Thumb +family. They eat mutton and beef too; and I daresay even go out to tea, +and invite you to drink it. But I tell you there are numbers of them +going about in the world. And now you have my word for it, and this +little hint, it is quite curious what an interest society may be made to +have for you, by your determining to find out the ogres you meet there. + +What does the man mean? says Mrs. Downright, to whom a joke is a very +grave thing. I mean, madam, that in the company assembled in your genteel +drawing-room, who bow here and there and smirk in white neckcloths, +you receive men who elbow through life successfully enough, but who +are ogres in private: men wicked, false, rapacious, flattering; cruel +hectors at home; smiling courtiers abroad; causing wives, children, +servants, parents, to tremble before them, and smiling and bowing as +they bid strangers welcome into their castles. I say, there are men +who have crunched the bones of victim after victim; in whose closets +lie skeletons picked frightfully clean. When these ogres come out into +the world, you don’t suppose they show their knives, and their great +teeth? A neat simple white neckcloth, a merry rather obsequious manner, +a cadaverous look, perhaps, now and again, and a rather dreadful grin; +but I know ogres very considerably respected: and when you hint to such +and such a man, “My dear sir, Mr. Sharpus, whom you appear to like, is, +I assure you, a most dreadful cannibal;” the gentleman cries, “Oh, psha, +nonsense! Daresay not so black as he is painted. Daresay not worse than +his neighbours.” We condone everything in this country—private treason, +falsehood, flattery, cruelty at home, roguery, and double dealing—What? +Do you mean to say in your acquaintance you don’t know ogres guilty of +countless crimes of fraud and force, and that knowing them you don’t +shake hands with them; dine with them at your table; and meet them at +their own? Depend upon it, in the time when there were real live ogres +in real caverns or castles, gobbling up real knights and virgins—when +they went into the world—the neighbouring market-town, let us say, or +earl’s castle; though their nature and reputation were pretty well known, +their notorious foibles were never alluded to. You would say, “What, +Blunderbore, my boy! How do you do? How well and fresh you look! What’s +the receipt you have for keeping so young and rosy?” And your wife would +softly ask after Mrs. Blunderbore and the dear children. Or it would +be, “My dear Humguffin! try that pork. It is home-bred, home-fed, and, +I promise you, tender. Tell me if you think it is as good as yours? +John, a glass of Burgundy to Colonel Humguffin!” You don’t suppose there +would be any unpleasant allusions to disagreeable home-reports regarding +Humguffin’s manner of furnishing his larder? I say we all of us know +ogres. We shake hands and dine with ogres. And if inconvenient moralists +tell us we are cowards for our pains, we turn round with a _tu quoque_, +or say that we don’t meddle with other folk’s affairs; that people are +much less black than they are painted, and so on. What? Won’t half the +county go to Ogreham Castle? Won’t some of the clergy say grace at +dinner? Won’t the mothers bring their daughters to dance with the young +Rawheads? And if Lady Ogreham happens to die—I won’t say to go the way of +all flesh, that is too revolting—I say if Ogreham is a widower, do you +aver, on your conscience and honour, that mothers will not be found to +offer their young girls to supply the lamented lady’s place? How stale +this misanthropy is! Something must have disagreed with this cynic. Yes, +my good woman. I daresay you would like to call another subject. Yes, my +fine fellow; ogre at home, supple as a dancing-master abroad, and shaking +in thy pumps, and wearing a horrible grin of sham gaiety to conceal thy +terror, lest I should point thee out:—thou art prosperous and honoured, +art thou? I say thou hast been a tyrant and a robber. Thou hast plundered +the poor. Thou hast bullied the weak. Thou hast laid violent hands on +the goods of the innocent and confiding. Thou hast made a prey of the +meek and gentle who asked for thy protection. Thou hast been hard to thy +kinsfolk, and cruel to thy family. Go, monster! Ah, when shall little +Jack come and drill daylight through thy wicked cannibal carcass? I see +the ogre pass on, bowing right and left to the company; and he gives a +dreadful sidelong glance of suspicion as he is talking to my lord bishop +in the corner there. + +Ogres in our days need not be giants at all. In former times, and in +children’s books, where it is necessary to paint your moral in such large +letters that there can be no mistake about it, ogres are made with that +enormous mouth and _ratelier_ which you know of, and with which they +can swallow down a baby, almost without using that great knife which +they always carry. They are too cunning now-a-days. They go about in +society, slim, small, quietly dressed, and showing no especially great +appetite. In my own young days there used to be play ogres—men who would +devour a young fellow in one sitting, and leave him without a bit of +flesh on his bones. They were quiet gentlemanlike-looking people. They +got the young fellow into their cave. Champagne, paté de foie-gras, and +numberless good things were handed about; and then, having eaten, the +young man was devoured in his turn. I believe these card and dice ogres +have died away almost as entirely as the hasty-pudding giants whom Tom +Thumb overcame. Now, there are ogres in City courts who lure you into +their dens. About our Cornish mines I am told there are many most +plausible ogres, who tempt you into their caverns and pick your bones +there. In a certain newspaper there used to be lately a whole column +of advertisements from ogres who would put on the most plausible, nay, +piteous appearance, in order to inveigle their victims. You would read, +“A tradesman, established for seventy years in the City, and known, and +much respected by Messrs. N. M. Rothschild and Baring Brothers, has +pressing need for three pounds until next Saturday. He can give security +for half a million, and forty thousand pounds will be given for the use +of the loan,” and so on; or, “An influential body of capitalists are +about to establish a company, of which the business will be enormous and +the profits proportionately prodigious. They will require A SECRETARY, +of good address and appearance, at a salary of two thousand per annum. +He need not be able to write, but address and manners are absolutely +necessary. As a mark of confidence in the company, he will have to +deposit,” &c.; or, “A young widow (of pleasing manners and appearance) +who has a pressing necessity for four pounds ten for three weeks, offers +her Erard’s grand piano valued at three hundred guineas; a diamond cross +of eight hundred pounds; and board and lodging in her elegant villa +near Banbury Cross, with the best references and society, in return for +the loan.” I suspect these people are ogres. There are ogres and ogres. +Polyphemus was a great, tall, one-eyed, notorious ogre, fetching his +victims out of a hole, and gobbling them one after another. There could +be no mistake about _him_. But so were the Syrens ogres—pretty blue-eyed +things, peeping at you coaxingly from out of the water, and singing their +melodious wheedles. And the bones round their caves were more numerous +than the ribs, skulls, and thigh-bones round the cavern of hulking +Polypheme. + +To the castle-gates of some of these monsters up rides the dapper +champion of the pen; puffs boldly upon the horn which hangs by the chain; +enters the hall resolutely, and challenges the big tyrant sulking within. +We defy him to combat, the enormous roaring ruffian! We give him a +meeting on the green plain before his castle. Green? No wonder it should +be green: it is manured with human bones. After a few graceful wheels and +curvets, we take our ground. We stoop over our saddle. ’Tis but to kiss +the locket of our lady-love’s hair. And now the vizor is up: the lance is +in rest (Gillott’s iron is the point for me). A touch of the spur in the +gallant sides of Pegasus, and we gallop at the great brute. + +“Cut off his ugly head, Flibbertygibbet, my squire!” And who are these +who pour out of the castle? the imprisoned maidens, the maltreated +widows, the poor old hoary grandfathers, who have been locked up in the +dungeons these scores and scores of years, writhing under the tyranny +of that ruffian! Ah! ye knights of the pen! May honour be your shield +and truth tip your lances! Be gentle to all gentle people. Be modest to +women. Be tender to children. And as for the Ogre Humbug, out sword, and +have at him. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75623 *** diff --git a/75623-h/75623-h.htm b/75623-h/75623-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0939a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/75623-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7929 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. IV, No. 2, August 1861) | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +a { + text-decoration: none; +} + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +h2.nobreak { + page-break-before: avoid; +} + +hr { + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + clear: both; +} + +hr.r20 { + width: 20%; + margin-top: .5em; + margin-bottom: .5em; + margin-left: 40%; + margin-right: 40%; +} + +hr.tb { + width: 45%; + margin-left: 27.5%; + margin-right: 27.5%; +} + +hr.chap { + width: 65%; + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; +} + +img.w100 { + width: 100%; +} + +div.chapter { + page-break-before: always; +} + +p { + margin-top: 0.5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +p.dropcap { + text-indent: 0em; +} + +img.dropcap { + float: left; + margin: 0 0.5em 0 0; +} + +p.dropcap:first-letter { + color: transparent; + visibility: hidden; + margin-left: -0.9em; +} + +table { + margin: 1em auto 1em auto; + max-width: 40em; + border-collapse: collapse; +} + +th { + padding: 0.25em; + font-weight: normal; +} + +td { + padding-left: 2.25em; + padding-right: 0.25em; + vertical-align: top; + text-indent: -2em; + text-align: justify; +} + +.bt { + border-top: thin solid black; +} + +.tdc { + text-align: center; +} + +.tdr { + text-align: right; + white-space: nowrap; +} + +table.borders { + border-top: thin solid black; + border-bottom: thin solid black; + font-size: smaller; +} + +.borders th { + border-top: thin solid black; + border-bottom: thin solid black; + border-right: thin solid black; +} + +.borders td { + border-right: thin solid black; +} + +.borders .bl { + border-left: thin solid black; +} + +.borders td:last-child, .borders th:last-child, .borders .nobr { + border-right: none; +} + +.author { + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + font-variant: small-caps; + text-transform: lowercase; + font-size: 125%; +} + +.blockquote { + margin: 1.5em 10%; +} + +.caption p { + text-align: center; + margin-bottom: 1em; + font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0em; +} + +.center { + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; +} + +.ditto { + margin-left: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; +} + +.dp { + padding-right: 0.5em; +} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.footnotes { + margin-top: 1em; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.footnote { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 0.9em; +} + +.footnote .label { + position: absolute; + right: 84%; + text-align: right; +} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none; +} + +.hanging { + padding-left: 2em; + text-indent: -2em; +} + +.noindent { + text-indent: 0em; +} + +.nw { + white-space: nowrap; +} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + right: 4%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; +} + +.poetry-container { + text-align: center; +} + +.poetry { + display: inline-block; + text-align: left; +} + +.poetry .stanza { + margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em; +} + +.poetry .verse { + padding-left: 3em; +} + +.poetry .indent0 { + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poetry .indent2 { + text-indent: -2em; +} + +.poetry .indent34 { + text-indent: 14em; +} + +.right { + text-align: right; +} + +.smaller { + font-size: 80%; +} + +.smcap { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; +} + +.x-ebookmaker img { + max-width: 100%; + width: auto; + height: auto; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .poetry { + display: block; + margin-left: 1.5em; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .blockquote { + margin: 1.5em 5%; +} + +.x-ebookmaker img.dropcap { + display: none; +} + +.x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { + color: inherit; + visibility: visible; + margin-left: 0; +} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp100 {width: 100%;} +.illowp50 {width: 50%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp50 {width: 100%;} +.illowp62 {width: 62%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp62 {width: 100%;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75623 ***</div> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="illus1" style="max-width: 29.6875em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>Charlotte’s Convoy.</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span></p> + +<h1><span class="smaller">THE</span><br> +CORNHILL MAGAZINE.</h1> + +<hr class="r20"> + +<p class="center">AUGUST, 1861.</p> + +<hr class="r20"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Philip">Philip.</h2> + +</div> + +<h3>CHAPTER XVII.<br> +<span class="smcap">Brevis esse laboro.</span></h3> + +<div> +<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-n.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">Never, General Baynes afterwards +declared, did fever come +and go so pleasantly as that +attack to which we have seen +the Mrs. General advert in her +letter to her sister, Mrs. Major +MacWhirter. The cold fit was +merely a lively, pleasant chatter +and rattle of the teeth; the hot +fit an agreeable warmth; and +though the ensuing sleep, with +which I believe such aguish +attacks are usually concluded, +was enlivened by several dreams +of death, demons, and torture, +how felicitous it was to wake and find that dreadful thought of ruin +removed which had always, for the last few months, ever since Dr. Firmin’s +flight and the knowledge of his own imprudence, pursued the good-natured +gentleman! What! this boy might go to college, and that get +his commission; and their meals need be embittered by no more dreadful +thoughts of the morrow, and their walks no longer were dogged by +imaginary bailiffs, and presented a gaol in the vista! It was too much +bliss; and again and again the old soldier said his thankful prayers, and +blessed his benefactor.</p> + +<p>Philip thought no more of his act of kindness, except to be very<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span> +grateful, and very happy that he had rendered other people so. He +could no more have taken the old man’s all, and plunged that innocent +family into poverty, than he could have stolen the forks off my table. +But other folks were disposed to rate his virtue much more highly; and +amongst these was my wife, who chose positively to worship this young +gentleman, and I believe would have let him smoke in her drawing-room +if he had been so minded, and though her genteelest acquaintances were +in the room. Goodness knows what a noise and what piteous looks are +produced if ever the master of the house chooses to indulge in a cigar +after dinner; but then, you understand, <i>I</i> have never declined to claim +mine and my children’s right because an old gentleman would be inconvenienced: +and this is what I tell Mrs. Pen. If I order a coat from my +tailor, must I refuse to pay him because a rogue steals it, and ought I to +expect to be let off? Women won’t see matters of fact in a matter-of-fact +point of view, and justice, unless it is tinged with a little romance, +gets no respect from them.</p> + +<p>So, forsooth, because Philip has performed this certainly most +generous, most dashing, most reckless piece of extravagance, he is to +be held up as a perfect <i>preux chevalier</i>. The most riotous dinners are +ordered for him. We are to wait until he comes to breakfast, and he is +pretty nearly always late. The children are to be sent round to kiss +uncle Philip, as he is now called. The children? I wonder the mother +did not jump up and kiss him too. <i>Elle en était capable.</i> As for the osculations +which took place between Mrs. Pendennis and her new-found young +friend, Miss Charlotte Baynes, they were perfectly ridiculous; two school +children could not have behaved more absurdly; and I don’t know which +seemed to be the youngest of these two. There were colloquies, assignations, +meetings on the ramparts, on the pier, where know I?—and the +servants and little children of the two establishments were perpetually +trotting to and fro with letters from dearest Laura to dearest Charlotte, +and dearest Charlotte to her dearest Mrs. Pendennis. Why, my wife absolutely +went the length of saying that dearest Charlotte’s mother, +Mrs. Baynes, was a worthy, clever woman, and a good mother—a +woman whose tongue never ceased clacking about the regiment, and all +the officers, and all the officers’ wives; of whom, by the way, she had +very little good to tell.</p> + +<p>“A worthy mother, is she, my dear?” I say. “But, oh, mercy! +Mrs. Baynes would be an awful mother-in-law!”</p> + +<p>I shuddered at the thought of having such a commonplace, hard, +ill-bred woman in a state of quasi authority over me.</p> + +<p>On this Mrs. Laura must break out in quite a petulant tone—“Oh, +how <i>stale</i> this kind of thing is, Arthur, from a man <i>qui veut passer pour +un homme d’esprit</i>! You are always attacking mothers-in-law!”</p> + +<p>“Witness Mrs. Mackenzie, my love—Clive Newcome’s mother-in-law. +That’s a nice creature; not selfish, not wicked, not——”</p> + +<p>“Not nonsense, Arthur!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span></p> + +<p>“Mrs. Baynes knew Mrs. Mackenzie in the West Indies, as she knew +all the female army. She considers Mrs. Mackenzie was a most elegant, +handsome, dashing woman—only a little too fond of the admiration of our +sex. There was, I own, a fascination about Captain Goby. Do you +remember, my love, that man with the stays and dyed hair, who——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Arthur! When our girls marry, I suppose you will teach +their husbands to abuse, and scorn, and mistrust <i>their</i> mother-in-law. +Will he, my darlings? will he, my blessings?” (This apart to the children, +if you please.) “Go! I have no patience with such talk!”</p> + +<p>“Well, my love, Mrs. Baynes is a most agreeable woman; and when +I have heard that story about the Highlanders at the Cape of Good Hope +a few times more” (I do not tell it here, for it has nothing to do with the +present history), “I daresay I shall begin to be amused by it.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! here comes Charlotte, I’m glad to say. How pretty she is! +What a colour! What a dear creature!”</p> + +<p>To all which of course I could not say a contradictory word, for +a prettier, fresher lass than Miss Baynes, with a sweeter voice, face, +laughter, it was difficult to see.</p> + +<p>“Why does mamma like Charlotte better than she likes us?” says +our dear and justly indignant eldest girl.</p> + +<p>“I could not love her better if I were her <i>mother-in-law</i>,” says Laura, +running to her young friend, casting a glance at me over her shoulder; +and that kissing nonsense begins between the two ladies. To be sure the +girl looks uncommonly bright and pretty with her pink cheeks, her bright +eyes, her slim form, and that charming white India shawl which her +father brought home for her.</p> + +<p>To this osculatory party enters presently Mr. Philip Firmin, who has +been dawdling about the ramparts ever since breakfast. He says he has +been reading law there. He has found a jolly quiet place to read. Law, +has he? And much good may it do him! Why has he not gone back +to his law, and his reviewing?</p> + +<p>“You must—you <i>must</i> stay on a little longer. You have only been +here five days. Do, Charlotte, ask Philip to stay a little.”</p> + +<p>All the children sing in a chorus, “Oh, do, uncle Philip, stay a little +longer!” Miss Baynes says, “I hope you will stay, Mr. Firmin,” and +looks at him.</p> + +<p>“Five days has he been here? Five years. Five lives. Five hundred +years. What do you mean? In that little time of—let me see, a hundred +and twenty hours, and at least a half of them for sleep and dinner (for +Philip’s appetite was very fine)—do you mean that in that little time his +heart, cruelly stabbed by a previous monster in female shape, has healed, +got quite well, and actually begun to be wounded again? Have two walks +on the pier, as many visits to the Tintelleries (where he hears the story of +the Highlanders at the Cape of Good Hope with respectful interest), a +word or two about the weather, a look or two, a squeezekin, perhaps, of a +little handykin—I say, do you mean that this absurd young idiot, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span> +that little round-faced girl, pretty, certainly, but only just out of the +schoolroom—do you mean to say that they have—— Upon my word, +Laura, this is too bad. Why, Philip has not a penny piece in the +world.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, he has a hundred pounds, and expects to sell his mare for +ninety at least. He has excellent talents. He can easily write three +articles a week in the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>. I am sure no one writes so +well, and it is much better done and more amusing than it used to be. +That is three hundred a year. Lord Ringwood must be applied to, and +must and shall get him something. Don’t you know that Captain Baynes +stood by Colonel Ringwood’s side at Busaco, and that they were the +closest friends? And pray, how did <i>we</i> get on, I should like to know? +How did <i>we</i> get on, baby?”</p> + +<p>“How did we det on?” says the baby.</p> + +<p>“Oh, woman! woman!” yells the father of the family. “Why, +Philip Firmin has all the habits of a rich man with the pay of a mechanic. +Do you suppose he ever sate in a second-class carriage in his life, or +denied himself any pleasure to which he had a mind? He gave five +francs to a beggar girl yesterday.”</p> + +<p>“He had always a noble heart,” says my wife. “He gave a fortune +to a whole family a week ago; and” (out comes the pocket-handkerchief—oh, +of course, the pocket-handkerchief)—“and—‘God loves a cheerful +giver!’”</p> + +<p>“He is careless; he is extravagant; he is lazy;—I don’t know that +he is remarkably clever——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes! he is your friend, of course. Now, abuse him—<i>do</i>, +Arthur!”</p> + +<p>“And, pray, when did you become acquainted with this astounding +piece of news?” I inquire.</p> + +<p>“When? From the very first moment when I saw Charlotte looking +at him, to be sure. The poor child said to me only yesterday, ‘Oh, +Laura! he is our preserver!’ And their preserver he has been, under +Heaven.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. But he has not got a five-pound note!” I cry.</p> + +<p>“Arthur, I am surprised at you. Oh, men, men are awfully worldly! +Do you suppose Heaven will not send him help at its good time, and be +kind to him who has rescued so many from ruin? Do you suppose the +prayers, the blessings of that father, of those little ones, of that dear +child, will not avail him? Suppose he has to wait a year, ten years, have +they not time, and will not the good day come?”</p> + +<p>Yes. This was actually the talk of a woman of sense and discernment +when her prejudices and romance were not in the way, and she +looked forward to the marriage of these folks, some ten years hence, as +confidently as if they were both rich, and going to St. George’s to-morrow.</p> + +<p>As for making a romantic story of it, or spinning out love conversations +between Jenny and Jessamy, or describing moonlight raptures and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span> +passionate outpourings of two young hearts and so forth—excuse me, <i>s’il +vous plait</i>. I am a man of the world, and of a certain age. Let the +young people fill in this outline, and colour it as they please. Let the old +folks who read, lay down the book a minute, and remember. It is well +remembered, isn’t it, that time? Yes, good John Anderson, and Mrs. +John. Yes, good Darby and Joan. The lips won’t tell now, what they +did once. To-day is for the happy, and to-morrow for the young, and +yesterday, is not that dear and here too?</p> + +<p>I was in the company of an elderly gentleman, not very long since, +who was perfectly sober, who is not particularly handsome, or healthy, or +wealthy, or witty; and who, speaking of his past life, volunteered to +declare that he would gladly live every minute of it over again. Is a +man who can say that a hardened sinner, not aware how miserable he +ought to be by rights, and therefore really in a most desperate and +deplorable condition; or is he <i>fortunatus nimium</i>, and ought his statue to +be put up in the most splendid and crowded thoroughfare of the town? +Would you, who are reading this, for example, like to live <i>your</i> life over +again? What has been its chief joy? What are to-day’s pleasures? +Are they so exquisite that you would prolong them for ever? Would +you like to have the roast beef on which you have dined brought back +again to table, and have more beef, and more, and more? Would you +like to hear yesterday’s sermon over and over again—eternally voluble? +Would you like to get on the Edinburgh mail, and travel outside for fifty +hours as you did in your youth? You might as well say you would like +to go into the flogging-room, and take a turn under the rods: you would +like to be thrashed over again by your bully at school: you would like to +go to the dentist’s, where your dear parents were in the habit of taking +you: you would like to be taking hot Epsom salts, with a piece of dry +bread to take away the taste: you would like to be jilted by your first +love: you would like to be going in to your father to tell him you had +contracted debts to the amount of <i>x</i> + <i>y</i> + <i>z</i>, whilst you were at the +university. As I consider the passionate griefs of childhood, the weariness +and sameness of shaving, the agony of corns, and the thousand other ills +to which flesh is heir, I cheerfully say for one, I am not anxious to wear +it for ever. No. I do not want to go to school again. I do not want to +hear Trotman’s sermon over again. Take me out and finish me. Give +me the cup of hemlock at once. Here’s a health to you, my lads. Don’t +weep, my Simmias. Be cheerful, my Phædon. Ha! I feel the co-o-old +stealing, stealing upwards. Now it is in my ankles—no more gout in my +foot: now my knees are numb. What, is—is that poor executioner crying +too? Good-bye. Sacrifice a cock to Æscu—to Æscula— ... Have +you ever read the chapter in Grote’s <i>History</i>? Ah! When the Sacred +Ship returns from Delos, and is telegraphed as entering into port, may we +be at peace and ready!</p> + +<p>What is this funeral chant, when the pipes should be playing gaily +as Love, and Youth, and Spring, and Joy are dancing under the windows?<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span> +Look you. Men not so wise as Socrates have their demons, who +will be heard and whisper in the queerest times and places. Perhaps I +shall have to tell of a funeral presently, and shall be outrageously cheerful; +or of an execution, and shall split my sides with laughing. Arrived +at my time of life, when I see a penniless young friend falling in love +and thinking of course of committing matrimony, what can I do but be +melancholy? How is a man to marry who has not enough to keep ever +so miniature a brougham—ever so small a house—not enough to keep +himself, let alone a wife and family? Gracious powers! is it not blasphemy +to marry without fifteen hundred a year? Poverty, debt, protested +bills, duns, crime, fall assuredly on the wretch who has not fifteen—say +at once two thousand a year; for you can’t live decently in London +for less. And a wife whom you have met a score of times at balls or +breakfasts, and with her best dresses and behaviour at a country house;—how +do you know how she will turn out; what her temper is; what +her relations are likely to be? Suppose she has poor relations, or loud +coarse brothers who are always dropping in to dinner? What is her +mother like; and can you bear to have that woman meddling and domineering +over your establishment? Old General Baynes was very well; +a weak, quiet, and presentable old man: but Mrs. General Baynes, and +that awful Mrs. Major MacWhirter,—and those hobbledehoys of boys in +creaking shoes, hectoring about the premises? As a man of the world I +saw all these dreadful liabilities impending over the husband of Miss +Charlotte Baynes, and could not view them without horror. Gracefully +and slightly, but wittily and in my sarcastic way, I thought it my duty +to show up the oddities of the Baynes family to Philip. I mimicked the +boys, and their clumping blucher-boots. I touched off the dreadful +military ladies, very smartly and cleverly as I thought, and as if I never +supposed that Philip had any idea of Miss Baynes. To do him justice, he +laughed once or twice; then he grew very red. His sense of humour +is very limited; that even Laura allows. Then he came out with strong +expression, and said it was a confounded shame, and strode off with his +cigar. And when I remarked to my wife how susceptible he was in some +things, and how little in the matter of joking, she shrugged her shoulders +and said, “Philip not only understood perfectly well what I said, but +would tell it all to Mrs. General and Mrs. Major on the first opportunity.” +And this was the fact, as Mrs. Baynes took care to tell me <i>afterwards</i>. +She was aware who was her <i>enemy</i>. She was aware who spoke ill of +her, and her blessed darling <i>behind our backs</i>. And “do you think it +was to see <i>you</i> or any one belonging to your <i>stuck-up house</i>, sir, that we +came to you so often, which we certainly did, day and night, breakfast and +supper, and no thanks to you? No, sir! ha, ha!” I can see her flaunting +out of my sitting-room as she speaks, with a strident laugh, and +snapping her dingily-gloved fingers at the door. Oh, Philip, Philip! To +think that you were such a coward as to go and tell her! But I pardon +him. From my heart I pity and pardon him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span></p> + +<p>For the step which he is meditating, you may be sure that the young +man himself does not feel the smallest need of pardon or pity. He is in +a state of happiness so crazy that it is useless to reason with him. Not +being at all of a poetical turn originally, the wretch is actually perpetrating +verse in secret, and my servants found fragments of his manuscript +on the dressing-table in his bedroom. <i>Heart</i> and <i>art</i>, <i>sever</i> and <i>for ever</i>, +and so on; what stale rhymes are these? I do not feel at liberty to give +in entire the poem which our maid found in Mr. Philip’s room, and +brought sniggering to my wife, who only said, “Poor thing!” The fact +is, it was too pitiable. Such maundering rubbish! Such stale rhymes, +and such old thoughts! But then, says Laura, “I daresay all people’s +love-making is not amusing to their neighbours; and I know who wrote +not very wise love-verses when he was young.” No, I won’t publish +Philip’s verses, until some day he shall mortally offend me. I can recall +some of my own written under similar circumstances with twinges of +shame; and shall drop a veil of decent friendship over my friend’s +folly.</p> + +<p>Under that veil, meanwhile, the young man is perfectly contented, +nay, uproariously happy. All earth and nature smiles round about him. +“When Jove meets his Juno, in Homer, sir,” says Philip, in his hectoring +way, “don’t immortal flowers of beauty spring up around them, and rainbows +of celestial hues bend over their heads? Love, sir, flings a halo +round the loved one. Where she moves, rise roses, hyacinths, and +ambrosial odours. Don’t talk to me about poverty, sir! He either fears +his fate too much or his desert is small, who dares not put it to the touch +and win or lose it all! Haven’t I endured poverty? Am I not as poor +now as a man can be—and what is there in it? Do I want for anything? +Haven’t I got a guinea in my pocket? Do I owe any man anything? +Isn’t there manna in the wilderness for those who have faith to walk in +it? That’s where you fail, Pen. By all that is sacred, you have no +faith; your heart is cowardly, sir; and if you are to escape, as perhaps +you may, I suspect it is by your wife that you will be saved. Laura has +a trust in heaven, but Arthur’s morals are a genteel atheism. Just reach +me that claret—the wine’s not bad. I say your morals are a genteel +atheism, and I shudder when I think of your condition. Talk to <i>me</i> +about a brougham being necessary for the comfort of a woman! A +broomstick to ride to the moon! And I don’t say that a brougham is not +a comfort, mind you; but that, when it is a necessity, mark you, Heaven +will provide it! Why, sir, hang it, look at me! Ain’t I suffering in +the most abject poverty? I ask you is there a man in London so poor +as I am? And since my father’s ruin do I want for anything? I want +for shelter for a day or two. Good. There’s my dear Little Sister ready +to give it me. I want for money. Does not that sainted widow’s cruse +pour its oil out for me? Heaven bless and reward her. Boo!” (Here, for +reasons which need not be named, the orator squeezes his fists into his +eyes.) “I want shelter; ain’t I in good quarters? I want work;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span> +haven’t I got work, and did you not get it for me? You should just see, +sir, how I polished off that book of travels this morning. I read some of +the article to Char——, to Miss ——, to some friends, in fact. I don’t +mean to say that they are very intellectual people, but your common +humdrum average audience is the public to try. Recollect Molière and +his housekeeper, you know.”</p> + +<p>“By the housekeeper, do you mean Mrs. Baynes?” I ask, in my +<i>amontillado</i> manner. (By the way, who ever heard of <i>amontillado</i> in +the early days of which I write?) “In manner she would do, and I daresay +in accomplishments; but I doubt about her temper.”</p> + +<p>“You’re almost as worldly as the Twysdens, by George, you are! +Unless persons are of a certain <i>monde</i>, you don’t value them. A little +adversity would do you good, Pen; and I heartily wish you might get it, +except for the dear wife and children. You measure your morality by +May-fair standards; and if an angel unawares came to you in pattens and +a cotton umbrella, you would turn away from her. <i>You</i> would never +have found out the Little Sister. A duchess—God bless her! A creature +of an imperial generosity, and delicacy, and intrepidity, and the finest +sense of humour, but she drops her <i>h</i>’s often, and how could you pardon +such a crime? Sir, you are my better in wit and a dexterous application +of your powers; but I think, sir,” says Phil, curling the flaming mustachios, +“I am your superior in a certain magnanimity; though, by Jove, +old fellow, man and boy, you have always been one of the best fellows in +the world to P. F.; one of the best fellows, and the most generous, and +the most cordial,—that you have: only you <i>do</i> rile me when you sing in +that confounded May-fair twang.”</p> + +<p>Here one of the children summoned us to tea—and “Papa was laughing, +and uncle Philip was flinging his hands about and pulling his beard +off,” said the little messenger.</p> + +<p>“I shall keep a fine lock of it for you, Nelly, my dear,” says uncle +Philip. On which the child said, “Oh, no! I know whom you’ll give it +to, don’t I, mamma?” and she goes up to her mamma, and whispers.</p> + +<p>Miss Nelly knows? At what age do those little match-makers begin +to know, and how soon do they practise the use of their young eyes, their +little smiles, wiles, and ogles? This young woman, I believe, coquetted +whilst she was yet a baby in arms, over her nurse’s shoulder. Before she +could speak, she could be proud of her new vermilion shoes, and would +point out the charms of her blue sash. She was jealous in the nursery, +and her little heart had beat for years and years before she left off +pinafores.</p> + +<p>For whom will Philip keep a lock of that red, red gold which curls +round his face? Can you guess? Of what colour is the hair in that +little locket which the gentleman himself occultly wears? A few months +ago, I believe, a pale straw-coloured wisp of hair occupied that place +of honour; now it is a chesnut-brown, as far as I can see, of precisely +the same colour as that which waves round Charlotte Baynes’ pretty<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span> +face, and tumbles in clusters on her neck, very nearly the colour of +Mrs. Paynter’s this last season. So, you see, we chop and we change: +straw gives place to chesnut, and chesnut is succeeded by ebony; and, +for our own parts, we defy time; and if you want a lock of my hair, +Belinda, take this pair of scissors, and look in that cupboard, in the bandbox +marked No. 3, and cut off a thick glossy piece, darling, and wear it, +dear, and my blessings go with thee! What is this? Am I sneering +because Corydon and Phyllis are wooing and happy? You see I pledged +myself not to have any sentimental nonsense. To describe love-making +is immoral and immodest; you know it is. To describe it as it really is, +or would appear to you and me as lookers-on, would be to describe the +most dreary farce, to chronicle the most tautological twaddle. To take a +note of sighs, hand-squeezes, looks at the moon, and so forth—does this +business become our dignity as historians? Come away from those +foolish young people—they don’t want us; and dreary as their farce is, +and tautological as their twaddle, you may be sure it amuses them, and +that they are happy enough without us. Happy? Is there any happiness +like it, pray? Was it not rapture to watch the messenger, to seize +the note, and fee the bearer?—to retire out of sight of all prying +eyes and read:—“Dearest! Mamma’s cold is better this morning. The +Joneses came to tea, and Julia sang. I did not enjoy it, as my dear +was at his <i>horrid dinner</i>, where I hope he amused himself. Send me a +word by Buttles, who brings this, if only to say you are your Louisa’s +own, own,” &c. &c. &c. That used to be the kind of thing. In such coy +lines artless Innocence used to whisper its little vows. So she used to +smile; so she used to warble; so she used to prattle. Young people, at +present engaged in the pretty sport, be assured your middle-aged parents +have played the game, and remember the rules of it. Yes, under papa’s +bow-window of a waistcoat is a heart which took very violent exercise +when that waist was slim. Now he sits tranquilly in his tent, and watches +the lads going in for their innings. Why, look at grandmamma in her +spectacles reading that sermon. In <i>her</i> old heart there is a corner as +romantic still as when she used to read the <i>Wild Irish Girl</i> or the +<i>Scottish Chiefs</i> in the days of her misshood. And as for your grandfather, +my dears, to see him now you would little suppose that that calm, +polished, dear old gentleman was once as wild—as wild as Orson.... +Under my windows, as I write, there passes an itinerant flower-merchant. +He has his roses and geraniums on a cart drawn by a quadruped—a little +long-eared quadruped, which lifts up its voice, and sings after its manner. +When I was young, donkeys used to bray precisely in the same way; and +others will heehaw so, when we are silent and our ears hear no more.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER XVIII.<br> +<span class="smcap">Drum ist’s so wohl mir in der Welt.</span></h3> + +<div> +<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-o.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">Our new friends lived for a +while contentedly enough at +Boulogne, where they found +comrades and acquaintances +gathered together from those +many regions which they +had visited in the course of +their military career. Mrs. +Baynes, out of the field, was +the commanding officer over +the general. She ordered +his clothes for him, tied his +neckcloth into a neat bow, +and, on tea-party evenings, +pinned his brooch into his +shirt-frill. She gave him +to understand when he had had enough to eat or drink at dinner, and +explained, with great frankness, how this or that dish did not agree with +him. If he was disposed to exceed, she would call out, in a loud voice: +“Remember, general, what you took this morning!” Knowing his constitution, +as she said, she knew the remedies which were necessary for her +husband, and administered them to him with great liberality. Resistance +was impossible, as the veteran officer acknowledged. “The boys have +fought about the medicine since we came home,” he confessed, “but she +has me under her thumb, by George. She really is a magnificent physician, +now. She has got some invaluable prescriptions, and in India she +used to doctor the whole station.” She would have taken the present +writer’s little household under her care, and proposed several remedies for +my children, until their alarmed mother was obliged to keep them out of +her sight. I am not saying this was an agreeable woman. Her voice +was loud and harsh. The anecdotes which she was for ever narrating +related to military personages in foreign countries with whom I was +unacquainted, and whose history failed to interest me. She took her +wine with much spirit, whilst engaged in this prattle. I have heard +talk not less foolish in much finer company, and known people delighted +to listen to anecdotes of the duchess and the marchioness who would +yawn over the history of Captain Jones’s quarrels with his lady, or +Mrs. Major Wolfe’s monstrous flirtations with young Ensign Kyd. My +wife, with the mischievousness of her sex, would mimic the Baynes’<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span> +conversation very drolly, but always insisted that she was not more really +vulgar than many much greater persons.</p> + +<p>For all this, Mrs. General Baynes did not hesitate to declare that we +were “stuck-up” people; and from the very first setting eyes on us, +she declared, that she viewed us with a constant darkling suspicion. +Mrs. P. was a harmless, washed-out creature with nothing in her. As +for that high and mighty Mr. P. and <i>his</i> airs, she would be glad to know +whether the wife of a British general officer who had seen service in <i>every +part of the globe</i>, and met the <i>most distinguished</i> governors, generals, and +their ladies, several of whom <i>were noblemen</i>—she would be glad to know +whether such people were not good enough for, &c. &c. Who has not +met with these difficulties in life, and who can escape them? “Hang it, +sir,” Phil would say, twirling the red mustachios, “I like to be hated by +some fellows;” and it must be owned that Mr. Philip got what he liked. +I suppose Mr. Philip’s friend and biographer had something of the same +feeling. At any rate, in regard of this lady the hypocrisy of politeness +was very hard to keep up; wanting us for reasons of her own, she +covered the dagger with which she would have stabbed us: but we knew it +was there clenched in her skinny hand in her meagre pocket. She would +pay us the most fulsome compliments with anger raging out of her eyes—a +little hate-bearing woman, envious, malicious, but loving her cubs, +and nursing them, and clutching them in her lean arms with a jealous +strain. It was “Good-bye, darling! I shall leave you here with your +friends. Oh, how kind you are to her, Mrs. Pendennis! How can I ever +thank you, and Mr. P. I am sure;” and she looked as if she could poison +both of us, as she went away, curtseying and darting dreary parting +smiles.</p> + +<p>This lady had an intimate friend and companion in arms, Mrs. Colonel +Bunch, in fact, of the—the Bengal cavalry, who was now in Europe with +Bunch and their children, who were residing at Paris for the young +folks’ education. At first, as we have heard, Mrs. Baynes’ predilections +had been all for Tours, where her sister was living, and where lodgings +were cheap and food reasonable in proportion. But Bunch happening to +pass through Boulogne on his way to his wife at Paris, and meeting his +old comrade, gave General Baynes such an account of the cheapness and +pleasures of the French capital, as to induce the general to think of +bending his steps thither. Mrs. Baynes would not hear of such a plan. +She was all for her dear sister and Tours; but when, in the course of +conversation, Colonel Bunch described a ball at the Tuileries, where he +and Mrs. B. had been received with the most flattering politeness by the +royal family, it was remarked that Mrs. Baynes’ mind underwent a +change. When Bunch went on to aver that the balls at Government House +at Calcutta were nothing compared to those at the Tuileries or the Prefecture +of the Seine; that the English were invited and respected everywhere; +that the ambassador was most hospitable; that the clergymen +were admirable; and that at their boarding-house, kept by Madame la<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span> +Générale Baronne de Smolensk, at the Petit Château d’Espagne, Avenue +de Valmy, Champs Elysées, they had balls twice a month, the most comfortable +apartments, the most choice society, and every comfort and +luxury at so many francs per month, with an allowance for children—I +say Mrs. Baynes was very greatly moved. “It is not,” she said, “in +consequence of the balls at the ambassador’s or the Tuileries, for I am an +old woman; and in spite of what you say, colonel, I can’t fancy, after +Government House, anything more magnificent in any French palace. +It is not for <i>me</i>, goodness knows, I speak: but the children should have +education, and my Charlotte an entrée into the world; and what you say +of the invaluable clergyman, Mr. X——, I have been thinking of it all +night; but above all, above all, of the chances of education for my +darlings. Nothing should give way to that—nothing!” On this a long +and delightful conversation and calculation took place. Bunch produced +his bills at the Baroness de Smolensk’s. The two gentlemen jotted up +accounts, and made calculations all through the evening. It was hard +even for Mrs. Baynes to force the figures into such a shape as to make +them accord with the general’s income; but, driven away by one calculation +after another, she returned again and again to the charge, until she +overcame the stubborn arithmetical difficulties, and the pounds, shillings, +and pence lay prostrate before her. They could save upon this point; +they could screw upon that; they <i>must</i> make a sacrifice to educate the +children. “Sarah Bunch and her girls go to Court, indeed! Why +shouldn’t mine go?” she asked. On which her general said, “By +George, Eliza, that’s the point you are thinking of.” On which Eliza +said, “No,” and repeated “No” a score of times, growing more angry +as she uttered each denial. And she declared before Heaven she did <i>not</i> +want to go to any Court. Had she not refused to be presented at +home, though Mrs. Colonel Flack went, because she did not choose to go +to the wicked expense of a train? And it was base of the general, <i>base</i> +and <i>mean</i> of him to say so. And there was a fine scene, as I am given +to understand; not that I was present at this family fight: but my +informant was Mr. Firmin; and Mr. Firmin had his information from a +little person who, about this time, had got to prattle out all the secrets of +her young heart to him; who would have jumped off the pier-head with +her hand in his if he had said “Come,” without his hand if he had said +“Go:” a little person whose whole life had been changed—changed for a +month past—changed in one minute, that minute when she saw Philip’s +fiery whiskers and heard his great big voice saluting her father amongst +the commissioners on the <i>quai</i> before the custom-house.</p> + +<p>Tours was, at any rate, a hundred and fifty miles farther off than Paris +from—from a city where a young gentleman lived in whom Miss Charlotte +Baynes felt an interest; hence, I suppose, arose her delight that her parents +had determined upon taking up their residence in the larger and nearer city. +Besides, she owned, in the course of her artless confidences to my wife, +that, when together, mamma and aunt MacWhirter quarrelled unceasingly;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span> +and had once caused the old boys, the major and the general, to call each +other out. She preferred, then, to live away from aunt Mac. She had +never had such a friend as Laura, never. She had never been so happy +as at Boulogne, never. She should always love everybody in our house, +that she should, for ever and ever—and so forth, and so forth. The +ladies meet; cling together; osculations are carried round the whole +family circle, from our wondering eldest boy, who cries, “I say, hullo! +what are you kissing me so about?” to darling baby, crowing and +sputtering unconscious in the rapturous young girl’s embraces. I tell +you, these two women were making fools of themselves, and they were +burning with enthusiasm for the “preserver” of the Baynes family, as +they called that big fellow yonder, whose biographer I have aspired to be. +The lazy rogue lay basking in the glorious warmth and sunshine of early +love. He would stretch his big limbs out in our garden; pour out his +feelings with endless volubility; call upon <i>hominum divumque voluptas, +alma Venus</i>; vow that he had never lived or been happy until now; +declare that he laughed poverty to scorn and all her ills; and fume +against his masters of the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, because they declined to +insert certain love verses which Mr. Philip now composed almost every +day. Poor little Charlotte! And didst thou receive those treasures +of song; and wonder over them, not perhaps comprehending them altogether; +and lock them up in thy heart’s inmost casket as well as in thy +little desk; and take them out in quiet hours, and kiss them, and bless +Heaven for giving thee such jewels? I daresay. I can fancy all this, +without seeing it. I can read the little letters in the little desk, +without picking lock or breaking seal. Poor little letters! Sometimes +they are not spelt right, quite; but I don’t know that the style +is worse for that. Poor little letters! You are flung to the winds +sometimes and forgotten with all your sweet secrets and loving artless +confessions; but not always—no, not always. As for Philip, who was +the most careless creature alive, and left all his clothes and haberdashery +sprawling on his bed-room floor, he had at this time a breast-pocket +stuffed out with papers which crackled in the most ridiculous way. +He was always looking down at this precious pocket, and putting one +of his great hands over it as though he would guard it. The pocket did +not contain bank-notes, you may be sure of that. It contained documents +stating that mamma’s cold is better; the Joneses came to tea, and Julia +sang, &c. Ah, friend, however old you are now, however cold you are +now, however tough, I hope you, too, remember how Julia sang, and the +Joneses came to tea.</p> + +<p>Mr. Philip stayed on week after week, declaring to my wife that she +was a perfect angel for keeping him so long. Bunch wrote from his +boarding-house more and more enthusiastic reports about the comforts +of the establishment. For his sake, Madame la Baronne de Smolensk +would make unheard-of sacrifices, in order to accommodate the general +and his distinguished party. The balls were going to be perfectly splendid<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span> +that winter. There were several old Indians living near; in fact, they +could form a regular little club. It was agreed that Baynes should go +and reconnoitre the ground. He did go. Madame de Smolensk, a most +elegant woman, had a magnificent dinner for him—quite splendid, I give +you my word, but only what they have every day. Soup, of course, my +love; fish, capital wine, and, I should say, some five or six and thirty +made dishes. The general was quite enraptured. Bunch had put his +boys to a famous school, where they might “whop” the French boys, and +learn all the modern languages. The little ones would dine early; the +baroness would take the whole family at an astonishingly cheap rate. In +a word, the Baynes’ column got the route for Paris shortly before our +family-party was crossing the seas to return to London fogs and duty.</p> + +<p>You have, no doubt, remarked how, under certain tender circumstances, +women will help one another. They help where they ought not +to help. When Mr. Darby ought to be separated from Miss Joan, and +the best thing that could happen for both would be a <i>lettre de cachet</i> to +whip off Mons. Darby to the Bastille for five years, and an order from her +parents to lock up Mademoiselle Jeanne in a convent, some aunt, some +relative, some pitying female friend is sure to be found, who will give the +pair a chance of meeting, and turn her head away whilst those unhappy +lovers are warbling endless good-byes close up to each other’s ears. My +wife, I have said, chose to feel this absurd sympathy for the young people +about whom we have been just talking. As the days for Charlotte’s +departure drew near, this wretched, misguiding matron would take the +girl out walking into I know not what unfrequented bye-lanes, quiet +streets, rampart-nooks, and the like; and la! by the most singular +coincidence, Mr. Philip’s hulking boots would assuredly come tramping +after the women’s little feet. What will you say, when I tell you, that I +myself, the father of the family, the renter of the old-fashioned house, +Rue Roucoule, Haute Ville, Boulogne-sur-Mer—as I am going into my own +study—am met at the threshold by Helen, my eldest daughter, who puts +her little arms before the glass-door at which I was about to enter, and +says, “You must not go in there, papa! Mamma says we none of us +are to go in there.”