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     “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.




                            HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
                           A WEEKLY JOURNAL.


                     CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.


      N^{o.} 17.]      SATURDAY, JULY 20, 1850.      [PRICE 2_d._




                           THE GHOST OF ART.


I am a bachelor, residing in rather a dreary set of chambers in the
Temple. They are situated in a square court of high houses, which would
be a complete well, but for the want of water and the absence of a
bucket. I live at the top of the house, among the tiles and sparrows.
Like the little man in the nursery-story, I live by myself, and all the
bread and cheese I get—which is not much—I put upon a shelf. I need
scarcely add, perhaps, that I am in love, and that the father of my
charming Julia objects to our union.

I mention these little particulars as I might deliver a letter of
introduction. The reader is now acquainted with me, and perhaps will
condescend to listen to my narrative.

I am naturally of a dreamy turn of mind; and my abundant leisure—for I
am called to the bar—coupled with much lonely listening to the
twittering of sparrows, and the pattering of rain, has encouraged that
disposition. In my “top set,” I hear the wind howl, on a winter night,
when the man on the ground floor believes it is perfectly still weather.
The dim lamps with which our Honourable Society (supposed to be as yet
unconscious of the new discovery called Gas) make the horrors of the
staircase visible, deepen the gloom which generally settles on my soul
when I go home at night.

I am in the Law, but not of it. I can’t exactly make out what it means.
I sit in Westminster Hall sometimes (in character) from ten to four; and
when I go out of Court, I don’t know whether I am standing on my wig or
my boots.

It appears to me (I mention this in confidence) as if there were too
much talk and too much law—as if some grains of truth were started
overboard into a tempestuous sea of chaff.

All this may make me mystical. Still, I am confident that what I am
going to describe myself as having seen and heard, I actually did see
and hear.

It is necessary that I should observe that I have a great delight in
pictures. I am no painter myself, but I have studied pictures and
written about them. I have seen all the most famous pictures in the
world; my education and reading have been sufficiently general to
possess me beforehand with a knowledge of most of the subjects to which
a Painter is likely to have recourse; and, although I might be in some
doubt as to the rightful fashion of the scabbard of King Lear’s sword,
for instance, I think I should know King Lear tolerably well, if I
happened to meet with him.

I go to all the Modern Exhibitions every season, and of course I revere
the Royal Academy. I stand by its forty Academical articles almost as
firmly as I stand by the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England.
I am convinced that in neither case could there be, by any rightful
possibility, one article more or less.

It is now exactly three years—three years ago, this very month—since I
went from Westminster to the Temple, one Thursday afternoon, in a cheap
steam-boat. The sky was black, when I imprudently walked on board. It
began to thunder and lighten immediately afterwards, and the rain poured
down in torrents. The deck seeming to smoke with the wet, I went below;
but so many passengers were there, smoking too, that I came up again,
and buttoning my pea-coat, and standing in the shadow of the paddle-box,
stood as upright as I could, and made the best of it.

It was at this moment that I first beheld the terrible Being, who is the
subject of my present recollections.

Standing against the funnel, apparently with the intention of drying
himself by the heat as fast as he got wet, was a shabby man in
threadbare black, and with his hands in his pockets, who fascinated me
from the memorable instant when I caught his eye.

Where had I caught that eye before? Who was he? Why did I connect him,
all at once, with the Vicar of Wakefield, Alfred the Great, Gil Blas,
Charles the Second, Joseph and his Brethren, the Fairy Queen, Tom Jones,
the Decameron of Boccaccio, Tam O’Shanter, the Marriage of the Doge of
Venice with the Adriatic, and the Great Plague of London? Why, when he
bent one leg, and placed one hand upon the back of the seat near him,
did my mind associate him wildly with the words, “Number one hundred and
forty-two, Portrait of a gentleman?” Could it be that I was going mad?

I looked at him again, and now I could have taken my affidavit that he
belonged to the Vicar of Wakefield’s family. Whether he was the Vicar,
or Moses, or Mr. Burchill, or the Squire, or a conglomeration of all
four, I knew not; but I was impelled to seize him by the throat, and
charge him with being, in some fell way, connected with the Primrose
blood. He looked up at the rain, and then—oh Heaven!—he became Saint
John. He folded his arms, resigning himself to the weather, and I was
frantically inclined to address him as the Spectator, and firmly demand
to know what he had done with Sir Roger de Coverley.

The frightful suspicion that I was becoming deranged, returned upon me
with redoubled force. Meantime, this awful stranger, inexplicably linked
to my distress, stood drying himself at the funnel; and ever, as the
steam rose from his clothes, diffusing a mist around him, I saw through
the ghostly medium all the people I have mentioned, and a score more,
sacred and profane.

I am conscious of a dreadful inclination that stole upon me, as it
thundered and lightened, to grapple with this man, or demon, and plunge
him over the side. But, I constrained myself—I know not how—to speak to
him, and in a pause of the storm, I crossed the deck, and said:

“What are you?”

He replied, hoarsely, “A Model.”

“A what?” said I.

“A Model,” he replied. “I sets to the profession for a bob a-hour.” (All
through this narrative I give his own words, which are indelibly
imprinted on my memory.)

The relief which this disclosure gave me, the exquisite delight of the
restoration of my confidence in my own sanity, I cannot describe. I
should have fallen on his neck, but for the consciousness of being
observed by the man at the wheel.

“You then,” said I, shaking him so warmly by the hand, that I wrung the
rain out of his coat-cuff, “are the gentleman whom I have so frequently
contemplated, in connection with a high-backed chair with a red cushion,
and a table with twisted legs.”

“I am that Model,” he rejoined moodily, “and I wish I was anything
else.”

“Say not so,” I returned. “I have seen you in the society of many
beautiful young women;” as in truth I had, and always (I now remembered)
in the act of making the most of his legs.

“No doubt,” said he. “And you’ve seen me along with warses of flowers,
and any number of table-kivers, and antique cabinets, and warious
gammon.”

“Sir?” said I.