</p> + +<p>“And why, pray?” I ask.</p> + +<p>“Because uncle Philip and Charlotte are talking secrets there; and +nobody is to disturb them—<i>nobody</i>!”</p> + +<p>Upon my word, wasn’t this too monstrous? Am I Sir Pandarus +of Troy become? Am I going to allow a penniless young man to +steal away the heart of a young girl who has not twopence halfpenny +to her fortune? Shall I, I say, lend myself to this most unjustifiable +intrigue?</p> + +<p>“Sir,” says my wife (we happened to have been bred up from childhood +together, and I own to have had one or two foolish initiatory +flirtations before I settled down to matrimonial fidelity)—“Sir,” says she, +“when you were so wild—so spoony, I think is your elegant word—about<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span> +Blanche, and used to put letters into a hollow tree for her at home, +I used to see the letters, and I never disturbed them. These two people +have much warmer hearts, and are a great deal fonder of each other, than +you and Blanche used to be. I should not like to separate Charlotte +from Philip now. It is too late, sir. She can never like anybody else +as she likes him. If she lives to be a hundred, she will never forget him. +Why should not the poor thing be happy a little, while she may?”</p> + +<p>An old house, with a green old courtyard and an ancient mossy wall, +through breaks of which I can see the roofs and gables of the quaint old +town, the city below, the shining sea, and the white English cliffs beyond; +a green old courtyard, and a tall old stone house rising up in it, grown +over with many a creeper on which the sun casts flickering shadows; and +under the shadows, and through the glass of a tall gray window, I can +just peep into a brown twilight parlour, and there I see two hazy figures +by a table. One slim figure has brown hair, and one has flame-coloured +whiskers. Look! a ray of sunshine has just peered into the room, and +is lighting the whiskers up!</p> + +<p>“Poor little thing,” whispers my wife, very gently. “They are going +away to-morrow. Let them have their talk out. She is crying her little +eyes out, I am sure. Poor little Charlotte!”</p> + +<p>Whilst my wife was pitying Miss Charlotte in this pathetic way, and +was going, I daresay, to have recourse to her own pocket-handkerchief, +as I live, there came a burst of laughter from the darkling chamber where +the two lovers were billing and cooing. First came Mr. Philip’s great +boom (such a roar—such a haw-haw, or hee-haw, I never heard any +other <i>two</i>-legged animal perform). Then follows Miss Charlotte’s tinkling +peal; and presently that young person comes out into the garden, with +her round face not bedewed with tears at all, but perfectly rosy, fresh, +dimpled, and good-humoured. Charlotte gives me a little curtsey, and +my wife a hand and a kind glance. They retreat through the open +casement, twining round each other, as the vine does round the window; +though which is the vine and which is the window in this simile, I +pretend not to say—I can’t see through either of them, that is the truth. +They pass through the parlour, and into the street beyond, doubtless: +and as for Mr. Philip, I presently see <i>his</i> head popped out of his window +in the upper floor with his great pipe in his mouth. He can’t “work” +without his pipe, he says; and my wife believes him. Work indeed!</p> + +<p>Miss Charlotte paid us another little visit that evening, when we +happened to be alone. The children were gone to bed. The darlings! +Charlotte must go up and kiss them. Mr. Philip Firmin was out. She +did not seem to miss him in the least, nor did she make a single inquiry +for him. We had been so good to her—so kind. How should she ever +forget our great kindness? She had been so happy—oh! so happy! +She had never been so happy before. She would write often and often, +and Laura would write constantly—wouldn’t she? “Yes, dear child!” +says my wife. And now a little more kissing, and it is time to go home<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span> +to the Tintelleries. What a lovely night! Indeed the moon was blazing +in full round in the purple heavens, and the stars were twinkling by +myriads.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye, dear Charlotte; happiness go with you!” I seize her +hand. I feel a paternal desire to kiss her fair, round face. Her sweetness, +her happiness, her artless good-humour, and gentleness has endeared +her to us all. As for me, I love her with a fatherly affection. “Stay, +my dear!” I cry, with a happy gallantry. “I’ll go home with you to the +Tintelleries.”</p> + +<p>You should have seen the fair round face <i>then</i>! Such a piteous expression +came over it! She looked at my wife; and as for that Mrs. Laura +she pulled the tail of my coat.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, my dear?” I ask.</p> + +<p>“Don’t go out on such a dreadful night. You’ll catch cold!” says +Laura.</p> + +<p>“Cold, my love!” I say. “Why, it’s as fine a night as ever——”</p> + +<p>“Oh! you—you <i>stoopid</i>!” says Laura, and begins to laugh. And +there goes Miss Charlotte tripping away from us without a word more!</p> + +<p>Philip came in about half an hour afterwards. And do you know I +very strongly suspect that he had been waiting round the corner. Few +things escape <i>me</i>, you see, when I have a mind to be observant. And, +certainly, if I had thought of that possibility and that I might be +spoiling sport, I should not have proposed to Miss Charlotte to walk +home with her.</p> + +<p>At a very early hour on the next morning my wife arose, and spent, +in my opinion, a great deal of unprofitable time, bread, butter, cold beef, +mustard and salt, in compiling a heap of sandwiches, which were tied up +in a copy of the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>. That persistence in making sandwiches, +in providing cakes and other refreshments for a journey, is a +strange infatuation in women; as if there was not always enough to eat +to be had at road inns and railway stations! What a good dinner we +used to have at Montreuil in the old days, before railways were, and when +the diligence spent four or six and twenty cheerful hours on its way to +Paris! I think the finest dishes are not to be compared to that well-remembered +fricandeau of youth, nor do wines of the most dainty vintage +surpass the rough, honest, blue ordinaire which was served at the +plenteous inn-table. I took our bale of sandwiches down to the office +of the Messageries, whence our friends were to start. We saw six of the +Baynes family packed into the interior of the diligence; and the boys +climb cheerily into the rotonde. Charlotte’s pretty lips and hands +wafted kisses to us from her corner. Mrs. General Baynes commanded +the column, pushed the little ones into their places in the ark, ordered +the general and young ones hither and thither with her parasol, declined +to give the grumbling porters any but the smallest gratuity, and talked +a shrieking jargon of French and Hindustanee to the people assembled +round the carriage. My wife has that command over me that she<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span> +actually made me demean myself so far as to deliver the sandwich parcel +to one of the Baynes boys. I said, “Take this,” and the poor wretch +held out his hand eagerly, evidently expecting that I was about to tip +him with a five-franc piece or some such coin. <i>Fouette, cocher!</i> The +horses squeal. The huge machine jingles over the road, and rattles +down the street. Farewell, pretty Charlotte, with your sweet face and +sweet voice and kind eyes! But why, pray, is Mr. Philip Firmin not +here to say farewell too?</p> + +<p>Before the diligence got under way, the Baynes boys had fought, and +quarrelled, and wanted to mount on the imperial or cabriolet of the +carriage, where there was only one passenger as yet. But the conductor +called the lads off, saying that the remaining place was engaged by a +gentleman, whom they were to take up on the road. And who should +this turn out to be? Just outside the town a man springs up to the +imperial; his light luggage, it appears, was on the coach already, and +that luggage belonged to Philip Firmin. Ah, monsieur! and that was +the reason, was it, why they were so merry yesterday—the parting day? +Because they were not going to part just then. Because, when the time +of execution drew near, they had managed to smuggle a little reprieve! +Upon my conscience, I never heard of such imprudence in the whole +course of my life! Why, it is starvation—certain misery to one and the +other. “I don’t like to meddle in other people’s affairs,” I say to my +wife; “but I have no patience with such folly, or with myself for +not speaking to General Baynes on the subject. I shall write to the +general.”</p> + +<p>“My dear, the general knows all about it,” says Charlotte’s, Philip’s +(in my opinion) most injudicious friend. “We have talked about it, +and, like a man of sense, the general makes light of it. ‘Young folks +will be young folks,’ he says; ‘and, by George! ma’am, when I +married—I should say, when Mrs. B. ordered me to marry her—she had +nothing, and I but my captain’s pay. People get on, somehow. Better +for a young man to marry, and keep out of idleness and mischief; and, +I promise you, the chap who marries my girl gets a treasure. I like the +boy for the sake of my old friend Phil Ringwood. I don’t see that the +fellows with the rich wives are much the happier, or that men should +wait to marry until they are gouty old rakes.’ And, it appears, the +general instanced several officers of his own acquaintance; some of whom +had married when they were young and poor; some who had married +when they were old and sulky; some who had never married at all. +And he mentioned his comrade, my own uncle, the late Major Pendennis, +whom he called a selfish old creature, and hinted that the major had +jilted some lady in early life, whom he would have done much better +to marry.”</p> + +<p>And so Philip is actually gone after his charmer, and is pursuing her +<i>summâ diligentiâ</i>? The Baynes family has allowed this penniless young +law student to make love to their daughter, to accompany them to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span> +Paris, to appear as the almost recognized son of the house. “Other +people, when they were young, wanted to make imprudent marriages,” +says my wife (as if that wretched <i>tu quoque</i> were any answer to my +remark!) “This penniless law student might have a good sum of money +if he chose to press the Baynes family to pay him what, after all, they +owe him.” And so poor little Charlotte was to be her father’s ransom! +To be sure, little Charlotte did not object to offer herself up in payment +of her papa’s debt! And though I objected as a moral man and a +prudent man, and a father of a family, I could not be very seriously +angry. I am secretly of the disposition of the time-honoured <i>père de +famille</i> in the comedies, the irascible old gentleman in the crop wig and +George-the-Second coat, who is always menacing “Tom the young dog” +with his cane. When the deed is done, and Miranda (the little sly-boots!) +falls before my squaretoes and shoe-buckles, and Tom the +young dog kneels before me in his white ducks, and they cry out in a +pretty chorus, “Forgive us, grandpapa!” I say, “Well, you rogue, boys +will be boys. Take her, sirrah! Be happy with her; and, hark ye! +in this pocket-book you will find ten thousand,” &c. &c. You all know +the story: I cannot help liking it, however old it may be. In love, +somehow, one is pleased that young people should dare a little. Was not +Bessy Eldon famous as an economist, and Lord Eldon celebrated for +wisdom and caution? and did not John Scott marry Elizabeth Surtees +when they had scarcely twopence a year between them? “Of course, +my dear,” I say to the partner of my existence, “now this madcap +fellow is utterly ruined, now is the very time he ought to marry. The +accepted doctrine is that a man should spend his own fortune, then his +wife’s fortune, and then he may begin to get on at the bar. Philip +has a hundred pounds, let us say; Charlotte has nothing; so that in +about six weeks we may look to hear of Philip being in successful +practice——”</p> + +<p>“Successful nonsense!” cries the lady. “Don’t go on like a cold-blooded +calculating machine! You don’t believe a word of what you +say, and a more imprudent person never lived than you yourself were as +a young man.” This was departing from the question, which women will +do. “Nonsense!” again says my romantic being of a partner-of-existence. +“Don’t tell <span class="smcap">me</span>, sir. They <span class="smcap">will</span> be provided for! Are we to +be for ever taking care of the morrow, and not trusting that we shall be +cared for? <i>You</i> may call your way of thinking prudence. I call it +<i>sinful worldliness</i>, sir.” When my life-partner speaks in a certain strain, I +know that remonstrance is useless, and argument unavailing, and I generally +resort to cowardly subterfuges, and sneak out of the conversation by +a pun, a side joke, or some other flippancy. Besides, in this case, though +I argue against my wife, my sympathy is on her side. I know Mr. +Philip is imprudent and headstrong, but I should like him to succeed, and +be happy. I own he is a scapegrace, but I wish him well.</p> + +<p>So, just as the diligence of Laffitte and Caillard is clearing out of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span> +Boulogne town, the conductor causes the carriage to stop, and a young +fellow has mounted up on the roof in a twinkling; and the postilion says, +“Hi!” to his horses, and away those squealing greys go clattering. And +a young lady, happening to look out of one of the windows of the +intérieur, has perfectly recognized the young gentleman who leaped up to +the roof so nimbly; and the two boys who were in the rotonde would +have recognized the gentleman, but that they were already eating the +sandwiches which my wife had provided. And so the diligence goes on, +until it reaches that hill, where the girls used to come and offer to sell +you apples; and some of the passengers descend and walk, and the tall +young man on the roof jumps down, and approaches the party in the +interior, and a young lady cries out, “La!” and her mamma looks +impenetrably grave, and not in the least surprised; and her father gives +a wink of one eye, and says, “It’s him, is it, by George!” and the two +boys coming out of the rotonde, their mouths full of sandwich, cry out, +“Hullo! It’s Mr. Firmin.”</p> + +<p>“How do you do, ladies?” he says, blushing as red as an apple, and +his heart thumping—but that may be from walking up hill. And he +puts a hand towards the carriage-window, and a little hand comes out and +lights on his. And Mrs. General Baynes, who is reading a religious work, +looks up and says, “Oh! how do you do, Mr. Firmin?” And this is +the remarkable dialogue that takes place. It is not very witty; but +Philip’s tones send a rapture into one young heart: and when he is +absent, and has climbed up to his place in the cabriolet, the kick of his +boots on the roof gives the said young heart inexpressible comfort and +consolation. Shine stars and moon. Shriek grey horses through the +calm night. Snore sweetly, papa and mamma, in your corners, with your +pocket-handkerchiefs tied round your old fronts! I suppose, under all +the stars of heaven, there is nobody more happy than that child in that +carriage—that wakeful girl, in sweet maiden meditation—who has given +her heart to the keeping of the champion who is so near her. Has he not +been always their champion and preserver? Don’t they owe to his +generosity everything in life? One of the little sisters wakes wildly, and +cries in the night, and Charlotte takes the child into her arms and soothes +her. “Hush, dear! He’s there—he’s there,” she whispers, as she bends +over the child. Nothing wrong can happen with <i>him</i> there, she feels. +If the robbers were to spring out from yonder dark pines, why, he would +jump down, and they would all fly before him! The carriage rolls on +through sleeping villages, and as the old team retires all in a halo of +smoke, and the fresh horses come clattering up to their pole, Charlotte +sees a well-known white face in the gleam of the carriage lanterns. +Through the long avenues, the great vehicle rolls on its course. The +dawn peers over the poplars: the stars quiver out of sight: the sun is up +in the sky, and the heaven is all in a flame. The night is over—the +night of nights. In all the round world, whether lighted by stars or sunshine, +there were not two people more happy than these had been.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span></p> + +<p>A very short time afterwards, at the end of October, our own little +sea-side sojourn came to an end. That astounding bill for broken glass, +chairs, crockery, was paid. The London steamer takes us all on board on +a beautiful, sunny autumn evening, and lands us at the Custom-house +Quay in the midst of a deep, dun fog, through which our cabs have to +work their way over greasy pavements, and bearing two loads of silent +and terrified children. Ah, that return, if but after a fortnight’s absence +and holiday! Oh, that heap of letters lying in a ghastly pile, and yet so +clearly visible in the dim twilight of master’s study! We cheerfully +breakfast by candlelight for the first two days after my arrival at home, +and I have the pleasure of cutting a part of my chin off because it is too +dark to shave at nine o’clock in the morning.</p> + +<p>My wife can’t be so unfeeling as to laugh and be merry because I +have met with an accident which temporarily disfigures me? If the dun fog +makes her jocular, she has a very queer sense of humour. She has a +letter before her, over which she is perfectly radiant. When she is +especially pleased I can see by her face and a particular animation and +affectionateness towards the rest of the family. On this present morning +her face beams out of the fog-clouds. The room is illuminated by it, +and perhaps by the two candles which are placed one on either side of the +urn. The fire crackles, and flames, and spits most cheerfully; and the +sky without, which is of the hue of brown paper, seems to set off the +brightness of the little interior scene.</p> + +<p>“A letter from Charlotte, papa,” cries one little girl, with an air of +consequence. “And a letter from uncle Philip, papa!” cries another; +“and they like Paris so much,” continues the little reporter.</p> + +<p>“And there, sir, didn’t I tell you?” cries the lady, handing me over a +letter.</p> + +<p>“Mamma always told you so,” echoes the child, with an important +nod of the head; “and I shouldn’t be surprised if he were to be <i>very +rich</i>, should you, mamma?” continues this arithmetician.</p> + +<p>I would not put Miss Charlotte’s letter into print if I could, for do you +know that little person’s grammar was frequently incorrect; there were +three or four words spelt wrongly; and the letter was so <i>scored</i> and +<i>marked</i> with <i>dashes</i> under <i>every</i> other <i>word</i>, that it is clear to me her +education had been neglected; and as I am very fond of her, I do not +wish to make fun of her. And I can’t print Mr. Philip’s letter, for I +haven’t kept it. Of what use keeping letters? I say, Burn, burn, burn. +No heart-pangs. No reproaches. No yesterday. Was it happy, or +miserable? To think of it is always melancholy. Go to! I daresay it is +the thought of that fog, which is making this sentence so dismal. Meanwhile +there is Madam Laura’s face smiling out of the darkness, as pleased +as may be; and no wonder, she is always happy when her friends are so.</p> + +<p>Charlotte’s letter contained a full account of the settlement of the +Baynes family at Madame Smolensk’s boarding-house, where they appear +to have been really very comfortable, and to have lived at a very cheap<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span> +rate. As for Mr. Philip, he made his way to a crib, to which his artist +friends had recommended him, on the Faubourg St. Germain side of the +water—the Hotel Poussin, in the street of that name, which lies, you +know, between the Mazarin Library and the Musée des Beaux Arts. In +former days, my gentleman had lived in state and bounty in the English +hotels and quarter. Now he found himself very handsomely lodged for +thirty francs per month, and with five or six pounds, he has repeatedly +said since, he could carry through the month very comfortably. I don’t +say, my young traveller, that <i>you</i> can be so lucky now-a-days. Are we +not telling a story of twenty years ago? Aye marry. Ere steam-coaches +had begun to scream on French rails; and when Louis Philippe was +king.</p> + +<p>As soon as Mr. Philip Firmin is ruined he must needs fall in love. +In order to be near the beloved object, he must needs follow her to Paris, +and give up his promised studies for the bar at home; where, to do him +justice, I believe the fellow would never have done any good. And he +has not been in Paris a fortnight when that fantastic jade Fortune, who +had seemed to fly away from him, gives him a smiling look of recognition, +as if to say, “Young gentleman, I have not quite done with you.”</p> + +<p>The good fortune was not much. Do not suppose that Philip suddenly +drew a twenty-thousand pound prize in a lottery. But, being in much +want of money, he suddenly found himself enabled to earn some in a way +pretty easy to himself.</p> + +<p>In the first place, Philip found his friends Mr. and Mrs. Mugford in a +bewildered state in the midst of Paris, in which city Mugford would +never consent to have a <i>laquais de place</i>, being firmly convinced to the +day of his death that he knew the French language quite sufficiently for all +purposes of conversation. Philip, who had often visited Paris before, +came to the aid of his friends in a two-franc dining-house, which he +frequented for economy’s sake; and they, because they thought the +banquet there provided not only cheap, but most magnificent and satisfactory. +He interpreted for them, and rescued them from their perplexity, +whatever it was. He treated them handsomely to caffy on the bullyvard, +as Mugford said on returning home and in recounting the adventure to +me. “He can’t forget that he has been a swell: and he does do things +like a gentleman, that Firmin does. He came back with us to our hotel—Meurice’s,” +said Mr. Mugford, “and who should drive into the yard +and step out of his carriage but Lord Ringwood—you know Lord +Ringwood; everybody knows him. As he gets out of his carriage—‘What! +is that you, Philip?’ says his lordship, giving the young fellow +his hand. ‘Come and breakfast with me to-morrow morning.’ And +away he goes most friendly.”</p> + +<p>How came it to pass that Lord Ringwood, whose instinct of self-preservation +was strong—who, I fear, was rather a selfish nobleman—and +who, of late, as we have heard, had given orders to refuse Mr. Philip +entrance at his door—should all of a sudden turn round and greet the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span> +young man with cordiality? In the first place, Philip had never troubled +his lordship’s knocker at all; and second, as luck would have it, on this +very day of their meeting his lordship had been to dine with that well-known +Parisian resident and <i>bon vivant</i>, my Lord Viscount Trim, who +had been governor of the Sago Islands when Colonel Baynes was there +with his regiment, the gallant 100th. And the general and his old +West India governor meeting at church, my Lord Trim straightway +asked General Baynes to dinner, where Lord Ringwood was present, along +with other distinguished company, whom at present we need not particularize. +Now it has been said that Philip Ringwood, my lord’s brother, +and Captain Baynes in early youth had been close friends, and that the +colonel had died in the captain’s arms. Lord Ringwood, who had an +excellent memory when he chose to use it, was pleased on this occasion +to remember General Baynes and his intimacy with his brother in old +days. And of those old times they talked; the general waxing more +eloquent, I suppose, than his wont over Lord Trim’s excellent wine. +And in the course of conversation Philip was named, and the general, +warm with drink, poured out a most enthusiastic eulogium on his young +friend, and mentioned how noble and self-denying Philip’s conduct had +been in his own case. And perhaps Lord Ringwood was pleased at hearing +these praises of his brother’s grandson; and perhaps he thought of +old times, when he had a heart, and he and his brother loved each other. +And though he might think Philip Firmin an absurd young blockhead +for giving up any claims which he might have on General Baynes, at any +rate I have no doubt his lordship thought, ‘This boy is not likely to come +begging money from me!’ Hence, when he drove back to his hotel on +the very night after this dinner, and in the court-yard saw that Philip +Firmin, his brother’s grandson, the heart of the old nobleman was +smitten with a kindly sentiment, and he bade Philip to come and see +him.</p> + +<p>I have described some of Philip’s oddities, and amongst these was a +very remarkable change in his appearance, which ensued very speedily +after his ruin. I know that the greater number of story readers are +young, and those who are ever so old remember that their own young +days occurred but a very, very short while ago. Don’t you remember, +most potent, grave, and reverend senior, when you were a junior, and +actually rather pleased with new clothes? Does a new coat or a waistcoat +cause you any pleasure now? To a well-constituted middle-aged +gentleman, I rather trust a smart new suit causes a sensation of uneasiness—not +from the tightness of the fit, which may be a reason—but from +the gloss and splendour. When my late kind friend, Mrs. ——, gave me +the emerald tabinet waistcoat, with the gold shamrocks, I wore it once to +go to Richmond to dine with her; but I buttoned myself so closely in an +upper coat, that I am sure nobody in the omnibus saw what a painted +vest I had on. Gold sprigs and emerald tabinet, what a gorgeous +raiment! It has formed for ten years the chief ornament of my wardrobe;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span> +and though I have never dared to wear it since, I always think +with a secret pleasure of possessing that treasure. Do women, when they +are sixty, like handsome and fashionable attire, and a youthful appearance? +Look at Lady Jezebel’s blushing cheek, her raven hair, her +splendid garments! But this disquisition may be carried to too great a +length. I want to note a fact which has occurred not seldom in my +experience—that men who have been great dandies will often and suddenly +give up their long-accustomed splendour of dress, and walk about, +most happy and contented, with the shabbiest of coats and hats. No. +The majority of men are not vain about their dress. For instance, within +a very few years, men used to have pretty feet. See in what a resolute +way they have kicked their pretty boots off almost to a man, and wear +great, thick, formless, comfortable walking boots, of shape scarcely more +graceful than a tub!</p> + +<p>When Philip Firmin first came on the town there were dandies still; +there were dazzling waistcoats of velvet and brocade, and tall stocks with +cataracts of satin; there were pins, studs, neck-chains, I know not what +fantastic splendours of youth. His varnished boots grew upon forests of +trees. He had a most resplendent silver-gilt dressing-case, presented to +him by his father (for which, it is true, the doctor neglected to pay, +leaving that duty to his son). “It is a mere ceremony,” said the worthy +doctor, “a cumbrous thing you may fancy at first; but take it about with +you. It looks well on a man’s dressing-table at a country house. It +<i>poses</i> a man, you understand. I have known women come in and peep +at it. A trifle you may say, my boy; but what is the use of flinging +any chance in life away?” Now, when misfortune came, young Philip +flung away all these magnificent follies. He wrapped himself <i>virtute suâ</i>; +and I am bound to say a more queer-looking fellow than friend Philip +seldom walked the pavement of London or Paris. He could not wear the +nap off all his coats, or rub his elbows into rags in six months; but, as +he would say of himself with much simplicity, “I do think I run to seed +more quickly than any fellow I ever knew. All my socks in holes, +Mrs. Pendennis; all my shirt-buttons gone, I give you my word. I don’t +know how the things hold together, and why they don’t tumble to pieces. +I suspect I must have a bad laundress.” Suspect! My children used to +laugh and crow as they sewed buttons on to him. As for the Little +Sister, she broke into his apartments in his absence, and said that it +turned her hair grey to see the state of his poor wardrobe. I believe +that Mrs. Brandon put in surreptitious linen into his drawers. He did +not know. He wore the shirts in a contented spirit. The glossy boots +began to crack and then to burst, and Philip wore them with perfect +equanimity. Where were the beautiful lavender and lemon gloves of last +year? His great naked hands (with which he gesticulates so grandly) +were as brown as an Indian’s now. We had liked him heartily in his +days of splendour; we loved him now in his threadbare suit.</p> + +<p>I can fancy the young man striding into the room where his lordship’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span> +guests were assembled. In the presence of great or small, Philip has +always been entirely unconcerned, and he is one of the half-dozen men I +have seen in my life upon whom rank made no impression. It appears +that, on occasion of this breakfast, there were one or two dandies present +who were aghast at Philip’s freedom of behaviour. He engaged in conversation +with a famous French statesman; contradicted him with much +energy in his own language; and when the statesman asked whether +monsieur was membre du Parlement? Philip burst into one of his roars +of laughter, which almost breaks the glasses on a table, and said, “Je suis +journaliste, monsieur, à vos ordres!” Young Timbury of the embassy +was aghast at Philip’s insolence; and Dr. Botts, his lordship’s travelling +physician, looked at him with a terrified face. A bottle of claret was +brought, which almost all the gentlemen present began to swallow, until +Philip, tasting his glass, called out, “Faugh. It’s corked!” “So it is, +and very badly corked,” growls my lord, with one of his usual oaths. +“Why didn’t some of you fellows speak? Do you like corked wine?” +There were gallant fellows round that table who would have drunk corked +black dose, had his lordship professed to like senna. The old host was +tickled and amused. “Your mother was a quiet soul, and your father +used to bow like a dancing-master. You ain’t much like him. I dine at +home most days. Leave word in the morning with my people, and come +when you like, Philip,” he growled. A part of this news Philip narrated to +us in his letter, and other part was given verbally by Mr. and Mrs. +Mugford on their return to London. “I tell you, sir,” says Mugford, “he +has been taken by the hand by some of the tiptop people, and I have +booked him at three guineas a week for a letter to the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>.”</p> + +<p>And this was the cause of my wife’s exultation and triumphant “Didn’t +I tell you?” Philip’s foot was on the ladder; and who so capable of +mounting to the top? When happiness and a fond and lovely girl were +waiting for him there, would he lose heart, spare exertion, or be afraid +to climb? He had no truer well-wisher than myself, and no friend who +liked him better, though, I daresay, many admired him much more than +I did. But these were women for the most part; and women become +so absurdly unjust and partial to persons whom they love, when these +latter are in misfortune, that I am surprised Mr. Philip did not quite lose +his head in his poverty, with such fond flatterers and sycophants round +about him. Would you grudge him the consolation to be had from these +sweet uses of adversity? Many a heart would be hardened but for the +memory of past griefs; when eyes, now averted, perhaps, were full of +sympathy, and hands, now cold, were eager to soothe and succour.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="The_Dissolution_of_the_Union">The Dissolution of the Union.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>Hardly any event, even in these days of great events, is more melancholy +or memorable than the disruption of the United States. The history of +England is entitled (with a doubtful exception in favour of that of Rome) +to be considered as the most important chapter in the annals of the human +race; for it describes the growth of institutions and the development of principles +by which the largest and far the most flourishing part of mankind +regulate their affairs. In another century, our language and literature, +and, to a great extent, our laws and institutions, will express the thoughts +and control the conduct of the population of more than half the world; +and we have, therefore, an interest closely resembling that which connects +blood relations in the prosperity of the great nations sprung from the +same stock as ourselves.</p> + +<p>To every one who takes this view of the feelings which ought to exist +between England and the United States, it must be matter of sincere +regret that anything should diminish the friendliness of our relations. +There is, however, reason to fear that the Americans have been deeply +mortified by the feeling with which the secession of the Southern States +has been regarded in this country; and if newspaper articles are taken as +sufficient evidence of public feeling on the subject, it must be admitted that +the feeling, if not wise, is at least intelligible. Our principal journals have, +no doubt, uniformly treated the disruption of the Union and the prospect +of civil war as great evils; but they have frequently taken a ground which +is not in itself reasonable, and which to all Americans, and especially to all +Northerners, must be excessively offensive, respecting the whole dispute. +They almost invariably discuss the subject as if the case were the simple +one of a dependency wishing to free itself from the yoke of a superior, and +they constantly dwell upon that most inconclusive and irritating of all topics, +the charge of inconsistency. With what pretence of fairness, it is said, can +you Americans object to the secession of the Southern States, when your +own nation was founded in secession from the British empire? It would +be as reasonable to ask how a man, who has successfully defended one +action, can ever have the face to be plaintiff in another. The fact, that +resistance to a constituted government may sometimes be right, no more +proves that it can never be wrong, than the fact that it is right to shoot +an invader proves that there is no such crime as murder. The +analogy between George III. and Washington, and President Lincoln +and President Davis, is just near enough to be at once delusive and +annoying. If the object is to vex the Americans, and chuckle with +more or less ingenuity over their troubles, the course which our most<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span> +influential papers have taken is a wise one. If we wish to understand +the merits of the question, and the way in which it presents itself +to those whom it principally concerns, we must take a very different view +of it.</p> + +<p>To Englishmen in general, American politics present a sort of maze +without a plan. The strange names of Indian places and rulers were +described by Sydney Smith as non-conductors of sympathy, and in +American politics a somewhat similar effect is produced by the opposite +cause. There is nothing impressive in the names of the politicians, and +nothing distinctive in their measures. Men are elected to high office, +who, beyond their own State, were utterly unknown; and the announcement +of their respective “platforms” and “tickets” leaves most English +readers of American news as hopelessly in the dark as if it were made in +some unknown tongue.</p> + +<p>Much of this confusion is undoubtedly due to the general ignorance +which prevails in this country as to the nature and gist of American +politics. Hardly any one knows what is the real nature of the Union—how +it is related to the individual States—what are the sort of questions +which arise out of that relation, and what would be implied in its disruption. +In the absence of a clear general view of these matters, it is +idle to attempt to form an opinion on the present condition of the seceding +States, or to criticize the policy of those who wish either to destroy or to +maintain the Union by force of arms. It is the object of this paper to +give a general sketch of these matters in relation to the present state of +affairs. The United States of America formed, up to the time of the late +secession, a body politic of an unexampled kind. Both in ancient and +modern times confederacies have frequently been established. The old +German empire, the existing Germanic Confederation, Switzerland, and +the Dutch United Provinces, are instances. The United States of America +are distinguished from other confederacies by the circumstance that +they exercise a direct jurisdiction not only over the States, but also over +the individuals who compose those States. This distinction is one of +practical and substantial importance; and without a distinct notion of the +way in which it works the character of the Union and its politics can +hardly be understood. Its leading features are shortly as follows.</p> + +<p>The colonial history of the United States supplies several instances in +which they associated themselves together for common defence. The +New England colonies did so in the seventeenth century, and their association +lasted without the notice of the mother country for forty years. +Another union of a somewhat similar kind was attempted in the course of +the eighteenth century, not out of any feeling of hostility to Great Britain, +but simply for purposes of mutual assistance. During the War of Independence +a third confederacy was formed, by the help of which the struggle +with England was brought to a successful conclusion. Subsequently to +the year 1783 the league between the thirteen States continued under +another form; but their connection, as in former cases, was nothing more<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span> +than a confederacy the units of which were States, and not individuals. +The constitution which is at present undergoing the process of dissolution +was framed by the principal statesmen of the nation in 1787, and by +June, 1790, was finally ratified and accepted by all the States. No one +who reads it with attention, and follows out its practical application in +the subsequent history and present condition of the States, can fail to see +that the language common amongst Englishmen in relation to the dissolution +of the Union proceeds upon an inadequate notion of the importance +of the benefits which the constitution confers, the magnitude of the +interests which it protects, and the practical importance of the questions +which would be at once raised by its dissolution. There cannot be a +greater mistake than that of viewing the States as a mere league, some of +the members of which are struggling to retain the rest as allies against +their will; or as a sort of transatlantic Austria, insisting on the subjugation +of a transatlantic Venice.</p> + +<p>The following sketch of the principal provisions of the constitution +may serve to give a definite notion of what it is for which the Northerners +are preparing to fight. Every one knows that the United States are +governed by a President and a Congress, consisting of two Houses, the +Senate and the House of Representatives; but viewing them, as we +naturally do, principally from without, the way in which the powers of +government are divided between Congress and the State legislatures, and +the consequences which that division involves, are less familiar to us.</p> + +<p>The powers conferred by the constitution on Congress are as follows. +It may impose taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, which, however, +must be uniform on all the inhabitants of the States. It may borrow +money on the credit of the United States of America. It may regulate +commerce, lay down a general rule of naturalization, regulate the +coinage, and punish offences relating to it. It has also the care of post-offices +and post roads, and the superintendence of copyright, both in +books and in inventions. It has jurisdiction over offences committed at +sea. It has the power of war and peace, the control of the United States’ +army and navy, and military law. It regulates the calling out and the +organization of the State militia for common purposes. It is the sole +government of the district of Columbia, in which Washington is situated; +and it has power to make laws binding on the individual citizens of every +State in the Union, for the purpose of executing any of these powers. +All sovereign powers not included under these heads are reserved to the +individual States, but they are expressly prohibited from exercising their +sovereignty in certain ways. No State may enter into alliances, or make +peace or war, or emit bills of credit, or make anything but gold and +silver coin a tender in payment of debts, or pass any bill of attainder, +<i>ex post facto</i> law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant +any title of nobility.</p> + +<p>It has not been uncommon in Europe for States to give themselves +constitutions which have been ridiculed in this country (often not reasonably)<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span> +on the ground that the provisions which had the largest sound were +in fact mere empty words. This cannot be said of the American constitution. +Its practical efficiency is secured by the only means which can +secure it—the institution of independent courts of justice bound to put +a judicial construction upon its provisions, and armed with the powers +necessary to make that construction prevail in fact. These courts treat +the constitution as they would treat any other law, and freely exercise +the power of deciding whether the acts of the individual States, or even +those of Congress itself, are unconstitutional and therefore illegal. The +courts in question are divisible into three classes. In the first class +stands the Supreme Court of the United States; in the second are the +circuit courts; and in the third, the district courts. The Supreme +Court has original jurisdiction in diplomatic cases, in admiralty and +maritime cases, in cases arising between individual States, and in cases in +which the United States are a party. It also entertains appeals from +the circuit and district courts. The circuit courts and district courts are +local, and closely resemble each other in the general character of their +jurisdiction, though the circuit courts are the more important of the two. +They entertain all civil causes above 500 dollars in which the United +States is a party, or in which an alien is a party, or in which the +citizen of one State sues the citizen of another. They have also criminal +jurisdiction in all cases in which the offence is committed against the +laws of the United States, and they decide questions relating to revenue +laws and the laws of patents and copyrights. In the territories which are +not yet formed into States the law is administered by district courts.</p> + +<p>The consequence of this system is, that in relation to all the mass of +powers conferred upon Congress by the constitution, the citizens of the +United States are governed by, and are in their individual capacity +responsible to, the authorities of the United States to the exclusion of +those of their own States, and in many points they can appeal not only +from the law courts, but from the State legislatures, to the general law of +the United States. For example: Dartmouth College obtained from the +Supreme Court a decision that a law of the State of New Hampshire, by +which its charter was altered without its consent, was void, as being +opposed to that article of the constitution which prohibits the States from +“passing laws impairing the obligation of contracts.” In the same +manner another State assigned lands for the use of the Indians, and +declared that those lands should not be taxed. The land was afterwards +sold to other persons, and after the sale the State repealed the law freeing +the land from taxation. This law was held to be void on the same +ground.</p> + +<p>The constitutional right of Congress to tax carriages in a particular +manner, to tax unrepresented districts, to pass a law giving debts to the +United States priority over others, and to incorporate a national bank, +are instances of the sort of questions on which the Supreme Court has +given judicial decisions. These decisions, whether they are between<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span> +State and State, between the United States and some particular State, +or between States and individuals, are enforced by regular executive +officers like any other judicial decisions.</p> + +<p>The practical consequences of the system, of which these are a few of +the most prominent features, are far more important than the language +which we generally use about it would imply. We are so much +accustomed to the extraordinary rapidity with which the United States +advance in wealth and power, that we are a little apt to look upon their +prosperity as an ultimate fact requiring no explanation. In fact, like +everything else, it has its causes, and, no doubt, one of the most important +of them is the influence of the Union. There can be no doubt that it +contributes immensely to the prosperity of every State which belongs to it, +and that its maintenance forms almost the only means by which the settlement +and government of the continent can be provided for. In the first +place, so long as it exists, war between any of the States which compose it +is impossible. If we recollect what has been the general character of the +history of modern Europe, this in itself must be considered as an advantage +which can hardly be bought too dear. In the next place, it provides +every American citizen with a sphere of activity unequalled for extent and +variety in the history of mankind. He may make his choice between more +than thirty great nations, of any one of which he can, by mere residence, +constitute himself a citizen. In each of them he is as much at home as +an Englishman in Ireland, if not more. In each he is, to a great extent, +under the same laws; he enjoys the same political rights; and the most +important of these are guaranteed by all the other members of the Union. +Under any circumstances, these would be valuable results; but, under +the special circumstances of North America, their value is greatly +enhanced. The population is by far the most migratory in the world. +It is inordinately bent upon every kind of enterprise by which money is +to be made, and the consequence is that anything which could shackle +the free movement of the people to any part of the country, or diminish +the ease with which they can at present establish themselves wherever +they please, would be intolerable to them. The existence of the Union +favours these tendencies in the highest degree. Its dissolution would +place a serious check upon them. The existing constitution not only +protects the whole of the United States from intestine war, but gives to +each of them, and to all the citizens of each, rights which are unexampled +elsewhere. We are so much accustomed to think and speak of the +United States as a single nation, that we forget the means by which they +gained, and by which (if at all) they must retain, that character. There +is no other part of the world in which communities larger and more +powerful than most nations can settle their differences with each other +and with individuals by the ordinary course of law, in the proper sense +of the word, and not by diplomatic negotiations. It is, for many purposes, +as easy to sue or to be sued by the semi-sovereign States of the +American Union as to sue or be sued by an English corporation; and this<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span> +circumstance enables a set of relations to be formed amongst them which +do not exist elsewhere, and invests them, when they are formed, with +guarantees which but for the existence of the Union could not be given. +When we remember the vital importance which, under the special circumstances +of the country, attaches to roads, railways, the navigation of the +great rivers and lakes, and other matters, in each of which numerous half-independent +States have different and often jarring interests, the practical +importance of a system of judicature by which their relations may be +regulated becomes apparent. Probably there is no considerable commercial +company in the Union which would not find the security of its property +depreciated, and its power of enforcing its rights and guaranteeing +the discharge of its obligations sensibly diminished, by the dissolution of +the Union, and the closing of the Federal courts.</p> + +<p>With regard to foreign politics, the matter is too plain for doubt. +The dissolution of the Union would go far to destroy altogether the +diplomatic influence and external political power of the United States; +and, indeed, some influential writers have gone so far as to maintain that +such a result ought to be regarded in this country not merely with +equanimity but with satisfaction. It would, we are told, diminish the +insolence and the swagger which so often offend foreigners. Whatever +truth there may be in this, it must be gall and wormwood to +Americans.</p> + +<p>Such being the general nature and advantages of the Union, it is not +to be expected that the Americans in general should view its dissolution +with equanimity; nor can there be a doubt that if they mean to resist it +by force, now is the time at which that force must be used. If the +Southern States were allowed to secede without resistance, the Union +would be at an end, and it is impossible to predict where the process of +dissolution would stop. The history of the Union shows that slavery is +by no means the only question which may threaten its integrity. At +the time of the Hartford Convention the New England States seriously +threatened secession. If the Southerners succeed in their present undertaking, +it is highly probable that the Western States, of which the Mississippi +is the natural outlet, may follow their example, and if they did so the +process might easily go farther.</p> + +<p>These considerations explain the importance which the Americans +attach to the Union, and the necessity under which they are placed of +defending it by force at this point if they mean to defend it at +all. It is urged in opposition to this, that it is inconsistent in +republicans to attempt to force men to continue members of a community +which they wish to leave, and that it is particularly inconsistent +in the Americans to do so, because they owe their own national +existence to a revolt against Great Britain. There are several independent +answers to this argument, each of which ought to prevent +either <i>bonâ-fide</i> inquirers or accurate reasoners from using it. In the +first place, it proves nothing, for the question is not whether the Americans<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span> +are consistent, but whether they are right—that is, whether they are +taking the course which is, on the whole, best and wisest. To charge +them with inconsistency, even if the charge were true, could produce +nothing but irritation; for if such a charge were made out, it would come +to this: “You are quite right in trying to reduce the South to obedience, +but you must admit that the principles which your grandfathers fought +for in 1776 were false.” If they are right, what is the use of vexing +them about their grandfathers? If they are wrong, why increase the +difficulty of convincing them by undertaking to show that the error is +condemned by the example of their grandfathers? The whole argument +is invidious, and serves no other purpose than that of creating prejudice +and rancour.</p> + +<p>In the second place the charge is altogether untrue. The tone of +jovial, half-chuckling banter which is the curse of newspaper writing, so +much obscures the arguments which are put forward on this subject, that +it is generally difficult to do exact justice to them. Sometimes it appears +as if the writer meant to say that under a republican form of government +no one ought to be made to do anything he disliked. This, of +course, would be fatal not only to the rights of such governments to +suppress insurrection, but to their right to administer civil or criminal +justice. At other times the ground taken appears to be substantially +this—that republican institutions generally, and the government of the +United States in particular, are founded on the principle that every body +of men competent in point of number and local situation to form an +independent political body, has a right, as against any other body of +which it forms a part, to announce its intention of doing so, and immediately +to carry that intention into execution, and that the body of which +it forms a part has no right forcibly to prevent it. This, it is asserted, is +the only principle on which the American Declaration of Independence +can be justified, and it equally justifies the Confederate States in seceding +from the Union.</p> + +<p>This argument proceeds on an entire misconception of the principles by +which nations ought to regulate their relations to each other. The conduct +of independent communities towards each other must, on all occasions +of importance, be regulated not by rule, but by direct reference to the +principles upon which rules are founded; that is to say, by the direct +consideration of the consequences of the particular act; and it is by this +principle, and not in virtue of some imaginary right, that successful +resistance to constituted authorities is to be justified. The establishment +of American independence was, on the whole, a good thing both for Great +Britain and for the United States; and this, and this only, was the justification +of those who contributed to it. How does it follow from this that +the secession of the Southern States would also be justifiable? The only +intelligible meaning of which the principle under consideration is capable +is, that the original State ought always to consider itself practically bound +by the opinion of the revolting State, that the success of their revolt is for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span> +the common good; which is manifestly absurd. There are, in truth (as +might be shown by independent arguments), no such thing as rights +between communities, and it is therefore absurd to charge the United +States with their violation. The conduct of both, or of either party, may +be wise, beneficial, honourable, deceitful, foolish, or injurious; but, apart +from the express rights conferred by the constitution, which, as far as they +go, are beyond all doubt in favour of the Northern States, there is, and +can be, no question of right between them.</p> + +<p>This mode of viewing the subject is that which might properly be +applied to the case of a European power in which the relations between +the governors and the governed have never been explicitly determined, +but depend upon general principles of reasoning. For example, if Ireland +were to proclaim its independence, they would supply the means of +forming an opinion about it. In America the case is altogether different. +There is no question of oppression; there is no assertion that the South has +been in any way threatened or injured; and, on the other hand, there is +a constitution solemnly instituted only seventy-five years ago, under +which the Southerners have acted ever since, of which they have +reaped every advantage to the very utmost, and which they now claim a +right to throw to the winds, without assigning any other cause than their +own will to do so. Their case is not that of resistance to authority, +legitimate or illegitimate; it is the wrongful repudiation of a relationship +which they have no right to dissolve. It is as if a wife, after hen-pecking +her husband for twenty years, claimed a right to divorce him.</p> + +<p>The whole history of the question of slavery and of the party questions +connected with it for the last forty years are proofs of this.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> It is +far less familiar to Englishmen than from its importance it deserves to +be. The names, indeed, of the Missouri Compromise, Mason and Dixie’s +Line, the Border Ruffians, and the War in Kansas, are familiar enough +to us all, but hardly any one attaches any definite meaning to them. +The subject, however, forms a connected whole, and when its bearings +are understood, it throws great light on the present proceedings, both of the +North and of the South. In order to understand the matter, it is necessary +to say a few words as to the constitution of Congress. Each State +has in the House of Representatives one member for every 30,000 inhabitants. +Three-fifths of the slaves count as inhabitants, and by this means +the Southerners, though their white population is far smaller than the +population of the Northern States, have about as many representatives. +Moreover, each State, large or small, sends two representatives to the +Senate.</p> + +<p>When the constitution was established, slave-holding was nearly +universal; but it was acknowledged by all the leading statesmen of the +day, that it was an evil, though they described it as an inherited, and for +the time an inevitable one. In the Northern States, where the slaves<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span> +were few, and where white labour could obviously compete with that +of negroes, slavery was rapidly abolished, and by degrees the distinction +between slave and free States came to coincide with the distinction +between North and South. As this gradually became the leading feature +in American politics, the Southern States exerted themselves to the +utmost to obtain a majority, or, at any rate, to secure an equality of +votes, in the Senate. The only way in which this could be done was +by adding to the Union as many slave States as possible. As Miss +Martineau truly says, “the key to the entire policy of the United States +for the last quarter of a century is the effort of the South to maintain a +majority in the Senate at Washington.” The original United States, as +is well known, were thirteen in number, namely, New York, Massachusetts, +Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, +Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and +Maryland. The western boundaries of several of these, and especially +those of Virginia, were almost entirely undefined. Soon after the recognition +of independence, the boundaries of Virginia were fixed, the lands +excluded thrown into a common stock, and an arrangement was made +that slavery should never be established on them. Whether or no this +arrangement was constitutional, is a question which has been much +discussed, but it was made and has been acted on. Several States, +including Ohio, Kentucky, and others, were formed out of them.</p> + +<p>In 1803, the immense territory of Louisiana, which included not +only the State so named, but districts subsequently formed into several +others, was purchased by the United States from France; and in +1819, the State of Missouri, which had formed part of this territory, +applied for admission to the Union, and a great debate arose as to +the terms on which it was to be admitted. If it was admitted as a +slave State, slavery would be in a majority in the Senate; if not, in a +minority. Ultimately, it was admitted as a slave State; but, at the same +time, it was provided that slavery should be prohibited in every other +part of the Union north of 36° 30′ north latitude (which is known as +Mason and Dixie’s line). This arrangement was made in 1819, and is the +well-known Missouri compromise. Its effect was to make slavery distinctly +a Southern institution, and from that time the great effort of +Southern politicians has been to get into the Union as many States as +possible south of 36° 30′. This was the object of almost all Southern +policy for many years, and in particular was the secret of the annexation +of Texas, which it was intended to form into five States, sending ten +members to the Senate. At last the North, which in political warfare +has always been far inferior in skill and energy to the South, tried to +counteract this by adding free States on the other hand. This gave rise +to what was known as the compromise of 1850. California was added +on the terms of choosing its own constitution, and it chose against slavery; +but this was counterbalanced by the enactment of the Fugitive Slave +Law. In 1854, the Missouri compromise was repealed, and new States,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span> +whether north or south of 36° 30′, were allowed to choose whether they +would permit slavery or not. This was at the time when Kansas and +Nebraska, both of which lay to the north of that line, were on the point of +becoming States. Great efforts were made, both by the North and by the +South, to determine the inhabitants of Kansas to vote for slavery. On the +one side, the Northerners supplied settlers; on the other, the Southerners +instigated the “mean whites,” who form the most degraded class in the +Southern States, to enter the territory and force the choice of the +electors—an object which they effected after outrages of various kinds, +which broke out at one time into a sort of small civil war.</p> + +<p>Such have been the leading events of the controversy between the +North and the South during the last forty years. Throughout the greater +part, and especially throughout the latter part of it, the South have had, +beyond all comparison, the larger share of the influence and power of the +Union. Every successive President, for many years past, has more or less +represented Southern views. The whole course of Federal legislation has +been in the interests of the South. The foreign policy of the Union, +especially its American policy, has been usually dictated principally by +their wish to add new slave States to the Union; and even the decrees of +the Supreme Court have not been free from traces of Southern influence. +Many circumstances have contributed to put the South in this position; +the most remarkable being the comparatively small number and superior +adroitness of the Southern planters, who have much greater political aptitude +and more independence than the Northern statesmen—the simplicity +and directness of their political objects—and, above all, their comparative +indifference to the maintenance of the Union. Though they have enjoyed +to the utmost all the advantages which the Union had to give—though +they have directed its policy, forced the Northern States, in the case of +the Fugitive Slave Law, to discharge humiliating functions for them, +and gone far towards effecting the object, to borrow a well-known +expression, of “making slavery national and freedom sectional,” they care +far less about the Union than the Northerners. They enjoy over them all +the advantages which a simple society has over one which is at once +wealthy, ambitious, and complex. The planter’s pursuits are so simple +that the considerations which influence other Americans affect him but +slightly. Whatever becomes of the rest of the Union, he can grow and +sell his cotton, so long as he has slaves and customers. He cares, and has +reason to care, comparatively little for the enterprises which excite a +passionate enthusiasm amongst the Northerners, and which tend to the +conversion of the whole continent, in the shortest possible space of time, +into one enormous hive of moderate comfort. To the North, the dissolution +of the Union means the establishment of internal frontiers, the +destruction of the Federal jurisdiction, and with it a severe shock to all +sorts of commercial enterprises, the opening of fruitful sources of jealousy, +and the diminution of the external prestige of the nation. To the South +it means nothing very formidable. As secession would be their act, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span> +not that of their rivals, it would not hurt, but rather flatter, their national +pride. They would have it in their power to reopen the slave trade; +and as their internal enterprises are few, in comparison with those of the +North, they would care comparatively little for the destruction of the +Federal jurisdiction. These circumstances have enabled the Southerners +for years to hold the threat of dissolving the Union over the North as a +means of coercion, and there can be no doubt at all that the threat has +been most effective. For a long period Northern politicians have made +every sort of concession to the South, in order to avoid the question +which is now forced upon them, for no assignable reason except that for +the first time for the last quarter of a century a Northern president has +been chosen.</p> + +<p>It is scarcely possible to imagine any state of things more insufferable +to men of spirit, than such a course of conduct as this. Indeed in many +of the steps of the long struggle between the North and the South it is +impossible to deny that the Northerners showed great want of resolution, +and down to the attack on Fort Sumter they continued to display a degree +of forbearance which was hardly dignified. It is of course difficult, if +not impossible, for any one who was not in America, or who had not +an intimate personal knowledge of the state of feeling there, to express +any positive opinion as to the course of the extraordinary change which +that transaction produced. It seems, however, to be like the case +of a man who, after putting up with all sorts of hard words and +rough conduct, is interrupted in the midst of expostulations and offers +of compromise by a box on the ear. Some ridicule was cast by the +English papers on what was described as the unstatesmanlike and +technically legal view of the question between the North and South, +and of the way in which it was to be treated, which the President +put forward in his proclamation on taking office. Some of our most +influential newspaper writers thought that it fell below the occasion, +and that a manifesto announcing a course of policy based on general +considerations would have been more appropriate. Such criticisms +betray ignorance of the fundamental principles of the American constitution. +The consequence of the institution of the Supreme and +Federal courts, and of the reduction of the constitution to the form of a +written document technically interpreted by professional lawyers, has +been to remove numerous questions which we treat as questions of +policy to the domain of strict law, and to invest legal doctrines with +a prominence and importance unknown to any other nation. So +long as no actual physical force was applied to the property or forces of +the Union, the Federal law was not broken. The crime of treason is +defined to consist in “levying war against the United States, or adhering +to their enemies only.” The President has well-defined legal powers and +responsibilities, and is bound by oath to act upon them. It is, therefore, +natural enough that both he and the Northern States generally should +have submitted patiently to acts on the part of the Southern States which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span> +no Continental government would have permitted on the part of any +member of the nation, and which even in the British Islands would have +been illegal.</p> + +<p>The eagerness with which the Northerners deprecated “coercion” in +the early stages of the business, probably showed little more than +reluctance to strike the first blow. A parallel might have arisen in +England in the days of the Irish volunteers before the Union. It would +have been quite consistent, then, for the newspapers and men of business +to entreat the Government to take every possible means of avoiding +collision, to allow the volunteers to assemble and the Irish Parliament to +pass any resolutions it pleased, and yet to burst out into any degree of +indignation and excitement if the English troops had been actually +attacked and the Lord Lieutenant shipped back to England. It is very +probable that Englishmen would have been less forbearing before the +blow was struck, and less noisy afterwards; but this is a mere question +of temperament.</p> + +<p>These remarks show that the Northerners are entitled to more sympathy +than they have received from the most influential part of the +English press. They are fighting for an object of real importance. +If they were to fight at all, now is their time, and they have received +for many years past a series of provocations of the most exasperating +kind. It does not, however, follow from this that they are wise in +fighting, nor does it follow that they have any just ground to complain +of the conduct which our Government has pursued towards them. +The wisdom of fighting depends principally on the prospect of success; +and on that point, there can be no doubt of the great weight of the +arguments pressed on the Northern States by several English papers, +and especially with admirable vigour and great knowledge by the +<i>Economist</i>. These difficulties may be summed up in one. The constitution +of the United States proceeds on the assumption that each member +of the Union wishes to maintain it. To enforce it <i>in invitos</i> is very like +a contradiction in terms. Suppose that the South is utterly defeated +and crushed in the field, and that Mr. Davis and some others are +hanged for treason; and, further, suppose that in the year 1864 the South +succeeds, as it has so often succeeded, in electing a Southern President +and out-manœuvring the North: the result would be grotesque if +it were not so melancholy. It would be precisely as if a man sued +successfully for the restitution of conjugal rights against a woman +who, after making his life a burden to him, had left him without +cause. No doubt he would get the advantage of her company at bed +and board, but who would wish for it? To enforce conjugal rights +against a woman bent on making her husband wretched, is in a most +emphatic way cutting off one’s nose to be revenged on one’s face, and, to +a cool observer, the process now going on in the States is of much the +same character. This assumes success, but another familiar proverb shows +how doubtful even such success as this must be. One man may take a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span> +horse to the water, but twenty cannot make him drink. If they are so +minded, the North have a fair prospect of being able to crush the +Southern armies, to take their forts, and to reduce any cities which may +hold out; but how will they make them send members to Congress, +recognize the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, and admit the Federal +officers who administer the offices vested by the constitution in the +Congress? A permanent military occupation of every town and village +in all the Southern States would be necessary to carry out these objects; +and this seems to English observers to be altogether out of the question. +If this difficulty were overcome, the State legislatures would still be +protected by the very constitution which the army of occupation would +come to enforce; nor would it be possible, without fatal inconsistency, +to prohibit free discussion in newspapers, public meetings, and the like. +All this would be fatal to continuous compulsion.</p> + +<p>These observations are so obvious and weighty, that any considerate +Englishman would, as far as his private opinion went, be decided by +them; but those who insist upon them with so much force ought to +remember that there is another side to the subject. To advise brave and +high-spirited men to permit, or not to resist, the forcible, wrongful +destruction of institutions to which they rightly attach the highest value, +on the ground that it is extremely difficult to maintain them, is what men +who recognize the claims of courage and spirit ought to be loth to do. +That the North has right on its side, there can be no doubt. That it has +sustained grievous wrongs and insults, is equally plain. Surely it is a +question rather for them than for us, whether there is a reasonable +prospect of redressing those wrongs by force of arms. A nation, like an +individual, may easily overrate difficulties. It is by no means clear that +the tone of the South will be so haughty as it is at present, or that their +determination to resist will be unanimous after they have felt the weight +of the Northern army. There is no doubt on each side a superabundance +of the very fiercest kind of talk, and of protestations of unflinching +constancy; but it by no means follows that it would survive the horrors +of battles and sieges, and the awful prospect of servile insurrection. At +any rate, no one can know whether it will or not till they try. Ireland +would have been independent long ago if we had taken the advice of +disinterested foreigners about it. In 1857 many writers on the Continent +and in the United States supposed that they had proved in the most +convincing manner that we never could reconquer India. Nothing that +is worth keeping in this world can be kept without an effort; and it is +premature to say that fighting is of no use till it has been fairly tried. +We have a fair right to dwell on all the difficulties and horrors of the +task; but in common justice it must be admitted that the North are +fighting in a good cause and for a high stake.</p> + +<p>Though it would be hard to deny that some injustice has been +done to the Northerners by the tone of the most influential of our +newspapers, nothing can be more false in substance or rude in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span> +manner than the imputations thrown by the Americans on the policy +of the English government. There is something so puerile in the +notion that the recognition of the belligerent rights of the Southerners +involves an approval of their proceedings, that it is difficult to argue +seriously against it. Unless the Northerners mean to execute their prisoners +as murderers and traitors, they must treat them as belligerents. That is, +they must recognize the very rights which they blame us for recognizing. +No doubt their real grievance is that their vanity has been wounded by the +manner in which their performances have been criticized by English writers. +The preceding observations are intended to show how far they have a +just cause of complaint, but it is highly probable that the fact that we +have not taken their demonstrations in quite the same heroic vein as +that in which they are made has had as much to do with their ill-temper +and bad manners, as the misconception as to the true state of the case, +which certainly has pervaded much of our current literature. For this +cause of offence no apology and no regret is due. One of the principal +services which one nation can render to another, especially where their +language and literature are identical, is that of letting them know when +they are exposing themselves. In America, both politics and periodical +literature have fallen, to a great extent, into the hands of an ill-educated +class. The excessive vulgarity of a great part of what they say and +write gives far too low a notion of the strong points of the American +character, and has a fatal tendency to make their policy as unworthy +a representative of the real powers of their minds as their literature +unquestionably is. It is very desirable that every reasonable opportunity +should be taken of showing the noisy and ill-bred people who have +constituted themselves the representatives of the opinions and feelings of +the United States, that we rate them exactly at what they are worth, and +that their brag and fustian have just as much and just as little effect +upon us as the raw-head-and-bloody-bones swagger which were the precursors +of the famous battle of the cabbage-garden in 1848. The proposal +that the North and South should forget their differences in a joint +piratical attack upon Canada and Cuba, is worthy only of the infamous +source from which it proceeds. Those who make it ought to recollect +that something more than newspaper articles will be wanted to conquer +a British colony. Hard words seem at present to be more in their line +than broken bones, and they are much less to the purpose.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> <i>See</i> Miss Martineau’s pamphlet, <i>A History of the American Compromises</i>. +Reprinted, with additions, from the <i>Daily News</i>. Chapman, 1856.</p> + +</div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Burlesques">Burlesques.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>It is a long stride from Aristophanes to the young men who write the +satirical dramatic pieces of the present day—and yet but one step. It +might be a safe thing to say that that one step is from the sublime to the +ridiculous; but it would scarcely be just. In one important respect +Aristophanes and the burlesque writers of the present day are, like Cæsar +and Pompey in the estimation of the learned negro, very much alike, +especially Aristophanes. Aristophanes, who was certainly the father of +the burlesque, claimed to have a moral purpose in his buffoonery; but +any one who reads over his <i>Frogs</i> or <i>Clouds</i> must inevitably arrive at the +conclusion of the candid German critic, Mueller—that in every word he +wrote, and every piece of “business” he set down, the Greek author had +it chiefly in view to make his audience laugh. George the Third may have +been excused for regarding Wilkes as a Wilkesite; but no one knew, or +ought to have known, better than Aristophanes, that Socrates was not a +sophist. The burlesque writers of our day crack jokes upon Alderman +Carden and Mr. Tupper, not with any hope, or design, of making the one a +juster magistrate, or the other a better poet, but simply to get a laugh for +the actors and for themselves. That Aristophanes had often no other aim is +abundantly proved in every scene of the <i>Frogs</i> and the <i>Clouds</i>. In the +former, he claimed to have a very high purpose—nothing less than the +reform of the Greek drama, which, though then only in its infancy, was +said to be in a state of decline. We, in these days, deplore the decline of +the drama when the stage is more than two thousand years old. Aristophanes +lamented its decline when it was yet associated with wine lees and +a cart. We talk fondly and regretfully of the good old days of Kemble +and Kean. Aristophanes and his fellows talked of the good old times +of Æschylus and Euripides. No doubt the critics in Euripides’ day +sighed for the past glories of the age of Thespis. But let us see how +Aristophanes set about reforming the Greek drama by means of his +burlesques. In the <i>Frogs</i>, which is especially devoted to that object, we +find Bacchus lamenting the decline of the tragic art. He has a great +longing for Euripides, and determines to visit the infernal world and bring +that much-regretted poet back to earth. He sets out in company with +his servant, Xanthias, crosses the Acherusian lake in Charon’s boat, +serenaded on his way by a chorus of frogs, and arrives in the Shades. +Here he finds Æschylus and Euripides, and proposes that they should +give him a taste of their quality. Pluto takes the chair, and the two poets +stand opposite to each other and deliver the most pompous specimens of +their poetical powers. They sing, they declaim, and each tries to outdo +the other in fine words and ponderous sentences. They are both so very<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span> +grand and so very heavy, that Bacchus is quite unable to decide between +them. In this difficulty he calls for a pair of scales, and proceeds to +weigh separate verses of each poet against each other; when, notwithstanding +all the efforts of Euripides to produce ponderous lines, those of Æschylus +always make those of his rival kick the beam. Bacchus, in the meantime, +has become a convert to the merits of Æschylus, though he had +sworn to Euripides to take him back with him to the upper world. So, +dismissing Euripides with a parody of one of his own verses in the +<i>Hippolytus</i>, Bacchus returns to the living world with Æschylus. The +whole idea of this burlesque is undoubtedly well conceived, and Greek +scholars can tell with what admirable felicity Aristophanes imitates the +peculiarities of style of Æschylus and Euripides in the speeches he puts +into their mouths; but they must, at the same time, confess that there is +more of fun and banter about the whole proceeding than earnest purpose. +You are made to laugh <i>at</i> the two poets; and we can well imagine how +some actor of the time, by a pompous air and manner in representing +Æschylus, may have produced shouts of laughter at that poet’s expense. +A parallel scene to that in the infernal regions is often witnessed in actual +life in the Slave States of America. Two niggers will sit opposite to each +other and talk, one against the other, for hours at a stretch, each trying to +outdo his opponent in long words and fine-sounding sentences. Aristophanes +just puts the two great Greek tragic poets in this ridiculous position. +The ignorant who witnessed this burlesque of the <i>Frogs</i> must have come +away with the notion, not that Æschylus and Euripides were very fine +and impressive poets, but that they were two pompous and ridiculous old +fogies. After that affair of the scales, one is sadly inclined to question +Aristophanes’ respect for these two poets.</p> + +<p>There is a double purpose in the <i>Frogs</i>—to reform dramatic composition, +and also to reform the practices of the stage. In this latter task +Aristophanes shows, even more unmistakeably than in the former, that +his chief aim is to raise a laugh. The Greek dramatic authors of the +time had been in the habit of resorting to certain expedients of a gross +and filthy character, in order to sustain the flagging interest of their plays. +When Bacchus and Xanthias come on in the <i>Frogs</i>, a colloquy ensues as to +the value of these expedients, and the propriety of using them. Xanthias +is desirous to indulge in the usual “gags” to make the audience laugh; +but Bacchus, who is anxious to reform the stage, protests against them. +“Let us have no more of this sort of thing,” he says, “it is filthy and +gross, and altogether unworthy of the dramatic art.” Aristophanes, +however, takes good care that his two characters shall talk sufficiently +about these gross practices, and he raises as much laughter by talking +about them, as though he had embodied them in the dialogue and action +of his play, and adopted them as his own. In the scene where Hercules +pops his head out at the door and frightens Bacchus, the author forgets +his high moral purpose altogether, and makes Bacchus do the very +things which the <i>Frogs</i> was written to reprobate and put down. So<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span> +in the <i>Babylonians</i> and <i>Acharnians</i>, where he attacks the demagogue +Cleon, and in the <i>Clouds</i>, where he attacks Socrates, he is obviously +bent upon nothing so much as the amusement of his audience at the +expense of two well-known public characters. The Greek scholar, however, +will judge Aristophanes by another standard. His mastery over +the Attic dialect was complete, and it was all the more striking when +placed in contrast with the rude Greek pronunciation and the broken +Greek of foreigners. Perhaps no writer of any age combined so much +exuberant wit, broad humour, playful fancy, and originality of invention, +as Aristophanes. He also stands alone in his power of twisting language +into new and grotesque forms. His droll imitations of animal sounds, +and his eccentric verses formed of the grunts of pigs and the croaking of +frogs, are quite in the spirit of our modern punning. Still it is not +easy to regard him as a reformer and a regenerator of public morals, even +though St. Chrysostom was wont to keep his plays under his pillow. +Plutarch admired neither his puns nor his purpose. That high authority +was evidently of Dr. Johnson’s opinion with respect to a punster. He +regards Aristophanes’ antitheses and plays upon words as an outrage +upon the language, and adds, that the “audiences which admired such +a poet must have been morally and intellectually depraved.” Critics +say the same thing of the audiences which admire the burlesques of the +present day, but possibly with less justification.</p> + +<p>The stage method adopted by the burlesque writers of our time is +strikingly similar to that followed by Aristophanes. Scenes of dialogue +and scenic display are alternated in both. In the modern burlesque, the +front scenes are enlivened by broad comic duets and nigger dances. +Then the “flats” are drawn off, and we have an elaborate “set”—a +castle, a mountain pass, or a picturesque sea-shore, where the ballet +takes the place of the Greek chorus. Thus, in the <i>Frogs</i>, we have a +front scene of broad comic business between Bacchus and Xanthias, and +then a grand full stage “set” of the Acherusian lake, with Charon +coming alongside in his boat. Lastly, we have what the modern playbill +calls a “grand transformation scene,” in the infernal regions, where blue-fire +would have come in very appropriately, had it been then invented. +Although the Greeks, probably, did not use scenes, but dropped the +curtain between the divisions of their plays, yet some of the burlesques +of Aristophanes will be found to be well adapted to the modern method. +Substituting an æsthetical critic for Bacchus, and Shakspeare and Ben +Jonson, or Samuel Johnson and John Dryden, for Æschylus and Euripides, +very good fun might be got out of a version of the <i>Frogs</i> at the Olympic +or the Strand. It might be a question, however, if the gods would understand +it. Still, if the æsthetical critic had a comic servant, and said and +did such things as Bacchus says and does, he could not fail to make them +laugh.</p> + +<p>We have said that it is but one step from Aristophanes to the burlesque +writers of the present time. That is, as near as possible, the truth.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span> +The Romans had no burlesque drama, in the Aristophanic sense. Their +most extravagant comedies never dealt with real personages; but aimed +at representing life and manners, and teaching morals by means of a +dramatic fable, which was exemplary, and not didactic. They were +comedies of real life, in the truest sense of the word; the puns and +witticisms in which, though sometimes rather coarse and broad, as in +Plautus, never bordered upon the outrageous and the extravagant. In +the search for specimens of burlesque dramatic literature of the kind we +are now considering, we may hop almost from Aristophanes to Gay, +from the <i>Æolosicon</i> to the <i>Beggar’s Opera</i>. As Aristophanes claimed, in +the <i>Frogs</i>, to have the purpose of ridiculing the bad tragedies of the time, +so Gay professed, in his <i>Beggar’s Opera</i>, to declare war against the Italian +opera, which, at that time, was asserting its sway over the public taste, +to the serious damage of the legitimate drama. Witnessing the <i>Beggar’s +Opera</i>, as it is performed in our day, we can readily understand its +great popularity on its first production. Its songs are enough to account +for that. But it is certainly not easy to understand how it came to be +regarded as a telling and pungent burlesque upon Italian opera. It +does not turn the laugh against opera, in the shape it now assumes. When +Macheath sings song after song to Polly, with a few unmeaning words of +prose “dialogue” between, we have no suspicion that he is ridiculing the +absurd formula of the Italian opera. The actor does nothing to indicate +anything of the kind. He is solely intent on singing his songs well, and +we are solely intent on hearing them sung. Instead of being a burlesque +upon opera, it is an opera itself, recommended only in that it possesses the +one enjoyable element of an opera—good music. This is only another +proof that the burlesque writer can never trust to his satire and his +“purpose,” to make his piece “go” with the public. Aristophanes introduced +the gross jokes, which he condemned, to rescue his satire from +dulness; and Gay adopted sprightly airs, for the same purpose. Walker, +who first played Macheath, was a better actor than he was a singer; and +it is probable that, to this circumstance, the <i>Beggar’s Opera</i> owes its great +reputation as a burlesque. Walker imitated the manner of the Italian +actors to perfection, and caused roars of laughter by gestures and by +mimicry of operatic action, which are now altogether lost sight of. Had +Quin, for whom the part was originally intended, played Macheath, the +burlesque of the piece would, probably, never have been brought out; +and the <i>Beggar’s Opera</i> would have been originally what it is now—simply +a pleasing burletta. The most opposite opinions were expressed +with regard to the piece at the time. Swift said, “It placed all kinds of +vice in the strongest and most odious light.” Another critic asserted that, +“after an exhibition of the <i>Beggar’s Opera</i>, the gains of robbers were +multiplied.” Dr. Johnson declares both these decisions to be exaggerated, +and hits the real truth—a truth which applies to the burlesque drama +universally. “The play,” he says, “was written only to divert, without +any moral purpose, and is therefore not likely to do good; nor can it be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span> +conceived, without more speculation than life requires and admits, to be +productive of much evil. Highwaymen and housebreakers seldom frequent +the playhouse, or mingle in elegant diversions; nor is it possible +for any one to imagine that he may rob in safety, because he sees +Macheath reprieved upon the stage.” The doctor’s first remark was +literally true. The piece was written solely to divert. Gay aimed at a +“purpose” in his original design, and when he had carried it out, Colley +Cibber rejected the piece. Gay’s friends, Swift and Spence, did not think +the piece would succeed, though the Duke of Argyle (with a preternatural +perception of jokes for a Scotchman) swore that it would. It was not +until Gay subdued his “purpose,” and put in some extra ballads, that +Rich accepted the piece; and then, in this shape, it made “Gay rich and +Rich gay,” as the jokers said at the time.</p> + +<p>Having hopped from Aristophanes to Gay, we may now skip from +Gay to Sheridan without overleaping any remarkable example of the +burlesque drama. The <i>Critic</i> is possibly the smartest burlesque ever +written; and yet its purpose is a shallow pretence. Like the <i>Beggar’s +Opera</i>, the <i>Critic</i> was written to amuse, and it fulfils no other object. +It cannot be said to be a satire upon the critics of the period, since the +remarks of Dangle and Sneer, during the rehearsal of the tragedy, are +pointedly framed with the view of calling forth a smart response from +Puff, and are not in any way examples of the theatrical criticism of the +time. Sheridan arranges everything to give occasion for an exhibition of +his own smartness. He spreads the stage with crackers, as it were, and +cares not who steps upon them and sets them banging for the amusement +of the audience. Thus the tragedy opens with two sentinels asleep, to +give occasion for a joke when they awake:—</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p><i>Dang.</i> Hey! why, I thought these fellows had been asleep?</p> + +<p><i>Puff.</i> Only a pretence; there’s the art of it: they were spies of Lord Burleigh’s.</p> + +<p><i>Sneer.</i> But isn’t it odd they were never taken notice of, not even by the commander-in-chief?</p> + +<p><i>Puff.</i> O Lud, sir! if people who want to listen, or overhear, were not always +connived at in a tragedy, there would be no carrying on any plot in the world.</p> + +<p><i>Dang.</i> That’s certain.</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Here a laugh is raised at the artificiality of the stage; but the satire +suggests no remedy. Both speakers are satisfied that these things must +be so in a tragedy. In every instance where the satire is directed against +the practices of the stage, the remarks, though highly diverting, are simply +truisms. Thus, when Leicester asks the knights if they are all resolved +to conquer or be free, and they answer, “All,” Dangle chimes in, “<i>Nem. +con.</i> egad.” To which Puff replies, “Oh, yes! where they do agree on +the stage, their unanimity is wonderful.” This remark never fails to +produce a hearty laugh; and yet it would be difficult to say what we +laugh at. The dramatic art inexorably demands that where unanimity +is to be expressed it should be expressed as briefly and <i>unanimously</i> as +possible. If we laugh at anything here, it is at the fixed and unalterable<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span> +canons of the dramatic art, which the peculiar turn of Sneer’s remark +places in a ridiculous light. It is hard to discover at what particular +folly or vice the <i>Critic</i> is aimed. All the characters are satirists by turns; +Puff pokes his fun at the drama; and Sneer and Dangle poke their fun +at Puff, only to encounter a sharper retort. All are so confoundedly +witty, that you cannot tell which are the butts and which the sharp-shooters. +Nothing is more apparent in the dialogue of the tragedy than +the desire of the author to show off his own cleverness. Some passages +which are intended as burlesques of fine writing are as near as possible +the real thing. Thus, England’s fate at the approach of the Armada—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Like a clipp’d guinea, trembles in the scale.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">The guinea is certainly a vulgar image, but the thought is a happy one. +The whole of the passage in which this occurs contains no hint of the +ridiculous until we come to the “trembling guinea,” and that but very +slightly turns the scale to the side of absurdity. When Sheridan tried fine +writing in earnest he was not so successful. His own <i>Pizarro</i> was a +greater burlesque than Mr. Puff’s <i>Spanish Armada</i>. <i>Pizarro</i>, in its +highest flights, is “downright booth at a fair.”</p> + +<p>Travelling downwards from Sheridan’s time, we meet with no notable +example of a burlesque in dramatic form until we come to <i>Bombastes +Furioso</i>, first produced about the year 1809. We have never been able +to discover that the author of this production had any special moral, +political, literary, or other “purpose” whatever. At any rate, he claims +none for himself; and we do not know that any one has made the claim +for him. Bombast in general would seem to be the mark at which the +arrows are let fly; but the incidents of the piece are so extravagant and +capricious, that we are tempted to believe the author sat down to write +without having any fixed idea what he was going to make it. A king +and a general making love to a cook-maid in a kitchen presents but a very +vulgar and commonplace antithesis, and would be altogether offensive, +but for the mock chivalry which is sustained in the demeanour and +language of the king and the general. The conduct of these two +characters accords with a kind of harmless lunacy which is natural in so +far as it exists in nature. Two lunatics of this class might extemporize +the challenge and duel scene in their ward at Bedlam, and the random +performance would be very funny. We are, therefore, inclined to regard +<i>Bombastes Furioso</i> as a “lune.” Still, the piece is characterized by many +merits. Its thorough-paced extravagance is not the least of them. The +peculiar diction, too, is singularly well suited to burlesque. Wit, there +is little or none; but its place is more than supplied by humorous +expression and absurd similitudes.</p> + +<p>The entrance of Bombastes, followed by his army, consisting of one +drummer, one fifer, and two soldiers of unequal stature, is in the true +spirit of burlesque. In the whole range of burlesque-dramatic literature, +there is, perhaps, no single passage which produces so much effect +as Bombastes’ address to his army. Yet it consists of only three lines—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Bombas.</i> (<i>confidentially</i>).</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Meet me this ev’ning at the Barley-Mow;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I’ll bring your pay—you see I’m busy now.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">(<i>In a loud, commanding tone</i>) Begone, brave army, and don’t kick up a row!</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Nor could anything be more ludicrous than the entrance of Bombastes in +the wood, intent on suicide, preceded by a fifer playing “Michael Wiggins:”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Bombas.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Gentle musician, let thy dulcet strain</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Proceed—play “Michael Wiggins” o’er again.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Music’s the food of love—give o’er, give o’er,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For I must batten on that food no more.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Who has not enjoyed the whimsical idea of challenging the whole human +race by hanging a pair of jack boots on a tree, and writing on them—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Who dares this pair of boots displace,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Must meet Bombastes face to face.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">In <i>Bombastes Furioso</i>, we have burlesque clothed in its proper dress, +not in the toga of a didactic philosopher, but in the spangled frippery of a +mummer. For the first time it discards “purpose,” and speaks in its own +proper language—doggrel rhyme.</p> + +<p>Mr. Planché was the pioneer of the new school, and his sole purpose +was to divert holiday audiences (chiefly composed of boys and girls home +for the Christmas and Easter vacations) with appropriate dramatic versions +of pretty fairy tales. His compositions were rather extravaganzas +than burlesques, and depended for their success more upon the romantic +interest of the story and the wit of the dialogue than upon their satire. +Mr. Planché may claim the merit—if merit it be—of having first introduced +the pun into these compositions: and it must be allowed that he +punned with discretion; which is certainly more than we can say of his +younger successors in the craft of joke-making. When Mr. Planché was +at the height of his fame as a burlesque writer, these pieces were brought +out only at holiday time; in some cases as a substitute for the pantomime, +which, in certain quarters, was beginning to be voted low and +vulgar. It sufficed then to tell the dramatic story in sprightly rhymes, +slightly sprinkled with puns and allusions to the events of the day. +Ballet, glittering fairy scenery, parodies set to popular airs and red and +blue fire, did the rest. The satire contained in these pieces was of a very +harmless kind, and rarely aimed at any game higher than the Thames +Tunnel or the Lord Mayor’s show. Of late years, however, pieces of this +class have asserted a much more extended sway. They are now played +in season and out of season, and at one, if not two theatres they hold the +stage all the year round, and constitute the chief attraction. The young +school of burlesque writers follow a method peculiarly their own, though, +of course, they are largely indebted to the traditions of their immediate +predecessors. The chief elements which enter into the composition of +these pieces are, pretty scenery, negro melodies, “break-down” dances, +and outrageous puns. It is also a necessary condition to their success, +that one or more saucy actresses with good legs should be employed in their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span> +performance. The music and the scenery go for much, the puns go for more, +but the comic dance goes for most of all. The literature which enters into +the composition of the more successful pieces of this description is not by +any means to be despised as an intellectual effort. The young men who +can so industriously torture the English language into such strange and +startling meanings, through a thousand lines of rhyme, evidently possess +an amount of talent and application which, if properly directed, might be +of real service to letters; or, if not to letters, to some industrial pursuit. +Tom Hood, who was considered the prince of punsters, in his day, could +have had no conception of the height to which punning has attained +(or, perhaps, we ought to say the depth to which it has fallen) in our +time. A pun a day would, perhaps, have been the extent of the indulgence +which Hood would have allowed himself; but these burlesque +writers fire them off in volleys, and glory in startling the English language +from its propriety. As regards punning, the whole tribe of jokers follow +exactly the same method, as may be seen by reference to the burlesques +of the present season. Hear how Mr. William Brough, in his burlesque +of <i>Endymion</i>, clatters his <i>pans</i>:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Pan.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh! long-ear’d but short-sighted fauns, desist;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To the great Pan, ye little pitchers, list;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pan knows a thing or two. In point of fact,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He’s a deep Pan, and anything but cracked;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A perfect <i>oracle</i> Pan deems himself; he</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is earthenwarish; so, of course, is delfy (Delphi).</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trust then to Pan your troubles to remove—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A warming-Pan he’ll to your courage prove;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A prophet, he foresees the ills you fear;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So for them all you have your Pan a seer (panacea).</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Here every thought is designed as a peg whereon to hang a pun. The +author would seem to have been fearful of having nothing but his punning +for his pains in two instances, where he finds it necessary to add +explanatory notes. Now see with what labour Mr. Byron, in his +<i>Cinderella</i>, carries coals to the joke market:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Cind.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Cinders and coals I am accustomed to,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">They seem to me to tinge all things I view.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Prince.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The fact I can’t say causes me surprise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For <i>Kohl</i> is frequently in ladies’ eyes.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Cind.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">At morn, when reading, as the fire up burns,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The printer’s stops to semi-<i>coal-uns</i> turns;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I might as well read <i>Coke</i>.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Prince.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quite right you are.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He’s very useful reading at the <i>bar</i>.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who is your favourite poet? <i>Hobbs?</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Cind.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent34">Not quite;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No; I think <i>Cole</i>ridge is my favourite;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His melan-<i>coally</i> suits my situation;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">My dinner always is a <i>coald coal</i>-lation.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Smoke pictures all things seem, whate’er may be ’em,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A cyclorama, through the <i>Coal I see ’em</i>.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Prince.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Is there no way from out a path so black?</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Cind.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">There’s no way out; my life’s a <i>cul</i> de sac.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Of course, authors who have so little respect for the legitimate meaning +of English words cannot be expected to pay regard to the rules of English +grammar; nor is it to be imagined that their course of solid reading has +been such as to enable them to know that Hobbes was not particularly +distinguished for his poetry. But all this is included in the broad, +general licence which these poets take out. In another piece, <i>Bluebeard +from a New Point of Hue</i>,—the puns you see even extend to the playbill +and the title-page of the production—the same author takes occasion, on +the same principle, to pun until all is <i>blue</i>. Fatima calls Abomilique a +“blue bore.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center"><i>Abom.</i></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Everything takes that colour in my eyes;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This, ’stead of being fash’nablest of flies,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And red, when I look at it, in two twos,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Changes its form and colour—it’s a <i>blouse</i>.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Stead of yellow covering, my foot</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seems, in my eyes, clad in a <i>Blu</i>cher boot.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Every hotel I may put up at, boasts</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The selfsame sign—of course, it’s the <i>Blue</i>-Posts.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whene’er a portrait-painter I employ,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He makes me look like Gainsborough’s Blue Boy.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">My palanquin, the one I bought for you,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Becomes an omnibus, the Royal <i>Blue</i>.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ladies seem blue-stockings and bloomers through it;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Each song I hear appears composed by <i>Blewitt</i>;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In my siesta, every afternoon,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I dream I’m in the air in a big <i>b’loon</i>.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">This is simply a long punning exercise, of a sustained effort to the jingling +of words of similar sound, but wholly destitute of similarity of sense. +There is not that startling conjunction of similar dissimilarities which constitutes +the true pun. It cannot be said that there is any wit in making +Bluebeard see everything blue, because his beard is blue. If he had +been remarkable for his blue eyes, there might have been some point in it.