“And warious gammon,” he repeated, in a louder voice. “You might have
seen me in armour, too, if you had looked sharp. Blessed if I ha’n’t
stood in half the suits of armour as ever came out of Pratts’s shop; and
sat, for weeks together, a eating nothing, out of half the gold and
silver dishes as has ever been lent for the purpose out of Storrses, and
Mortimerses, or Garrardses, and Davenportseseses.”

Excited, as it appeared, by a sense of injury, I thought he never would
have found an end for the last word. But, at length it rolled sullenly
away with the thunder.

“Pardon me,” said I, “you are a well-favored, well-made man, and
yet—forgive me—I find, on examining my mind, that I associate you
with—that my recollection indistinctly makes you, in short—excuse me—a
kind of powerful monster.”

“It would be a wonder if it didn’t,” he said. “Do you know what my
points are?”

“No,” said I.

“My throat and my legs,” said he. “When I don’t set for a head, I mostly
sets for a throat and a pair of legs. Now, granted you was a painter,
and was to work at my throat for a week together, I suppose you’d see a
lot of lumps and bumps there, that would never be there at all, if you
looked at me, complete, instead of only my throat. Wouldn’t you?”

“Probably,” said I, surveying him.

“Why, it stands to reason,” said the Model. “Work another week at my
legs, and it’ll be the same thing. You’ll make ’em out as knotty and as
knobby, at last, as if they was the trunks of two old trees. Then, take
and stick my legs and throat on to another man’s body, and you’ll make a
reg’lar monster. And that’s the way the public gets their reg’lar
monsters, every first Monday in May, when the Royal Academy Exhibition
opens.”

“You are a critic,” said I, with an air of deference.

“I’m in an uncommon ill humour, if that’s it,” rejoined the Model, with
great indignation. “As if it warn’t bad enough for a bob a-hour, for a
man to be mixing himself up with that there jolly old furniter that one
‘ud think the public know’d the wery nails in by this time—or to be
putting on greasy old ats and cloaks, and playing tambourines in the Bay
o’ Naples, with Wesuvius a smokin’ according to pattern in the
background, and the wines a bearing wonderful in the middle distance—or
to be unpolitely kicking up his legs among a lot o’ gals, with no reason
whatever in his mind, but to show ’em—as if this warn’t bad enough, I’m
to go and be thrown out of employment too!”

“Surely no!” said I.

“Surely yes,” said the indignant Model. “BUT I’LL GROW ONE.”

The gloomy and threatening manner in which he muttered the last words,
can never be effaced from my remembrance. My blood ran cold.

I asked of myself, what was it that this desperate Being was resolved to
grow? My breast made no response.

I ventured to implore him to explain his meaning. With a scornful laugh,
he uttered this dark prophecy:

“I’LL GROW ONE. AND, MARK MY WORDS, IT SHALL HAUNT YOU!”

We parted in the storm, after I had forced half-a-crown on his
acceptance, with a trembling hand. I conclude that something
supernatural happened to the steam-boat, as it bore his reeking figure
down the river; but it never got into the papers.

Two years elapsed, during which I followed my profession without any
vicissitudes; never holding so much as a motion, of course. At the
expiration of that period, I found myself making my way home to the
Temple, one night, in precisely such another storm of thunder and
lightning as that by which I had been overtaken on board the
steam-boat—except that this storm, bursting over the town at midnight,
was rendered much more awful by the darkness and the hour.

As I turned into my court, I really thought a thunderbolt would fall,
and plough the pavement up. Every brick and stone in the place seemed to
have an echo of its own for the thunder. The water-spouts were
overcharged, and the rain came tearing down from the house-tops as if
they had been mountain-tops.

Mrs. Parkins, my laundress—wife of Parkins the porter, then newly dead
of a dropsy—had particular instructions to place a bedroom candle and a
match under the staircase lamp on my landing, in order that I might
light my candle there, whenever I came home. Mrs. Parkins invariably
disregarding all instructions, they were never there. Thus it happened
that on this occasion I groped my way into my sitting-room to find the
candle, and came out to light it.

What were my emotions when, underneath the staircase lamp, shining with
wet as if he had never been dry since our last meeting, stood the
mysterious Being whom I had encountered on the steam-boat in a
thunderstorm, two years before! His prediction rushed upon my mind, and
I turned faint.

“I said I’d do it,” he observed, in a hollow voice, “and I have done it.
May I come in?”

“Misguided creature, what have you done?” I returned.

“I’ll let you know,” was his reply, “if you’ll let me in.”

Could it be murder that he had done? And had he been so successful that
he wanted to do it again, at my expense?

I hesitated.

“May I come in?” said he.

I inclined my head, with as much presence of mind as I could command,
and he followed me into my chambers. There, I saw that the lower part of
his face was tied up, in what is commonly called a Belcher handkerchief.
He slowly removed this bandage, and exposed to view a long dark beard,
curling over his upper lip, twisting about the corners of his mouth, and
hanging down upon his breast.

“What is this?” I exclaimed involuntarily, “and what have you become?”

“I am the Ghost of Art!” said he.

The effect of these words, slowly uttered in the thunderstorm at
midnight, was appalling in the last degree. More dead than alive, I
surveyed him in silence.

“The German taste came up,” said he, “and threw me out of bread. I am
ready for the taste now.”

He made his beard a little jagged with his hands, folded his arms, and
said,

“Severity!”

I shuddered. It was so severe.

He made his beard flowing on his breast, and, leaning both hands on the
staff of a carpet-broom which Mrs. Parkins had left among my books,
said:

“Benevolence.”

I stood transfixed. The change of sentiment was entirely in the beard.
The man might have left his face alone, or had no face. The beard did
everything.

He laid down, on his back, on my table, and with that action of his head
threw up his beard at the chin.

“That’s death!” said he.

He got off my table and, looking up at the ceiling, cocked his beard a
little awry; at the same time making it stick out before him.

“Adoration, or a vow of vengeance,” he observed.

He turned his profile to me, making his upper lip very bulgy with the
upper part of his beard.

“Romantic character,” said he.

He looked sideways out of his beard, as if it were an ivy-bush.
“Jealousy,” said he. He gave it an ingenious twist in the air, and
informed me that he was carousing. He made it shaggy with his
fingers—and it was Despair; lank—and it was avarice; tossed it all kinds
of ways—and it was rage. The beard did everything.