</p> + +<p>Sydney Smith, who was as little accustomed to found his jokes upon a +just estimate of things as any of the burlesque writers, once said that it +required a surgical operation to get a joke into the head of a Scotchman. +Yet plain James Hogg has given us a better specimen of a pun than any of +these professional English wits. Some one at table mentioned that it was +reported Dr. Parr had married a woman beneath him in station. “Ay, +ay,” said Hogg, “she is, nae doot, below Parr.” Here is a pun perfect +in all its parts, preserving at once exactness of sound and sense, and +giving at the same time a humorous colouring to a commonplace fact. +The above specimens, however, are the best in the pieces before us. +The majority of the puns are of the most audacious kind, many of them +suggestive of a joker in the last stage of drivelling senility.</p> + +<p>This excessive and bad punning upon words merely is a poor substitute +for true wit and humour. Half of the puns are lost upon the audience<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span> +owing to their obscurity and the rapidity with which they follow upon +each other’s heels. And even when they are “taken,” the delight they +give is simply of the kind which is afforded by a Chinese puzzle: they +are ingenious, and that is all. Punning upon words merely is not a +difficult thing, if you could only condescend to give your mind to it. The +art might be taught in six easy lessons, as Mr. Smart teaches writing, and +as other professors teach crochet and Berlin-wool work. We can quite +imagine how any of these burlesque writers might have improved +James the First in the art. James was a great punster; but his style +would be considered primitive in these days. On one occasion, his +Majesty made a punning speech to the professors of the University of +Edinburgh.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> They had been engaged in a philosophical disputation, and +his Majesty complimented them one after the other by name. We may +give this as a specimen of his Majesty’s style before receiving lessons:—</p> + +<p>“Methinks these gentlemen by their very names have been destined +for the acts which they have had in hand to-day. Adam was the +father of all, and very fitly Adamson had the first part in this act. +The defender is justly called Fairly: his thesis had some fair lies, +and he defended them very fairly and with many fair lies given to his +oppugners. And why should not Mr. Lands be the first to enter the lands? +but now I clearly see that all lands are not barren, for certainly he hath +shown a fertile wit. Mr. Young is very old in Aristotle. Mr. Reed need +not be red (oh!) with blushing for his actions this day. Mr. King disputed +very kingly and of a kingly purpose anent the royal supremacy of +reason over anger and all passions.”</p> + +<p>After six lessons his Majesty would have come out in the following +flowing style:—</p> + +<p>“Adam having been the <i>fust</i> man, it is only natural that Adamson +should talk <i>fust</i>ian. We are in hopes, however, that <i>Adam</i>son will +<i>Eve</i>ntually <i>Cain</i> (explanatory note: <i>gain</i>) experience, and be <i>Abel</i> to do +better; for it is fit and proper that Adamson should be the first man in +learning, re<i>garden</i> him in connection with <i>Eden</i>burgh. Mr. Young is +<i>youngry</i> after knowledge, and we fear is in some danger, through studying +Aristotle too much, of coming to be <i>’ung</i> before he is much <i>older</i>. We +were afraid that Mr. Reed would have been <i>red</i>uced for an argument; +but we perceive he is <i>red</i>ivivus, and has <i>red</i>eemed his character from +being <i>red</i>iculous. Verily, Mr. Fairly”—but enough; this would have +been quite sufficient for the punning preceptor to frame and glaze and put +in his window as a testimony to his skill in teaching the whole art of pun-making. +It is on record, that King James prepared himself for his jokes +by a course of study and stimulants, and did not venture to fire them +off until after the sixth bottle. If such simple exercises required so +much stimulation, what must be the process which the punsters of our +day find it necessary to resort to? The Turkish bath is said to bring<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span> +out a vast amount of latent and unsuspected filth from the skin. Is there +any similar process for acting upon the brain?</p> + +<p>Satire is a weapon which has been used with good effect by skilful +hands in books and in speeches, both in ancient and modern times; but +we cannot discover that it has done any great or signal execution when +wielded by the burlesque writer on the stage. Aristophanes certainly did +not revive the palmy days of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. It is +true it has been asserted that he did; but will any one please to mention +the successors of these three great masters who are worthy to be named +in the same category? It might be easier to specify the harm than to +estimate the good which flowed from the comedies of Aristophanes. Not +only the Greek drama, but Greece itself, dated its decline from those days. +And, besides, it is not at all certain that when Aristophanes exhibited +Socrates suspended in a basket, spouting incomprehensible doctrine—incomprehensible +at that time—he did not sow the seeds of the hemlock +to which the greatest of all the Greeks was condemned. It is true that +Socrates was not sentenced until nearly twenty years afterwards; but +Aristophanes was one of the first to throw mud at him, and it was only +through the persistency with which his detractors followed the dramatist’s +example that some of the mud eventually stuck. The Athenians knew +and felt, when it was too late, that the most virtuous man of their age +had been sacrificed to an idle and reckless clamour. Here then, to begin +with, is a suspicion of murder attaching to burlesque. In the present +day, the only murder of which it can be found guilty is the murder of the +English language.</p> + +<p>If Dr. Johnson were alive to pronounce sentence, we know what would +become of the burlesque writers: they would swing every man Jack—or +shall we say Joe?—of them. It is to be laid to their charge that they +have familiarized the educated public with the use of slang. Slang words +and phrases are now of frequent occurrence in our literature. We meet +with them not alone in a low class of publications, but in the leading +articles of newspapers, in the orations of senators, and even in books of a +solid and standard character. If these burlesques have done us this +amount of harm, and have done us no other good than to excite the +“loud laugh” indiscriminately at the expense of things worthy and +unworthy, what shall we say of them? May we not sigh for those palmy +days of the drama which are past and gone?</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, we can have no sympathy with those who complain that +these burlesques have elbowed the legitimate drama off the stage. The +true legitimacy of the drama may well be questioned, when it cannot +maintain its claims against this bastard pretender. We have seen (on +rare occasions) that good sterling plays will always draw the public; and +if, in default of these, the public prefer comparatively harmless puns and +parodies to the pollution of translations from the French, perhaps it may +be allowed that, of the two evils, they choose the least.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> <i>History of University of Edinburgh.</i></p> + +</div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="When_thou_Sleepest">When thou Sleepest.</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When thou sleepest, lulled in night,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Art thou lost in vacancy?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Does no silent inward light,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Softly breaking, fall on thee?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Does no dream on quiet wing</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Float a moment mid that ray,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Touch some answering mental string,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Wake a note, and pass away?</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When thou watchest, as the hours</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Mute and blind are speeding on,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">O’er that rayless path, where lowers</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Muffled midnight, black and lone;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Comes there nothing hovering near,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Thought or half reality,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whispering marvels in thine ear,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Every word a mystery,</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Chanting low an ancient lay,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Every plaintive note a spell,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Clearing memory’s clouds away,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Showing scenes thy heart loves well?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Songs forgot, in childhood sung,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Airs in youth beloved and known,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whispered by that airy tongue,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Once again are made thine own.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Be it dream in haunted sleep,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Be it thought in vigil lone,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Drink’st thou not a rapture deep</div> + <div class="verse indent2">From the feeling, ’tis thine own?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All thine own; thou need’st not tell</div> + <div class="verse indent2">What bright form thy slumber blest;—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All thine own; remember well</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Night and shade were round thy rest.</div><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Nothing looked upon thy bed,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Save the lonely watch-light’s gleam;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not a whisper, not a tread</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Scared thy spirit’s glorious dream.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sometimes, when the midnight gale</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Breathed a moan and then was still,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seemed the spell of thought to fail,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Checked by one ecstatic thrill;</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Felt as all external things,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Robed in moonlight, smote thine eye;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Then thy spirit’s waiting wings</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Quivered, trembled, spread to fly;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Then th’ aspirer wildly swelling</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Looked, where mid transcendency</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Star to star was mutely telling</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Heaven’s resolve and fate’s decree.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh! it longed for holier fire</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Than this spark in earthly shrine;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh! it soared, and higher, higher,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Sought to reach a home divine.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hopeless quest! soon weak and weary</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Flagged the pinion, drooped the plume,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And again in sadness dreary</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Came the baffled wanderer home.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And again it turned for soothing</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To th’ unfinished, broken dream;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">While, the ruffled current smoothing,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Thought rolled on her startled stream.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I have felt this cherished feeling,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Sweet and known to none but me;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Still I felt it nightly healing</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Each dark day’s despondency.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">CHARLOTTE BRONTË.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="The_Struggles_of_Brown_Jones_and_Robinson">The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson.</h2> + +<p class="author">BY ONE OF THE FIRM.</p> + +</div> + +<h3>CHAPTER I.<br> +<span class="smcap">Preface.</span></h3> + +<p>It will be observed by the literary and commercial world that, in this +transaction, the name of the really responsible party does not show on the +title-page. I—George Robinson—am that party. When our Mr. Jones +objected to the publication of these memoirs unless they appeared as +coming from the firm itself, I at once gave way. I had no wish to offend +the firm, and, perhaps, encounter a lawsuit for the empty honour of seeing +my name advertised as that of an author. We talked the matter over +with our Mr. Brown, who, however, was at that time in affliction, and +not able to offer much that was available. One thing he did say: +“As we are partners,” said Mr. Brown, “let’s be partners to the end.” +“Well,” said I, “if you say so, Mr. Brown, so it shall be.” I never +supposed that Mr. Brown would set the Thames on fire, and soon learnt +that he was not the man to amass a fortune by British commerce. He +was not made for the guild of Merchant Princes. But he was the +senior member of our firm, and I always respected the old-fashioned +doctrine of capital in the person of our Mr. Brown.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Brown said, “Let’s be partners to the end. It won’t +be for long, Mr. Robinson,” I never said another word. “No,” said I, +“Mr. Brown; you’re not what you was—and you’re down a peg; I’m not +the man to take advantage and go against your last wishes. Whether for +long or whether for short we’ll pull through in the same boat to the end. +It shall be put on the title-page—‘By One of the Firm.’” “God bless +you, Mr. Robinson,” said he; “God bless you.”</p> + +<p>And then Mr. Jones started another objection. The reader will soon +realize that anything I do is sure to be wrong with Mr. Jones. It wouldn’t +be him else. He next declares that I can’t write English, and that +the book must be corrected, and put out by an editor? Now, when +I inform the discerning British Public that every advertisement that has +been posted by Brown, Jones, and Robinson, during the last three years +has come from my own unaided pen, I think few will doubt my capacity +to write the “Memoirs of Brown, Jones, and Robinson,” without any +editor whatsoever.</p> + +<p>On this head I was determined to be firm. What! after preparing, +and correcting, and publishing such thousands of advertisements in prose +and verse and in every form of which the language is susceptible, to be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span> +told that I couldn’t write English! It was Jones all over. If there is a +party envious of the genius of another party in this sublunary world that +party is our Mr. Jones.</p> + +<p>But I was again softened by a touching appeal from our senior +partner. Mr. Brown, though prosaic enough in his general ideas, was +still sometimes given to the Muses; and now, with a melancholy and +tender cadence, he quoted the following lines:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Let dogs delight,” said he, “to bark and bite,” said he,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“For ’tis their nature to—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But ’tis a shameful sight to see when partners of one firm like we</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fall out, and chide, and fight!”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">So I gave in again.</p> + +<p>It was then arranged that one of Smith and Elder’s young men should +look through the manuscript, and make any few alterations which the +taste of the public might require. It might be that the sonorous, and, +if I may so express myself, magniloquent phraseology in which I was +accustomed to invite the attention of the nobility and gentry to our last +importations was not suited for the purposes of light literature, such as +this. “In fiction, Mr. Robinson, your own unaided talents would doubtless +make you great,” said to me the editor of this Magazine; “but if +I may be allowed an opinion, I do think that in the delicate task of composing +memoirs a little assistance may perhaps be not inexpedient.”</p> + +<p>This was prettily worded; so what with this, and what with our +Mr. Brown’s poetry, I gave way; but I reserved to myself the right of an +epistolary preface in my own name. So here it is.</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ladies and Gentlemen</span>,—I am not a bit ashamed of my part in the +following transaction. I have done what little in me lay to further British +commerce. British commerce is not now what it was. It is becoming +open and free like everything else that is British—open to the poor man +as well as to the rich. That bugbear Capital is a crumbling old tower, +and is pretty nigh brought to its last ruin. Credit is the polished shaft of +the temple on which the new world of trade will be content to lean. That, +I take it, is the one great doctrine of modern commerce. Credit—credit—credit. +Get credit, and capital will follow. Doesn’t the word speak +for itself? Must not credit be respectable? And is not the word +“respectable” the highest term of praise which can be applied to the +British tradesman?</p> + +<p>Credit is the polished shaft of the temple. But with what are you to +polish it? The stone does not come from the quarry with its gloss on: +man’s labour is necessary to give it that beauteous exterior. Then wherewith +shall we polish credit? I answer the question at once. With the +pumice-stone and sand-paper of advertisement.</p> + +<p>Different great men have promulgated the different means by which +they have sought to subjugate the world. “Audacity—audacity—audacity,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span> +was the lesson which one hero taught. “Agitate—agitate—agitate,” +was the counsel of a second. “Register—register—register,” +of a third. But I say—Advertise, advertise, advertise! And I say it again +and again—Advertise, advertise, advertise! It is, or should be, the +Shibboleth of British commerce. That it certainly will be so I, George +Robinson, hereby venture to prophesy, feeling that on this subject something +but little short of inspiration has touched my eager pen.</p> + +<p>There are those—men of the old school, who cannot rouse themselves +to see and read the signs of the time, men who would have been in the +last ranks, let them have lived when they would—who object to it that +it is untrue,—who say that advertisements do not keep the promises +which they make. But what says the poet,—he whom we teach our +children to read? What says the stern moralist to his wicked mother in the +play? “Assume a virtue if you have it not?” And so say I. “Assume +a virtue if you have it not.” It would be a great trade virtue in a +haberdasher to have forty thousand pairs of best hose lying ready for sale +in his warehouse. Let him assume that virtue if he have it not. Is not +this the way in which we all live, and the only way in which it is possible +to live comfortably. A gentleman gives a dinner party. His lady, who +has to work all day like a dray-horse and scold the servants besides, to +get things into order, loses her temper. We all pretty well know what +that means. Well; up to the moment when she has to show, she is as +bitter a piece of goods as may be. But, nevertheless, she comes down +all smiles, although she knows that at that moment the drunken cook is +spoiling the fish. She assumes a virtue, though she has it not; and who +will say she is not right?</p> + +<p>Well; I say again and again to all young tradesmen—Advertise, +advertise, advertise;—and don’t stop to think too much about capital. +It is a bugbear. Capital is a bugbear; and it is talked about by those +who have it,—and by some that have not so much of it neither,—for the +sake of putting down competition, and keeping the market to themselves.</p> + +<p>There’s the same game going on all the world over; and it’s the +natural game for mankind to play at. They who’s up a bit is all for +keeping down them who is down; and they who is down is so very soft +through being down, that they’ve not spirit to force themselves up. Now +I saw that very early in life. There is always going on a battle between +aristocracy and democracy. Aristocracy likes to keep itself to itself; and +democracy is just of the same opinion, only wishes to become aristocracy +first.</p> + +<p>We of the people are not very fond of dukes; but we’d all like to be +dukes well enough ourselves. Now there are dukes in trade as well as +in society. Capitalists are our dukes; and as they don’t like to have +their heels trod upon any more than the other ones, why they are always +preaching up capital. It is their star and garter, their coronet, their +ermine, their robe of state, their cap of maintenance, their wand of office, +their noli me tangere. But stars and garters, caps and wands, and all<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span> +other noli me tangeres, are gammon to those who can see through them. +And capital is gammon. Capital is a very nice thing if you can get it. +It is the desirable result of trade. A tradesman looks to end with a +capital. But it’s gammon to say that he can’t begin without it. You +might as well say a man can’t marry unless he has first got a family. +Why, he marries that he may have a family. It’s putting the cart before +the horse.</p> + +<p>It’s my opinion that any man can be a duke if so be it’s born to him. +It requires neither wit nor industry, nor any pushing nor go-ahead +whatsoever. A man may sit still in his arm-chair, half asleep half his +time, and only half awake the other, and be as good a duke as need be. +Well; it’s just the same in trade. If a man is born to a dukedom there, +if he begins with a large capital, why, I for one would not thank him +to be successful. Any fool could do as much as that. He has only to +keep on polishing his own star and garter, and there are lots of people to +swear that there is no one like him.</p> + +<p>But give me the man who can be a duke without being born to it. +Give me the man who can go ahead in trade without capital; who can +begin the world with a quick pair of hands, a quick brain to govern them, +and can end with a capital.</p> + +<p>Well, there you are; a young tradesman beginning the world without +capital. Capital, though it’s a bugbear, nevertheless it’s a virtue. +Therefore as you haven’t got it, you must assume it. That’s credit. +Credit I take to be the belief of other people in a thing that doesn’t +really exist. When you go into your friend Smith’s house, and find +Mrs. S. all smiles, you give her credit for the sweetest of tempers. Your +friend S. knows better; but then you see she’s had wit enough to obtain +credit. When I draw a bill at three months, and get it discounted, I do +the same thing. That’s credit. Give me credit enough, and I don’t care +a brass button for capital. If I could have but one wish, I would never +ask a fairy for a second or a third. Let me have but unreserved credit, +and I’ll beat any duke of either aristocracy.</p> + +<p>To obtain credit the only certain method is to advertise. Advertise, +advertise, advertise. That is, assume, assume, assume. Go on assuming +your virtue. The more you haven’t got it, the more you must assume it. +The bitterer your own heart is about that drunken cook and that idle +husband who will do nothing to assist you, the sweeter you must smile. +Smile sweet enough, and all the world will believe you. Advertise long +enough, and credit will come.</p> + +<p>But there must be some nous in your advertisements; there must be +a system, and there must be some wit in your system. It won’t suffice +now-a-days to stick up on a black wall a simple placard to say that +you have forty thousand best new hose just arrived. Any wooden-headed +fellow can do as much as that. That might have served in the +olden times that we hear of, twenty years since; but the game to be +successful in these days must be played in another sort of fashion. There<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span> +must be some finish about your advertisements, something new in your +style, something that will startle in your manner. If a man can make +himself a real master of this art, we may say that he has learnt his trade, +whatever that trade may be. Let him know how to advertise, and the +rest will follow.</p> + +<p>It may be that I shouldn’t boast; but yet I do boast that I have made +some little progress in this business. If I haven’t yet practised the art in +all its perfections, nevertheless I flatter myself I have learned how to +practise it. Regarding myself as something of a master of this art, and +being actuated by purely philanthropic motives in my wish to make +known my experience, I now put these memoirs before the public.</p> + +<p>It will, of course, be urged against me that I have not been successful +in what I have already attempted, and that our house has failed. This +is true. I have not been successful: our house has failed. But with +whom has the fault been? Certainly not in my department.</p> + +<p>The fact is, and in this my preface I will not keep the truth back +from a discerning public, that no firm on earth—or indeed elsewhere—could +be successful in which our Mr. Jones is one of the partners. There +is an overweening vanity about that man which is quite upsetting. I +confess I have been unable to stand it. Vanity is always allied to folly, +and the relationship is very close in the person of our Mr. Jones. Of +Mr. Brown I will never bring myself to say one disrespectful word. He +is not now what he was once. From the bottom of my heart I pity his +misfortunes. Think what it must be to be papa to a Goneril and a Regan—without +the Cordelia. I have always looked on Mrs. Jones as a regular +Goneril; and as for the Regan, why it seems to me that Miss Brown is +likely to be Miss Regan to the end of the chapter.</p> + +<p>No; of Mr. Brown I will say nothing disrespectful; but he never +was the man to be first partner in an advertising firm. That was our +mistake. He had old-fashioned views about capital which were very burdensome. +My mistake was this—that in joining myself with Mr. Brown, I +compromised my principles, and held out as it were a left hand to capital. +He had not much, as will be seen; but he thought a deal of what he had +got, and talked a deal of it too. This impeded my wings. This prevented +me from soaring. One cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. I +have been untrue to myself in having had any dealings on the basis of +capital; and hence has it arisen that hitherto I have failed.</p> + +<p>I make these confessions hoping that they may be serviceable to trade +in general. A man cannot learn a great secret, and the full use of a +great secret, all at once. My eyes are now open. I shall not again make +so fatal a mistake. I am still young. I have now learned my lesson +more thoroughly, and I yet anticipate success with some confidence.</p> + +<p>Had Mr. Brown at once taken my advice, had his few thousand pounds +been liberally expended in commencing a true system of advertising, we +should have been—I can hardly surmise where we should have been. He +was for sticking altogether to the old system. Mr. Jones was for mixing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span> +the old and the new, for laying in stock and advertising as well, with a +capital of 4,000<i>l.</i> What my opinion is of Mr. Jones I will not now say, +but of Mr. Brown I will never utter one word of disparagement.</p> + +<p>I have now expressed what few words I wish to utter on my own +bottom. As to what has been done in the following pages by the young +man who has been employed to look over these memoirs and put them +into shape, it is not for me to speak. It may be that I think they might +have read more natural-like had no other cook had a finger in the pie. +The facts, however, are facts still. These have not been altered.</p> + +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, you who have so long distinguished our firm by +a liberal patronage, to you I now respectfully appeal, and in showing to +you a new article I beg to assure you with perfect confidence that there +is nothing equal to it at the price at present in the market. The supply +on hand is immense, but as a sale of unprecedented rapidity is anticipated, +may I respectfully solicit your early orders? If not approved of the +article shall be changed.</p> + +<p>Ladies and gentlemen,</p> + +<p class="center">We have the honour to subscribe ourselves,</p> + +<p class="center">With every respect,</p> + +<p class="center">Your most obedient humble servants,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Brown</span>, <span class="smcap">Jones</span>, and <span class="smcap">Robinson</span>,<br> +Per <span class="smcap">George Robinson</span>.</p> + +</div> + +<h3>CHAPTER II.<br> +<span class="smcap">The Early History of our Mr. Brown, with some few Words +of Mr. Jones.</span></h3> + +<p>O Commerce, how wonderful are thy ways, how vast thy power, how +invisible thy dominion! Who can restrain thee and forbid thy further +progress? Kings are but as infants in thy hands, and emperors, despotic +in all else, are bound to obey thee! Thou civilizest, hast civilized, and +wilt civilize. Civilization is thy mission, and man’s welfare thine +appointed charge. The nation that most warmly fosters thee shall ever +be the greatest in the earth; and without thee no nation shall endure for +a day. Thou art our Alpha and our Omega, our beginning and our end; +the marrow of our bones, the salt of our life, the sap of our branches, +the corner-stone of our temple, the rock of our foundation. We are +built on thee, and for thee, and with thee. To worship thee should be +man’s chiefest care, to know thy hidden ways his chosen study.</p> + +<p>One maxim hast thou, O Commerce, great and true and profitable +above all others—one law which thy votaries should never transgress. +“Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest.” May those divine +words be ever found engraved on the hearts of Brown, Jones, and +Robinson!</p> + +<p>Of Mr. Brown, the senior member of our firm, it is expedient that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span> +some short memoir should be given. At the time at which we signed +our articles in 185-, Mr. Brown had just retired from the butter trade. +It does not appear that in his early youth he ever had the advantage of +an apprenticeship, and he seems to have been employed in various +branches of trade in the position, if one may say so, of an outdoor +messenger. In this capacity he entered the service of Mr. McCockerell, a +retail butter dealer in Smithfield. When Mr. McCockerell died, our Mr. +Brown married his widow, and thus found himself elevated at once to the +full-blown dignity of a tradesman. He and his wife lived together for thirty +years, and it is believed that in the temper of his lady he found some alloy +to the prosperity which he had achieved. The widow McCockerell, in +bestowing her person upon Mr. Brown, had not intended to endow him also +with entire dominion over her shop and chattels. She loved to be supreme +over her butter tubs, and she loved also to be supreme over her till. Brown’s +views on the rights of women were more in accordance with the law of the +land as laid down in the statutes. He opined that a <i>femme couverte</i> could +own no property, not even a butter tub;—and hence quarrels arose.</p> + +<p>After thirty years of contests such as these Mr. Brown found himself +victorious, made so not by the power of arguments, nor by that of his +own right arm, but by the demise of Mrs. Brown. That amiable lady +died, leaving two daughters to lament their loss, and a series of family +quarrels by which she did whatever lay in her power to embarrass her +husband, but by which she could not prevent him from becoming absolute +owner of the butter business, and of the stock in trade.</p> + +<p>The two young ladies had not been brought up to the ways of the +counter; and as Mr. Brown was not himself especially expert at that +particular business in which his money was embarked, he prudently +thought it expedient to dispose of the shop and goodwill. This he did +to advantage; and thus at the age of fifty-five he found himself again on +the world with 4,000<i>l.</i> in his pocket.</p> + +<p>At this period one of his daughters was no longer under his own +charge. Sarah Jane, the eldest of the two, was already Mrs. Jones. She +had been captivated by the black hair and silk waistcoat of Mr. Jones, and +had gone off with him in opposition to the wishes of both parents. This, +she was aware, was not matter of much moment, for the opposition of one +was sure to bring about a reconciliation with the other. And such was +soon the case. Mrs. Brown would not see her daughter, or allow Jones to +put his foot inside the butter-shop; Mr. Brown consequently took +lodgings for them in the neighbourhood, and hence a close alliance sprung +up between the future partners.</p> + +<p>At this crisis Maryanne devoted herself to her mother. It was +admitted by all who knew her that Maryanne Brown had charms. At +that time she was about twenty-four years of age, and was certainly a +fine young woman. She was particularly like her mother, a little too +much inclined to corpulence, and there may be those who would not +allow that her hair was auburn. Mr. Robinson, however, who was then<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span> +devotedly attached to her, was of that opinion, and was ready to maintain +his views against any man who would dare to say that it was red.</p> + +<p>There was a dash about Maryanne Brown at that period which +endeared her greatly to Mr. Robinson. She was quite above anything +mean, and when her papa was left a widower in possession of four thousand +pounds, she was one of those who were most anxious to induce him to go +to work with spirit in his new business. She was all for advertising; that +must be confessed of her, though her subsequent conduct was not all that +it should have been. Maryanne Brown, when tried in the furnace, did +not come out pure gold; but this, at any rate, shall be confessed in her +behalf, that she had a dash about her, and understood more of the tricks +of trade than any other of her family.</p> + +<p>Mrs. McCockerell died about six months after her eldest daughter’s +marriage. She was generally called Mrs. McCockerell in the neighbourhood +of Smithfield, though so many years had passed since she had lost +her right to that name. Indeed, she generally preferred being so styled, +as Mr. Brown was peculiarly averse to it. The name was wormwood to +him, and this was quite sufficient to give it melody in her ears.</p> + +<p>The good lady died about six months after her daughter’s marriage. +She was struck with apoplexy, and at that time had not been reconciled +to her married daughter. Sarah Jane, nevertheless, when she heard what +had occurred, came over to Smithfield. Her husband was then in employment +as shopman at the large haberdashery house in Skinner Street, and +lived with his wife in lodgings in Cowcross Street. They were supported +nearly entirely by Mr. Brown, and therefore owed to him at this crisis +not only obedience, but dutiful affection.</p> + +<p>When, however, Sarah Jane first heard of her mother’s illness, she +seemed to think that she couldn’t quarrel with her father fast enough. +Jones had an idea that the old lady’s money must go to her daughters, +that she had the power of putting it altogether out of the hands of her +husband, and that having the power she would certainly exercise it. On +this speculation he had married; and as he and his wife fully concurred +in their financial views, it was considered expedient by them to lose no +time in asserting their right. This they did as soon as the breath was +out of the old lady’s body.</p> + +<p>Jones had married Sarah Jane solely with this view; and, indeed, it +was highly improbable that he should have done so on any other consideration. +Sarah Jane was certainly not a handsome girl. Her neck +was scraggy, her arms lean, and her lips thin; and she resembled +neither her father nor her mother. Her light brown, sandy hair, which +always looked as though it were too thin and too short to adapt itself to +any feminine usage, was also not of her family; but her disposition was a +compound of the paternal and maternal qualities. She had all her father’s +painful hesitating timidity, and with it all her mother’s grasping spirit. +If there ever was an eye that looked sharp after the pence, that could +weigh the ounces of a servant’s meal at a glance, and foresee and prevent<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span> +the expenditure of a farthing, it was the eye of Sarah Jane Brown. They +say that it is as easy to save a fortune as to make one, and in this way, +if in no other, Jones may be said to have got a fortune with his wife.</p> + +<p>As soon as the breath was out of Mrs. McCockerell’s body, Sarah +Jane was there, taking inventory of the stock. At that moment poor +Mr. Brown was very much to be pitied. He was always a man of feeling, +and even if his heart was not touched by his late loss, he knew what was +due to decency. It behoved him now as a widower to forget the deceased +lady’s faults, and to put her under the ground with solemnity. This was +done with the strictest propriety; and although he must, of course, have +been thinking a good deal at that time as to whether he was to be a +beggar or a rich man, nevertheless he conducted himself till after the +funeral as though he hadn’t a care on his mind, except the loss of Mrs. B.</p> + +<p>Maryanne was as much on the alert as her sister. She had been for +the last six months her mother’s pet, as Sarah Jane had been her father’s +darling. There was some excuse, therefore, for Maryanne when she +endeavoured to get what she could in the scramble. Sarah Jane played +the part of Goneril to the life, and would have denied her father the +barest necessaries of existence, had it not ultimately turned out that the +property was his own.</p> + +<p>Maryanne was not well pleased to see her sister returning to the +house at such a moment. She, at least, had been dutiful to her mother, or, +if undutiful, not openly so. If Mrs. McCockerell had the power of leaving +her property to whom she pleased, it would be only natural that she +should leave it to the daughter who had obeyed her, and not to the +daughter who had added to personal disobedience the worse fault of having +been on friendly terms with her father.</p> + +<p>This, one would have thought, would have been clear at any rate to +Jones, if not to Sarah Jane; but they both seemed at this time to have +imagined that the eldest child had some right to the inheritance as being +the eldest. It will be observed by this and by many other traits in his +character that Mr. Jones had never enjoyed the advantages of an +education.</p> + +<p>Mrs. McCockerell never spoke after the fit first struck her. She never +moved an eye, or stirred a limb, or uttered a word. It was a wretched +household at that time. The good lady died on a Wednesday, and was +gathered to her fathers at Kensal Green Cemetery on the Tuesday +following. During the intervening days Mr. Jones and Sarah Jane took +on themselves as though they were owners of everything. Maryanne did +try to prevent the inventory, not wishing it to appear that Mrs. Jones had +any right to meddle; but the task was too congenial to Sarah Jane’s spirit +to allow of her giving it over. She revelled in the work. It was a +delight to her to search out hidden stores of useless wealth,—to bring +forth to the light forgotten hoards of cups and saucers, and to catalogue +every rag on the premises.</p> + +<p>The house at this time was not a pleasant one. Mr. Brown, finding<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span> +that Jones, in whom he had trusted, had turned against him, put himself +very much into the hands of a young friend of his, named George Robinson. +Who and what George Robinson was will be told in the next chapter.</p> + +<p>“There are three questions,” said Robinson, “to be asked and +answered:—Had Mrs. B. the power to make a will? If so, did she +make a will? And if so, what was the will she made?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Brown couldn’t remember whether or no there had been any +signing of papers at his marriage. A good deal of rum and water, he +said, had been drunk; and there might have been signing too,—but he +didn’t remember it.</p> + +<p>Then there was the search for the will. This was supposed to be +in the hands of one Brisket, a butcher, for whom it was known Mrs. +McCockerell had destined the hand of her younger daughter. Mr. Brisket +had been a great favourite with the old lady, and she had often been heard +to declare that he should have the wife and money, or the money without +the wife. This she said to coerce Maryanne into the match.</p> + +<p>But Brisket, when questioned, declared that he had no will in his +possession. At this time he kept aloof from the house and showed no +disposition to meddle with the affairs of the family. Indeed, all through +these trying days he behaved honestly, if not with high feeling. In +recounting the doings of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, it will sometimes +be necessary to refer to Mr. Brisket. He shall always be spoken of as an +honest man. He did all that in him lay to mar the bright hopes of one +who was perhaps not the most insignificant of that firm. He destroyed +the matrimonial hopes of Mr. Robinson, and left him to wither like a +blighted trunk on a lone waste. But he was, nevertheless, an honest +man, and so much shall be said of him. Let us never forget that “An +honest man is the noblest work of God.”</p> + +<p>Brisket, when asked, said that he had no will, and that he knew of +none. In fact there was no will forthcoming, and there is no doubt that +the old woman was cut off before she had made one. It may also be +premised that had she made one it would have been invalid, seeing that +Mr. Brown, as husband, was, in fact, the owner of the whole affair.</p> + +<p>Sarah Jane and Maryanne, when they found that no document was +forthcoming, immediately gave out that they intended to take on themselves +the duties of joint heiresses, and an alliance, offensive and defensive, +was sworn between them. At this time Mr. Brown employed a lawyer, +and the heiresses, together with Jones, employed another. There could +be no possible doubt as to Mr. Brown being the owner of the property, +however infatuated on such a subject Jones and his wife may have been. +No lawyer in London could have thought that the young women had a +leg to stand upon. Nevertheless, the case was undertaken, and Brown +found himself in the middle of a lawsuit. Sarah Jane and Maryanne +both remained in the house in Smithfield to guard the property on their +own behalf. Mr. Brown also remained to guard it on his behalf. The +business for a time was closed. This was done in opposition both to Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span> +Brown and Maryanne; but Mrs. Jones could not bring herself to permit +the purchase of a firkin of butter, unless the transaction could be made +absolutely under her own eyes; and even then she would insist on superintending +the retail herself and selling every pound, short weight. It was +the custom of the trade, she said; and to depart from it would ruin them.</p> + +<p>Things were in this condition, going from bad to worse, when Jones +came over one evening, and begged an interview with Mr. Brown. That +interview was the commencement of the partnership. From such small +matters do great events arise.</p> + +<p>At that interview Mr. Robinson was present. Mr. Brown indeed +declared that he would have no conversation with Jones on business +affairs, unless in the presence of a third party. Jones represented that +if they went on as they were now doing, the property would soon be +swallowed up by the lawyers. To this Mr. Brown, whose forte was not +eloquence, tacitly assented with a deep groan.</p> + +<p>“Then,” said Jones, “let us divide it into three portions. You shall +have one; Sarah Jane a second; and I will manage the third on behalf of +my sister-in-law, Maryanne. If we arrange it well, the lawyers will never +get a shilling.”</p> + +<p>The idea of a compromise appeared to Mr. Brown to be not uncommendable; +but a compromise on such terms as those could not of course +be listened to. Robinson strongly counselled him to nail his colours to +the mast, and kick Mr. Jones downstairs. But Mr. Brown had not +spirit for this.</p> + +<p>“One’s children is one’s children,” said he to Robinson, when they +went apart into the shop to talk the matter over. “The fruit of one’s +loins, and the prop of one’s age.”</p> + +<p>Robinson could not help thinking that Sarah Jane was about as bad +a prop as any that ever a man leant on; but he was too generous to +say so. The matter was ended at last by a compromise. “Go on with +the business together,” said Robinson; “Mr. Brown keeping, of course, +a preponderating share in his own hands.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t like butter,” said Jones. “Nothing great can be done in +butter.”</p> + +<p>“It is a very safe line,” said Mr. Brown, “if the connection is good.”</p> + +<p>“The connection must have been a good deal damaged,” said +Robinson, “seeing that the shop has been closed for a fortnight. Besides, +it’s a woman’s business, and you have no woman to manage it,” added he, +fearing that Mrs. Jones might be brought in, to the detriment of all +concerned.</p> + +<p>Jones suggested haberdashery; Robinson, guided by a strong idea +that there is a more absolute opening for the advertising line in haberdashery +than in any other business, assented.</p> + +<p>“Then let it be haberdashery,” said Mr. Brown, with a sigh. And +so that was settled.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER III.<br> +<span class="smcap">The Early History of Mr. Robinson.</span></h3> + +<p>And haberdashery it was. But here it may be as well to say a few +words as to Mr. Robinson, and to explain how he became a member of +the firm. He had been in his boyhood—a bill-sticker; and he defies +the commercial world to show that he ever denied it. In his earlier days +he carried the paste and pole, and earned a livelihood by putting up +notices of theatrical announcements on the hoardings of the metropolis. +There was, however, that within him which Nature did not intend to throw +away on the sticking of bills, as was found out quickly enough by those +who employed him. The lad, while he was running the streets with his +pole in his hand, and his pot round his neck, learned first to read, and +then to write what others might read. From studying the bills which he +carried, he soon took to original composition; and it may be said of him, +that in fluency of language and richness of imagery few surpassed him. +In person Mr. Robinson was a genteel young man, though it cannot be said +of him that he possessed manly beauty. He was slight and active, intelligent +in his physiognomy, and polite in his demeanour. Perhaps it +may be unnecessary to say anything further on this head.</p> + +<p>Mr. Robinson had already established himself as an author in his own +line, and was supporting himself decently by his own unaided abilities, +when he first met Maryanne Brown in the Regent’s Park. She was +then walking with her sister, and resolutely persisted in disregarding all +those tokens of admiration which he found himself unable to restrain.</p> + +<p>There certainly was a dash about Maryanne Brown that at certain +moments was invincible. Hooped petticoats on the back of her sister +looked like hoops, and awkward hoops. They were angular, lopsided, and +lumpy. But Maryanne wore her hoops as a duchess wears her crinoline. +Her well-starched muslin dress would swell off from her waist in a manner +that was irresistible to George Robinson. “Such grouping!” as he said +to his friend Walker. “Such a flow of drapery! such tournure! Ah, +my dear fellow, the artist’s eye sees these things at a glance.” And then, +walking at a safe distance, he kept his eyes on them.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure that fellow’s following us,” said Sarah Jane, looking back +at him with all her scorn.</p> + +<p>“There’s no law against that, I suppose,” said Maryanne tartly. So +much as that Mr. Robinson did succeed in hearing.</p> + +<p>The girls entered their mother’s house; but as they did so, Maryanne +lingered for a moment in the doorway. Was it accident, or was it not? +Did the fair girl choose to give her admirer one chance, or was it that she +was careful not to crush her starch by too rapid an entry?</p> + +<p>“I shall be in Regent’s Park on Sunday afternoon,” whispered +Robinson, as he passed by the house, with his hand to his mouth. It +need hardly be said that the lady vouchsafed him no reply.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span></p> + +<p>On the following Sunday George Robinson was again in the park, and +after wandering among its rural shades for half a day, he was rewarded +by seeing the goddess of his idolatry. Miss Brown was there with a +companion, but not with Sarah Jane. He had already, as though by +instinct, conceived in his heart as powerful an aversion for one sister as +affection for the other, and his delight was therefore unbounded when +he saw that she he loved was there, while she he hated was away.</p> + +<p>’Twere long to tell, at the commencement of this narrative, how a +courtship was commenced and carried on; how Robinson sighed, at first +in vain and then not in vain; how good-natured was Miss Twizzle, the +bosom friend of Maryanne; and how Robinson for a time walked and slept +and fed on roses.</p> + +<p>There was at that time a music class held at a certain elegant room +near Osnaburgh Church in the New Road, at which Maryanne and her +friend Miss Twizzle were accustomed to attend. Those lessons were +sometimes prosecuted in the evening, and those evening studies sometimes +resulted in a little dance. We may say that after a while that was their +habitual tendency, and that the lady pupils were permitted to introduce +their male friends on condition that the gentlemen paid a shilling each for +the privilege. It was in that room that George Robinson passed the happiest +hours of his chequered existence. He was soon expert in all the figures +of the mazy dance, and was excelled by no one in the agility of his step or +the endurance of his performances. It was by degrees rumoured about +that he was something higher than he seemed to be, and those best accustomed +to the place used to call him the Poet. It must be remembered +that at this time Mrs. McCockerell was still alive, and that as Sarah +Jane had then become Mrs. Jones, Maryanne was her mother’s favourite, +and destined to receive all her mother’s gifts. Of the name and person +of William Brisket, George Robinson was then in happy ignorance, and the +first introduction between them took place in that Hall of Harmony.</p> + +<p>’Twas about eleven o’clock in the evening, when the light feet of the +happy dancers had already been active for some hour or so in the worship +of their favourite muse, that Robinson was standing up with his arm round +his fair one’s waist, immediately opposite to the door of entrance. His +right arm still embraced her slight girdle, whilst with his left hand he +wiped the perspiration from his brow. She leaned against him palpitating, +for the motion of the music had been quick, and there had been some +amicable contest among the couples. It is needless to say that George +Robinson and Maryanne Brown had suffered no defeat. At that moment +a refreshing breeze of the night air was wafted into the room from the +opened door, and Robinson, looking up, saw before him a sturdy, thickset +man, with mottled beefy face, and by his side there stood a spectre. +“It’s your sister,” whispered he to Maryanne, in a tone of horror.</p> + +<p>“Oh, laws! there’s Bill,” said she, and then she fainted. The gentleman +with the mottled face was indeed no other than Mr. Brisket, the +purveyor of meat, for whose arms Mrs. McCockerell had destined the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span> +charms of her younger daughter. Conduct baser than that of Mrs. Jones +on this occasion is not perhaps recorded in history. She was no friend of +Brisket’s. She had it not at heart to forward her mother’s views. At +this period of their lives she and her mother never met. But she had +learned her sister’s secret, and having it in her power to crush her sister’s +happiness, had availed herself of the opportunity.</p> + +<p>“There he is,” said she, quite aloud, so that the whole room should +hear. “He’s a bill-sticker!” and she pointed the finger of scorn at her +sister’s lover.</p> + +<p>“I’m one who have always earned my own living,” said Robinson, +“and never had occasion to hang on to any one.” This he said knowing +that Jones’s lodgings were paid for by Mr. Brown.</p> + +<p>Hereupon Mr. Brisket walked across the room, and as he walked there +was a cloud of anger on his brow. “Perhaps, young man,” he said,—and +as he spoke he touched Robinson on the shoulder,—“perhaps, young +man, you wouldn’t mind having a few words with me outside the door.”