“I am the Ghost of Art,” said he. “Two bob a day now, and more when its
longer! Hair’s the true expression. There is no other. I SAID I’D GROW
IT, AND I’VE GROWN IT, AND IT SHALL HAUNT YOU!”

He may have tumbled down stairs in the dark, but he never walked down or
ran down. I looked over the bannisters, and I was alone with the
thunder.

Need I add more of my terrific fate? It HAS haunted me ever since. It
glares upon me from the walls of the Royal Academy, (except when MACLISE
subdues it to his genius,) it fills my soul with terror at the British
Institution it lures young artists on to their destruction. Go where I
will, the Ghost of Art, eternally working the passions in hair, and
expressing everything by beard, pursues me. The prediction is
accomplished, and the Victim has no rest.




                          THE WONDERS OF 1851.


A certain Government office having a more than usual need of some new
ideas, and wishing to obtain them from the collective mind of the
country, consulted Mr. Trappem, the official solicitor—a gentleman of
great experience—on the subject. “A new idea,” said he, “is not the only
thing you will want; these new ideas, to be worth anything, must be
reduced to practical demonstration, by models, plans, or experiments.
This will cost much time, labour, and money, and be attended through its
progress with many disappointments. The rule, therefore, is to _throw it
open_ to the public. Let the inventive spirits of the whole public be
set to work; let them make the calculations, designs, models, plans; let
them try all the experiments at their own expense; let them all be
encouraged to proceed by those suggestions which are sure to excite the
greatest hopes and the utmost emulation, without committing the
Honourable Board to anything. When at length two or three succeed, then
the Honourable Board steps in, and taking a bit from one, and a bit from
another, but the whole, or chief part, from no one in a direct way,
rejects them all individually and collectively, and escapes all claims
and contingencies. A few compliments, enough to keep alive hope, and at
the same time keep the best men quiet, should finally be held out, and
the competitors may then be safely left to long delays and the course of
events. That’s the way.”

Too true, Mr. Trappem—that _is_ the way; and many a Government office,
or other imposing array of Committee-men, and Honourable Boards, have
practised this same expedient upon the inventive genius and collective
knowledge and talent of the public. The last instances which deserve to
be recorded, not merely because they are the most recent, but rather on
account of their magnitude and completeness, are the invitations to
competitors for models and plans, issued by the Metropolitan
Commissioners of Sewers,—and by the Commissioners of the Exhibition of
Industry of all Nations.

In order to supersede prevaricating denials and evasions of what we have
to say concerning the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, it may be as
well to premise that they have for some time adopted the cunning “fence”
of a “_Committee_ of Commissioners,” behind which the Commissioners make
a dodge on all difficult, alarming, and responsible occasions. When all
is safe, and clear, and sunshiny, it is the Commissioners who have done
the thing; directly matters look awkward, and a bad business, the
diplomatic bo-peeps leap away from the bursting clouds—and the Committee
of Commissioners have done it all, for which the main body of the Right
Honourable Board is by no means responsible. A similar manœuvre has been
adopted by the Commissioners of the Exhibition of Industry, who have got
two Committees to screen them.

Now, in the name of all worthily striving spirits,—of all those who have
devoted their talents, time, and money to the production of models,
designs, or plans,—of all those who have laboured hard by day or by
night, perhaps amidst other arduous and necessary avocations,—in the
name of all those, who, possessing real knowledge and skill, have
naturally and inevitably been led to indulge in high hopes, if not of
entire success, at least of fair play and of some advantage to
themselves in reward, remuneration for reasonable and necessary expenses
incurred, or, at any rate, in receiving honourable mention,—and,
finally, in the name of common justice, we do most loudly and earnestly
protest against all these and similar appeals to the collective
intellect of the public, unless conducted upon some liberal and definite
method of compensation for all eminently meritorious labours.

That one great prize—either as a substantial tribute, or in the
exclusive adoption of an entire plan—should be awarded to one man, and
that the half-dozen next to him in merit, perhaps equal or superior,
should derive no benefit at all, is manifestly a most clumsy and unjust
arrangement. But when we find great appeals to the public, nobly
answered, and yet _no one_ work selected as the work desired,—no one
rewarded—but every one _used_ and got rid of—then, indeed, we see an
abuse of that kind which ought to be most fully exposed, so that it may
serve as a warning in future “to all whom it may concern.”

It is curious to observe how much more quickly some nations, as well as
individuals, take a hint than others. Among the models and plans sent in
answer to the public invitation of the Commissioners of the Exhibition
of Industry, there are a great many, and of a most excellent kind, from
our sprightly and sanguine friends, the French—while, notwithstanding
the chief originator and patron is from the _Faderland_, not one of
those who are more especially distinguished as entitled to the highest
honours, is from Germany! Out of the eighteen names thus selected, no
less than twelve are Frenchmen; four are English; one Austrian; and a
solitary Dutchman. In all Prussia, there was not found one man to
venture. It would seem as though they were aware of these tricks. But
how is it that so few of our own countrymen are thus distinguished and
complimented? Is it because they are deficient in the requisite talent,
or do they not take sufficient interest in the matter? Surely neither of
these reasons will be satisfactory to account for the fact of our native
architects and designers having been so palpably beaten at this first
trial of skill. We shall probably be told that the best men of France
have entered the lists in this competition; whereas our best men have
stood aloof. Why is this? May it not be that “old birds are not caught
with chaff?” Our best men are generally well employed, and it is not
worth their while to waste their time in competitions which almost
invariably end in so unsatisfactory a manner. The same thing occurred,
and may be answered in the same way, with regard to the hundred and
sixty or seventy Plans sent in for the Drainage of London. Our most
eminent civil engineers stood aloof. A few very able men, it is true,
entered into the contest with enthusiasm, at great expense of time,
labour, and money, (one of them, Mr. J. B. M‘Clean, spent nearly 500_l._
in surveys, &c.) but very few of them will ever do this again. Out of
the two hundred and forty-five competitors who have sent designs and
plans, in reply to the equally vague and formal invitation of the
Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851, not a single name of the
hundred and sixty or seventy engineers, surveyors, architects, builders,
&c., who sent in designs for the Drainage of London, is to be found
either in List A, or List B, of those whom the Commissioners of the
Exhibition have mentioned as entitled to honorary distinction. They
were, no doubt, very thoroughly sickened by the previous affair.

We have said that, at the very least, those who have sent in excellent
designs should receive honourable mention. This is liberally bestowed by
the Commissioners of the Exhibition on eighteen individuals; but that is
not sufficient. Neither is the longer list of names, thus honoured,
perfectly just, inasmuch as it excludes many whose plans display very
great merit. As for the Commissioners of Sewers, the report they issued
concerning the plans sent to them, was meagre and mean to the last
degree. Its timidity at a just and decent compliment, absolutely
amounted to the ludicrous. If they thanked anybody at all, the thanks
seemed warily pushed towards the parties by the Solicitor of the
Commission at the end of a long pole. They had not even a word of
commendation to offer to two or three men who had sent in designs of the
most comprehensive and original character,—designs which were, at least,
as practicable as any of the “tunnel schemes,” or others which they
ventured, in their caustic way, to applaud. We would more especially
mention the plans of Mr. Richard Dover, Mr. John Martin, Mr. John Sutton
(_The Margin Sewer_), Mr. Jasper Rogers, Mr. William H. Smith (_Second
Series_), and the one signed “_Nunc aut Nunquam_,” which latter, for
grandeur of conception, equals the very greatest works of ancient and
modern times. Placed beside such unmannerly treatment as this, and
comparing the two reports, that of the Commissioners of the Exhibition
reads like the production of gentlemen and scholars, beside the
penurious reservations and dryness of the Commissioners of Sewers.

With regard, however, to the great superiority of foreign artists over
our own in the present matter of competition, and our utter defeat in
the first trial of the respective strength of Nations, some very
excellent remarks have been put forth by the “Athenæum.” “Let us see,”
says the writer, “if the men who did come up to this architectural
battle have been fairly dealt with. It is essential to the integrity of
a combat that it should be fought with the weapon prescribed. If one of
two combatants bring a sword double the length of his adversary’s, or a
rifle to his rival’s pistol, we should scarcely hold that the defeat of
the latter is proof that he is inferior in fence or in aim.” This is
closely and fairly put. The answer must be, that our artists have _not_
been fairly beaten. The advertisement of the Committee requested
“information and suggestions” on the general form of the building in
plan, &c., and they laid down rules and regulations to which “they
earnestly requested the contributors to conform,” declaring that they
would not recognise any plans which were “sent in a form inconsistent
with these rules.” They were clearly defined. For instance—they directed
that the communications must consist of a single sheet of paper of given
dimensions; that the drawing should be a simple ground-plan, also of
limited dimensions; and that it should _only_ contain “such elevations
and sections of the building, on the same sheet, as might be necessary
to elucidate the system proposed.” Surely all this is clear enough.

Let us now see how some of the most successful of the competitors have
attended to these conditions on which they were to enter the arena.

What extensive pleasure-grounds are those?—and adorned with such
architectural displays? They are the work of Monsieur Cailloux. But, a
little further on, we behold pleasure-grounds and architectural
structures yet more ornate and refined. They are from the hand of
Monsieur Charpentier. Further on, another, by Monsieur Cleemputte; and
another by Monsieur Gaulle—a complicated work of thoughtful elaboration.
Yet even these are destined to be surpassed by the luxurious fancies of
other artists.

So far from denying or doubting that many of these designs are
beautiful, we close our eyes, and see in imagination the exquisite
magnificence of the structures, into which no coarse and profane hands
should dare to wheel or carry rude raw materials of any kind; there,
everything must be finished to the highest degree of polished art and
refined taste. Also, no lumbering pieces of machinery or mechanism must
risk doing injury to the walls, and pillars, and profusion of glass—no
uncouth agricultural implements, or other tools of horny-handed
Industry. Hither, let no enthusiasts in smoke-jacks, patent capstans,
door-hinges, dock-gates, double-barred gridirons, humane
chimney-sweeping apparatuses, peat-charcoal, bachelor’s broilers,
fire-annihilators, patent filters, portable kitchens, or electric
telegraphs, dare to send their uncouth machinery and compounds; but only
such things as are delicate of texture, rainbow-coloured, and exquisite
to the smell, while the visitors (none of whom will be admitted except
in full dress, and great numbers of whom will always appear in court
dresses) perambulate about, gazing now on this side, and now on that, to
the sound of the seraphine and Moorish flutes.

Let us awake from this charming vision; but it was natural to fall into
it on such suggestions. Again we are in danger. For who can contemplate
the elegant originality of Monsieur Jacquet (No. 25) without emotion, or
a “wish to be there?” His ground-plan resembles a section of some
enormous fan-light of painted glass, or like part of a gigantic Oriental
fan, made of the plumes of some fabulous peacock. Nor must we pass over
the suggestion of our countrymen, Messrs. Felix and White (No. 72),
because they are not equally imaginative, for they certainly manifest
very much and excellent thought in their architectural display; though,
like our foreign friends, no thought at all of the cost of such a work.
The same may be said of the beautiful pleasure-grounds designed by Mr.
Reilly (No. 102), with circular, oval, and serpentine garden-plots,
flower-beds, and shrubberies, and labyrinthine walks or covered ways of
glass.