</p> + +<p>“Sir,” said the other with some solemnity, “I am not aware that I +have the honour of your acquaintance.”</p> + +<p>“I’m William Brisket, butcher,” said he; “and if you don’t come out +when I asks you, by jingo, I’ll carry you.”</p> + +<p>The lady had fainted. The crowd of dancers was standing round with +inquiring faces. That female spectre repeated the odious words, still pointing +at him with her finger, “He’s a bill-sticker!” Brisket was full fourteen +stone, whereas Robinson might perhaps be ten. What was Robinson to do?</p> + +<p>“Are you going to walk out, or am I going to carry you?” said the +Hercules of the slaughter-house.</p> + +<p>“I will do anything,” said Robinson, “to relieve a lady’s embarrassment.”</p> + +<p>They walked out on to the landing-place, whither not a few of the +gentlemen and some of the ladies followed them.</p> + +<p>“I say, young man,” said Brisket, “do you know who that young +woman is?”</p> + +<p>“I certainly have the honour of her acquaintance,” said Robinson.</p> + +<p>“But perhaps you haven’t the honour of knowing that she’s my wife,—as +is to be. Now you know it.” And then the coarse monster eyed +him from head to foot. “Now you may go home to your mother,” said +he. “But don’t tell her anything of it, because it’s a secret.”</p> + +<p>He was fifteen stone at least, and Robinson was hardly ten. Oh, how +vile is the mastery which matter still has over mind in many of the +concerns of life! How can a man withstand the assault of a bull? What +was Robinson to do? He walked downstairs into the street, leaving +Maryanne behind with the butcher.</p> + +<p>Some days after this he contrived a meeting with his love, and he then +learned the history of that engagement.</p> + +<p>“She hated Brisket,” she said. “He was odious to her. He was +always greasy and smelt of meat;—but he had a respectable business.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span></p> + +<p>“And is my Maryanne mercenary?” said Robinson.</p> + +<p>“Now, George,” said she, “it’s no use you scolding me, and I won’t +be scolded. Ma says that I must be civil to him, and I’m not going to +quarrel with ma. At any rate not yet.”</p> + +<p>“But surely, Maryanne——”</p> + +<p>“It’s no good you surelying me, George, for I won’t be surelyed. If +you don’t like me, you can leave me.”</p> + +<p>“Maryanne, I adore you.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all very well, and I hope you do; but why did you make a +row with that man the other night?”</p> + +<p>“But, dearest love, he made the row with me.”</p> + +<p>“And when you did make it,” continued Maryanne, “why didn’t you +see it out?”</p> + +<p>Robinson did not find it easy to answer. That matter has still +dominion over mind, though the days are coming when mind shall have +dominion over matter, was a lesson which, in after days, it would be +sweet to teach her. But at the present moment the time did not serve +for such teaching.</p> + +<p>“A man must look after his own, George, or else he’ll go to the wall,” +she said, with a sneer. And then he parted from her in anger.</p> + +<p>But his love did not on that account wax cool, and so in his misery +he had recourse to their mutual friend, Miss Twizzle.</p> + +<p>“The truth is this,” said Miss Twizzle, “I believe she’d take him, +because he’s respectable and got a business.”</p> + +<p>“He’s horribly vulgar,” said Robinson.</p> + +<p>“Oh, bother!” said Miss Twizzle. “I know nothing about that. +He’s got a business, and whoever marries Brisket won’t have to look for +a bed to sleep on. But there’s a hitch about the money.”</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Robinson learned the facts. Mrs. McCockerell, as she was +still called, had promised to give her daughter five hundred pounds as her +marriage portion, but Mr. Brisket would not go to the altar till he got the +money. “He wanted to extend himself,” he said, “and would not marry +till he saw his way.” Hence had arisen that delay which Maryanne had +solaced by her attendance at the music-hall.</p> + +<p>“But if you’re in earnest,” said Miss Twizzle, “don’t you be down on +your luck. Go to old Brown, and make friends with him. He’ll stand +up for you, because he knows his wife favours Brisket.”</p> + +<p>George Robinson did go to Mr. Brown, and on the father the young +man’s eloquence was not thrown away.</p> + +<p>“She shall be yours, Mr. Robinson,” he said, after the first fortnight. +“But we must be very careful with Mrs. B.”</p> + +<p>After the second fortnight Mrs. B. was no more! And in this way it +came to pass that George Robinson was present as Mr. Brown’s adviser +when that scheme respecting the haberdashery was first set on foot.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="At_Westminster">At Westminster.</h2> + +</div> + +<div> +<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-t.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">This is Westminster Hall. You +know it at once. To your left +is one door for Parliament; to +your right are seven, for the +lawyers. If you peep into the +first of these legal entrances, +you will probably see the cake-woman; +and if the court is +sitting you will certainly find +an eager knot of grey-bearded, +spectacled, wigged, and gowned +barristers, engaged on “three +corners,” Bath buns, and pennyworths +of plum gingerbread. +Passing through this reminiscence +of schooldays, you will +bewilder yourself among a +series of doors that shut one upon another. You will possibly avoid the +cross-cutting and divergent passages, and, with the help of a sad policeman, +lifting a heavy crimson curtain, you will take off your hat, and find +yourself in a court of justice. The first thing you look for is a “place,” +which you find high up in the back seats; and when this has been climbed +into, with more or less noise, you find yourself facing the bench. By the +bench, of course I mean the judges. They are peculiar. Their dress is +rather startling at first, till you get used to it; but it is nothing to their +caps, which are represented by a little black spot on the top of the wig, +and, therefore, may be said to out-muffin the muffin cap of the Bluecoat +boy. You may, perhaps, imagine that a remorseful, or, perhaps, shamefaced +feeling on the part of the last invented judge has led to his contenting +himself with a mere white spot. But be this as it may, from +reasons of either dress or feature, our judges do not quite look like +ordinary human beings; at all events, the casual observer is sure to deny +them that privilege. One likens a celebrated dispenser of justice to a +benevolent and intellectual gorilla; another believes that all judges give +one some dim idea of a blinking, dozy kind of barn owl; a third suggests +good old ladies—motherly persons, given to advice and management, +and the having of their own way; while one more daring has even compared +the celebrated and, as I said before, “newly invented” summer up, +to a jolly apple-cheeked old maid, sitting in judgment upon her married +sisters. Perhaps it is not until these humourists see them as judges in +their own cause that they discover them to be neither blind, weak, nor +old-womanish.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp62" id="illus2" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>The Plaintiff.</p> + +<p>The Defendant.</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp62" id="illus3" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>The Jury.</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>But between the back seats and the bench, look for the bar, and if +you don’t exactly see the bar, you will the counsel, which is the same +thing. Possibly you may hear them—for they are given to talking; to +each other, if they have no better resource; but to the jury, or at all +events to the judge, if they can find an occasion: some who, curiously +enough, have round noses, round eyes, round mouths, and double chins, +are sonorous, emphatic, and what we will call portwiney: others are +ponderous, slow, chest-speaking men, but these are mostly tall, lank, and +coarse-haired, with terrible noses—long, from the bridge downward, and +blunt at the point; some, again, of the sharp, acid, suspicious sort—shriek +a great deal; while there are a few—great men these—who are so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span> +confidential and communicative, that they seem (using a colloquial +phrase) to talk to the jury “like a father.”</p> + +<p>Among the counsel who having nothing to say either for self or +client, and who (as I suppose, consequently) amuse themselves with +a great deal of light-porter’s work, in carrying fat bags, full of important +papers; there are many who make a great show of extracting valuable +precedents from thick calf-bound law books, and having neither briefs to +study nor motions to make, engage themselves in inditing the obscurest +directions for further thick volumes, on the smallest slips of paper +procurable, which slips—folded into the semblance of pipe-lights—they, +at the hazard of turning illegal summersaults, pass on to the short usher +with the bald head.</p> + +<p>But do not, for one moment, imagine that when you have looked at the +judges and the counsel and taken in the general aspect and bearings of the +court, that you have at all exhausted its points of interest; on the contrary, +the “interest” is all to come. You wish to know what is going on—is it +debt or slander? breach of promise or breach of contract? and curiously +enough, it is generally the latter. Contracts of all sorts, that are supposed +to form a kind of barrier against law, and which, at all events, +are held as safeguards or talismans, are mostly the direct road to that +monosyllabic mantrap; some people never think of breaking a contract so +long as it is merely implied, but reduced to black and white they want to +tear a hole in it directly,—indeed, in the sense in which it has been said +that all mischief is caused by woman, you will find that every action at +law has a “document” lying at the bottom of it—from promissory notes +up to architects’ estimates, this will always hold good.</p> + +<p>Well, having seen both Bench and Bar, and wishing to understand +what they are both engaged in, let us suppose a case. We will say that +an obstinate man, one Bullhead, has his action against a plausible man, +one Floater. Now the unconvincible Bullhead, who thinks that he has +never yet been taken in, has somehow at various times, and upon the +flimsiest of all possible pretences, handed over to said Floater sums of +money to the amount of—say two hundred pounds: between the possible +inconvenience of losing so large a sum of money and the wish to show +that his wisdom is equal to his obstinacy, he has brought the little dispute +out of his own frying-pan into the judicial fire.</p> + +<p>There he stands, or rather leans in the witness-box, carefully checking +off his short answers with his forefinger on the sleeve of his coat, and +screwing his face on one side, as if to concentrate all his intellect into the +left eye that is so widely open; he looks very untractable, with his stumpy +brows knitted closely over his thick stumpy nose; but what chance can +he possibly have against such a cool hand as the defendant, Floater, Esq., +with his very white stick-up hair bearing witness to his respectability, +and his very black lay-down eyebrows covering the unbarnacled portion +of those side-glancing eyes? How gently his jewelled fingers are laid on +the edge of the witness-box! how shockingly informal the “document”—of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span> +whatever sort—proves to be during his examination—what a respectable +man he is! Three letters after his name. Do you think he would have +trusted himself in such a lion’s den as this if he were not assured of +getting the best of it? Oh, no! this is the sort of thing—either in +court or out of court—that he lives on, and lives very well too. Barring +anxieties and worries, which all are liable to—with the exception of constant +flitting, which, to some people, is a mere matter of health; put on one +side a few visits to the Queen’s Bench, and this is a highly prosperous +man! He has his spring lamb out of its due season; asparagus; five suits +of clothes and three servants; he has managed somehow to rear a large +family, and, what is more, to dispose of them in various ways; he will, +most probably, fail in accumulating money, may, perhaps, die in extreme +poverty—there is no knowing; but as he is not a miser, as he began life +without a farthing, and as, moreover, he is an easy-going sort of philosopher +in his way, he may content himself to the last; and contentment, +as we know, is a very hard thing to compass after all.</p> + +<p>Of course, and as usual, the jury hardly know what to make of it; +the stout foreman inclines to the plaintiff in despite of law; but he is +evidently puzzled all the same; the thin man with the bridgy nose, the +cold man with the round head, and the argumentative juryman with the +mutton-chop whisker, all look at it, as they say, “legally,” and decide in +favour of the defendant. The jocular “party,” with the curly red hair +and the two tufts of chin-growing beard, treats it all as good fun, and is +ready to give his verdict for the defendant too, because as he says:—“He +is such a jolly old humbug, you know,” which mode of settlement, +however, is not looked upon as sufficient by his two neighbours, to +whom it is a much more serious matter. One of these is trying to make +up his mind, a feat he has never yet successfully accomplished, so I suppose +that as usual it will be made up for him by somebody else; as +for the other, after three hours’ reflection he has really come to a decision, +but, unfortunately, it is entirely opposed to everything that the judge will +tell them in his summing up, and of course they will all be led by his +lordship.</p> + +<p>My lord is neither a mumbling nor a short-tempered judge; he will take +them in hand kindly, explain away both counsel for plaintiff and for defendant, +and read them a great deal of his notes, which are a thousandfold +clearer, fuller, and more accurate than the reporter’s “flimsy,” although +during the trial he has been distinctly seen to write four long letters, has +gone twice to sleep, and has made seven recondite legal jokes, including +the famous ever-recurring and side-splitting innuendo of calling upon the +usher to cry silence, or “Sss-h,” whenever the somewhat indistinctly +speaking junior for the plaintiff rises—there will be no withstanding his +clear-headedness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp62" id="illus4" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>The Judge.</p> + +<p>The Counsel.</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span></p> + +<p>As you would imagine, these jurors have been in turn led away by the +opposing counsel. For the plaintiff; they were made to admire the consummate +common sense and discretion of the plaintiff, Bullhead, who having +diluted his ordinary keenness with that admirable faith in human nature, +which is the keystone of all commercial transactions in this arcadian +world, has for the first time in his life, found his confidence misplaced by +the conduct of the defendant. Said the advocate: far be it from him to +call Floater, Esq., M.Q.S., by any derogatory appellations; he was not a +swindler, he was not a rogue, he was not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he +was perhaps the victim of a misconception or a want of memory, but a +very honourable man all the same—an opinion which the jury would +endorse by giving full damages to his discreet and sensible client.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp62" id="illus5" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>The Attorneys.</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>But, said the counsel for the defendant—a foxy man with reddish hair, +angular eyes, and a mouth that seems to have a hole punched in each end +of it: he would not call Mr. Bullhead a villain of the deepest die, he +would not say that he had laid a plot to blast the happiness of the domestic +health of his unfortunate, his scrupulously respectable, and he would add +his distinguished client; no, not he—far from it, he would suppose that +an obtuseness of intellect on the part of the, at all events, short-tempered +plaintiff, had led him to imagine, and so forth. And by the way, notice<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span> +how these foxy counsel do cuddle themselves up, how they look askance, +and wriggle about to show their honesty and straightforwardness,—for indeed +I suppose we must admit that they are honest and straightforward +from their point of view, although they do shake their heads at his lordship +whenever a particularly damaging statement is put forward by the +opposite side, and although they do paint black with a grey tint, and find +a few spots upon the purest white. Thank goodness, they have the attorneys +to throw the blame upon when there happens to be any, and the +attorneys sitting under the bar, and putting their heads together, have, I +suppose, shoulders broad enough to bear it.</p> + +<p>These two do not look ingenuous: here is the smooth and the rough. +The rough one never seems to believe a word that is said to him, while +the smooth one appears to take in everything. The one, half shutting his +eyes, draws his face down and his forehead up, into all the fifty lines of +unbelief, while Smoothman drags his cheeks into such a lovely smiling look +of faith in everything you have to propose, that you really begin to wonder +how that underhung jaw and knitted brow came into the same company. +Well, there is not very much to choose between them—if Diogenes is given +to sharp practice, Smoothman is a very bulldog for holding on wherever +he gets his teeth in; and for twisting a grievance into court, for sublimating +an action into a verdict, and a verdict into bills of costs, I think they +are equally to be trusted.</p> + +<p>So we will say that this trial has gone against the angry plaintiff; that +it is one more feather in the cap of Foxy Q.C., and money in the purse to +Floater, M.Q.S.; that the jury are aware of having supported the glory of +the English nation and the majesty of the law; that the learned judge, +disrobed and unwigged, is no longer a good old lady, but a distinguished +gentleman; and the ushers having cried Ssss-h all the day, which seems +to be their responsible and arduous and only duty, are going home to +dinner, leaving the reporters to pack up and follow.</p> + +<p>One word about the “Press” before we part. Just one word to note +the elderly press-man, who is of a shrewd, parroty appearance, and who has +sat in court so many years reporting, that his grey hair has at last taken +the form, colour, and texture of a judge’s wig: his aspect is severe; he +seems to have imbibed the spirit of that justice which he has passed his +life in recording.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Agnes_of_Sorrento">Agnes of Sorrento.</h2> + +</div> + +<h3>CHAPTER IX.<br> +<span class="smcap">The Artist Monk.</span></h3> + +<p>On the evening when Agnes and her grandmother had returned from the +convent, as they were standing after their supper looking over the garden +parapet into the gorge, their attention was caught by a man in an +ecclesiastical habit, slowly climbing the rocky pathway towards them.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t that brother Antonio?” asked Dame Elsie, leaning forward to +observe more narrowly. “Yes, to be sure it is.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, how glad I am!” exclaimed Agnes, springing up with vivacity, +and looking eagerly down the path by which the stranger was approaching.</p> + +<p>A few moments more of clambering, and the stranger met the two +women at the gate with a gesture of benediction. He was apparently a +little past the middle point of life, and entering on its shady afternoon. +He was tall and well proportioned, and his features had the spare +delicacy of the Italian outline. The round brow fully developed in all +the perceptive and æsthetic regions, the keen eye shadowed by long dark +lashes, the thin flexible lips, the sunken cheek, where on the slightest +emotion there fluttered a brilliant flush of colour,—all were signs telling +of the enthusiast in whom the nervous and spiritual predominated over +the animal. At times, his eye had a dilating brightness, as if from +the flickering of some inward fire which was slowly consuming the +mortal part, and its expression was brilliant even to the verge of insanity. +His dress was the simple, coarse, white stuff gown of the Dominican +friars, over which he wore a darker travelling garment of coarse cloth, +with a hood, from whose deep shadows his bright mysterious eyes looked +like jewels from a cavern. At his side dangled a great rosary and cross +of black wood, and under his arm he carried a portfolio secured with a +leathern strap, which seemed stuffed to bursting with papers.</p> + +<p>Father Antonio, whom we have thus introduced to the reader, was a +travelling preaching monk from the convent of San Marco in Florence, on +a pastoral and artistic tour through Italy.</p> + +<p>Convents in the Middle Ages were the retreats of multitudes, of different +natures, who did not wish to live in a state of perpetual warfare and +offence, and all the elegant arts flourished under their protecting shadows. +Ornamental gardening, pharmacy, drawing, painting, carving in wood, +illumination, and calligraphy, were not unfrequent occupations of the holy +fathers, and the convent has given to the illustrious roll of Italian art +some of its most brilliant names. No institution in modern Europe had +a more established reputation in all these respects than the convent of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span> +San Marco in Florence. In its best days, it was as near an approach to +an ideal community, associated to unite religion, beauty, and utility, as +ever has existed on earth. It was a retreat from the commonplace prose +of life into an atmosphere at once devotional and poetic; and prayers and +sacred hymns consecrated the elegant labours of the chisel and the pencil, +no less than the more homely ones of the still and the crucible. San +Marco, far from being that kind of sluggish lagoon often imagined in conventual +life, was rather a sheltered hotbed of ideas—fervid with intellectual +and moral energy, and before the age in every radical movement. +At this period, Savonarola, the poet and prophet of the Italian religious +world of his day, was Superior of this convent, pouring through all the +members of the Order the fire of his own impassioned nature, and seeking +to lead them back to the fervours of more primitive and evangelical ages, +and in the reaction of a worldly and corrupt Church was beginning to +feel the power of that current which at last drowned his eloquent voice +in the cold waters of martyrdom. Savonarola was an Italian Luther—differing +from him as the more ethereally strung and nervous Italian +differs from the bluff and burly German; and like Luther he became in +his time the centre of every living thing in society about him. He inspired +the pencils of artists, guided the councils of statesmen, and, a poet +himself, was an inspiration to poets. Everywhere in Italy the monks of +his Order were travelling, restoring the shrines, preaching against the +voluptuous and unworthy pictures with which sensual artists had desecrated +the churches, and calling the people back by their exhortations +to the purity of primitive Christianity.</p> + +<p>Father Antonio was a younger brother of Elsie, and had early become +a member of the San Marco, enthusiastic not less in religion than in art. +His intercourse with his sister had few points of sympathy, Elsie being as +decided a utilitarian as any old Yankee female born in the granite hills of +New Hampshire, and pursuing with a hard and sharp energy her narrow +plan of life for Agnes. She regarded her brother as a very properly +religious person, considering his calling, but was a little bored with his +exuberant devotion, and absolutely indifferent to his artistic enthusiasm. +Agnes, on the contrary, had from a child attached herself to her uncle +with all the energy of a sympathetic nature, and his yearly visits had been +looked forward to on her part with intense expectation. To him she +could say a thousand things which instinctively she concealed from her +grandmother; and Elsie was well pleased with the confidence, because it +relieved her a little from the vigilant guardianship that she otherwise held +over the girl: when Father Antonio was about, she had leisure now and +then for a little private gossip of her own.</p> + +<p>“Dear uncle, how glad I am to see you once more!” was the eager +salutation with which the young girl received the monk, as he gained the +little garden; “and you have brought your pictures,—oh, I know you +have so many pretty things to show me!”</p> + +<p>“Well, well, child,” said Elsie, “don’t begin upon that now: a little<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span> +talk of bread and cheese will be more in point. Come in, brother, and +wash your feet, and let me beat the dust out of your cloak, and give you +something to stay nature; for you must be fasting.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, sister,” said the monk; “and as for you, pretty one, +never mind what she says. Uncle Antonio will show his little Agnes +everything by-and-by.—A good little thing it is, sister.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, good enough,—and too good,” said Elsie, bustling about;—“roses +can’t help having thorns, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“Only our ever-blessed Rose of Sharon, the dear mystical Rose of +Paradise, can boast of having no thorns,” said the monk, bowing and +crossing himself devoutly.</p> + +<p>Agnes clasped her hands on her bosom and bowed also, while Elsie +stopped with her knife in the middle of a loaf of black bread, and crossed +herself with somewhat of impatience,—like a worldly-minded person of +our day, who is interrupted in the midst of an observation by a grace.</p> + +<p>After the rites of hospitality had been duly observed, the old dame +seated herself contentedly at her door with her distaff, resigned Agnes to +the safe guardianship of her uncle, and had a feeling of security in seeing +them sitting together on the parapet of the garden, with the portfolio +spread out between them; the warm twilight glow of the evening sky +lighting up their figures as they bent in ardent interest over its contents. +The portfolio showed a fluttering collection of sketches,—fruits, flowers, +animals, insects, faces, figures, shrines, buildings, trees; all, in short, that +might strike the mind of a man to whose eye nothing on the face of the +earth is without beauty and significance.</p> + +<p>“Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed the girl, taking up one sketch, in +which a bunch of rosy cyclamen was painted rising out of a bed of moss.</p> + +<p>“Ah, that, indeed, my dear!” said the artist. “Would you had +seen the place where I painted it! I stopped there to recite my prayers +one morning; ’twas by the side of a beautiful cascade, and all the ground +was covered with these lovely cyclamens, and the air was musky with +their fragrance. Ah, the bright rose-coloured leaves! I can get no +colour like them, unless some angel would bring me some from those +sunset clouds yonder.”</p> + +<p>“And oh, dear uncle, what lovely primroses!” pursued Agnes, taking +up another paper.</p> + +<p>“Yes, child; but you should have seen them when I was coming +down the south side of the Apennines;—these were everywhere so pale +and sweet, they seemed like the humility of our most Blessed Mother in +her lowly mortal state. I am minded to make a border of primroses to +the leaf in the Breviary where is the ‘Hail, Mary!’ for it seems as if +that flower doth ever say, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord!’”</p> + +<p>“And what will you do with the cyclamen, uncle? does not that +mean something?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, daughter,” replied the monk, readily entering into that symbolical +strain which permeated all the heart and mind of the religious of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span> +his day; “I <i>can</i> see a meaning in it. For you see that the cyclamen puts +forth its leaves in early spring deeply engraven with mystical characters, +and loves cool shadows and moist, dark places, but comes at length to +wear a royal crown of crimson; and it seems to me like the saints who +dwell in convents and other prayerful places, and have the word of God +graven in their hearts in youth, till their hearts blossom into fervent love +and they are crowned with royal graces.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” sighed Agnes, “how beautiful and blessed to be among such!”</p> + +<p>“Thou sayest well, dear child. Blessed are the flowers of God that +grow in cool solitudes, and have never been profaned by the hot sun and +dust of this world!”</p> + +<p>“I should like to be such a one,” said Agnes. “I often think, when +I visit the sisters at the convent, that I long to be one of them.”</p> + +<p>“A pretty story!” cried Dame Elsie, who had heard the last words. +“What! go into a convent and leave your poor grandmother all alone, when +she has toiled night and day for so many years to get a dowry for you +and find you a worthy husband!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want any husband in this world, grandmamma,” said Agnes.</p> + +<p>“What talk is this? Not want a good husband to take care of you +when your poor old grandmother is gone? Who will provide for you?”</p> + +<p>“He who took care of the blessed Saint Agnes, grandmamma.”</p> + +<p>“Saint Agnes, to be sure! That was a great many years ago, and +times have altered since then;—in these days girls must have husbands.”</p> + +<p>“But if the darling hath a vocation?” suggested the artist, mildly.</p> + +<p>“Vocation! I’ll see to that! She shan’t have a vocation! Do you +suppose I’m going to toil, and spin, and wear myself to the bone, and +have her slip through my fingers at last with a vocation? No, indeed!”</p> + +<p>“Indeed, dear grandmother, don’t be angry!” pleaded Agnes. “I +will do just as you say,—only I don’t want a husband.”</p> + +<p>“Well, well, my little heart,—one thing at a time; you shan’t have +him till you say yes willingly,” said Elsie, in a mollified tone.</p> + +<p>Agnes turned again to the portfolio and busied herself with it, her +eyes dilating as she ran over the sketches.</p> + +<p>“Ah! what pretty, pretty bird is this?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Knowest thou not that bird, with his little red beak?” said the +artist. “When our dear Lord hung bleeding and no man pitied Him, +this bird, filled with tender love, tried to draw out the nails with his poor +little beak—so much better were the birds than we hard-hearted sinners!—hence +he hath honour in many pictures. See here—I shall put him +in the office of the Sacred Heart, in a little nest curiously built in a +running vine of passion-flower. See here, daughter—I have a great +commission to execute a breviary for our house, and our holy father was +pleased to say that the spirit of the blessed Angelico had in some little +humble measure descended on me, and now I am busy day and night; +for not a twig rustles, not a bird flies, nor a flower blossoms, but I begin +to see therein some hint of holy adornment to my blessed work.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, uncle Antonio, how happy you must be!” exclaimed Agnes, her +large eyes dilating and filling with tears.</p> + +<p>“Happy!—child, am I not?” returned the monk, looking up and +crossing himself. “Holy Mother, am I not? Do I not walk the earth in +a dream of bliss, and see the footsteps of my most Blessed Lord and his +dear Mother on every rock and hill? I see the flowers rise up in clouds +to adore them. What am I, unworthy sinner, that such grace is granted +me? Often I fall on my face before the humblest flower where my dear +Lord hath written his name, and confess I am unworthy the honour of +copying his sweet handiwork.”</p> + +<p>The artist spoke these words with his hands clasped and his fervid +eyes upraised, like a man in an ecstasy; nor can our more prosaic +English give an idea of the fluent simplicity and grace with which such +images melt into that lovely tongue that seems made to be the natural +language of poetry and enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Agnes looked up to him with awe, as to some celestial being; but +there was a sympathetic glow in her face, and she crossed her hands on +her bosom, as her manner often was when much moved, and, drawing a +deep sigh, ejaculated:—“Would that such gifts were mine!”</p> + +<p>“They are thine, sweet one,” replied the monk. “In Christ’s dear +kingdom is no ‘mine’ or ‘thine,’ but all that each hath is the property of +the others. I never rejoice so much in my art as when I think of the +communion of saints; and that all that our Blessed Lord will work through +me is the property of the humblest soul in his kingdom. When I see +one flower rarer than another, or a bird singing on a twig, I take note of +the same, and say, ‘This lovely work of God shall be for some shrine, +or the border of a missal, or the foreground of an altar-piece, and thus +shall his saints be comforted.’”</p> + +<p>“But,” said Agnes, fervently, “how little can a poor young maiden +do! Ah, I do so long to offer myself up in some way to the dear Lord +who gave Himself for us, and for his most Blessed Church!”</p> + +<p>As Agnes spoke these words, her cheek, usually so clear and pale, +became suffused with a tremulous colour, and her dark eyes beamed with +a deep, divine expression; a moment after, the colour slowly faded, her +head drooped, and her long dark lashes fell on her cheek, while her +hands were folded on her bosom. The eye of the monk was watching her +with an enkindled glance.</p> + +<p>“Is she not the very presentment of our Blessed Lady in the Annunciation?” +said he to himself. “Surely, this grace is upon her for this +special purpose. My prayers are answered.”</p> + +<p>“Daughter,” he began, in a gentle tone, “a glorious work has been +done of late in Florence under the preaching of our blessed Superior. +Could you believe it, daughter, in these times of backsliding and rebuke +there have been found painters base enough to paint the pictures of vile, +abandoned women in the character of our Blessed Lady; yea, and +princes have been found wicked enough to buy them and put them up<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span> +in churches, so that the people have had the Mother of all Purity presented +to them in the guise of a vile harlot. Is it not dreadful?”</p> + +<p>“How horrible!” ejaculated Agnes.</p> + +<p>“Ah, but you should have seen the great procession through Florence, +when all the little children were inspired by the heavenly preaching of +our blessed Master. These dear little ones, carrying the blessed cross and +singing the hymns our Master had written for them, went from house to +house and church to church, demanding that everything that was vile and +base should be delivered up to the flames; and the people, beholding, +thought that the angels had indeed come down, so they brought forth all +their loose pictures and vile books, such as Boccaccio’s romances and other +defilements, and the children made a great bonfire of them in the Grand +Piazza, and thus thousands of vile things were consumed and scattered. +And then our blessed Master exhorted the artists to give their pencils to +Christ and his Mother, and to seek for her image among pious and holy +women living a veiled and secluded life, like that our Lady lived before +the blessed Annunciation. ‘Think you,’ he continued, ‘that the blessed +Angelico obtained the grace to set forth our Lady in such heavenly wise, +by gazing about the streets on mincing women tricked out in all the +world’s bravery?—Did he not find her image in holy solitudes, among +modest and prayerful saints?’”</p> + +<p>“Ah,” exclaimed Agnes, drawing in her breath with an expression of +awe, “what mortal would dare to sit for the image of our Lady!”</p> + +<p>“Dear child, there be women whom the Lord crowns with beauty +when they know it not, and our dear Mother sheds so much of her spirit +into their hearts that it shines out in their faces; among such must +the painter look. Dear little child, be not ignorant that our Lord hath +shed this great grace on thee. I have received a light that thou art to +be the model for the ‘Hail, Mary!’ in my Breviary.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, no, no! it cannot be!” cried Agnes, covering her face.</p> + +<p>“My daughter, thou art very beautiful, and this beauty was given +thee not for thyself, but to be laid like a sweet flower on the altar of thy +Lord. Think how blessed, if, through thee, the faithful be reminded of +the modesty and humility of Mary, so that their prayers become more +fervent! Would it not be a great grace?”</p> + +<p>“Dear uncle,” replied Agnes, “I am Christ’s child. If it be as you say,—which +I did not know,—give me some days to pray and prepare my +soul, that I may offer myself in all humility.”</p> + +<p>During this conversation Elsie had left the garden and gone a little +way down the gorge, to have a few moments of gossip with an old crony +of hers. The light of the evening sky had gradually faded away, and the +full moon was pouring a shower of silver upon the orange-trees. As +Agnes sat on the parapet, with the moonlight streaming down on her +young, spiritual face, now tremulous with deep suppressed emotion, the +painter thought he had never seen any human creature that looked nearer +to his conception of a celestial being.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span></p> + +<p>They both sat awhile in that kind of quietude which often falls +between two who have stirred some deep fountain of emotion. All was +so still around them, that the drip and trickle of the little stream which +fell from the garden wall into the dark abyss of the gorge, could be distinctly +heard as it pattered from one rocky point to another, with a light, +lulling sound. Suddenly their revery was disturbed by the shadow of a +figure which passed into the moonlight and seemed to have risen from the +side of the gorge. A man, enveloped in a dark cloak with a peaked hood, +stepped across the moss-grown garden parapet, stood a moment irresolute, +then the cloak dropped suddenly from him, and the cavalier appeared in the +moonlight before Agnes. He bore in his hand a tall stalk of white lily, +with open blossoms and buds and tender fluted green leaves, such as one +sees in a thousand pictures of the Annunciation. The moonlight fell full +upon his face, revealing his haughty yet beautiful features, agitated by +some profound emotion. The monk and the girl were both too much +surprised for a moment to utter a sound; and when, after an instant, the +monk made a half-movement as if to speak, the cavalier raised his +right hand with a sudden authoritative gesture which silenced him. Then +turning toward Agnes, he knelt, and kissed the hem of her robe, and +laying the lily in her lap, exclaimed, “Holiest and dearest—oh! forget +not to pray for me!” He rose again in a moment, and, throwing his cloak +around him, sprang over the garden wall, and was heard rapidly descending +into the shadows of the gorge.</p> + +<p>All this passed so quickly that it seemed to both the spectators like a +dream. The splendid man, with his jewelled weapons, his haughty bearing +and air of easy command, bowing with such solemn humility before +the peasant girl, reminded the monk of the barbaric princes in the wonderful +legends he had read, who had been drawn by some heavenly inspiration +to come and render themselves up to the teachings of holy +virgins, chosen of the Lord, in divine solitudes. In the poetical world in +which he lived such marvels were possible: there were a thousand precedents +for them in that dream-land of the devout, “The Lives of the Saints.”</p> + +<p>“My daughter,” he said, after looking vainly down the dark shadows +to track the path of the stranger, “have you ever seen this man before?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, uncle; yesterday evening I saw him for the first time, +when sitting at my stand at the gate of the city. It was at the Ave +Maria; he came up there and asked my prayers, and gave me a diamond +ring for the shrine of Saint Agnes, which I carried to the convent.</p> + +<p>“Behold, my dear daughter, the confirmation of what I have just said +to thee! It is evident that our Lady hath endowed thee with the great +grace of a beauty which draws the soul upward toward the angels, instead +of downward to sensual things, like the beauty of worldly women. What +saith the blessed poet Dante of the beauty of the holy Beatrice?—that it +said to every man who looked on her, ‘<i>Aspire!</i>’ Great is the grace; +and thou must give special praise therefor.”</p> + +<p>“I would,” said Agnes, thoughtfully, “that I knew who this stranger<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span> +is, and what is his great trouble and need,—his eyes are so full of sorrow. +Giulietta said he was the king’s brother, and was called the Lord Adrian. +What sorrow can he have, or what need for the prayers of a poor maid +like me?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps the Lord hath pierced him with a longing after the celestial +beauty and heavenly purity of paradise, and wounded him with a divine +sorrow, as happened to Saint Francis and to the blessed Saint Dominic,” +said the monk. “Beauty is the Lord’s arrow, wherewith He pierceth +to the inmost soul, with a divine longing and languishment which +find rest only in Him. Hence, thou seest, the wounds of love in saints +are always painted by us with holy flames ascending from them. Have +good courage, sweet child, and pray with fervour for this youth: there be +no prayers sweeter before the throne of God than those of spotless +maidens. The Scripture saith, ‘The beloved feedeth among the lilies.’”</p> + +<p>At this moment was heard the sharp, decided tramp of Elsie re-entering +the garden.</p> + +<p>“Come, Agnes,” she cried, “it is time for you to begin your prayers, +or, the saints know, I shall not get you to bed till midnight. I suppose +prayers are a good thing,” she added, seating herself wearily; “but if one +must have so many of them, one must get about them early: there’s +reason in all things.”</p> + +<p>Agnes, who had been sitting abstractedly on the parapet, with her +head drooped over the lily-spray, now seemed to collect herself. She +rose up in a grave and thoughtful manner, and, going forward to the +shrine of the Madonna, removed the flowers of the morning, and, holding +the vase under the spout of the fountain all feathered with waving maidenhair, +filled it with fresh water, the drops falling from it in a thousand +little silver rings in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>“I have a thought,” said the monk to himself, drawing from his girdle +a pencil and hastily sketching by the moonlight. What he drew was a +fragile maiden form, sitting with clasped hands on a mossy ruin, gazing +on a spray of white lilies which lay before her. He called it, The Blessed +Virgin pondering the Lily of the Annunciation.</p> + +<p>“Hast thou ever reflected,” he asked of Agnes, “what that lily might +be like which the angel Gabriel brought to our Lady?—for, trust me, it +was no mortal flower, but grew by the river of life. I have often meditated +thereon, that it was like unto living silver with a light in itself, like +the moon—even as our Lord’s garments in the Transfiguration, which glistened +like the snow. I have cast about in myself by what device a painter +might represent so marvellous a flower.”</p> + +<p>“Now, brother Antonio,” Elsie broke in, “if you begin to talk to the +child about such matters, our Lady alone knows when we shall get to bed. +I am sure I’m as good a Christian as anybody; but, as I said, there’s +reason in all things: one cannot always be wondering and inquiring into +heavenly matters—as to every feather in Saint Michael’s wings, and as to +our Lady’s girdle and shoestrings and thimble and work-basket; and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span> +when one gets through with our Lady, then one has it all to go over +about her mother, the blessed Saint Anne (may her name be ever +praised!) I mean no disrespect, but the saints are reasonable folk, and +must see that poor folk must live, and, in order to live, must think of +something else now and then besides <i>them</i>. That’s my mind, brother.”</p> + +<p>“Well, well, sister,” returned the monk, placidly, “no doubt you are +right. There shall be no quarrelling in the Lord’s vineyard: every one +hath his manner and place, and you follow the lead of the blessed Saint +Martha, which is holy and honourable.”</p> + +<p>“Honourable! I should think it might be!” retorted Elsie. “I +warrant me, if everything had been left to Saint Mary’s doings, our +Blessed Lord and the Twelve Apostles might have gone supperless. But +it’s Martha gets all the work, and Mary all the praise.”</p> + +<p>“Quite right, quite right,” said the monk, abstractedly, while he +stood out in the moonlight busily sketching the fountain. By just such a +fountain he thought our Lady might have washed the clothes of the +Blessed Babe. Doubtless there was some such in the court of her +dwelling, all mossy and with sweet waters for ever singing a song of praise.</p> + +<p>Elsie was now heard within the house making energetic commotion, +rattling pots and pans, and effecting decided movements among the +simple furniture of the dwelling; probably with a view to preparing for +the night’s repose of her guest.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Agnes, kneeling before the shrine, was going through, with +great feeling and tenderness, the various manuals and movements of nightly +devotion which her own religious fervour and the zeal of her spiritual +advisers had enjoined upon her. Christianity, when it entered Italy, +came among a people every act of whose life was coloured and consecrated +by symbolic and ritual acts of heathenism. The only possible way +to uproot this was in supplanting it by Christian ritual and symbolism +equally minute and pervading. Besides, in those ages when the Christian +preacher was utterly destitute of all such help as the press now gives +in keeping under the eye of converts the great inspiring truths of religion, +it was one of the first offices of every saint whose preaching stirred the +heart of the people, to devise symbolic forms, signs, and observances, by +which the mobile and fluctuating heart of the multitude might crystallize into +habits of devout remembrance. The rosary, the crucifix, the shrine, the +banner, the processions, were catechisms and tracts invented for those +who could not read, wherein the substance of pages was condensed and +gave itself to the eye and the touch. Let us not, from the height of our +day, with the better appliances which a universal press gives us, sneer at +the homely rounds of the ladder by which the first multitudes of the Lord’s +flock climbed heavenward.</p> + +<p>If there seemed somewhat mechanical in the number of times which +Agnes repeated the “Hail, Mary!”—in the prescribed number of times +she rose, or bowed, or crossed herself, or laid her forehead in low +humility on the flags of the pavement, it was redeemed by the earnest<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span> +fervour which inspired each action. However foreign to the habits of a +Northern mind or education such a mode of prayer may be, these forms +to her were all helpful and significant; her soul was borne by them Godward, +and often, as she prayed, it seemed to her that she could feel the +dissolving of all earthy things, and the pressing nearer and nearer of the +great cloud of witnesses who ever surround the humblest member of +Christ’s mystical body.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Sweet loving hearts around her beat,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Sweet helping hands are stirred,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And palpitates the veil between</div> + <div class="verse indent2">With breathings almost heard.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Certain English writers, looking entirely from a worldly and philosophical +stand-point, are utterly at a loss to account for the power which +certain Italian women of obscure birth came to exercise in the councils +of nations merely by the force of a mystical piety; but the Northern +mind of Europe is entirely unfitted to read and appreciate the psychological +religious phenomena of Southern races. The temperament which +in our modern days has been called the mediæval, and which with us is +only exceptional, is more or less a race-peculiarity of Southern climates, +and gives that objectiveness to the conception of spiritual things from which +grew up a complete ritual and a whole world of religious art. The Southern +saints and religious artists were seers—men and women of that peculiar fineness +and delicacy of temperament which made them peculiarly apt to +receive and project outward the truths of the spiritual life; they were in +that state of “divine madness” which is favourable to the most intense +conception of the poet and artist, and something of this influence descended +through all the channels of the people.</p> + +<p>When Agnes rose from prayer, she had a serene, exalted expression, +like one who walks with some unseen excellence and meditates on some +untold joy. As she was crossing the court to come towards her uncle, +her eye was attracted by the sparkle of something on the ground, and, +stooping, she picked up a heart-shaped locket, curiously made of a large +amethyst, and fastened with a golden arrow. As she pressed upon this, +the locket opened and disclosed to her view a folded paper. Her mood at +this moment was so calm and elevated that she received the incident with +no start or quiver of the nerves. To her it seemed a providential token, +which would probably bring to her some further knowledge of this +mysterious being who had been so especially confided to her intercessions.</p> + +<p>Agnes had learned of the superior of the convent the art of reading +writing, which would never have been the birthright of the peasant-girl +in her times, and the moonlight had that dazzling clearness which revealed +every letter.</p> + +<p>She stood by the parapet, one hand lying in the white blossoming +alyssum which filled its marble crevices, while she seriously read and +pondered the contents of the paper.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[213]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="center">TO AGNES.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Sweet saint, sweet lady, may a sinful soul</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Approach thee with an offering of love,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And lay at thy dear feet a weary heart</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That loves thee, as it loveth God above?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If blessed Mary may without a stain</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Receive the love of sinners most defiled,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If the fair saints that walk with her in white</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Refuse not love from earth’s most guilty child,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shouldst thou, sweet lady, then that love deny</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which all-unworthy at thy feet is laid?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ah, gentlest angel, be not more severe</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Than the dear heavens unto a loving prayer!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Howe’er unworthily that prayer be said,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let thine acceptance be like that on high!</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>There might have been times in Agnes’ life when the reception of +this note would have astonished and perplexed her; but the whole strain +of thought and conversation this evening had been in exalted and poetical +regions, and the soft stillness of the hour, the wonderful calmness and +clearness of the moonlight, all seemed in unison with the strange incident +that had occurred, and with the still stranger tenor of the paper. The +soft melancholy and half-religious tone of it was in accordance with the +whole undercurrent of her life, and prevented that start of alarm which +any homage of a more worldly form might have excited. It is not to be +wondered at, therefore, that she read it many times with pauses and +intervals of deep thought, and then with a movement of natural and +girlish curiosity examined the rich jewel which had enclosed the paper. +At last, seeming to collect her thoughts, she folded the paper and replaced +it in its sparkling recess, and, unlocking the door of the shrine, laid the +gem with its inclosure beneath the lily-spray, as another offering to the +Madonna. “Dear Mother,” she prayed, “if indeed it be so, may he rise +from loving me to loving thee and thy dear Son, who is Lord of all! +Amen!” Thus praying, she locked the door and turned thoughtfully +to her repose, leaving the monk pacing up and down in the moonlit +garden.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the cavalier was standing on the velvet mossy bridge +which spanned the stream at the bottom of the gorge, watching the play +of moonbeams on layer after layer of tremulous silver foliage in the +clefts of the black, rocky walls on either side. The moon rode so high +in the deep violet-coloured sky, that her beams came down almost vertically, +making green and translucent the leaves through which they passed, +and throwing strongly marked shadows here and there on the flower-embroidered +moss of the old bridge. There was that solemn, plaintive +stillness in the air which makes the least sound—the hum of an insect’s +wing, the cracking of a twig, the patter of falling water—distinct and +impressive.