But there are more—yet more of these delightful and deliberate
violations of the terms on which competitors were to enter the lists—one
vieing with another, not in producing the most excellently useful and
economical structure for the purpose required, but the most perfect
exhibition of the artist’s especial taste, “regardless of expense.” Yes,
there are more of these deserving notice. One competitor—nay, three of
them—propose that the entire building should be made of iron, domes and
towers inclusive; another, that it shall be all made of glass, such as
we might find in an Arabian Nights’ Tale. Monsieur Soyer, the mighty
cook (No. 165), begins the synopsis of his design by proposing to take
up, and remove the great marble arch from Buckingham Palace, as though
it were a “trifle,” and serve it up for a grand entrance opposite the
Prince of Wales’s Gate. Here, also, is a structure which arrests the
attention even amidst the surrounding wonders, and appears to be several
conservatories and libraries on a colossal scale of glass frame-work,
delightfully intermingled with domes and turrets, and observatories,
with here and there minarets and pagodas, of the delicious character
presented by those fragile structures which make such a tempting figure
on the festive board, standing erect among the dessert-plates. Yet, once
more, behold the prodigal laying out of palace-gardens, not to speak of
the ante-industrial palace itself (which reminds one of Thomson’s
“Castle of Indolence”), gardens with alcoves and aviaries, and
fountains, glass temples, green labyrinths, flower-beds and
flower-stands, vases and _jets-d’eaux_, sculpture, shrubberies, shaded
lovers’ walks, public promenades, with lords and ladies and princes and
princesses, of all nations, sauntering about, and the clouds and sky of
an Italian sunset lighting up and colouring the whole. For this, and
similar _chateaux_, we are quite at a loss to conjecture the principle
on which they present themselves on this occasion; but we have no doubt
that they all belong to that munificent patron of art, and great landed
proprietor, the Marquis of Carrabas.

Now, that our own architects are able to compete successfully with the
best of our foreign friends in works of imaginative design, we do not
affirm; neither, for the reasons previously adduced by the “Athenæum,”
do we consider ourselves justified in denying it, from the result of the
present struggle. But for our own artists and others, who have confined
themselves to the terms and preliminaries announced by the
Commissioners, have they succeeded?—that is the question. Not
satisfactorily, we think. Our architects are, for the most part,
impracticable, from the expense required, and the wilful forgetfulness
that the building is to be of a temporary character; while our surveyors
and builders have been thinking too much of railway-stations, not of
that sober, simple, and sufficient kind which the occasion requires, but
(according to the error in these stations) of that large, ornate, and
redundant kind which is meant to be admired as much as used, and also to
last for ages. This latter mistake is very characteristic of our
countrymen. They do not feel, nor comprehend, the act of knocking up a
temporary structure; they are always for something that will endure.

In certain matters requiring great skill and many forethoughts, most of
these plans are not very successful. For instance, the prevention of
terrible confusion and danger in the constant arrivals and departures of
visitors—carriages, vehicles of all sorts, horsemen, and shoals of
pedestrians. This relates to the approaches and entrances outside; and
the position and approaches of the exit-doors inside; also, the best
means of directing and managing the currents of visitors within. It
seems pretty clear that everybody must not be allowed to follow his “own
sweet will” in all respects, or there will be many a deadlock, and
perhaps a deadly struggle, with all the usual disastrous consequences.
Many of the plans seek to direct the current of visitors (indicated by
shoals of little arrows with their heads pointing the same way) not so
much for the convenience and freedom of the public, as in accordance
with the architectural points to be displayed. Others appear to intend
that the direction of the current shall be forced by the pressure from
the column constantly advancing behind. This might be dangerous. The
current might surely be managed so as to combine direction on a large
scale with a considerable amount of individual freedom; and, in any
case, the amount of pressure from the masses behind should be regulated
by sectional barriers.

How to find your way out? This may be a question well worth
consideration. Of course there will be a sufficient number of
exit-doors; but if you have to walk and struggle through several miles
of bazaar-counters or winding ways, amidst dense crowds, before you can
discover a means of egress, your amount of pleasure is not likely to
induce a second visit. Mr. Brandon for instance (No. 207), has beautiful
domed temples and libraries (so they appear) or other “glass cases,”
while the ground-plan presents a series of circuitous batches of stalls,
or bazaar-counters, not unlike large circles of sheep-pens, except that
there is a free passage between them. Hence, the currents, or rather,
the “rapids,” of visitors must inevitably be going and coming, and
jostling, and conflicting; and others arriving at a dead stand, and
having no chance of progression, or retreat, without a “trial of
strength,”—the whole producing of necessity an inextricable maze and
confusion, with an impossibility for a long time of finding a way out,
even when able to move.

This question of the current of visitors, and of movement in general, is
ingeniously settled by one gentleman, who proposes to have a railway
along the grand central line, for the conveyance up and down of all
sorts of goods and articles, heavy or light. We presume that the
progress of the carriages and trucks would be very slow, so that the
visitors, when fatigued, might, at their pleasure, step up to a seat,
and be quietly conveyed along to any part of the line. This notion has,
of course, been laughed at, and we confess to having amused ourselves
considerably with the “train” of thought induced by it; but we are not
sure, in the present state of mechanical science, whether something very
commodious might not result from a modification of the idea. The fares,
if any (and we think there should be a trifle paid to check reckless
crowding), should not exceed a penny. The inventor will thus perceive
that, if we have laughed, we have also sympathised, and are quite ready
to get up and have a ride. One gentleman (Mr. C. H. Smith) proposes to
erect three octagonal vestibules, communicating with all principal
compartments; the roof to be upheld by suspension chains. Cast-iron
frames are to hold rough glass, laid in plates lapping over each other,
like tiles. This is certainly a sensible provision against a hail-storm,
which has occurred to no one else, amidst their prodigalities in glass.

But, amidst all these wonders of 1851, are there no plain, simple,
practical plans sent in? There are a good many. Some of these are
certainly not very attractive, presenting, as they do, the appearance of
a superior kind of barracks, hospitals, alms-houses, nursery-grounds;
and one of these plans is laid out entirely like a series of
cucumber-frames, with shifting lights at top. There are, however,
several of these sober designs which possess great practical merit, and
have preserved a due consideration of the terms on which the competition
was proposed. Of these, the Commissioners and Committees have availed
themselves in all respects suited to their own views and wishes; and out
of all these, combined with their own especial fancies, they seem likely
to produce an interminable range of cast-iron cow-sheds, having (as a
specimen of the present high state of constructive genius) an enormous
slop-basin, of iron frame-work, inverted in the centre, as an attraction
for the admiring eyes of all the nations.