</p> + +<p>It needs not to be explained how the cavalier, following the steps of +Agnes and her grandmother at a distance, had threaded the path by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[214]</span> +which they ascended to their little sheltered nook—how he had lingered +within hearing of Agnes’ voice, and moving among the surrounding +rocks and trees, and drawing nearer and nearer as evening shadows drew +on, had listened to the conversation, hoping that some unexpected chance +might gain him a moment’s speech with his enchantress.</p> + +<p>The reader will have gathered from a previous chapter that the conception +which Agnes had formed as to the real position of her admirer +from the reports of Giulietta was false, and that in reality he was not +Lord Adrian, the brother of the king, but an outcast and landless representative +of one branch of an ancient and noble Roman family, whose +estates had been confiscated and whose relations had been murdered, to +satisfy the boundless rapacity of Cæsar Borgia, the infamous favourite of +the notorious Alexander VI.</p> + +<p>The natural temperament of Agostino Sarelli had been rather that of +the poet and artist than of the warrior. In the beautiful gardens of his +ancestral home it had been his delight to muse over the pages of Dante +and Ariosto, to sing to the lute, and to write in the facile flowing rhyme +of his native Italian the fancies of the dream-land of his youth.</p> + +<p>He was the younger brother of the family and the favourite son and +companion of his mother; who, being of a tender and religious nature, +had brought him up in habits of the most implicit reverence and devotion +for the institutions of his forefathers.</p> + +<p>The storm which swept over his house and blasted all his worldly +prospects, blasted, too, and withered all those religious hopes and beliefs +by which alone sensitive and affectionate natures can be healed of the +wounds of adversity without leaving distortion or scar. For his house +had been overthrown, his elder brother cruelly and treacherously murdered, +himself and his retainers robbed and cast out, by a man who had +the entire sanction and support of the head of the Christian Church, the +Vicar of Christ on Earth. So said the current belief of his times—the +faith in which his sainted mother died; and the difficulty with which a +man breaks away from such ties is in exact proportion to the refinement +and elevation of his nature.</p> + +<p>In the mind of our young nobleman there was a double current. He +was a Roman, and the traditions of his house went back to the time of +Mutius Scævola; and his old nurse had told him often that grand story +of how the young hero stood with his right hand in the fire rather than +betray his honour. If the legends of Rome’s ancient heroes cause the +pulses of colder climes and alien races to throb with sympathetic heroism, +what must their power be to one who says, “<i>These were my fathers?</i>” +Agostino read Plutarch, and thought, “<i>I</i>, too, am a Roman!” and then +he looked on the power that held sway over the Tarpeian Rock and the +halls of the old “Sanctus Senatus,” and asked himself, “By what right +does it hold these?” He knew full well that, in the popular belief, all +those hardy and virtuous old Romans, whose deeds of heroism so transported +him, were burning in hell for the crime of having been born<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span> +before Christ; and he asked himself, as he looked on the horrible and +unnatural luxury and vice which defiled the papal chair and ran riot +through every ecclesiastical Order, whether such men, without faith, +without conscience, and without even decency, were indeed the only +authorized successors of Christ and his Apostles?</p> + +<p>To us, of course, from our modern stand-point, the question has an +easy solution; but not so in those days, when the Christianity of the +known world was in the Romish Church, and when the choice seemed to +be between that and infidelity. Not yet had Luther flared aloft the bold, +cheery torch which showed the faithful how to disentangle Christianity +from Ecclesiasticism. Luther in those days was a star lying low in the +gray horizon of a yet unawakened dawn.</p> + +<p>All through Italy at this time there was the restless throbbing and +pulsating, the aimless outreach of the popular heart, which marks the +decline of one cycle of religious faith and calls for some great awakening +and renewal. Savonarola, the priest and prophet of this dumb desire, +was beginning to heave a great heart of conflict towards that mighty +struggle with the vices and immoralities of his times, in which he was yet +to sink a martyr; and even now his course was beginning to be obstructed +by the full energy of the whole aroused serpent brood which hissed and +knotted in the holy places of Rome.</p> + +<p>Here, then, was our Agostino, with a nature intensely fervent and +poetic—every fibre of whose soul and nervous system had been from +childhood skilfully woven and intertwisted with the ritual and faith of his +fathers,—yearning towards the grave of his mother; yearning towards the +legends of saints and angels with which she had lulled his cradle slumbers +and sanctified his childhood’s pillow, and yet burning with the indignation +of a whole line of old Roman ancestors against an injustice and oppression +wrought under the full approbation of the head of that religion. Half +his nature was all the while battling the other half. Would he be Roman, +or would he be Christian? All the Roman in him said, “No!” when +he thought of submission to the patent and open injustice and fiendish +tyranny which had disinherited him, slain his kindred, and held its +impure reign by torture and by blood. He looked on the splendid snow-crowned +mountains whose old silver senate engirdle Rome with an eternal +and silent majesty of presence, and he thought how often in ancient times +they had been a shelter to free blood that would not endure oppression; +and so gathering to his banner the crushed and scattered retainers of his +father’s house, and offering refuge and protection to multitudes of others +whom the crimes and rapacities of the Borgias had stripped of possessions +and means of support, he fled to a fastness in the mountains between +Rome and Naples, and became an independent chieftain, living by his +sword.</p> + +<p>The rapacity, cruelty, and misgovernment of the various regular authorities +of Italy at this time, made brigandage a respectable and honoured +institution in the eyes of the people; though it was ostensibly banned<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span> +both by Pope and Prince. Besides, in the multitude of contending +factions which were every day wrangling for supremacy, it soon became +apparent, even to the ruling authorities, that a band of fighting-men +under a gallant leader, advantageously posted in the mountains and understanding +all their passes, was a power of no small importance to be +employed on one side or the other; therefore it happened, that, though +nominally outlawed or excommunicated, they were secretly protected on +both sides, with a view to securing their assistance in critical turns of +affairs.</p> + +<p>Among the common people of the towns and villages their relations +were of the most comfortable kind, their depredations being chiefly confined +to the rich and prosperous; who, as they wrung their wealth out +of the people, were not considered particular objects of compassion when +the same kind of high-handed treatment was extended towards themselves.</p> + +<p>The most spirited and brave of the young peasantry, if they wished +to secure the smiles of the girls of their neighbourhood and win hearts +past redemption, found no surer avenue to favour than in joining the +brigands. The leaders of these bands sometimes piqued themselves on +elegant tastes and accomplishments; and one of them is said to have sent +to the poet Tasso, in his misfortunes and exile, an offer of honourable +asylum and protection in his mountain-fortress.</p> + +<p>Agostino Sarelli saw himself, in fact, a powerful chief; and there were +times when the splendid scenery of his mountain-fastness, its inspiring +air, its wild eagle-like grandeur, independence, and security, gave him +a proud contentment, and he looked at his sword and loved it as a bride. +But then again there were moods when he felt all that yearning and +disquiet of soul which the man of wide and tender moral organization +must feel who has had his faith shaken in the religion of his fathers. To +such a man the quarrel with his childhood’s faith is a never-ending +anguish; especially is it so with a religion so objective, so pictorial, and +so interwoven with the whole physical and nervous nature of man, as that +which grew up and flowered in modern Italy.</p> + +<p>Agostino was like a man who lives in an eternal struggle of self-justification,—his +reason for ever going over and over with its plea before +his regretful and never-satisfied heart, which was drawn every hour of the +day by some chain of memory towards the faith whose visible administrators +he detested with the whole force of his moral being. When the +vesper-bell, with its plaintive call, sounded amid the purple shadows of the +olive-silvered mountains,—when the distant voices of chanting priest and +choir reached him solemnly from afar,—when he looked into a church with +its cloudy pictures of angels and its window-panes flaming with venerable +forms of saints and martyrs,—he experienced a yearning anguish, a pain +and conflict, which all the effort of his reason could not subdue. How to +be a Christian and yet defy the authorized Head of the Christian Church, +or how to be a Christian and recognize foul men of obscene and rapacious<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span> +deeds as Christ’s representatives, was the inextricable Gordian knot which +his sword could not divide. He dared not approach the sacrament, he +dared not pray; he sometimes felt wild impulses to tread down in riotous +despair every fragment of a religious belief which seemed to live in his +heart only to torture him. He had heard priests scoff over the wafer they +consecrated,—he had known them to mingle poison for rivals in the +sacramental wine,—and yet God had kept silence and not struck them +dead. Like the Psalmist of old he cried, “Verily, I have cleansed my +heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. Is there a God that +judgeth in the earth?”</p> + +<p>The first time he saw Agnes bending like a flower in the slanting evening +sunbeams by the old gate of Sorrento, while he stood looking down +the street lined with kneeling forms, and striving to hold his own soul in +the sarcastic calm of utter indifference, he felt himself struck to the heart +by an influence he could not define. The sight of that young face, with its +clear beautiful lines and its tender fervour, recalled a thousand influences +of the happiest and purest hours of his life, and drew him with an attraction +he vainly strove to hide under an air of mocking gallantry.</p> + +<p>When she looked him in the face with such grave, surprised eyes of +innocent confidence, and promised to pray for him, he felt a remorseful +tenderness, as if he had profaned a shrine. All that was passionate, poetic, +and romantic in his nature was awakened, to blend itself in a strange +mingling of despairing sadness and of tender veneration about this sweet +image of perfect purity and faith. Never does love strike so deep and +immediate a root as in a sorrowful and desolated nature; there it has +nothing to dispute the soil, and soon fills it with its interlacing fibres.</p> + +<p>In this case it was not merely Agnes that he sighed for, but she stood +to him as the fair symbol of that life-peace, that rest of soul, which he had +lost, it seemed to him, for ever.</p> + +<p>“Behold this pure, believing child,” he said to himself,—“a true +member of that blessed Church to which thou art a rebel! How peacefully +this lamb walketh the old ways trodden by saints and martyrs, while +thou art an infidel and unbeliever!” And then a stern voice within him +answered,—“What then? Is the Holy Ghost indeed alone dispensed +through the medium of Alexander and his scarlet crew of cardinals? Hath +the power to bind and to loose in Christ’s Church been indeed given to +whoever can buy it with the wages of robbery and oppression? Why +does every prayer and pious word of the faithful reproach me? Why is +God silent? Or is there any God? Oh, Agnes, Agnes! dear lily, fair +lamb, lead a sinner into the green pastures where thou restest!”</p> + +<p>So wrestled the strong nature, tempest-tossed in its strength,—so slept +the trustful, blessed in its trust,—then in Italy, as now in all lands.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_County_Ball">A County Ball.</h2> + +</div> + +<div> +<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-a.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">Amongst the pleasures +in pursuit of which it is +the custom to undergo an +extraordinary amount of +hardship and suffering, +the County Ball is entitled +to be mentioned, +inasmuch as it happens +often at a time of year +when frost and snow prevail; +and that enthusiasm +will carry carriage-loads +of people a distance of +twelve or even twenty +miles, that they may dance in a crowd, denser even than that of a London +ball, if that is possible, and not go home till morning, when daylight has +probably appeared.</p> + +<p>It generally takes place at the Town Hall, or at the best inn’s best +room, which is decorated with garlands and banners, on which are represented +the arms of the noble and influential families of the neighbourhood; +and there are portraits of aldermen and other distinguished citizens of the +town, illustrious for their civic virtues or for having made their fortunes. +And if you have not provided yourself with a ticket beforehand, you have +the privilege of being able to pay at the door.</p> + +<p>The music, when not supplied by the kind permission of the colonel +of the nearest regiment, is formed of the town band, and is remarkable +chiefly for the fact that, as the evening proceeds, their intonation becomes +more uncertain, but their performance generally more spirited and wilder +in execution. The company is composed partly of visitors and partly of +natives; the visitors being mostly swells from London and other distant +places, and having the conventional manners and customs of such; but +the natives may be distinguished by something more of distinct individual +character, and there is just a tinge of the rural in their aspect.</p> + +<p>The native comes out strong in waistcoats—his array in that respect +being gorgeous. In ordinary “society” the waistcoat may be said to be, +as it were, merged in the man—a uniform sombreness pervading the +entire evening dress. But the country gentleman evidently cherishes +his waistcoat—has his favourite waistcoats, which he brings out on great +occasions; and it is evident that he has expended much thought on the +selection, and that as he expands his chest so as to display as much +as possible of that portion of his person, he is proportionately proud of +the result.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus6" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p>BIRD’S-EYE VIEWS OF SOCIETY. <span class="smcap">No. v.</span><br> + A County Ball.</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span></p> + +<p>The County Ball is a great opportunity for the exhibition of uniforms, +militia, deputy lieutenant, and other fancy dresses; and it is probable +that there are few men with any position at all, who don’t find an excuse +for becoming something or other that entitles them to wear a little gold +embroidery on their coat, or a silver stripe down their trousers. As for +Scotchmen, it is believed that none are to be found, however mild in +appearance or manners, who, if their wardrobes were searched, would not +be found to possess, only waiting an opportunity to be worn, a complete +Highland suit, kilt and etceteras—if, indeed, the word complete can ever +be properly applied to that description of costume.</p> + +<p>When the usual quantity of quadrilles, waltzes, lancers, country +dances, cotillons, reels, and “pop-go-the-weasels,” have been danced +or struggled through, in the nature of things comes supper, and then +you will observe that a comic man, generally recognized as such, and +evidently a great favourite in that part of the country, is called upon to +make a speech—returning thanks for the toast of “The Ladies,” probably; +and he rises to do so with the air of one who feels that he is the right +man, and the confidence following from a conviction that he is in the +right place. He proceeds to deliver a speech, which the county paper +afterwards describes as “replete with wit and humour,” and as received +by the delighted company with “one continued roar of laughter.”</p> + +<p>I began by saying something about hardship and suffering, but those +words are now withdrawn. What does it matter, if people are good-humoured, +and bent upon being amused and amusing others, whether +they are driven to the scene of the festivity one or twenty miles, or +if the state of the weather is many degrees above freezing point? If +the party be a merry one, the longer the journey the better. May +County Balls continue and flourish!</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[220]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="My_Scotch_School">My Scotch School.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>I have read a good deal of late, in this Magazine and elsewhere, about +English public schools, their advantages and disadvantages, their merits +and their shortcomings. Have the public any ears to hear something +about the public schools of Scotland? Professor John Stuart Blackie +has written often and with great force about the Scottish universities, +showing that they exhibit the very defects which “Paterfamilias” has +pointed out as existing in the public schools of England, with some others +to boot. I am not aware that any one has treated in the same way of +the Scottish public schools. I am desirous to supply this defect for two—as +I think—good reasons. First, because I myself received the rudiments +of my education at one of those Scottish schools, and therefore know +something of the subject; and, secondly, because there is a great deal of +misapprehension in England with respect to Scotch schools and Scotch +education generally. The popular idea here seems to be that Scotland, as +regards education, is a sort of Tom Tiddler’s ground, a place where the +people, both high and low, roll and wallow in education—a land where +the rivers run with fertilizing lore; where all the pines are trees of +knowledge; where grammar is raked out of the ditches; and where even +Greek roots are to be had on the barren hill-sides for the trouble of +digging. If this be true, Scotland stands not where it did when I went +to school.</p> + +<p>Let me premise that I am not going to enter into a disquisition on the +subject, to analyze the plan of Scottish education, nor to be didactic in +any way whatever. I am simply about to give a sketch of my Scotch +school—the school I went to to be prepared for the university. There +were penny postage-stamps when I went to my Scotch school; the Reform +Bill had been passed eight years previously; daguerrotypes and the +electric telegraph were coming in. So it was but the other day. My +school was the parochial, or parish school, the school of all Scotch boys +who dwell in the country, whether high or low, gentle or simple. Here +in England the word “parish” is associated with all kinds of indignity—with +the Workhouse, the lock-up, the pound, the pauper’s allowance. It +may, therefore, seem to the English reader, ignorant of Scottish matters, +when I say I went to the parish school, that I wore a muffin cap and +premature knee-breeches (if the English mind can associate Scotland with +these nether integuments in any shape), and was educated at the public +expense. Let me dissipate this popular error.</p> + +<p>The parochial school in Scotland claims equal dignity with the parish +Kirk. It is the chief educational establishment—the public school in +fact—of the district, and is part of the national system for spreading<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span> +education and enlightenment among the people of Scotland. The Kirk +in Scotland, that is to say, the Established Kirk, is supported by a levy +upon the occupiers of the land. The tax, however, is an indirect one, +and therefore does not provoke the discontent caused by tithes and +church-rates in England. The heritors, that is to say the landowners, +pay the amount (on a scale in proportion to the price of grain), and +repay themselves out of the rents of their tenants. This payment is not +set down as a separate item in the rent-charge, and so the tenant pays his +tithes and rates as he pays the tax upon his tea and tobacco. He is bled +without knowing it. The parish school shares in this revenue with the +parish kirk, but to a limited extent. Turning to the statistical account +of my parish—written by the hand which directed the earliest calligraphical +exercises of the one which now pens this—I find that the said +parish is six miles long by five miles broad, and contains—or did contain +then—a population of 1,661 souls. Those English persons who indulge +in extravagant notions of the abundance of educational provision in the +North may be a little surprised to learn that for this widely-scattered +population there were only two schools, each capable of accommodating +no more than sixty or seventy scholars. The endowments of these +educational establishments were by no means magnificent. The allowance +to the master of the parochial school (who was required to be a college +man of considerable classical attainments) was 34<i>l.</i> 4<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> per annum, +with a dwelling-house and garden, and the fees of the scholars.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> The +fees ranged from 10<i>s.</i> to 1<i>l.</i> per annum—ten shillings for reading, writing, +and arithmetic, and an extra ten for the classics. The master of the other +school—an auxiliary seminary established by the General Assembly—received +25<i>l.</i> per annum and a cow’s keep, with the fees, averaging about +ten shillings per annum for each scholar. It was not required that the +master of this establishment should be a high classic, or indeed a classic +at all. The appointment was vested in the minister, who was well +content to select the candidate, whose letter, soliciting the appointment, +exhibited the fewest errors in orthography. Perfection in that branch of +grammar he never looked for and never got; for how could you expect +irreproachable orthography for 25<i>l.</i> a year and a cow’s keep? The +worthy man—the minister—made great exertions to establish and carry +on this school; but it was always a great source of trouble to him. +College men, of course, disdained to accept so trifling a salary; or to +undertake so undignified a duty as the instruction of poor cottars’ children +in the alphabet. The minister was, therefore, obliged to accept the +services of any half-educated aspirant for the honours of a dominie, who +could bring testimony to his respectability, and write a tolerable letter. +Most of the teachers—for there were frequent changes—were Highlanders,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span> +who were more conversant with Gaelic than with English, and who had +learned the latter language as a foreign tongue. They all spoke with a +fearful Highland twang, all were married, all had slatternly wives, and +unreasonably large families. The cow that was kept at the public +expense for the sustenance (lacteally) of the General Assembly’s schoolmaster +had a hard time of it. Provender was scarce, and the demand +for milk excessive; and the schoolmaster’s cow generally died of +exhaustion, after a year or two of self-sacrifice.</p> + +<p>I remember once going with the minister to pay a visit to the +Assembly’s Institute in these parts. When we arrived the academic +grove was deserted, and we were informed that the “squeelmaister and +the loons were oot on the peat moss.” There we found them, the dominie +putting his pupils through a very novel kind of military exercise. He +had collected his army on his own division of the moss, where his peats +lay in stacks, ready to be carted home, when he could afford to pay for +the cartage. We arrived on the scene just as the review began. “Now, +poys,” said the dominie, taking up a peat in each hand, “this is a sword +and this is a cun”—the Highland pronunciation of “gun”—“shoulder +arms, poys.” Here the “poys” took a peat in each hand and shouldered +them. “March, poys,” said the dominie, flourishing his peat sword; and +away marched the boys with their peats, until they reached the school-house, +when the dominie made them defile into a shed and ground arms; +that is to say, lay down their peats in a heap convenient for the domestic +use. This was what the dominie called his gymnastic exercises, which, +he boasted, combined amusement and exercise with instruction; but a +suspicion arising that these gymnastics were nothing more nor less than a +Highland device for carrying home the dominie’s fuel on an economical +principle, an order was issued from head-quarters that such military +instruction should only take place in play-hours, and should not be +included in the regular curriculum of study.</p> + +<p>But I am wandering away from my own school, nestling five miles off +among the trees under the shadow of the old kirk. It is a plain one-storey +building divided into two parts; the one, consisting of three rooms +and a kitchen, forming the home of the schoolmaster, and the other the +schoolroom,—a tolerably large and airy apartment, with roughly plastered +walls, and furnished with deal desks and forms of the universal school +fashion. I do not remember that there were, at any time, more than +sixty scholars. They were gathered together from all parts of the parish. +Some of them came from a distance of four or five miles, and brought +their dinners with them, the provision invariably consisting of a little tin +can of milk and a bag of oat-cakes. It was a rule that each scholar +should contribute a load or two of peats every quarter for the school fire; +but some of them chose to bring a peat with them every morning. These +scholars made their morning’s journey to school rather heavily loaded, +having to carry, besides their satchel, the tin can of milk, the white +calico bag of oat-cake, and the peat. We were of all ages, sexes, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[223]</span> +conditions in this school. There was the son of the laird, the heir to an +ancient baronetcy. He wore corderoys like the rest of us, and had five +rows of broad-headed nails in his shoes. There were several sons of the +minister, all destined for one or other of the learned professions; there +were the sons of gentlemen farmers and the sons of poor cottars, their +dependants; and with these, on terms of the broadest academic equality, +mingled the grandson of the parish sexton and bell-ringer, the son of a +widow occasionally receiving parochial relief, and the sons and daughters +of carpenters, blacksmiths, and farm-servants, including the female +descendant of old Lizzy—pauper and egg vendor—who lit the school fire +and swept the school floor in discharge of young Lizzy’s fees. No distinction +of rank was preserved in any way whatever. The laird’s son and +the grave-digger’s son stood up in the same class side by side, and I +remember that the expectant baronet was often “taken down” by the +heir of the mortuary mattock. In the reading classes the boys and girls +were all mingled together, and I have often seen a big, hulking fellow of +eighteen—some ambitious cottar’s son who had taken to education late—standing +next to a little girl in short petticoats and heel-strapped shoes. +There was little jealousy on the score of religious belief in the parish. +There were several Roman Catholic boys among us, and they joined in +all our exercises, except the reading of the Bible and the saying of the +Shorter Catechism. At these times the Roman Catholic boys sat in their +seats and amused themselves; and not unfrequently, when memory failed +with regard to Justification, Sanctification, and Adoption, we, Protestants, +smarting under the consequences, were tempted to wish from the bottom +of our hearts that we had been brought up Papists.</p> + +<p>There was one feature of our school which appears very startling to +me now, but which was never regarded as extraordinary by any of us +at the time. It was this. Illegitimate mingled with the legitimate +offspring of the same parents. Our parish was rather celebrated for +irregularity in the matter of births, owing entirely to a local proneness to +irregularity in the matter of marriage. This was not confined to the lower +classes. Gentlemen farmers, who moved in the minister’s own circle, +occasionally appeared before the Session to be admonished, and this sometimes +led to the scandalous anomaly of a gentleman farmer dining at the +manse one week and sitting on the stool of repentance the next. As there +was only one school in the neighbourhood, and as it was considered +imperative that every child, no matter what the circumstances of its +birth, or position, should be educated, it constantly happened that there +were several duplicates of families at the parochial school. In several +instances, that I well remember, the illegitimate scion lived in perfect +harmony with the legitimate in the bosom of the same family, and not +unfrequently the illegitimate member was regarded as the flower of the +flock. I can call up before me now two Marys and two Peters. The two +Marys lived under the same roof as sisters, and I never heard a word of +reproach cast at the elder Mary, albeit she was prettiest, cleverest, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[224]</span> +illegitimate. It was different with the two Peters. Peter the First lived +with his mother, Hagar, in the desert, an outcast from the paternal roof. +But on the common ground of the parochial school, he sat on the same +form, stood up in the same class, and shared equally in the Justification +and Adoption of the Shorter Catechism with Peter the true-born. Peter +the Base often enjoyed the satisfaction of giving Peter the True a “good +licking;” but these quarrels never originated in resentment, arising out +of their invidious relationship. So, you see, we were a strange, heterogeneous +assemblage at this Scotch school.</p> + +<p>A stranger aspect still was occasionally presented when two or three +grown men and women took their places among us. I remember Betty, +the laird’s nurse, coming for a quarter to improve her handwriting; and, +nearly at the same time, the grown-up son of a neighbouring farmer, who +had an ambition to become acquainted with mensuration and surveying. +Betty had scarcely got to “round hand,” before the farmer’s son, who +was accustomed to pursue his studies on the opposite side of the desk, +fell in love with her, and the upshot of it was that the farmer’s son and +Betty threw learning to the winds, and went and got married before the +quarter was out. When Betty was squaring her elbows out at the large +text, the laird’s son was wont to take great delight in walking past her and +jogging her arm, in revenge for the ruthless way in which Betty used to +clean out his ears with a piece of rough flannel on washing nights.</p> + +<p>An almost universal circumstance tends to make every Scottish +parochial schoolmaster discontented with his position and impatient of +his duties. The parish-school is the stepping-stone to the kirk, and +each schoolmaster when he is installed at the dominie’s desk, begins +to long for the day when he will “wag his head in the poopit.” The +school-house is the hard shell of the chrysalis; the manse, the flowery +elysium of the full-fledged butterfly. When I went to school, our +schoolmaster was in full cry after a kirk and a cure of souls. He +spent a good deal of his time in reading the newspapers, and, as it +appeared to me, in looking out for the demise of neighbouring ministers. +Every morning after prayers, he read the newspapers for about an +hour, during which time, we, the pupils, sat and learned our lessons, +or more often amused ourselves, as quietly as we could. When any +unusual disturbance took place, the master threw the “tag”—a piece +of a gig trace burnt at the end to make it hard—at the offender. +The pupil hit by it—no matter whether he was the real culprit +or not—was expected to carry the instrument of punishment to the +master and to accept flagellation, commonly on the hands, but not unfrequently +(when the prospect of a kirk looked hazy and dim) upon a part +of the body which required preliminary untrussing of points to be got +at. It fell to the lot of Lizzy, the sweeper’s granddaughter, most +frequently to have to take up the “tag.” Lizzy, it is true, was a very +“limb” in point of trouble; but she had always more than her fair +share of the gig trace. The way in which our schoolmaster lifted his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[225]</span> +hand against the female sex would have wholly disqualified him, in a +nautical drama, from claiming the name of a British tar. The English +reader may think that it equally disqualified him for the position of a +British schoolmaster; but I do not remember that any one was shocked +by these proceedings at the time. If a parent complained, it was not on +the score of the indignity, but because the “tag” left its marks.</p> + +<p>The course of instruction pursued at our school included reading, +writing, arithmetic, geography, and the classics. In the general branches +all sorts, sizes, and sexes, stood up together in the same classes, according +to their relative state of advancement. The Greek and Latin classes only +were select, they being composed of some half-dozen boys of superior +station destined to go to college when they had mastered Latin enough to +enable them to spell through Cæsar and Virgil. With these the master +took considerable pains for his own credit’s sake; for it would have been +an eternal disgrace to him had his pupils been rejected on their first easy +examination at Aberdeen. In the other branches the method pursued +was one entirely of routine. Nothing was explained in a rational or +intelligible way. The only reading books in the school were the Bible +and McCulloch’s first, second, and third <i>Courses of Reading</i>, three progressive +volumes of badly selected extracts from various authors; and +at these we hammered away day after day, and over and over again, +from the moment we entered the school until the moment we left it. +There was not a single History in the school—not even a History of +England in its most modest form of abridgment. As for myself, my early +knowledge of English history was entirely derived from a sheet of coloured +portraits of the English kings pasted up on the wall of my box-bed at +home. My knowledge of the dates of their reigns, and the order of their +succession, is even now vividly associated with that coloured sheet. +Geography was taught from a book. We learned boundaries and the +names of countries by heart, and chattered them like parrots; but of the +characteristics of countries and their inhabitants we learned nothing +beyond that such and such a people “were a hardy race, who devoted +themselves to agriculture,” and the like. Arithmetic was taught in the +same way. When we had, by an entirely mechanical and illogical +process, committed to memory the multiplication table, we were given +over to somebody’s “Arithmetic,” to puzzle over rules and make our +answers to the questions tally, by any means whatever, with those in the +book. I remember, with regard to the rule of three, that we used to try +one position after the other, until we worked out the right answer. The +dominie never condescended to explain the simple logic of the process. +The result is, as regards myself, that I am to this day the greatest dunce +at figures in the world. I believe I have been detected refusing to +purchase oranges at two for three halfpence, but readily agreeing to take +five for sixpence, with the idea that it was a better bargain.</p> + +<p>At the time of which I speak it was a rule of faith with all Scotch +schoolmasters that flagellation was the primary and most important agent<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[226]</span> +in the work of education. “Spare the rod, and you spoil the child,” +should have been written over the door of every parochial school. Every +boy who entered the portals of my Scotch school with a consciousness +of being imperfect in any lesson, left all hope of immunity from the +tag behind him. The slightest mistake in spelling, or in saying the +Shorter Catechism—that hated Shorter Catechism!—was punished by one +or more strokes of the tag on the extended hand. I have seen the order +go down a whole class, “Hold out your hand, sir.” And crack, crack, +crack went the tag on our unflinching palms. We knew if we flinched +we should get a double dose, and perhaps on another and more sensitive +part of our bodies. I think I may safely say that a day never passed +without a flogging. Two or three times a week the “tag” was the occasion +of a regular scene. This was when some spirited or big boy refused +to hold out his hand or untruss. I remember one notable occasion when +the master attempted to inflict the “extreme punishment” on a big +ploughman of eighteen or nineteen. There was a regular fight between +them: and several times master and pupil went down together on the +floor, rolling and struggling with all the desperation of men engaged in a +mortal combat. Both parties called upon the pupils to come to their +assistance; but we, small boys, were too much alarmed to side with +either, albeit our sympathies were decidedly with the ploughman. The +result of this conflict was highly agreeable to us all. The dominie was +laid up for a week with bruised legs, and during that time there was “no +school.” The terror inspired by the tag caused the boys to frequently +play the truant; in the vernacular this was called “fugieing.” Scarcely +a day passed that some boy did not “fugie,” or fly the school. There +was one boy who was particularly distinguished for this art. He +had been punished for it over and over again, and beaten at all +points until he was black and blue, but still he would “fugie.” +He would come away from home in the morning with his satchel and +dinner; but, instead of going to school, would betake himself to the +forest, and spend the day in birds’-nesting, or in devouring “blaeberries.” +When his retreat was discovered, the master started one +morning in pursuit of him, followed by all the scholars in a pack. We +had a regular hunt, and greatly we enjoyed the sport, not caring so much +for the fate of the fugitive, as for the holiday and the exemption for a few +hours from lessons and the tag. Sandy, for that was the fugitive’s name, +was unearthed like a fox, and hunted like one, all through the wood, and +over the burn, and up the hill-side to a clump of tall fir-trees, where, finding +the dominie close upon him, with the tag vengefully waved aloft, +Sandy clambered up the smooth stem of a tall larch-tree, and perched +himself triumphantly among its topmost branches. The dominie, who +was not deficient in pluck when upholding the prerogative of the tag, +immediately made the attempt to follow him; but finding the branches +rather too slight to bear his weight, he was glad to slide down again, after +having successfully climbed the stem. Having in vain commanded<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[227]</span> +Sandy to come down, the dominie held a council of war with himself for +a few minutes, and suddenly resolved upon his strategy. One of the boys +was despatched to a neighbouring farm-house for an axe. When it was +brought, the dominie set to work at the root of the tree, and, when he +had given it two or three strokes, called out once more to Sandy—“Will +you come down, sir?” Sandy looked cautiously over from his nest +among the branches to see what probability there was of the dominie’s +being able to fell the tree, and, apparently, coming to the conclusion that +he couldn’t do it, contemptuously answered—“Na, I winna come doon.” +Once more the dominie laid the axe at the root of Sandy’s citadel, and +though he made little progress in cutting it, the tree shook at every stroke, +until Sandy, becoming rather uncomfortable, consented to come down. He +had no sooner reached the ground, than he was collared and marched off +to the school in triumph, and was duly whipped by extreme process.</p> + +<p>Our parents rarely interfered to protect us from the tag, when it was +administered in moderation; though occasionally some noise was made +when a boy was sent home utterly incapacitated from occupying a sitting +position. The miller’s wife—a strong-minded dame of the “rampaging” +order—so far from being maternally indignant when her son, Johnny, +was sent home in a state of pulp, would occasionally call in to enjoin the +dominie not to spare him. This lady was a chief actor in one of our +most memorable “scenes.” Her son Johnny had “fugied” for several +days running, and had been found out and duly whipped by the maternal +order. Some time after this the good lady found Johnny hiding in the +mill, about the middle of the day, when he ought to have been at school. +I remember well what came of that discovery. Late one afternoon we +were startled from our studies by a noise of wheels, the clattering of +some iron instrument, and the accents of a shrill, angry voice. The +master immediately ran out to see what was the matter, and we, +the pupils, took the opportunity to rush to the windows. It was the +miller’s wife, who had arrived with her son Johnny in a cart, keeping +guard over him with the kitchen tongs. The next minute Johnny was +driven into the schoolroom by his infuriate parent, who banged him +with the tongs as he ran. I shall never forget the scene that ensued. +“Now have your wull o’ him,” said the Spartan parent to the dominie. +The dominie thus licensed, got out the tag; but Johnny no sooner caught +sight of that instrument than he was nerved to the most desperate +resistance. The moment the dominie advanced to seize him Johnny +scrambled over a desk and dodged him; and when the dominie ran +round after him he scrambled back again. The miller’s wife now came +to the dominie’s assistance, and for nearly a quarter of an hour both +together hunted Johnny over the desks and forms, hitting out at him +with the tag and the tongs, while the books, and slates, and milk-cans +were scattered all over the floor like broken armour on a battle-field. It +was not until Johnny was fairly out of breath that he gave in; and then +he lay down on his back on the floor, and turning himself rapidly round as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span> +on a pivot, menaced first the dominie and then his mother with his iron-shod +feet. Johnny managed to resist the extreme penalty designed for +him, but what with the bumps he received in riding over the desks, and +the random blows from the tongs and the tag, he had punishment enough +and to spare. Of course, as we all saw and felt that this constant flagellation +was both cruel and unjust, we were never any better for it, and +bore it or resisted it manfully, as martyrs bear and resist persecution.</p> + +<p>But notwithstanding the loose and desultory, not to say brutal, system +pursued at our school, the pupils of all degrees managed, in some way or +other, to acquire a very respectable quantum of knowledge, or, if not +knowledge itself, the groundwork of knowledge. The boys who learned +Greek and Latin went to college and took their degrees; the farmers’ sons +went home to give a higher intellectual life to the society in which their +families moved; and the humbler class of scholars carried away with +them to the plough’s tail, the carpenter’s bench, and the smithy, just +enough of the rudiments of learning to enable them to cultivate themselves +by after study. This fact may seem a contradiction to the picture +I have given of my Scotch school. In Scotland, however, bad teaching +and a high state of mental cultivation among the masses are quite consistent. +The fact is, the middle and lower classes in Scotland have a +passion for learning. The dearest ambition of the poor cottar is to +educate his children, and, if possible, to give one, at least, such an +amount of schooling as will fit him for a higher station than that occupied +by his parents. A poor hillside crofter will starve himself and his family +for ten years of their life to send one of the boys to college and qualify +him for the kirk. Such boys, however, learn more poring over their +books by the humble fireside at home, or out in the fields in the intervals +of their farm work, than at the school. They learn under every disadvantage, +because they are spurred on by a love of knowledge and a +desire to raise themselves. It is this universal thirst after knowledge and +intellectual cultivation that gives Scotland so decided a pre-eminence as +regards general education. Persons who can neither read nor write are +common enough in England, not alone in the country districts, but also +in the great towns. I doubt if you could find one such in all Scotland. The +classes corresponding to the “hinds” and “navvies” of England, cannot +only read and write, but are capable of enjoying literature in its higher +developments. Our farming-men at home used to spend their evenings, +after their frugal supper of kail brose, in reading the newspapers and +discussing the debates in Parliament. Our herd-boy taught himself the +elements of astronomy out in the fields, while tending the cattle. He +was the first to tell me the names of the planets and point them out to +me. I taught him, in return, a little Latin; and I remember, during my +last year at college, meeting this herd-boy in the quadrangle, arrayed in +the red toga. I have since heard that he carried off the first mathematical +prize.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> In an abstract of a bill for bettering the condition of the schoolmasters of +Scotland, passed at the beginning of the century, it is laid down that “the amount of +salary to each parochial schoolmaster shall not be less than the average annual wages +of a day labourer, nor above that of two day labourers.”</p> + +</div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[229]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="The_Convict_out_in_the_World">The Convict out in the World.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>At stated periods, the governor of a convict prison gives audience to +such inmates of his mansion as may have complaints to make, or petitions +to prefer; and of the demands most commonly heard, from old and +young, one of the commonest is: “Please, sir, may I grow?” It +sounds odd to hear the naïve request put by some square-shouldered +grey-haired fellow; but it is usually found so reasonable that, after +a word or two of inquiry, the governor consents. The man wishes +to let his hair grow within the next three or four months before his +leaving the prison; and it is the first step towards his release, whether it be +on the expiry of his sentence, or on his earning a “conditional pardon.” +Subsequently, the chaplain of the prison sends forth certain formal +questions as to the man’s prospect of obtaining honest employment out +of doors; and about a month before the date of his departure, the chaplain +addresses a letter to any person by whom the prisoner hopes to be +employed, describing the man’s state of health, stating his conduct in +prison, and asking whether his report upon the subject of employment +is true, or whether he has any other means of support. In the majority +of cases, I am told, the replies are “satisfactory;” but, in some instances, +they are otherwise, and, in some, the man can give no reference. Within +my own very limited range of individual observation, I have observed in +England the same circumstance which I have noticed in Ireland—that the +prisoner often has a dread of returning to his friends, not only because +he fears that his character will be known, but because he is too well +aware that those with whom he has been acquainted before he entered +the prison will draw him back into evil courses. At once, then, we +perceive a very unexpected symptom of improvement: the desire of the +prisoner to cut all connection with his family, and to avow that he has no +means, no chance of obtaining help or employment, is one of the most +tangible results of his reformation. In cases where the reply is unsatisfactory, +or the man can give no reference, the governor and chaplain +fill up a form in which they express an opinion whether he is able to +earn his livelihood. From these inquiries and records returns are made +to the Secretary of State, specifying the men who are eligible to be recommended +for release under a conditional pardon. On receiving the order of +the Secretary of State, the licence is printed on a small parchment form, +and on the back of that form is the following schedule of conditions:—</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>“1. The power of revoking or altering the licence of a convict will most certainly +be exercised in case of his misconduct.</p> + +<p>“2. If, therefore, he wishes to retain the privilege which, by his good behaviour +under penal discipline, he has obtained, he must prove, by his subsequent conduct, +that he is really worthy of her Majesty’s clemency.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[230]</span></p> + +<p>“3. To produce a forfeiture of the licence, it is by no means necessary that the +holder should be convicted of any new offence. If he associate with notoriously bad +characters, leads an idle and dissolute life, or has no visible means of obtaining an +honest livelihood, &c., it will be assumed that he is about to relapse into crime, and he +will be at once apprehended, and recommitted to prison under his original sentence.”</p> + +</div> + +<p>Dressed in clothes provided for him by the prison, and suited to his +probable occupation, whether as an artisan or a labourer, his parchment +licence in his pocket, and the first instalment of his gratuity—probably +2<i>l.</i>, more or less—with a soldier’s railway pass for the place of his destination, +the prisoner sets out. In less lucky instances, he simply walks +forth into space “to take his chance”—that is, to beg for employment +from those who are too busy to attend to him, or to supply his necessities +by some more familiar means. Upon the whole, however, we might +classify the prisoners into three classes: those who return to their friends, +those who proceed at once to some familiar place of resort, and those who +seek the “Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society.”</p> + +<p>I have already explained that those persons who were convicted under +the Peel’s Servitude Act of 1853, which accidentally omitted to provide +for the conditional pardon, form a class which has occasioned some +perplexity, but is gradually dying out. The men of this class are +divided into four “stages:” those in the second stage have sixpence a +week towards their gratuity, in the third ninepence, in the fourth one +shilling. Men sentenced under the amended Act of 1857 are divided +into three “stages:” in the second stage they receive fourpence a week, +and in the third eightpence. The larger sums given to the men of the +first class, together with some other indulgences in prison, are allowed as +a compensation for their losing the chance of getting a ticket-of-leave, +either in the colonies or at home. The accumulated gratuity sometimes +rises to a considerable amount. A friend who has studied the subject +minutely has found it to range as high as 27<i>l.</i> or 28<i>l.</i>; usually it +ranges from 8<i>l.</i> to 20<i>l.</i>; and he computes the average to be about 12<i>l.</i> +As you already know, this is not handed to the man in one sum. +Supposing his gratuity to be of the average amount, on leaving the +prison he will receive 2<i>l.</i>, with the deduction of a few pence for postage +which will be incurred on his account after his departure. Ten days +later he will receive 2<i>l.</i> more, at the end of two months 4<i>l.</i>, and at +the end of three months the balance of 4<i>l.</i>; so that he will be five +months and a half before he can draw the whole sum. Thus, if he is +discharged on the 1st of January, he will not have cleared his prison +account until the end of June. He cannot draw any of the instalments +without obtaining the endorsement of a clergyman, magistrate, or some +known persons, to a form which shows that he is living respectably and +supporting himself by honest work. Some time since, I am told by the +same friend, the discharged prisoners were often unable to obtain any +of their gratuity, and in most instances could not arrive at the closing +balance. It too frequently happened that the man would return to his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span> +friends, recover his original character—that is, become a vagabond and a +thief—and so lose the power to procure the valuable endorsement of a +magistrate or clergyman. Another danger attended all convicts, and still, +I fear, attends the most hardened or the most desolate. At every post +where the man was likely to emerge from his seclusion was stationed +an agent appointed by the very worst of all “the dangerous classes”—some +Fagin or Fagin’s man, the caterer for criminal customers. This +functionary is of the same genus with those who tout at the landing-pier +of watering-places, with vocal cards issuing from their mouths in praise +of certain inns. The gentleman sallying forth from one of her Majesty’s +mansions, found himself suddenly courted as a welcome customer, a “distinguished +person,” with every convenience offered to him for spending +the money in his pocket as fast as possible, and perhaps for discounting +the great expectations of the next few months.