But other problems have to be solved. The classification and arrangement
of the raw materials, the manufactured articles, the machinery, and the
works of plastic art, is a question of very great importance. It not
only involves the things themselves, but their respective countries.
Should the productions of each country be kept separate? This appears
the natural arrangement, or how should any one make a study of the
powers of any special country. Prince Albert, it seems, wishes
otherwise. He thinks that a fusion of the productions of all nations
will be more in accordance with the broad general principle of the
Exhibition—more tending to amalgamate and fraternise one country with
another. This feeling is excellent; but we fear it would cause an utter
confusion, and amidst the heterogeneous masses, nobody would be able to
make a study of the productions of any particular nation. An eminent
civil engineer suggests that the productions of the respective countries
should be ranged together from side to side of the entire width of the
edifice—thus you can at once see the works of industry of England,
France, Germany, America, Switzerland, &c., &c., by walking up and down
from one side to the other; and you can obtain a collective view of the
works of all these countries by walking longitudinally, or from end to
end of the building. To some such classification and arrangement as
this, we think, the Committee will be compelled to have recourse at
last.

The other problem to which we adverted, is one which is not so liable to
be solved as saturated with hot water, and then dragged from one quarter
of the metropolis to another before it is settled by some arbitrary
decision. We allude to the spot on which the buildings of the Exhibition
are to be erected. Hyde Park is not unlikely to be a subject of much
contest. The latent idea of preserving the most important part of the
“temporary” structure has alarmed all the drivers and riders in Hyde
Park, and all those whose windows overlook it. And no wonder;—to say
nothing of the crowds and stoppages outside the park, and the slough
within, produced by the enormous traffic of heavy wheels, long before
the Exhibition opens. Battersea Fields was next mentioned, and thought
advantageous, not only from the open space they present, but the
facilities of water-conveyance for goods and passengers. Still, the
distance is rather against such a choice. It would probably reduce the
number of times each visitor would go to the Exhibition, and,
consequently, be a check upon the money taken at the doors. Hundreds of
thousands flock daily to Greenwich during the Fair; but the argument
will not hold good, in all respects, as regards the present question.
Regent’s Park has been named as more appropriate; but there is a strong
and manifest objection to any interference with that much-used place of
public recreation. To cut up its green turf, and gravelled roads, would
be even more monstrous than any spoliation of Hyde Park. No locality
could be selected, perhaps, for such a purpose that would be perfectly
free from all objections. Still we are so convinced of the multitude of
inconveniences inevitably attendant on such an Exhibition in the midst
of the metropolis—and we feel so strongly the cool, high-handed
injustice of parcelling out the public property at Court, and stopping
up the public breathing-places, for any purpose—that we urge its removal
to some spot out of the town, easily accessible both by railway and
river.




                  “I WOULD NOT HAVE THEE YOUNG AGAIN.”


                 I would not have thee young again
                   Since I myself am old;
                 Not that thy youth was ever vain,
                   Or that my age is cold;
                 But when upon thy gentle face
                   I see the shades of time,
                 A thousand memories replace
                   The beauties of thy prime.

                 Though from thine eyes of softest blue
                   Some light hath passed away,
                 Love looketh forth as warm and true
                   As on our bridal day.
                 I hear thy song, and though in part
                   ’Tis fainter in its tone,
                 I heed it not, for still thy heart
                   Seems singing to my own.




                              LITTLE MARY.

                       A TALE OF THE BLACK YEAR.


That was a pleasant place where I was born, though ’twas only a thatched
cabin by the side of a mountain stream, where the country was so lonely,
that in summer time the wild ducks used to bring their young ones to
feed on the bog, within a hundred yards of our door; and you could not
stoop over the bank to raise a pitcher full of water, without
frightening a shoal of beautiful speckled trout. Well, ’tis long ago
since my brother Richard, that’s now grown a fine clever man, God bless
him!—and myself, used to set off together up the mountain to pick
bunches of the cotton plant and the bog myrtle, and to look for birds’
and wild bees’ nests. ’Tis long ago—and though I’m happy and well off
now, living in the big house as own maid to the young ladies, who, on
account of my being foster-sister to poor darling Miss Ellen, that died
of decline, treat me more like their equal than their servant, and give
me the means to improve myself; still at times, especially when James
Sweeney, a dacent boy of the neighbours, and myself are taking a walk
together through the fields in the cool and quiet of a summer’s evening,
I can’t help thinking of the times that are passed, and talking about
them to James with a sort of peaceful sadness, more happy maybe than if
we were laughing aloud.

Every evening, before I say my prayers, I read a chapter in the Bible
that Miss Ellen gave me; and last night I felt my tears dropping for
ever so long over one verse,—“And God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are
passed away.” The words made me think of them that are gone—of my
father, and his wife that was a true fond mother to me; and, above all,
of my little sister Mary, the _clureen bawn_[1] that nestled in her
bosom.

Footnote 1:

  White dove.

I was a wild slip of a girl, ten years of age, and my brother Richard
about two years older, when my father brought home his second wife. She
was the daughter of a farmer up at Lackabawn, and was reared with care
and dacency; but her father held his ground at a rack-rent, and the
middleman that was between him and the head landlord did not pay his own
rent, so the place was ejected, and the farmer collected every penny he
had, and set off with his family to America. My father had a liking for
the youngest daughter, and well become him to have it, for a sweeter
creature never drew the breath of life; but while her father passed for
a _strong_[2] farmer, he was timorous-like about asking her to share his
little cabin; however, when he found how matters stood, he didn’t lose
much time in finding out that she was willing to be his wife, and a
mother to his boy and girl. _That_ she was, a patient loving one. Oh! it
often sticks me like a knife, when I think how many times I fretted her
with my foolishness and my idle ways, and how ’twas a long time before
I’d call her “mother.” Often, when my father would be going to chastise
Richard and myself for our provoking doings, especially the day that we
took half-a-dozen eggs from under the hatching hen, to play “Blind Tom”
with them, she’d interfere for us, and say,—“Tim, _aleagh_, don’t touch
them this time; sure ’tis only _arch_ they are: they’ll get more sense
in time.” And then, after he was gone out, she’d advise us for our good
so pleasantly, that a thundercloud itself couldn’t look black at her.
She did wonders too about the house and garden. They were both dirty and
neglected enough when she first came over them; for I was too young and
foolish, and my father too busy with his out-door work, and the old
woman that lived with us in service too feeble and too blind to keep the
place either clean or decent; but my mother got the floor raised, and
the green pool in front drained, and a parcel of roses and honeysuckles
planted there instead. The neighbours’ wives used to say ’Twas all pride
and upsetting folly, to keep the kitchen-floor swept clean, and to put
the potatoes on a dish, instead of emptying them out of the pot into the
middle of the table; and, besides, ’twas a cruel unnatural thing, they
said, to take away the pool from the ducks, that they were always used
to paddle in so handy. But my mother was always too busy and too happy
to heed what they said; and, besides, she was always so ready to do a
kind turn for any of them, that, out of pure shame, they had at last to
leave off abusing her “fine English ways.”

Footnote 2:

  Rich.

West of our house there was a straggling, stony piece of ground, where,
within the memory of man, nothing ever grew but nettles, docks, and
thistles. One Monday, when Richard and myself came in from school, my
mother told us to set about weeding it, and to bring in some basketsful
of good clay from the banks of the river: she said that if we worked
well at it until Saturday, she’d bring me a new frock, and Dick a
jacket, from the next market-town; and encouraged by this, we set to
work with right good will, and didn’t leave off till supper time. The
next day we did the same; and by degrees, when we saw the heap of weeds
and stones that we got out, growing big, and the ground looking nice and
smooth and red and rich, we got quite anxious about it ourselves, and we
built a nice little fence round it to keep out the pigs. When it was
manured, my mother planted cabbages, parsnips, and onions in it; and, to
be sure, she got a fine crop out of it, enough to make us many a nice
supper of vegetables stewed with pepper, and a small taste of bacon or a
red herring. Besides, she sold in the market as much as bought a Sunday
coat for my father, a gown for herself, a fine pair of shoes for Dick,
and as pretty a shawl for myself, as e’er a colleen in the country could
show at mass. Through means of my father’s industry and my mother’s good
management, we were, with the blessing of God, as snug and comfortable a
poor family as any in Munster. We paid but a small rent, and we had
always plenty of potatoes to eat, good clothes to wear, and cleanliness
and decency in and about our little cabin.

Five years passed on in this way, and at last little Mary was born. She
was a delicate fairy thing, with that look, even from the first, in her
blue eyes, which is seldom seen, except where the shadow of the grave
darkens the cradle. She was fond of her father, and of Richard, and of
myself, and would laugh and crow when she saw us, but _the love in the
core of her heart_ was for her mother. No matter how tired, or sleepy,
or cross the baby might be, one word from _her_ would set the bright
eyes dancing, and the little rosy mouth smiling, and the tiny limbs
quivering, as if walking or running couldn’t content her, but she must
fly to her mother’s arms. And how that mother doted on the very ground
she trod! I often thought that the Queen in her state carriage, with her
son, God bless him! alongside of her, dressed out in gold and jewels,
was not one bit happier than my mother, when she sat under the shade of
the mountain ash near the door, in the hush of the summer’s evening,
singing and _cronauning_ her only one to sleep in her arms. In the month
of October, 1845, Mary was four years old. That was the bitter time,
when first the food of the earth was turned to poison; when the gardens
that used to be so bright and sweet, covered with the purple and white
potato blossoms, became in one night black and offensive, as if fire had
come down from heaven to burn them up. ’Twas a heart-breaking thing to
see the labouring men, the crathurs! that had only the one half-acre to
feed their little families, going out, after work, in the evenings to
dig their suppers from under the black stalks. Spadeful after spadeful
would be turned up, and a long piece of a ridge dug through, before
they’d get a small kish full of such withered _crohauneens_,[3] as other
years would be hardly counted fit for the pigs.

Footnote 3:

  Small potatoes.

It was some time before the distress reached us, for there was a trifle
of money in the savings’ bank, that held us in meal, while the
neighbours were next door to starvation. As long as my father and mother
had it, they shared it freely with them that were worse off than
themselves; but at last the little penny of money was all spent, the
price of flour was raised; and, to make matters worse, the farmer that
my father worked for, at a poor eight-pence a day, was forced to send
him and three more of his labourers away, as he couldn’t afford to pay
them even _that_ any longer. Oh! ’twas a sorrowful night when my father
brought home the news. I remember, as well as if I saw it yesterday, the
desolate look in his face when he sat down by the ashes of the turf fire
that had just baked a yellow meal cake for his supper. My mother was at
the opposite side, giving little Mary a drink of sour milk out of her
little wooden piggin, and the child didn’t like it, being delicate and
always used to sweet milk, so she said:

“Mammy, won’t you give me some of the nice milk instead of that?”

“I haven’t it _asthore_, nor can’t get it,” said her mother, “so don’t
ye fret.”

Not a word more out of the little one’s mouth, only she turned her
little cheek in towards her mother, and stayed quite quiet, as if she
was hearkening to what was going on.

“Judy,” said my father, “God is good, and sure ’tis only in Him we must
put our trust; for in the wide world I can see nothing but starvation
before us.”

“God _is_ good, Tim,” replied my mother; “He won’t forsake us.”

Just then Richard came in with a more joyful face than I had seen on him
for many a day.

“Good news!” says he, “good news, father! there’s work for us both on
the Droumcarra road. The government works are to begin there to-morrow;
you’ll get eight-pence a day, and I’ll get six-pence.”

If you saw our delight when we heard this, you’d think ’twas the free
present of a thousand pounds that came to us, falling through the roof,
instead of an offer of small wages for hard work.

To be sure the potatoes were gone, and the yellow meal was dear and dry
and chippy—it hadn’t the _nature_ about it that a hot potato has for a
poor man; but still ’twas a great thing to have the prospect of getting
enough of even that same, and not to be obliged to follow the rest of
the country into the poorhouse, which was crowded to that degree that
the crathurs there—God help them!—hadn’t room even to die quietly in
their beds, but were crowded together on the floor like so many dogs in
a kennel. The next morning my father and Richard were off before
daybreak, for they had a long way to walk to Droumcarra, and they should
be there in time to begin work. They took an Indian meal cake with them
to eat for their dinner, and poor dry food it was, with only a draught
of cold water to wash it down. Still my father, who was knowledgeable
about such things, always said it was mighty wholesome when it was well
cooked; but some of the poor people took a great objection against it on
account of the yellow colour, which they thought came from having
sulphur mixed with it—and they said, Indeed it was putting a great
affront on the decent Irish to mix up their food as if ’twas for mangy
dogs. Glad enough, poor creatures, they were to get it afterwards, when
sea-weed and nettles, and the very grass by the roadside, was all that
many of them had to put into their mouths.