</p> + +<p>It was a knowledge of these facts which, in 1857, induced Mr. Whitbread, +the Member for Bedford, at present one of the Lords of the +Admiralty, to suggest the establishment of an Association for the express +purpose of holding out a helping hand to the discharged prisoner. He +invited Mr. William Bayne Rankin and other friends to assist him. +Some lent him their names, which were in themselves of great value; +others gave him their money, and some few rendered active co-operation. +Mr. Rankin became the honorary secretary of the Association, and +Mr. F. Partridge its secretary. By degrees the “Discharged Prisoners’ +Aid Society,” which is still an independent charitable body, has become a +sort of volunteer auxiliary to the Convict Department. The Association +prepared forms, which were sent to every convict prison in England; the +nature of the society is explained to each prisoner before his discharge; +and he accepts the help or not entirely according to his own free choice. +In early days, many prisoners hesitated to comply with the first peremptory +condition imposed by the society—that the whole of the gratuity +should be placed in its hands. Judged by graduates in a school not +calculated to afford the happiest study of human motives, the charitable +gentlemen in Westminster were regarded as a great joint-stock crimping +establishment; and the newly released suspected that they were to be as +much victimized as the German “redemptioners” were in America. +By degrees, however, this suspicion wore off; a knowledge of the manner +in which the society worked spread amongst the class on whose behalf +it acted, and the business of the corporation has expanded accordingly. +At first, there would be two or three cases a week; there are now three +or four a day. At first, there was scarcely work enough for one secretary; +now the society employs a secretary, two clerks, and one or two agents, +and finds the machinery altogether insufficient for its exigencies. +During the last year, the moneys passing through the hands of the +society have amounted to an aggregate between 10,000<i>l.</i> and 12,000<i>l.</i>, +composed principally of the prisoners’ own money; for it must be confessed +that no society has ever done so much with such a narrow modicum<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span> +of means. The list of actual subscribers is slender, and we observed +that the heaviest share of the burden falls upon a very few in that short +list. At the same time, gentlemen at a distance do not scruple to claim +the co-operation of the society in helping forward individuals who may +have excited a local or individual interest.</p> + +<p>The prisoner comes to the office of the society, at 39, Charing Cross, +with the papers of his discharge, including one of the forms stating that +he is recommended by the governor of the prison which he has left. This +paper specifies his registered number in the prison, his name and sentence, +his age on conviction, religion and education, date and place of conviction, +nature of crime, previous convictions and nature of crimes, character in +separate confinements, character on public works, trade and degree of +proficiency, capacity for hard labour, the employment desired, the prisoner’s +willingness to emigrate, amount of gratuity due, probable period of discharge, +with any remarks which the governor may think fit to add. The +society disposes of its clients in three ways—first, by obtaining employment +for them; secondly, by enabling them to return to their friends; and +thirdly, by assisting them to emigrate. The first case which came before +the society was in May, 1857; in the interval it has helped more than 1,900 +prisoners. The secretaries believe that, of the total number, not more +than 100 have been re-convicted. There are no positive data to establish +this fact, but there are hopes that hereafter it may be tested by direct +record. With regard to the men who are helped, they may be subdivided +into two classes—those for whom situations are found by the advice +of the society; and those who obtain work themselves, and are helped to +procure tools or materials for work. The women remain at a “Home” +provided for them, and in most cases enter as domestic servants. Where +the society itself recommends its client for employment, and gives him a +character, his antecedents are distinctly mentioned; but where he obtains +work by his own independent search, his circumstances are not disclosed. +I have inspected the books of the society, and have traced a considerable +number of cases, both of men and women. Out of the whole number, I +have before me a list of twenty-five, and I am able to say that they are +not exceptional, but may be paralleled by far more in the books for the +current year. The kinds of employment are as various as that indicated +in the <i>London Directory</i>. The men are engaged as bakers, milkmen, +painters, builders, cabinet-makers, commercial travellers, fishmongers, +engineers, watermen, hawkers, goldsmiths, &c. The cases to which I +refer range over periods of more than a year; some very few are a little less, +some extend to three or four years. A few men have been placed in +independent business. In two instances a business was purchased for a +man, and in both those instances the person assisted is going on well. In all +these cases there is complete information down to the latest date in the +present year. In one instance, a man who appears to have squandered a +part of his gratuity, came to the society at the eleventh hour in want of +five shillings to procure tools. There was something in the earnestness of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[233]</span> +the man which attracted attention; on inquiry, his story proved to be +correct; the tools were furnished him, and he is now employed by a great +building firm. He learned the particular handicraft in which he is engaged, +at Portland. Another instance falls under my personal observation, +and it is interesting for special reasons. It is that of a young man who, +since his discharge, has obtained work under an old employer, to whom he +told all that had happened to him. By his discipline in prison, by acquiring +a consciousness of his powers as a workman, with an insight into +the opening offered through industry and energy, the man had evidently +surmounted the original sense of the degradation. When I met him, +accidentally, I observed no desire to parade himself, nor do I suppose he +would have preferred to see his departure from his late residence announced +in the <i>Court Circular</i>; but he did rather seek my notice, no doubt as that +of a witness to his working skill, his diligence, and his substantial advancement; +and he seemed to feel that the character which he had acquired +at Portland was a substantial testimony to his capacity, industry, and resolution. +The man is a very good specimen of a sharp Englishman. I have +met, of course quite casually, with one or two instances of the same kind.</p> + +<p>Another prisoner, assisted by the society, was discharged more than +three years and a half ago. He found employment for himself; but +after the society had assisted him, he came back to it for a character. +He was warned that, if it were given, his employer must be +told of his antecedents, but he still seemed to think the character necessary. +The person who was about to engage him, a tradesman in a considerable +way of business, called upon the secretary of the society. The +instant he heard that his servant had been a convict, he turned away, +declaring that it was useless to think of engaging him. The secretary +stopped him, and inquired the amount of risk which the employer would +incur; it turned out that the man would probably have 2<i>l.</i> or 3<i>l.</i> in his +hands at a time, and that a guarantee of 5<i>l.</i> would cover the risk. The +secretary undertook to guarantee that amount; and the man has remained +in the same place for considerably more than three years, with such +thorough satisfaction to his employer that that gentleman has spontaneously +released the society from its liability. This case also is peculiarly +interesting, as showing how the employing classes may be made to +learn, by their own inquiry and practical experience, that a fellow-creature +who is once a criminal needs not always be so.</p> + +<p>Special arrangements are made for disposing of the women who +leave the Refuge at Fulham. This place, as well as other portions of our +English system, is pointed out as analogous to the “Intermediate” stage +in Ireland, but the analogy is very faint. I mentioned the half-pint of +beer allowed to the fourth class at Portland, as one amongst other indulgences +to compensate for the loss of transportation for prisoners convicted +between 1853 and 1857. Objections might be made to the dietary at +Fulham, as being on too high a scale; and it is wholly unlike the homely +fare which contents the hard-worked labourer at Lusk, or the penitent<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[234]</span> +at the Golden Bridge in Dublin. The Fulham Refuge is also distinguished +from the Intermediate prisons of Ireland by less liberty of action, +and by containing within itself places of punishment. Still, it is an +improvement on older prisons, and is not without <i>proportionate</i> results. +From the 1st of January to the end of May, 1861, seventy-two women +were discharged from the Fulham Refuge, and were thus distributed:—Sent +to parents, eighteen; sent to husbands, seven; to other relatives, +fifteen; to friends, three; to service, direct from the Refuge, one; to the +Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, with a view to service or emigration, +twenty-six; sent out on their own account, having no home, eight. The +reports of the first four classes are pronounced to be “satisfactory,” with +the exception of two in the first class and one in the second. Of the +first class three had no home, but had children in workhouses, whom +they went to rejoin. Three others have joined friends under anything +but hopeful circumstances. One is at service in the house of a clergyman; +and another, whose husband is a convict in Australia, is understood +to be “going on well.” When any woman is sent out from the Refuge, +steps are taken to ascertain where she will be received, and to secure +her safe arrival, with authenticated reports of the fact. Communication +is always made with the clergyman of the district to which the discharged +prisoner proceeds; and, says Mrs. Harpour, the lady superintendent of +the Refuge at Fulham, in a letter to Sir Joshua Jebb, “much is learned +in this mode of the sad and miserable way in which these poor creatures +have been brought up, and the temptations with which they were surrounded +immediately on their return to their deplorable haunts. It +excites our sympathy, and makes us feel that something must be done +by the public, or all our efforts cannot but be fruitless in many cases. +I can only hope and pray that the publicity which is now being given to +the convict system, will induce the Christian public to lend us a helping +hand. We do not ask for their money, but for their sympathy and a +little of their time.” I have statements of cases in which prisoners who +have left the Refuge have done well; but, in this as in other instances, +I am cautioned against their publication, lest exaggerated inferences should +be drawn from contracted data. And at the Refuge, as throughout the +English establishments, I have failed to obtain anything like the same +full, detailed, and long-continued information about convicts at large, which +I was enabled to obtain by my own personal examination in Ireland.</p> + +<p>One grand resource for the disposal of English convicts, especially +of men whose term of incarceration may be shortened by “ticket-of-leave,” +is transportation. Theoretically, transportation is still continued +to Bermuda, Gibraltar, and Western Australia; but the transport of +convicts to Bermuda has been indefinitely suspended. Of the Australian +arrangements the most recent account is afforded me in an extract from +the unpublished Report to the Directors of Convict Prisons, by the religious +instructor, who sailed in the convict ship <i>Palmerston</i>, and landed +his charges at Fremantle in February.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p class="right">“<i>Millbank Prison, May 27, 1861.</i></p> + +<p>“... I visited the prison on the third or fourth day after the men were landed. +The chaplain and deputy superintendent kindly accompanied me. It resembles +Portland more than any other I know. The cells are small in size, and the interior +arrangements on the same principle as at that prison.</p> + +<p>“There were two large association rooms occupied, I believe, at night by artisans +whom I found employed in the smiths’ forge and carpenters’ shop, which are very +extensive, and where work on a large scale was being carried on under the superintendence +of the Royal Engineer department. Some large rooms on the basement +floor were fitted up as printing-offices, and prisoners were employed here in doing all +the Government printing required for the colony.</p> + +<p>“There were, I believe, about 400 men in the prison at this time, including +about eighty landed from the <i>Palmerston</i>. These last were employed, some few in +the workshops, and the remainder on the roads, working in gangs.</p> + +<p>“The rations were abundant, and of excellent quality; served, precisely as they +are at Millbank, to the men in their cells.</p> + +<p>“On the general parade, I noticed that the reconvicted, or men remitted to the +establishment, and the men sent up for short sentences from the police-office, were +paraded apart, and distinguished from the general prisoners by a different dress.</p> + +<p>“Being desirous of seeing how the remainder of the men who had come out under +our charge in the <i>Palmerston</i> were disposed of, and how the probationary period of +six months (through which all convicts are required to pass before they can receive +the greater degree of freedom of a ticket-of-licence) is passed through, I visited, in +company with Dr. Watson, the surgeon superintendent, four of the out-stations. We +found all these stations occupied by men who also had come out in the <i>Palmerston</i>; +and I was informed that, for some time previous to the arrival of that ship, the road-making +had been much interrupted for want of men.</p> + +<p>“The parties consisted of from 40 to 80 men, lodged in huts. They were in charge +of a warder; and in most places there was one of the Royal Engineers to direct the +works on the roads, and two or three convict constables to preserve order and superintend +the men at work and in their quarters. The men work on the roads from four +to five miles each way, and, whenever I saw them, appeared to be diligently employed.</p> + +<p>“Their sleeping-places were divided by partitions of slanting boards, and they took +their meals in messes of six or eight at separate tables; the rations being supplied +from the chief stations, Perth and Guildford, and the whole from the Commissariat in +the first instance. They are also allowed tobacco.</p> + +<p>“The men at these stations were cheerful and industrious; they made no complaints, +except in reference to the heat of the climate and mosquitoes. Those within reach of +the river were permitted to bathe in it in the morning. The hours of labour were from +six to six—one hour, I believe, for breakfast, and one and a half for dinner were allowed.</p> + +<p>“However desirable it may be to execute works of this nature at a distance from +where a proper degree of control may be kept up, I cannot but say that I felt anxious +for the welfare of the prisoners who, during their detention in these huts, would be +exposed to great temptation and demoralization. In fact, these stations were, in every +respect, inferior to the larger and more regularly-arranged stations which I recollect to +have visited in Tasmania peninsula. It is also obvious that the sooner the men who +go out in a convict-ship can be separated, after they are disembarked, the better for +them in every way.</p> + +<p>“The men at these stations appeared perfectly aware of the uselessness of attempting +escape in a colony which has no known outlet to any other. In point of fact, were +the attempt made, their footsteps in the sand would be unerringly traced by the +extraordinary sagacity of the natives attached to each police-station for the purpose; +they would be captured, or perish for want of water.</p> + +<p>“I shall now endeavour to describe their prospects of employment when liberated +on a ticket-of-leave, from what came under my own observation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span></p> + +<p>“A few men who were sent out in the <i>Palmerston</i>, having completed a large +portion of their sentence at home (two of them with commuted sentence), were +discharged from the establishment in about eight days after their arrival. They were +supplied with a ticket-of-leave dress, a portion of their gratuity, and a pass for twenty-four +hours, to enable them to seek employment. I travelled in the steamboat from +Fremantle to Perth on the day some of them left the prison....</p> + +<p>“The social status of the sober and industrious convict settler is perfectly assured. +In the country districts no difference is made between him and the free settler.</p> + +<p class="right">“I am, gentlemen,” &c. &c.</p> + +</div> + +<p>After reading only this brief, sober, and most authentic report, the +reader will begin to doubt whether transportation can be what it was +once supposed to be—a very terrible penalty, severance of natural ties, +death to family associations, and so forth. It has had its terrors, and at +more than one season, but the season has always been limited. In July, +1827, came into operation an Act extending transportation to various +felonious offences. In the following year there was a great decline in +such offences—the new Act had stricken terror; but in the very next year +the influence of the punishment had declined; by degrees transportation +ceased to be regarded with alarm, and now it is admitted to be a positive +reward. Writing years back, Archbishop Whately shows the dawn of +this feeling. He quotes the words of convicts, crying out with delight at +the accommodation on board ship; thanking God for having been carried +to a country where they were well off; writing home with presents to +masters whom they had robbed, and even offering patronage and assistance +in a country where a man is sure to make his fortune. The keen-sighted +teacher of logic foresaw that such dangerous knowledge must spread in +the mother-country.</p> + +<p>If no longer available as a deterrent, is transportation a purely beneficial +auxiliary? Let us look into <i>that</i> question. During the present +session of Parliament, Mr. Childers, the Member for Pontefract, obtained +a Select Committee “to inquire into the present system of transportation, +its utility, and effect upon colonization, and to report whether any +improvement could be effected therein.” The committee was, upon the +whole, well manned. Mr. Childers himself has a practical knowledge of +the subject, from his connection with Australia; and I believe one purpose +of the inquiry was to show that, in consideration for the Australian +colonies generally, transportation ought to be wholly abandoned, even +to Western Australia. The net result of the report is, that the committee +advises no interference, but delicately suggests that transportation +should continue as it is carried on now, under the actual circumstances +of the day. These circumstances are remarkable. It has been resolved +to suppress the convict prisons in Bermuda and Gibraltar. The gross +number of convicts in England, as well as in Ireland, appears to be +actually diminishing. The free colonies of Australia have passed laws +for preventing the admission of any licence-holder or expiree, under +severe penalties to be inflicted upon any ship-master who shall infringe +the local law. Some convicts have escaped from Western Australia, but<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span> +not in great numbers, and the alarm on the subject appears to have +subsided, though the feeling of repugnance is as strong as ever.</p> + +<p>It comes out in evidence, that the Western Australians can employ +a certain amount of convict labour, but cannot employ much more +than they now have, at the present rate of annual supply. Many +employers prefer convicts, as more tractable than free labourers, and +they are decidedly pleased at the exclusion Acts of the free colonies. +Mr. Burgess and other witnesses declare that crime has not increased +in proportion to the number of convicts, a considerable proportion of the +men having behaved well; but they draw marked distinctions between +a bad order of convicts and a better order, strongly hinting that a careful +selection should be made; and I am disposed to believe that these hints +will not be lost upon the head office in Parliament Street. Several of +the colonists had desired the introduction of convicts, because they looked +forward to the official expenditure on account of the establishment, &c.; +and these speculators have been disappointed. They were particularly +annoyed because provisions for convicts were furnished from other colonies, +whereas they claimed a protective system of trade, as the correlative +of the convict burden. Amongst eastern colonists are many who formerly +approved of transportation, but they found “the character of the convicts +grow worse as the criminal laws of England were ameliorated and softened.” +A very curious lesson is brought out incidentally. “Formerly,” +says Mr. Hewitt, of Tasmania—the last colony in which convictism was +abolished, much to the chagrin of Governor Denison and the authorities +in England—“we got men sent to us for political offences, for poaching, +machine-breaking, and so on; and there was always a very large body +of convicts who prided themselves that they were not thieves and +rogues; but since the alteration of the laws in this country, it seems to +me that every man who comes out has committed some grave offence.”</p> + +<p>On one point all appear to be agreed: that the old assignment system, +and <i>à fortiori</i> any Norfolk Island system, which tends to mass convicts +together in bodies undiluted by the elements of ordinary society, can +never more be tolerated. Those who view the subject with a practical +knowledge, and yet without local predilections, believe that transportation +cannot be continued much longer, even to Western Australia. I am well +aware that the Irish as well as the English authorities desire that that +outlet should be retained, and I see objections to any <i>sudden</i> closing of it; +but that it ought to be abolished within a comparatively few years I am +convinced. I have the very highest authority for the avowal, that the +crime, which irresistibly impelled Sir William Molesworth’s Committee to +pronounce the doom of convictism in Australia generally, cannot be prevented +or effectively controlled in Western Australia, even now. One of +the most experienced officials, Mr. Thomas Frederick Elliot, of the +Colonial Office, was amongst those who stood against the abolition proceedings +of 1837; but “further observation,” he says, “has altered my +opinion.” The convicts who remained in Sydney and New South Wales<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span> +have done harm. Western Australia may profit from the expedient +while the colony is in a languishing state, but it can never be a substitute +for ordinary colonization. The relief is not “beneficial to this country”—“the +numbers sent out are too trifling to be of any account,” either to +the mother country or to the colony. “In every point of view I think that +transportation as a system has come to an end, and that its day is past.”</p> + +<p>Before I proceed to close this series of papers with the conclusions +which have been forced upon me in my survey of the whole, in Ireland +and England, I must refer once more to the case set forth on behalf of the +English system. The fate of my last paper appears to have been curious. +In some quarters it has been regarded as too favourable to the English +system, while the chief conductors of that system think that I have “not +done them justice.” I am told that I have fallen into many errors, and +that the comparison which I have made between England and Ireland +is disparaging to England. In the most explicit terms that could be +employed I have invited correction of errors. I have avowed my readiness +to incorporate in this third paper any emendations with which I can +be supplied; my object being, not to advocate one system or to disparage +another, but simply to lay before your readers, as far as my examination +of the two systems and your space would permit, the facts themselves. +The communications upon the subject have been very numerous and protracted. +Throughout all, I have been met by Sir Joshua Jebb with the +most handsome consideration and a generous frankness. The result, +however, is that I have a lengthened statement, from his pen, going over +the ground from the time when “sound principles were laid down in 1842 +by the then Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, for establishing probationary +periods of discipline at home, in order to the disposal of the +convict by transportation;” and this statement I now take bodily, with +some very slight curtailment.</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>“The difficulties which occurred at that time in Van Diemen’s Land prevented the +development of these principles, and led to a modified arrangement under Earl Grey +and Sir George Grey. Under the system as it was then settled, from 1847 to 1853, a +printed notice was communicated to every convict, telling him that the first period of +probation would be passed in solitary confinement for some time; and employment +on the public works for the second period; the third stage under a ticket-of-leave +in one of the colonies. The incentives to industry and good conduct, during the two +first periods, were very fully explained in this document. They consisted of remissions +of the imprisonment, gratuities, badges marking the progress of each individual, +and other records, by which a man’s fate was placed in his own hands, and was mainly +dependent upon his own exertions.</p> + +<p>“In regard to the third period of probation, however, with a ticket-of-leave, the +following conditions were promulgated:—‘The holder of a ticket-of-leave will be +required to remain within a certain district; he will not be released from the custody +of the Government until engaged to serve an employer for twelve months; he will +then be placed under the supervision of the police, will be required to register his +place of abode, and periodically report himself to the police,’ &c. Pentonville and +Portland afford the fullest means of judging of the system of discipline and the results +of the two periods which were to be enforced in this country. The commissioners +of the former prison, after anxiously watching the moral effects of the great experiment<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[239]</span> +conducted for five years under their superintendence, thus recorded the conclusion +at which they had arrived, in a report dated in 1847:—‘We feel warranted in +expressing our firm conviction, that the moral results of the discipline have been most +encouraging, and attended with a success which, we believe, is without parallel in the +history of penal discipline.’</p> + +<p>“With respect to Portland, Captain Whitty, in his report for 1850, after stating +his conviction that the system of following up a period of separate confinement by associated +labours, was working well, states:—‘The subdued, improved, and disciplined +state in which the convicts generally arrive at Portland from the stage of separate +confinement, appears to be an admirable preparation for their transfer to the greater +degree of freedom unavoidable on public works.’ Captain Knight, who succeeded +Captain Whitty as Governor, remarks in his report for 1851:—‘I have frequently +watched the working parties from positions in which I could not have been seen by +them, and I have seldom seen a greater amount of willingness or industry displayed +by men whose livelihood depended upon their exertions.’ [I myself was a witness of +the same degree of cheerful industry, in 1861.] It appears from the returns, that +400 men are at the present time quarrying and loading from the great ditch of the +fortress about three tons a man, for which a contractor had previously received 1<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i> +a ton. The net saving to the Government, after deducting 4<i>d.</i> for the cost of plant, +would give 3<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> a day as the net earnings of each man in the working parties; +whilst the entire cost, exclusive of buildings, will not exceed 1<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> a head. Were it +not that a proportion of the convicts are detained at school, and employed as cooks, +tailors, &c., the prison would be self-supporting; and had there been opportunity for +the full development of convict labour, at least one-half of the usual cost of such works +would have been saved.</p> + +<p>“Though Portland is only known to the general public as a place where an outbreak +occurred some years ago; and though the discipline has endured the rudest shocks +from the changes consequent on the cessation of transportation,—which not only disappointed +the expectations that had been held out to the men, but entirely shook their +confidence, and was the cause of the outbreak referred to,—the establishment never was +in a much higher state of discipline and efficiency than at the present time. The breakwater +and fortifications, too, are advancing towards completion, and already constitute +a grand and imperishable monument of what can be effected by convict labour.</p> + +<p>“From 1848 to 1853, during which time alone the established system appears to +have been in full operation, everything went on swimmingly. It was ‘all right,’ in +the English prisons of Pentonville and Portland; and we have it on the authority of +Sir W. Denison, the Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, that in 1851 the convicts sent from +public works were generally conducting themselves as honestly and industriously as +unconvicted farm-servants in England. Every interest was then satisfied. The mother-country +annually got rid of some 3,000 of her criminal population, and the colony obtained +the advantage of cheap labour. This was the culminating point of a sound and +carefully devised system of penal and reformatory discipline. [Sir Joshua Jebb states, +in one of his reports, that we never may hope to see the like again. The last ship +sailed in 1852; and though he must have cast a lingering look after it, he appears to +have manfully set to work to repair the breach made in the system of discipline.]</p> + +<p>“An Act was passed in 1853, under the provisions of which a large proportion of +convicts might be sentenced to ‘penal servitude,’ instead of transportation. It will not +escape notice that, during the whole period of a convict’s being employed on public +works, he is placed in a condition intermediate between imprisonment and liberty. +During this portion of the sentence, as I described in a former article, the men work +in association; good order being preserved by the presence of an officer with each +party; and their return from distant works in the open quarries at Portland, or from +dockyards or fortifications at Portsmouth or Chatham, being insured by watchfulness +of guards. With a view to afford greater encouragement, it was considered desirable +to divide this probationary period into four progressive stages, to each of which certain<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span> +ameliorations and privileges were attached. In the last stage, especially, a proportion +of the men are selected for ‘special service,’ in which they pursue their several +avocations, relieved from any direct supervision. At Portland, they may be seen passing +to and fro with tools, attending points on the railways, &c.; at Dartmoor, they +attend cattle on the hills, and perform various farm operations, independent of control. +A large body of these men have also been employed at Woking assisting in the completion +of the new prison, and others are to be sent to Broadmoor.</p> + +<p>“We now come to the consideration of the third period of the system, with a +probation pass or a ticket-of-leave designed for a distant colony, but now forced on our +attention at home. Here the range is limited to the few convicts who since 1852 have +been sent to Western Australia, and the English system in its entirety requires to be +judged by the few openings afforded in that colony. Here we see an intermediate +system, expressly designed to fit the man for colonial life and labour, in full operation, +on a plan suggested by Sir Joshua Jebb in 1849. It is well known to any one who +has experience of convicts, that release from imprisonment will alone afford any sure +test of character; and it is to this test, in the face of all the difficulties which had to +be encountered, that an appeal has necessarily been made. The system of granting +pardons, revocable on certain conditions, popularly known as tickets-of-leave, has been +adopted from the colonial stage, an a precautionary measure; and the benevolent +assistance of the public has been sought in every way that has been possible. On +mature consideration, however, and on very sufficient grounds, it has been deemed +inexpedient to do more, either in giving effect to the principle of the probation gangs, +or the supervision of police. There is scarcely an officer in the convict service who +does not strongly entertain this conviction. [After alluding to the help afforded by +the chaplains and the Prisoners’ Aid Society, the statement proceeds.] Thousands +have been rescued from criminal courses and tided over their greatest difficulties, by +these most wise and economical preventive measures.</p> + +<p>“We now come to the results, which are given in the accompanying comprehensive +tabular returns. [The tables are placed at the end of this article.]</p> + +<p>“If the results be carefully consulted, it must be confessed they have been more +favourable than could have been anticipated; for though twenty, or perhaps even +twenty-five, per cent., may have returned upon the hands of the Government in seven +or eight years, it is a fact that the number sentenced has diminished from 3,311 in +1848, when the great majority were transported to Van Diemen’s Land,<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> to an +average, during the last three years, of 2,226, when the great majority have been +released at home. Many causes must have combined to produce a result so wholly +subversive of all previous calculations;<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> but a sound, deterrent, and, at the same time, +an enlightened and Christian discipline, steadily persevered in under the authority of +every Secretary of State since 1838, may fairly be allowed to claim its share.</p> + +<p>“In an admirable article which appeared in the <i>Times</i> of the 18th of April last, +the writer has ‘hit the right nail on the head.’ After a graphic description of desperate +and highly-skilled ruffians returning to their malpractices, after confinement, with +greater zest than ever, he states—‘These constitute the ugly percentage of convicts +with which nothing can be done, the true blackamoors of the system who can never +be washed white.’ Here it is, and, perhaps, here only we fail.</p> + +<p>“We find the following, in Sir Joshua Jebb’s report for 1849:—‘In connexion with +the subject of modification of the present system, I would submit the expediency of +establishing a more severe system of discipline, and of enforcing a more protracted +term of imprisonment, in the case of all men convicted of heinous offences, especially<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span> +such as were accompanied by violence, and in certain cases. It is impossible to state +the precise operations of such measures, or the extent to which they might be applied; +but if the very worst characters were imprisoned for the whole term of life, or +during their respective sentences, at some penal establishment at home, or in the +colonies, others disposed of by tickets-of-leave in Western Australia, and the residue +released at home with conditional pardons, or encouraged to emigrate, I believe that +no sensible inconvenience could possibly be experienced.’</p> + +<p>“The foregoing is a brief sketch of the English system and its results, deprived as +it is of its mainstay, namely, a satisfactory means of disposing of the convicts who are +subject to the two first probationary stages; and defective, as it is admitted to be, in the +means of dealing with the ‘true blackamoors of the system.’”</p> + +</div> + +<p>This document is, as I have said, the statement of Sir Joshua Jebb, +very slightly curtailed to bring it within your space. I have abridged a +small portion of the retrospect at the commencement, and have shortened +the transitions here and there; and that is all the change. The writer +has not allowed himself to take the broadest view of the subject; which +we shall not quite understand, unless we glance at the chronic controversy +between the two systems of England and Ireland. In 1857, Sir Joshua +Jebb made a report professing to describe the Irish system, and stating +his own opinion upon it. I certainly could not adopt Sir Joshua Jebb’s +description of the arrangements in Ireland; nor can I entirely agree with +what he supposes to be the object of inquiry: namely, to ascertain whether +the probationary prisoners should be withdrawn from the higher stages on +public works, and congregated in the huts of the intermediate stage; +whether discharged prisoners could not be placed under the supervision +of the police, and whether employment could not be found for prisoners +released on licence as in Ireland. Sir Joshua meets these questions in +the negative, and I believe I am correct in stating his conclusions thus:—</p> + +<div class="blockquote"> + +<p>“Firstly. The character of the convicts in this country, and the circumstances, differ +so much from those of Ireland, that any plan for congregating them together under +less control than is at present exercised, would not be calculated to render them more +fit for discharge, or give the officers to whose care they might be consigned better, or +even the same, opportunities of judging their character as those which exist at present.</p> + +<p>“Secondly. That even if such objects could be promoted by removing selected +convicts into separate, small, intermediate establishments, with diminished control and +more voluntary action, the exhibition of convict discipline in such a form would +impair the exemplary character and deterrent effects of a sentence of penal servitude, +which, on all accounts, it is most essential to preserve as the most formidable of our +secondary punishments.</p> + +<p>“Thirdly. That any general superintendence of the police would be impossible in +England, without obstructing the employment of the men.</p> + +<p>“Fourthly. That if such measures could be systematically organized, it would be +very desirable to afford convicts some special information or instruction in connection +with their future prospects during the last few months of their confinement—not in +separate, intermediate establishments disconnected from the prisons, but in the stage +of discipline which precedes discharge.”</p> + +</div> + +<p>I have already said, that controversy in the subjunctive mood is totally +worthless. You can establish no logical conclusion except by a statement +of facts, which, like the figures in an arithmetical sum, render +the ultimate fact, the <i>x</i> to be proven, a matter of moral certainty.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span> +Undoubtedly there are great differences in the character of Englishmen +and of Irishmen, and, therefore, in the character of the convicts of the +two countries; but the points of resemblance between all civilized communities +are more numerous than the points of difference. This is +peculiarly the case with races under the same governments and laws; +and when we select a special class, formed by the aberrant tendencies of +all humanity, we increase the ratio of resemblance. The treatment of +convicts in the two countries might vary; we have no reason to assume +that it should be fundamentally opposed.</p> + +<p>Secondly, there is reason to doubt whether the deterrent element ever +has much force in the operation of penal servitude, of imprisonment, or of +any penalty save those involving acute physical suffering for very short +periods. The deterrent effect is severe in the case of hanging, flogging, +torture, and the like. In the case of correctional discipline, the effect +seems to be produced, far more, by a sort of compulsory teaching. +Through the force of facts, the involuntary student is made to learn +that a dishonest line of conduct cannot be pursued, but must sooner or +later be frustrated; therefore that an honester course of life is unavoidable, +and the attempt to avoid it foolish. At one time transportation, was a +penalty accounted “secondary” to death alone; but I have already shown +you that in 1861 it is accounted an actual boon, an increase to the opportunities +and enjoyments of life. Indeed it is, literally, in this auxiliary +sense that transportation to Western Australia, which still tolerates the +practice, is now recommended. In England, as well as in Ireland, it is +claimed as usefully completing that round of correctional discipline which +ends in reformation—holding out a hope to the reformed convict of employment +in a sphere where he will have the reward of industry without +disgrace. But in Ireland, we see that as the criminal advances through his +course of penal servitude, the whole system is made to have the character of +correction, and to awaken the hope of betterment through honest exertion.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, the statement that the general superintendence of the police +would be impossible in England, without obstructing the employment of +the men or without converting the men into spies and tyrants, is thus far +a pure assumption. Not a shadow of evidence to establish it has been +shown to me. I know that policemen have interfered injuriously, but +they have not yet been instructed in a different line of conduct; and I +also know that there are, amongst the chief officers of the police in the +counties, those who are perfectly competent to study such a subject, and who +are prepared to begin the inquiry in a favourable spirit. But we must +also remember that the police do not represent the only class of public +servants who might be employed to act in this behalf, and report the conduct +of men out on licence.</p> + +<p>The fourth objection applies, in some degree, to the English arrangement, +in which the teaching of trades is by no means systematic; for it +is principally confined to the earlier stages of imprisonment, while the +employment of the vast majority on public works sends them into the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span> +world only as common labourers. In Ireland, the adaptation of the +instruction is much more individualized, and the Intermediate stages turn +out a much greater variety of callings.</p> + +<p>A fifth objection on which the English authorities lay very great stress +is, that if the English convict be suffered to go at large, as he is at Lusk, +he will, perhaps in the very first hour of his freedom, run away to rejoin +his friends; particularly if he be a married man: nothing will restrain +him from decamping to rejoin his wife and family! “The introduction +of the Irish system into this country, the first element being imperfect +liberty granted to a man whose own act could make it absolute in a +moment, and would debar the married man from the society of his wife +and children, would do so much violence to every feeling of his mind, +that we could not be surprised if the slight barrier were instantly broken +which held him from the world. One of our most deserving prisoners, +lately discharged, of whose sincerity I have the highest opinion, told me +some months since that if 10,000<i>l.</i> were offered to him to stay for twelve +months, with nothing if he insisted on going to his wife and children, then +he would prefer the liberty to the money.” So writes the chaplain of +Portland Prison, in an unpublished report forwarded to me, with his usual +kindness and frankness, by Sir Joshua Jebb; who also insists strongly on +the same point.</p> + +<p>Now, at several of the prisons I have been shown convicts who are +employed on “special service,” and whom I have confounded with the +more numerous body of prisoners working at large on Southsea Common. +This mistake is corrected by a friendly note from the Governor of Portsmouth +Prison. “The greater number of the men,” he says, “were +ordinary prisoners—in the ordinary stages, and still under the usual +surveillance.” The man I referred to, who wished to be transferred from +that spot, was not in the special class at all. “Had he been so,” writes +Captain Rose, “the privilege of change of labour would probably have +been accorded to him. He merely asked for a transfer of party—a very +common demand, and rarely founded on any sufficient reason. Another +point in which I wish to correct you, or I should rather say, to make +myself more clear than perhaps I did during our far too hurried interview, +relates to the adoption of an ‘Intermediate stage,’ from which it +might be inferred that I advocated the Irish system in its integrity (the +word being there employed). I was careful to guard myself against this; +and in saying that I would willingly enlarge the special class to one or +two hundred men, for the purpose of employing them on Portsdown Hill, +without prison dress, and merely attended by a few picked officers as +general superintendents (equally undistinguished by any distinctive dress), +I reserved the important question whether they should be there located as +in Ireland, or be still subjected to the ordinary routine of prison discipline +and restraint, going to and returning from their distant labour daily by +special train. The difference would be most important, and, in fact, +constitutes the point mainly at issue between Sir Joshua Jebb and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span> +Captain Crofton. Should you write again, perhaps you will make this +more clear.”<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>From these corrections with which I have been favoured, we gather +two things. First, that the special class are exempted from surveillance: +they are employed in carrying messages, and in other duties which send +them abroad into the world, like the trusted members of the Intermediate +class in Ireland. The application of the principle, indeed, is so fractional, +that all comparisons which I see attempted between it and the Irish Intermediate +system are untenable. But, secondly, the corrections appear to me +to show that in England there is no resistless impulse to break through the +moral restraint, and that in this respect the Englishman is quite as amenable +as the Irishman. I have never been told, with regard either to Portsmouth +or any other English prison, that they limit this privilege to bachelors.</p> + +<p>Another incident appears to me sufficient not only to corroborate my +doubt, but to annihilate the official presumption in England. Recently +there have been those very important extensions of the Convict Prison at +Woking, to which Sir Joshua Jebb alludes in the statement I have +embodied. The work was carried on, in part at least, by convicts from +another prison—from Portland, I believe. The men were not taken from +those on special service; they were not selected even from those accustomed +to labour out of bounds; they were, I have been told, “just the ordinary +prisoners.” I have not visited Woking, but I am also informed that they +were diligent at their work; and that there was no escape, nor any serious +attempt at escape, if any at all. The prisoners were fifty in number; and, +again, I was not told that they were all selected from the unmarried class. +It appears to me, therefore, that this imputed family <i>storge</i> is a myth.</p> + +<p>I have bestowed great attention and pains on the endeavour to find +out if the leading objectors in the English system had actually made themselves +masters of the Irish system in its details, even so far as I have done +myself. I have sometimes feared that I pressed my questions upon them +further than was courteous; though I must confess that I have uniformly +been met with a frankness as candid as it was kind. I have not only found +that the study of the Irish system has been very partial, and that the +judgment against it has been formed on arguments in the subjunctive +mood and the most arbitrary assumptions, but I have also observed that +even with regard to the English system, there is not the same mastery of +the whole process in detail that I noticed in Ireland. For instance, I am +not aware that the leading authorities of the English system have personally +examined the working of the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, +or have in many instances personally traced the behaviour of discharged +convicts out in employment.</p> + +<p>The investigation of the subject, in one respect, is neither easy nor<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[245]</span> +inviting. I have myself observed amongst discharged English prisoners +an unbecoming levity, mingled with a marked ill feeling towards the +prison authorities; and I am not satisfied that all the prisoners who seek +the aid of the society in Charing Cross, are conscious of the obligations +which they owe to it. I felt less pained at the exhibition for the sake +of the society and its officers, than for the sake of the men who thus +betrayed their total unfitness to guide themselves through the world into +which they were again thrown. My hearing is considerably keener than +most men’s, and probably the applicants for succour were not aware +that I could hear every word of the conversation which was going forward +between them in groups; but I did, and the whispered talk related to plans +of amusement, of social meetings, of sports by no means elevating, and of +gambling. I have forborne to ask the secretary whether ingratitude is +the rule, because no such questioning should be instituted without an +authority to compel which should absolve the respondent from responsibility; +but I believe that no investigation could be more interesting than +one into the conduct of prisoners whom the society has relieved, and +particularly into their bearing towards those who have helped them. I +doubt whether the authorities of our convict system have examined into +this part of the matter at all. It is impossible not to make a comparison +between the peculiar bearing of the English prisoners and the entirely +opposite demeanour of the prisoners in Ireland. The manner there is +more free, the men speak with less reserve, and they look less “cowed,” +but they are much graver; and, if they do not deal in professions of gratitude, +they permit you to see that the treatment that they have received +and the opportunities opened to them are taken very much to heart.</p> + +<p>The fact is, that the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society requires to +be placed on a much broader basis. In order that it should act with +thorough efficacy, it ought to be converted into a public department, +with authority to take cognizance of all prisoners leaving prison, to follow +up its information respecting discharged prisoners, and to dispose of them +with a freer choice than it can at present command. As I have before +remarked, there are several public organizations which might supply an +agency, but it is not for me to dictate any particular arrangement. In +my three reports on the convict systems, I have limited myself to a plain +statement of such facts as I was able to verify, and as I could group into +a summary of the general subject. Another change needed to render +the society efficient, and therefore secure of public support and of its +future position, is that the prisoners who seek its aid should be trained to +a greater variety of callings, so that no opportunities may be lost through +the over supply in one particular branch of industry or a want in another +branch. But, thirdly, and most chiefly, the discharged prisoners who +are candidates for the patronage of the society should come to it in a +condition of better moral training. They should have learned, not simply +the outward fashion of their behaviour, but the facts concerning themselves +which would suffice alone to prompt better feelings; and they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[246]</span> +should have been more thoroughly taught, by the mode of discipline, to +appreciate the kindness so spontaneously extended to them.</p> + +<p>The requirements which appear to me necessary for the complete +efficiency of the society, and, therefore, for its stability, imply two radical +changes in its position. The first is a more distinct legislative and +official recognition of it as a constituent part of the English convict +system. For either the society is surplusage, or it is an essential; and if +it is essential, it should be brought into a more universal and co-ordinate +working with the rest of the establishment. The second change is, that +the convicts should pass through something analogous to the Intermediate +stage of the Irish system.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>It seems to me quite time that the rivalry, displayed in the reports on +both sides of the Channel, should be absolutely and finally discontinued. +I must confess that the documents before me go to show that the initiative +of aggression was taken on the English side,—that representations with +regard to the working of the Irish system were put forward with a high +official authority on this side of the Channel, and that they called for +rectification from the other side; but it is idle to enter into any retrospective +award upon the merits of that obsolete controversy. Our +business is to take things as we find them <i>now</i>, and to do the best we can +both for England and for Ireland. I have already said, that the Irish +system appears to me to be the best; and I ascribe its excellence to these +three reasons—that, being the most recent invention, it comprises the chief +advantages of previous systems, with new applications and extensions +of tried principles admirably designed by Captain Crofton; that it is +planned upon a consideration of the objects to be attained, irrespectively +of difficulties or predilections; and that it is carried out by men who are +personally familiar with its details in every part.</p> + +<p>I am not prepared to say that all details of the arrangement in Ireland +are essential to the completeness of an equally good system in England; but +the principles upon which the Irish system relies are applicable over the +whole globe, and they are consequently drawing the attention of the most +intelligent and active criminal reformers in distant countries. I know +that their progress is watched from Heidelberg, which has itself been a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>[247]</span> +great centre of prison improvement, under that able and enthusiastic +lawyer, Professor Mitternaier. Among the reforms which have been +pushed forward by the immortal Cavour, is a system of convict discipline +established at Pianosa, a small island lying south of Elba. +Tuscany has always been celebrated for reforms of the kind; and it is not +losing its reputation in our own day. One of the distinguishing traits in +the Pianosa system is the introduction of the Intermediate stage, which +Cavour had thoroughly studied; and the Superintendent of the Prisons, +M. de Peri, reports with great satisfaction on the working of the new plan. +A little farther east, at Corfu, we see M. Cozziris, the Inspector-general +of the Prisons in the Ionian Islands, diligently following out the same work. +His report for the year, which is now before me, shows a thorough acquaintance +with the Intermediate system, and a proportionate admiration of it.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> +While I was in the United States, I had the opportunity of visiting some +of those prisons which have often been mentioned as examples of modern +improvement, and such unquestionably they were a few years back. It +is no reproach to the intelligence of the American reformers that, in great +part by their help, we have since surpassed them; and it must be allowed +that they might have made more progress than they have, but for that +unlucky working of their government system, which so periodically and +thoroughly removes the higher officers in all departments of the State. +Amongst the leading managers of these prisons, however, I found considerable +interest excited by the reference to the Irish system, and a ready disposition +to enter into its advantages; which have been the subject of a +special explanation in the <i>Philadelphia Journal of Prison Discipline</i> for +January of the present year. In other countries, therefore, even more +remote from Ireland than England, there is no reluctance to study the +newest experiment, and to profit by its instruction.</p> + +<p>I can well understand that there are difficulties in altering the arrangements +of any system; and our arrangements in England have been particularly +designed to suit a past state of circumstances, and to attain particular +objects. The leading objects were—the construction of prisons so designed +as to facilitate the ready inspection of large numbers; the mustering of +very numerous bodies of men upon public works, which was thought to +be an economical and beneficial employment of convict labour; and the +ultimate disposal of the convict by transportation. Transportation has +nearly ceased; we have arrived at the perception that labouring on public +works is not exclusively the best discipline for all criminals; and we have +learned that the best system of our day attains its striking success by +subdividing the prisoners into small bodies and dealing with them in +detail individually. A show of transportation exists to tantalize the +English officials, the system of public works goes on with as much +success as ever, and we have large prisons on our hands; to say nothing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span> +of the fact, that the authors of the living picture are naturally proud of +the high development which has been given to it. To get rid of these +accessories of the system is the greatest difficulty in any change, and I +admit it in its fullest force.</p> + +<p>Other difficulties have been alleged—the greater delicacy of the +Englishman who has been criminal in concealing his shame, and, therefore, +in shrinking from any Intermediate stage; his impatience, under the +enforcement of conditions, to the ticket-of-licence, and the indomitable +impetuosity which will make every married convict break bounds the +instant he is placed in a state of half freedom; the reluctance of English +employers to co-operate, and other special distinctions ascribed to the +English character. But, on closer scrutiny, the force of these difficulties +is refuted by facts which I have stated in the foregoing pages. Indeed, I +have found the raw materials for the Irish system scattered throughout +English prisons, only they are not turned to account, and are not placed +in their natural order. I have expressed my readiness to put forward +any facts to prove that the English system attains results equal to those +which exist in Ireland, but I have been supplied with no such facts. +What we claim in England, by all the rights of urgent necessity, of +national intelligence, and of national resources, is the most perfect system +of convict system that the world can supply,—whether we call that +system “Irish,” or, as I should prefer to call it, British. The one step +needed for the introduction of those tried principles amongst us is, to +institute a thorough inquiry; and, undoubtedly, Parliament is bound to +inquire, and, having inquired, to deal with the ascertained facts. Until that +be done, we English are left with a system not so good as the one we might +have; we are compelled to suffer for more crime than would otherwise +exist in the country; and uneducated misguided multitudes are suffered +to stray into destruction, from which they might otherwise be rescued.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Subjoined are the tables mentioned at <a href="#Page_240">page 240</a>. The following facts +are necessary to complete the information conveyed in the first table:—</p> + +<p class="hanging">No. 1.—9,180 orders of licence have been issued to the directors for the release of +male convicts from the different convict prisons since the commencement of the system +in October, 1853, out of which 834 have had their licences revoked and 1,038 have +been reconvicted to penal servitude or transportation, making a total of 1,872 who +have forfeited their licence; being an average percentage of 20.3, or an average of +2.2 per annum, during the seven and a half years of its operation.</p> + +<p class="hanging">No. 2.—9,180 orders of licence have been issued; out of which number, 1,363, or +14.8 per cent., were returned to convict prisons for larceny and light offences, and 509, +or 5.5 per cent., for offences of a graver character, in seven and a half years; being +1.9 per cent. per annum of light offences, and 0.7 per cent. per annum of more serious +crimes.</p> + +<p class="hanging">No. 3.—3,307 convicts have been transported to Western Australia during the +years 1853 to 1861; out of which, it may be assumed from the reports received, that +from 5 to 8 per cent. only may have relapsed into crime. This, if taken into account, +would reduce the average results of the English system.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>[249]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging">RETURN of the <span class="smcap">Number</span> of MALE CONVICTS released under +<span class="smcap">Orders</span> of <span class="smcap">Licence</span> in each Year, from October 1853, +to April 1861; showing the <span class="smcap">Number</span> returned to the <span class="smcap">Convict +Prisons</span>, either by having had their <span class="smcap">Licences revoked</span> for +trifling Offences, or by being sentenced to <span class="smcap">Penal Servitude</span> or +<span class="smcap">Transportation</span>.</p> + +<table class="borders"> + <tr> + <th rowspan="3">Years.</th> + <th rowspan="3">No. Licensed.</th> + <th colspan="18">Number of <span class="smcap">Male Convicts</span> whose + Licences have been revoked, or who have been reconvicted. </th> + <th rowspan="3" class="bl">Total Rev.</th> + <th rowspan="3">Total Rec.</th> + <th rowspan="3">Grand Total.</th> + <th rowspan="2" colspan="2">Per Centage.</th> + <th rowspan="3" colspan="2" class="bl">Period.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2">1853.</th> + <th colspan="2">1854.</th> + <th colspan="2">1855.</th> + <th colspan="2">1856.</th> + <th colspan="2">1857.</th> + <th colspan="2">1858.</th> + <th colspan="2">1859.</th> + <th colspan="2">1860.</th> + <th colspan="2">1861.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdc nobr">Y.</td> + <td class="tdc">M.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1853<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> +</td> + <td class="tdr">335</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">7</td> + <td class="tdr">10</td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">4</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">15</td> + <td class="tdr">24</td> + <td class="tdr">39</td> + <td class="tdr">4.5</td> + <td class="tdr">7.1</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">7</td> + <td class="tdc">6</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1854</td> + <td class="tdr">1,895</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">14</td> + <td class="tdr">19</td> + <td class="tdr">63</td> + <td class="tdr">53</td> + <td class="tdr">38</td> + <td class="tdr">64</td> + <td class="tdr">19</td> + <td class="tdr">33</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">10</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">143</td> + <td class="tdr">182</td> + <td class="tdr">325</td> + <td class="tdr">7.5</td> + <td class="tdr">9.6</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">7</td> + <td class="tdc">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1855</td> + <td class="tdr">2,528</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">40</td> + <td class="tdr">47</td> + <td class="tdr">126</td> + <td class="tdr">190</td> + <td class="tdr">99</td> + <td class="tdr">64</td> + <td class="tdr">36</td> + <td class="tdr">24</td> + <td class="tdr">12</td> + <td class="tdr">15</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">7</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">314</td> + <td class="tdr">348</td> + <td class="tdr">662</td> + <td class="tdr">12.5</td> + <td class="tdr">13.7</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">6</td> + <td class="tdc">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1856</td> + <td class="tdr">2,007</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">49</td> + <td class="tdr">131</td> + <td class="tdr">122</td> + <td class="tdr">106</td> + <td class="tdr">52</td> + <td class="tdr">52</td> + <td class="tdr">26</td> + <td class="tdr">33</td> + <td class="tdr">8</td> + <td class="tdr">13</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">257</td> + <td class="tdr">337</td> + <td class="tdr">594</td> + <td class="tdr">12.8</td> + <td class="tdr">16.7</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">5</td> + <td class="tdc">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1857</td> + <td class="tdr">674</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">15</td> + <td class="tdr">34</td> + <td class="tdr">31</td> + <td class="tdr">20</td> + <td class="tdr">14</td> + <td class="tdr">22</td> + <td class="tdr">8</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">69</td> + <td class="tdr">82</td> + <td class="tdr">151</td> + <td class="tdr">10.2</td> + <td class="tdr">12.1</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">4</td> + <td class="tdc">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1858</td> + <td class="tdr">318</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">7</td> + <td class="tdr">10</td> + <td class="tdr">12</td> + <td class="tdr">12</td> + <td class="tdr">6</td> + <td class="tdr">4</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">25</td> + <td class="tdr">26</td> + <td class="tdr">51</td> + <td class="tdr">7.8</td> + <td class="tdr">8.1</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">3</td> + <td class="tdc">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1859</td> + <td class="tdr">260</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">4</td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + <td class="tdr">10</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">8</td> + <td class="tdr">15</td> + <td class="tdr">23</td> + <td class="tdr">3.0</td> + <td class="tdr">6.1</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">2</td> + <td class="tdc">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1860</td> + <td class="tdr">818</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">15</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">15</td> + <td class="tdr">17</td> + <td class="tdr">0.2</td> + <td class="tdr">1.8</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">1</td> + <td class="tdc">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1861<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></td> + <td class="tdr"> + 345</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">9</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">9</td> + <td class="tdr">10</td> + <td class="tdr">0.2</td> + <td class="tdr">2.6</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">0</td> + <td class="tdc">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr bt">Totals</td> + <td class="tdr bt">9,180</td> + <td class="tdr bt">1</td> + <td class="tdr bt"></td> + <td class="tdr bt">21</td> + <td class="tdr bt">29</td> + <td class="tdr bt">106</td> + <td class="tdr bt">105</td> + <td class="tdr bt">215</td> + <td class="tdr bt">389</td> + <td class="tdr bt">257</td> + <td class="tdr bt">242</td> + <td class="tdr bt">131</td> + <td class="tdr bt">116</td> + <td class="tdr bt">71</td> + <td class="tdr bt">89</td> + <td class="tdr bt">30</td> + <td class="tdr bt">54</td> + <td class="tdr bt">2</td> + <td class="tdr bt">14</td> + <td class="tdr bt">834</td> + <td class="tdr bt">1,038</td> + <td class="tdr bt">1,872</td> + <td class="tdr bt">9.0</td> + <td class="tdr bt">11.3</td> + <td colspan="2" class="tdc bt"></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The following shows the percentage per annum of Male Convicts returned to Convict Prisons, +either by revocation of licence, or under fresh sentences, to Penal Servitude or Transportation, +during the 7½ years the system has been in operation:—</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <th></th> + <th></th> + <th></th> + <th></th> + <th>Per ct.</th> + <th></th> + <th>Yrs.</th> + <th colspan="2">Per ct.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Of the Number</td> + <td class="tdr">335</td> + <td class="tdr nw">licensed</td> + <td class="nw">from Oct. to 31st Dec. 1853</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">11.6</span></td> + <td class="nw">or in</td> + <td class="tdr">7½</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">1.5</span></td> + <td class="nw">per ann.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">1,895</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">in the year 1854</td> + <td class="tdr">16.11</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">7¼</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">2.2</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">2,528</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span> 1855</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">26.2</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">6¼</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">4.1</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">2,007</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span> 1856</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">29.5</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">5¼</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">5.5</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">674</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span> 1857</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">22.3</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">4¼</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">5.1</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">318</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span> 1858</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">15.9</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">3¼</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">4.5</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">200</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span> 1859</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">9.1</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">2¼</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">4.0</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">818</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span> 1860</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">2.0</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">1¼</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">1.5</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">34</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">to 31st March 1861</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">2.8</span></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">3 mos.</td> + <td class="tdr">0.12</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>As regards the nature of the Crimes for which the 834 Male Convicts had +their licences only revoked, and the 1,038 who have been re-convicted for fresh +offences, the following is an analysis:—</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <th colspan="2">MINOR OFFENCES.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Larceny</td> + <td class="tdr">650</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Offences against vagrant act</td> + <td class="tdr">126</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Assaults on police</td> + <td class="tdr">34</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Desertion</td> + <td class="tdr">18</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Picking pockets</td> + <td class="tdr">27</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wilful damage</td> + <td class="tdr">14</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Assault</td> + <td class="tdr">118</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Offences against game laws</td> + <td class="tdr">21</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Theft, misdemeanour, and other offences</td> + <td class="tdr">355</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">Total</td> + <td class="tdr bt">1,363</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2">OFFENCES OF A GRAVER CHARACTER.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Murder</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Forgery, uttering forged notes or base coin</td> + <td class="tdr">44</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Burglary</td> + <td class="tdr">106</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Robbery</td> + <td class="tdr">41</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Robbery with violence</td> + <td class="tdr">16</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Highway robbery</td> + <td class="tdr">6</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cutting and wounding with intent</td> + <td class="tdr">6</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Felony, housebreaking, sheep-stealing, &c.</td> + <td class="tdr">284</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Arson</td> + <td class="tdr">4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">Total</td> + <td class="tdr bt">509</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">Minor offences</td> + <td class="tdr">1,363</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">Total</td> + <td class="tdr bt">1,872</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>[250]</span></p> + +<p class="hanging">RETURN of the <span class="smcap">Number</span> of FEMALE CONVICTS released under +<span class="smcap">Orders</span> of <span class="smcap">Licence</span> in each Year, from October 1853, +to June 1861; showing the <span class="smcap">Number</span> returned to <span class="smcap">Convict +Prisons</span>, either by having had their <span class="smcap">Licences revoked</span> for +trifling Offences, or by being sentenced to <span class="smcap">Penal Servitude</span> or +<span class="smcap">Transportation</span>.</p> + +<table class="borders"> + <tr> + <th rowspan="3">Years.</th> + <th rowspan="3">No. Licensed.</th> + <th colspan="18">Number of <span class="smcap">Female Convicts</span> whose + Licences have been revoked, or who have been reconvicted. </th> + <th rowspan="3" class="bl">Total Rev.</th> + <th rowspan="3">Total Rec.</th> + <th rowspan="3">Grand Total.</th> + <th rowspan="2" colspan="2">Per Centage.</th> + <th rowspan="3" colspan="2" class="bl">Period.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2">1853.</th> + <th colspan="2">1854.</th> + <th colspan="2">1855.</th> + <th colspan="2">1856.</th> + <th colspan="2">1857.</th> + <th colspan="2">1858.</th> + <th colspan="2">1859.</th> + <th colspan="2">1860.</th> + <th colspan="2">1861.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + <th>Rev.</th> + <th>Rec.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdc nobr">Y.</td> + <td class="tdc">M.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1853<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></td> + <td class="tdr"> + —</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td colspan="2" class="tdc">—</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1854</td> + <td class="tdr">40</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="dp">5.</span></td> + <td class="tdr">1.5</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">7</td> + <td class="tdc">8</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1855</td> + <td class="tdr">115</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">10</td> + <td class="tdr">7</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">18</td> + <td class="tdr">14</td> + <td class="tdr">32</td> + <td class="tdr">14.7</td> + <td class="tdr">12.1</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">6</td> + <td class="tdc">5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1856</td> + <td class="tdr">221</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">10</td> + <td class="tdr">11</td> + <td class="tdr">14</td> + <td class="tdr">8</td> + <td class="tdr">7</td> + <td class="tdr">9</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">33</td> + <td class="tdr">30</td> + <td class="tdr">63</td> + <td class="tdr">14.9</td> + <td class="tdr">13.5</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">5</td> + <td class="tdc">5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1857</td> + <td class="tdr">55</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">7</td> + <td class="tdr">7</td> + <td class="tdr">14</td> + <td class="tdr">12.7</td> + <td class="tdr">12.7</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">4</td> + <td class="tdc">5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1858</td> + <td class="tdr">18</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">11.1</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">3</td> + <td class="tdc">5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1859</td> + <td class="tdr">29</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">3.4</td> + <td class="tdr">3.4</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">2</td> + <td class="tdc">5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1860</td> + <td class="tdr">183</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">4</td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">4</td> + <td class="tdr">8</td> + <td class="tdr">12</td> + <td class="tdr">2.1</td> + <td class="tdr">4.2</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">1</td> + <td class="tdc">5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1861<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></td> + <td class="tdr"> + 103</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr">1.9</td> + <td class="tdc nobr">0</td> + <td class="tdc">5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr bt">Totals</td> + <td class="tdr bt">764</td> + <td class="tdr bt"></td> + <td class="tdr bt"></td> + <td class="tdr bt"></td> + <td class="tdr bt"></td> + <td class="tdr bt">3</td> + <td class="tdr bt">1</td> + <td class="tdr bt">21</td> + <td class="tdr bt">19</td> + <td class="tdr bt">24</td> + <td class="tdr bt">13</td> + <td class="tdr bt">9</td> + <td class="tdr bt">14</td> + <td class="tdr bt">4</td> + <td class="tdr bt">3</td> + <td class="tdr bt">4</td> + <td class="tdr bt">8</td> + <td class="tdr bt"></td> + <td class="tdr bt">7</td> + <td class="tdr bt">65</td> + <td class="tdr bt">65</td> + <td class="tdr bt">130</td> + <td class="tdr bt">8.5</td> + <td class="tdr bt">8.5</td> + <td colspan="2" class="tdc bt"></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The following shows the percentage per annum of Female Convicts returned to Convict +Prisons, either by revocation of licence, or under fresh sentences, to Penal Servitude or Transportation, +during the seven years and eight months the system has been in operation:—</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <th></th> + <th></th> + <th></th> + <th></th> + <th>Per ct.</th> + <th></th> + <th>Yrs.</th> + <th>M.</th> + <th colspan="2">Per ct.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Of the No.</td> + <td class="tdr">40</td> + <td class="tdr nw">licensed</td> + <td class="nw">from Oct. 1853 to 31st Dec. 1854</td> + <td class="tdr">6.5</td> + <td class="nw">or in</td> + <td class="tdr">7</td> + <td class="tdr">8</td> + <td class="tdr">0.8</td> + <td class="nw">per ann.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">115</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">in the year 1855</td> + <td class="tdr">26.8</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">6</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">4.0</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">221</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span>1856</td> + <td class="tdr">28.4</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">5.2</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">55</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span>1857</td> + <td class="tdr">25.4</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">4</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">5.9</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">18</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span>1858</td> + <td class="tdr">11.1</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">3.2</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">29</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span>1859</td> + <td class="tdr">6.8</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">3.3</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">183</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="ditto">”</span>1860</td> + <td class="tdr">6.3</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr">4.4</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">103</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">to 1st June 1861</td> + <td class="tdr">1.9</td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + <td class="tdr">0</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdc">”</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>As regards the nature of the Crimes for which the 65 Female Convicts had +their licences only revoked, and the 65 who have been re-convicted for fresh +offences, the following is an analysis:—</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <th colspan="2">MINOR OFFENCES.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Larceny</td> + <td class="tdr">72</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wilful damage</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Breach of peace</td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Vagrancy</td> + <td class="tdr">5</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Theft</td> + <td class="tdr">26</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Disorderly conduct</td> + <td class="tdr">4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Picking Pockets</td> + <td class="tdr">4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">Total</td> + <td class="tdr bt">116</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2">OFFENCES OF A GRAVER CHARACTER.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Uttering base coin</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Unlawful possession</td> + <td class="tdr">3</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Horse-stealing</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Robbery</td> + <td class="tdr">2</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Receiving stolen goods</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wounding</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Housebreaking</td> + <td class="tdr">4</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">Total</td> + <td class="tdr bt">14</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">Minor offences</td> + <td class="tdr">116</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">Total</td> + <td class="tdr bt">130</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> In the years from 1841 to 1845, the average annual number of convicts sent to +Van Diemen’s Land was 3,527.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> One of the official calculations laid before the Government was, that in the +event of transportation being abolished, it would be necessary to provide accommodation +for 28,000 offenders, in addition to that which then existed.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> There were two other clerical errors in the part of the paper referring to Portsmouth. +The thirty-three convicts were fulfilling sentence not under the new, but +under the old Act; and in lieu of seventy-three under report for misconduct, it should +have been thirteen—an important difference.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> The annual report of the Directors of Convict Prisons for 1860, published +recently, more than confirms the report which I made to you, and which was published +in your April number. The excellent working and progress of the Irish +system continue with increasing force. The Government prisons contain accommodation +for 3,000 convicts; the total number incarcerated in the first year of the new system, +1854, exclusively of the 345 convicts in the county prisons, and several hundreds in +Bermuda or Gibraltar, was 3,933, and it has decreased, by a steady progress, to 1,492. +In 1861 the number convicted has decreased from 710 to 331. This is the more +remarkable, since the deportation of convicts from Ireland ranged from 600 to 1,540 in +the five years preceding 1854. Out of 5,500 convicts discharged in the last seven +years, 1,462 were discharged on licence; 89 licences have been revoked, amounting +to seven per cent. “We do not,” say the Directors, “believe a single case can be +proved of a convict having been reported for infringing the condition of his licence, +and still remaining at large in this country.”</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> Statistica del Penitenziario di Corfu, per gli Anni 1857, 1858, 1859. Compilata +da Giovanni Cozziris, Governatore del Penitenziario di Corfu, ed Inspettore Generale +delle Prigioni dello Stato Ionio.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> From October to December 31st, 1853.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> To 31st March, 1861.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> From October, 1853.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> To June, 1861.</p> + +</div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Roundabout_PapersNo_XV">Roundabout Papers.—No. XV.</h2> + +<h3>OGRES.</h3> + +</div> + +<div> +<img class="dropcap" src="images/dropcap-i.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<p class="dropcap">I daresay the reader has remarked +that the upright and independent +vowel, which stands in the vowel-list +between E and O, has formed +the subject of the main part of +these essays. How does that vowel +feel this morning?—fresh, good-humoured, +and lively? The Roundabout +lines, which fall from this pen, +are correspondingly brisk and cheerful. +Has anything, on the contrary, +disagreed with the vowel? Has its +rest been disturbed, or was yesterday’s +dinner too good, or yesterday’s +wine not good enough? Under such +circumstances, a darkling, misanthropic +tinge, no doubt, is cast upon the +paper. The jokes, if attempted, are +elaborate and dreary. The bitter +temper breaks out. That sneering +manner is adopted, which you know, +and which exhibits itself so especially +when the writer is speaking about +women. A moody carelessness comes +over him. He sees no good in any body or thing; and treats gentlemen, +ladies, history, and things in general, with a like gloomy flippancy. Agreed. +When the vowel in question is in that mood; if you like airy gaiety and +tender gushing benevolence—if you want to be satisfied with yourself and +the rest of your fellow-beings; I recommend you, my dear creature, to go +to some other shop in Cornhill, or turn to some other article. There are +moods in the mind of the vowel of which we are speaking, when it is +ill-conditioned and captious. Who always keeps good health, and good +humour? Do not philosophers grumble? Are not sages sometimes out +of temper? and do not angel-women go off in tantrums? To-day my +mood is dark. I scowl as I dip my pen in the inkstand.</p> + +<p>Here is the day come round—for everything here is done with the +utmost regularity:—intellectual labour, seventeen hours; meals, thirty-two +minutes; exercise, a hundred and forty-eight minutes; conversation<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>[252]</span> +with the family, chiefly literary, and about the housekeeping, one hour +and four minutes; sleep, three hours and fifteen minutes (at the end of the +month, when the Magazine is complete, I own I take eight minutes more); +and the rest for the toilette and the world. Well, I say, the <i>Roundabout +Paper Day</i> being come, and the subject long since settled in my mind, +an excellent subject—a most telling, lively, and popular subject—I go +to breakfast determined to finish that meal in 9¾ minutes, as usual, +and then retire to my desk and work, when—oh, provoking!—here in +the paper is the very subject treated, on which I was going to write! Yesterday +another paper which I saw treated it—and of course, as I need +not tell you, spoiled it. Last Saturday, another paper had an article on +the subject; perhaps you may guess what it was—but I won’t tell you. +Only this is true, my favourite subject, which was about to make the best +paper we have had for a long time; my bird, my game that I was going +to shoot and serve up with such a delicate sauce, has been found by other +sportsmen; and pop, pop, pop, a half-dozen of guns have banged at it, +mangled it, and brought it down.</p> + +<p>“And can’t you take some other text?” say you. All this is mighty +well. But if you have set your heart on a certain dish for dinner, be it +cold boiled veal, or what you will; and they bring you turtle and venison, +don’t you feel disappointed? During your walk you have been making +up your mind that that cold meat, with moderation and a pickle, will be a +very sufficient dinner: you have accustomed your thoughts to it; and +here, in place of it, is a turkey, surrounded by coarse sausages, or a +reeking pigeon-pie, or a fulsome roast-pig. I have known many a good +and kind man made furiously angry by such a <i>contretemps</i>. I have known +him lose his temper, call his wife and servants names, and a whole household +made miserable. If, then, as is notoriously the case, it is too +dangerous to baulk a man about his dinner, how much more about his +article? I came to my meal with an ogre-like appetite and gusto. +Fee, faw, fum! Wife, where is that tender little Princekin? Have you +trussed him, and did you stuff him nicely, and have you taken care to +baste him and do him, not too brown, as I told you? Quick! I am +hungry! I begin to whet my knife, to roll my eyes about, and +roar and clap my huge chest like a gorilla; and then my poor Ogrina +has to tell me that the little princes have all run away, whilst she +was in the kitchen, making the paste to bake them in! I pause in the +description. I won’t condescend to report the bad language, which you +know must ensue, when an ogre, whose mind is ill-regulated, and whose +habits of self-indulgence are notorious, finds himself disappointed of his +greedy hopes. What treatment of his wife, what abuse and brutal +behaviour to his children, who, though ogrillons, are children! My +dears, you may fancy, and need not ask my delicate pen to describe, the +language and behaviour of a vulgar, coarse, greedy, large man with an +immense mouth and teeth, that are too frequently employed in the gobbling +and crunching of raw man’s meat.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span></p> + +<p>And in this circuitous way you see I have reached my present subject, +which is, Ogres. You fancy they are dead or only fictitious characters—mythical +representatives of strength, cruelty, stupidity, and lust for +blood? Though they had seven-leagued boots, you remember all sorts of +little whipping-snapping Tom Thumbs used to elude and outrun them. +They were so stupid that they gave into the most shallow ambuscades +and artifices: witness that well-known ogre who, because Jack cut open +the hasty-pudding, instantly ripped open his own stupid waistcoat and +interior. They were cruel, brutal, disgusting with their sharpened +teeth, immense knives, and roaring voices: but they always ended by +being overcome by little Tom Thumbkins, or some other smart little +champion.</p> + +<p>Yes; that they were conquered in the end, there is no doubt. They +plunged headlong (and uttering the most frightful bad language) into +some pit where Jack came with his smart <i>couteau de chasse</i> and whipped +their brutal heads off. They would be going to devour maidens,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“But ever when it seemed</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Their need was at the sorest,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A knight, in armour bright,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Came riding through the forest.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">And, down after a combat, would go the brutal persecutor with a lance +through his midriff. Yes, I say, this is very true and well. But you +remember that round the ogre’s cave, the ground was covered, for hundreds +and hundreds of yards, <i>with the bones of the victims</i> whom he had lured +into the castle. Many knights and maids came to him and perished +under his knife and teeth. Were dragons the same as ogres? Monsters +dwelling in caverns, whence they rushed, attired in plate armour, +wielding pikes and torches, and destroying stray passengers who passed +by their lair? Monsters, brutes, rapacious tyrants, ruffians, as they +were, doubtless they ended by being overcome. But, before they were +destroyed, they did a deal of mischief. The bones round their caves +were countless. They had sent many brave souls to Hades, before their +own fled, howling, out of their rascal carcasses, to the same place of +gloom.</p> + +<p>There is no greater mistake than to suppose that fairies, champions, +distressed damsels, and by consequence ogres have ceased to exist. It may +not be <i>ogreable</i> to them (pardon the horrible pleasantry, but, as I am +writing in the solitude of my chamber, I am grinding my teeth—yelling, +roaring, and cursing—brandishing my scissors and paper-cutter, +and, as it were, have become an ogre). I say there is no greater +mistake than to suppose that ogres have ceased to exist. We all <i>know</i> +ogres. Their caverns are round us, and about us. There are the castles +of several ogres within a mile of the spot where I write. I think some +of them suspect I am an ogre myself. I am not: but I know they are. +I visit them. I don’t mean to say that they take a cold roast prince out +of the cupboard, and have a cannibal feast before <i>me</i>. But I see the bones<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span> +lying about the roads to their houses, and in the areas and gardens. +Politeness, of course, prevents me from making any remarks; but I know +them well enough. One of the ways to know ’em is to watch the scared +looks of the ogres’ wives and children. They lead an awful life. They +are present at dreadful cruelties. In their excesses those ogres will stab +about, and kill not only strangers who happen to call in and ask a night’s +lodging, but they will outrage, murder, and chop up their own kin. +We all know ogres, I say, and have been in their dens often. It is +not necessary that ogres who ask you to dine should offer their guests the +<i>peculiar dish</i> which they like. They cannot always get a Tom Thumb +family. They eat mutton and beef too; and I daresay even go out to +tea, and invite you to drink it. But I tell you there are numbers of +them going about in the world. And now you have my word for it, +and this little hint, it is quite curious what an interest society may +be made to have for you, by your determining to find out the ogres you +meet there.</p> + +<p>What does the man mean? says Mrs. Downright, to whom a joke is a +very grave thing. I mean, madam, that in the company assembled in +your genteel drawing-room, who bow here and there and smirk in white +neckcloths, you receive men who elbow through life successfully enough, +but who are ogres in private: men wicked, false, rapacious, flattering; +cruel hectors at home; smiling courtiers abroad; causing wives, children, +servants, parents, to tremble before them, and smiling and bowing as +they bid strangers welcome into their castles. I say, there are men who +have crunched the bones of victim after victim; in whose closets lie +skeletons picked frightfully clean. When these ogres come out into the +world, you don’t suppose they show their knives, and their great teeth? +A neat simple white neckcloth, a merry rather obsequious manner, a +cadaverous look, perhaps, now and again, and a rather dreadful grin; but +I know ogres very considerably respected: and when you hint to such +and such a man, “My dear sir, Mr. Sharpus, whom you appear to like, is, +I assure you, a most dreadful cannibal;” the gentleman cries, “Oh, psha, +nonsense! Daresay not so black as he is painted. Daresay not worse +than his neighbours.” We condone everything in this country—private +treason, falsehood, flattery, cruelty at home, roguery, and double dealing—What? +Do you mean to say in your acquaintance you don’t know ogres +guilty of countless crimes of fraud and force, and that knowing them you +don’t shake hands with them; dine with them at your table; and meet +them at their own? Depend upon it, in the time when there were real +live ogres in real caverns or castles, gobbling up real knights and virgins—when +they went into the world—the neighbouring market-town, let us +say, or earl’s castle; though their nature and reputation were pretty well +known, their notorious foibles were never alluded to. You would say, +“What, Blunderbore, my boy! How do you do? How well and fresh +you look! What’s the receipt you have for keeping so young and +rosy?” And your wife would softly ask after Mrs. Blunderbore and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span> +the dear children. Or it would be, “My dear Humguffin! try that +pork. It is home-bred, home-fed, and, I promise you, tender. Tell +me if you think it is as good as yours? John, a glass of Burgundy +to Colonel Humguffin!” You don’t suppose there would be +any unpleasant allusions to disagreeable home-reports regarding Humguffin’s +manner of furnishing his larder? I say we all of us know ogres. +We shake hands and dine with ogres. And if inconvenient moralists tell +us we are cowards for our pains, we turn round with a <i>tu quoque</i>, or say +that we don’t meddle with other folk’s affairs; that people are much less +black than they are painted, and so on. What? Won’t half the county +go to Ogreham Castle? Won’t some of the clergy say grace at dinner? +Won’t the mothers bring their daughters to dance with the young Rawheads? +And if Lady Ogreham happens to die—I won’t say to go the way +of all flesh, that is too revolting—I say if Ogreham is a widower, do you +aver, on your conscience and honour, that mothers will not be found to +offer their young girls to supply the lamented lady’s place? How stale +this misanthropy is! Something must have disagreed with this cynic. +Yes, my good woman. I daresay you would like to call another subject. +Yes, my fine fellow; ogre at home, supple as a dancing-master abroad, +and shaking in thy pumps, and wearing a horrible grin of sham gaiety to +conceal thy terror, lest I should point thee out:—thou art prosperous and +honoured, art thou? I say thou hast been a tyrant and a robber. Thou +hast plundered the poor. Thou hast bullied the weak. Thou hast laid +violent hands on the goods of the innocent and confiding. Thou hast +made a prey of the meek and gentle who asked for thy protection. Thou +hast been hard to thy kinsfolk, and cruel to thy family. Go, monster! +Ah, when shall little Jack come and drill daylight through thy wicked +cannibal carcass? I see the ogre pass on, bowing right and left to the +company; and he gives a dreadful sidelong glance of suspicion as he is +talking to my lord bishop in the corner there.</p> + +<p>Ogres in our days need not be giants at all. In former times, and in +children’s books, where it is necessary to paint your moral in such large +letters that there can be no mistake about it, ogres are made with that +enormous mouth and <i>ratelier</i> which you know of, and with which they +can swallow down a baby, almost without using that great knife which they +always carry. They are too cunning now-a-days. They go about in +society, slim, small, quietly dressed, and showing no especially great +appetite. In my own young days there used to be play ogres—men +who would devour a young fellow in one sitting, and leave him without +a bit of flesh on his bones. They were quiet gentlemanlike-looking +people. They got the young fellow into their cave. Champagne, paté de +foie-gras, and numberless good things were handed about; and then, +having eaten, the young man was devoured in his turn. I believe these +card and dice ogres have died away almost as entirely as the hasty-pudding +giants whom Tom Thumb overcame. Now, there are ogres in +City courts who lure you into their dens. About our Cornish mines I am<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>[256]</span> +told there are many most plausible ogres, who tempt you into their caverns +and pick your bones there. In a certain newspaper there used to be +lately a whole column of advertisements from ogres who would put on +the most plausible, nay, piteous appearance, in order to inveigle their +victims. You would read, “A tradesman, established for seventy years in +the City, and known, and much respected by Messrs. N. M. Rothschild and +Baring Brothers, has pressing need for three pounds until next Saturday. +He can give security for half a million, and forty thousand pounds will +be given for the use of the loan,” and so on; or, “An influential body +of capitalists are about to establish a company, of which the business will +be enormous and the profits proportionately prodigious. They will +require <span class="smcap">a Secretary</span>, of good address and appearance, at a salary of two +thousand per annum. He need not be able to write, but address and +manners are absolutely necessary. As a mark of confidence in the +company, he will have to deposit,” &c.; or, “A young widow (of +pleasing manners and appearance) who has a pressing necessity for four +pounds ten for three weeks, offers her Erard’s grand piano valued at three +hundred guineas; a diamond cross of eight hundred pounds; and board +and lodging in her elegant villa near Banbury Cross, with the best references +and society, in return for the loan.” I suspect these people are +ogres. There are ogres and ogres. Polyphemus was a great, tall, one-eyed, +notorious ogre, fetching his victims out of a hole, and gobbling them one +after another. There could be no mistake about <i>him</i>. But so were the +Syrens ogres—pretty blue-eyed things, peeping at you coaxingly from +out of the water, and singing their melodious wheedles. And the bones +round their caves were more numerous than the ribs, skulls, and thigh-bones +round the cavern of hulking Polypheme.</p> + +<p>To the castle-gates of some of these monsters up rides the dapper +champion of the pen; puffs boldly upon the horn which hangs by the +chain; enters the hall resolutely, and challenges the big tyrant sulking +within. We defy him to combat, the enormous roaring ruffian! We give +him a meeting on the green plain before his castle. Green? No wonder it +should be green: it is manured with human bones. After a few graceful +wheels and curvets, we take our ground. We stoop over our saddle. ’Tis +but to kiss the locket of our lady-love’s hair. And now the vizor is up: +the lance is in rest (Gillott’s iron is the point for me). A touch of the +spur in the gallant sides of Pegasus, and we gallop at the great brute.</p> + +<p>“Cut off his ugly head, Flibbertygibbet, my squire!” And who +are these who pour out of the castle? the imprisoned maidens, the maltreated +widows, the poor old hoary grandfathers, who have been locked up +in the dungeons these scores and scores of years, writhing under the tyranny +of that ruffian! Ah! ye knights of the pen! May honour be your shield +and truth tip your lances! Be gentle to all gentle people. Be modest to +women. Be tender to children. And as for the Ogre Humbug, out sword, +and have at him. +</p> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75623 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75623-h/images/cover.jpg b/75623-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5843f84 --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/dropcap-a.jpg b/75623-h/images/dropcap-a.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ead6452 --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/dropcap-a.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/dropcap-i.jpg b/75623-h/images/dropcap-i.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e548ccf --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/dropcap-i.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/dropcap-n.jpg b/75623-h/images/dropcap-n.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..affdf7e --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/dropcap-n.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/dropcap-o.jpg b/75623-h/images/dropcap-o.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0573d8c --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/dropcap-o.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/dropcap-t.jpg b/75623-h/images/dropcap-t.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cf92af4 --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/dropcap-t.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/illus1.jpg b/75623-h/images/illus1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7af4728 --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/illus1.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/illus2.jpg b/75623-h/images/illus2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7e19d5d --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/illus2.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/illus3.jpg b/75623-h/images/illus3.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..db91b81 --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/illus3.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/illus4.jpg b/75623-h/images/illus4.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8b5631 --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/illus4.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/illus5.jpg b/75623-h/images/illus5.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..29be236 --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/illus5.jpg diff --git a/75623-h/images/illus6.jpg b/75623-h/images/illus6.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e5eb5e --- /dev/null +++ b/75623-h/images/illus6.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3bf68ee --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #75623 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75623) |