When my father and brother came home in the evening, faint and tired
from the two long walks and the day’s work, my mother would always try
to have something for them to eat with their porridge—a bit of butter,
or a bowl of thick milk, or maybe a few eggs. She always gave me plenty
as far as it would go; but ’twas little she took herself. She would
often go entirely without a meal, and then she’d slip down to the
huckster’s, and buy a little white bun for Mary; and I’m sure it used to
do her more good to see the child eat it, than if she got a meat-dinner
for herself. No matter how hungry the poor little thing might be, she’d
always break off a bit to put into her mother’s mouth, and she would not
be satisfied until she saw her swallow it; then the child would take a
drink of cold water out of her little tin porringer, as contented as if
it was new milk.

As the winter advanced, the weather became wet and bitterly cold, and
the poor men working on the roads began to suffer dreadfully from being
all day in wet clothes, and, what was worse, not having any change to
put on when they went home at night without a dry thread about them.
Fever soon got amongst them, and my father took it. My mother brought
the doctor to see him, and by selling all our decent clothes, she got
for him whatever was wanting, but all to no use: ’twas the will of the
Lord to take him to himself, and he died after a few days’ illness.

It would be hard to tell the sorrow that his widow and orphans felt,
when they saw the fresh sods planted on his grave. It was not grief
altogether like the grand stately grief of the quality, although maybe
the same sharp knife is sticking into the same sore bosom _inside_ in
both; but the _outside_ differs in rich and poor. I saw the mistress a
week after Miss Ellen died. She was in her drawing-room with the blinds
pulled down, sitting in a low chair, with her elbow on the small
work-table, and her cheek resting on her hand—not a speck of anything
white about her but the cambric handkerchief, and the face that was
paler than the marble chimney-piece.

When she saw me, (for the butler, being busy, sent me in with the
luncheon-tray,) she covered her eyes with her handkerchief, and began to
cry, but quietly, as if she did not want it to be noticed. As I was
going out, I just heard her say to Miss Alice in a choking voice:—

“Keep Sally here always; our poor darling was fond of her.” And as I
closed the door, I heard her give one deep sob. The next time I saw her,
she was quite composed: only for the white cheek and the black dress,
you would not know that the burning feel of a child’s last kiss had ever
touched her lips.

My father’s wife mourned for him after another fashion. _She_ could not
sit quiet, she must work hard to keep the life in them to whom he gave
it; and it was only in the evenings when she sat down before the fire
with Mary in her arms, that she used to sob and rock herself to and fro,
and sing a low wailing keen for the father of the little one, whose
innocent tears were always ready to fall when she saw her mother cry.
About this time my mother got an offer from some of the hucksters in the
neighbourhood, who knew her honesty, to go three times a week to the
next market-town, ten miles off, with their little money, and bring them
back supplies of bread, groceries, soap, and candles. This she used to
do, walking the twenty miles—ten of them with a heavy load on her
back—for the sake of earning enough to keep us alive. ’Twas very seldom
that Richard could get a stroke of work to do: the boy wasn’t strong in
himself, for he had the sickness too; though he recovered from it, and
always did his best to earn an honest penny wherever he could. I often
wanted my mother to let me go in her stead and bring back the load; but
she never would hear of it, and kept me at home to mind the house and
little Mary. My poor pet lamb! ’twas little minding she wanted. She
would go after breakfast and sit at the door, and stop there all day,
watching for her mother, and never heeding the neighbours’ children that
used to come wanting her to play. Through the live-long hours she would
never stir, but just keep her eyes fixed on the lonesome _boreen_;[4]
and when the shadow of the mountain ash grew long, and she caught a
glimpse of her mother ever so far off, coming towards home, the joy that
would flush on the small patient face, was brighter than the sunbeam on
the river. And faint and weary as the poor woman used to be, before ever
she sat down, she’d have Mary nestling in her bosom. No matter how
little she might have eaten herself that day, she would always bring
home a little white bun for Mary; and the child, that had tasted nothing
since morning, would eat it so happily, and then fall quietly asleep in
her mother’s arms.

Footnote 4:

  By-road

At the end of some months I got the sickness myself, but not so heavily
as Richard did before. Any way, he and my mother tended me well through
it. They sold almost every little stick of furniture that was left, to
buy me drink and medicine. By degrees I recovered, and the first evening
I was able to sit up, I noticed a strange wild brightness in my mother’s
eyes, and a hot flush on her thin cheeks—she had taken the fever.

Before she lay down on the wisp of straw that served her for a bed, she
brought little Mary over to me: “Take her, Sally,” she said—and between
every word she gave the child a kiss—“Take her; she’s safer with you
than she’d be with me, for you’re over the sickness, and ’tisn’t long
any way I’ll be with you, my jewel,” she said, as she gave the little
creature one long close hug, and put her into my arms.

’Twould take long to tell all about her sickness—how Richard and I, as
good right we had, tended her night and day; and how, when every
farthing and farthing’s worth we had in the world was gone, the mistress
herself came down from the big house, the very day after the family
returned home from France, and brought wine, food, medicine, linen, and
everything we could want.

Shortly after the kind lady was gone, my mother took the change for
death; her senses came back, she grew quite strong-like, and sat up
straight in the bed.

“Bring me the child, Sally _aleagh_,” she said. And when I carried
little Mary over to her, she looked into the tiny face, as if she was
reading it like a book.

“You won’t be long away from me, my own one,” she said, while her tears
fell down upon the child like summer-rain.

“Mother,” said I, as well as I could speak for crying, “sure you _know_
I’ll do my best to tend her.”

“I know you will, _acushla_; you were always a true and dutiful daughter
to me and to him that’s gone; but, Sally, there’s _that_ in my weeney
one that won’t let her thrive without the mother’s hand over her, and
the mother’s heart for her’s to lean against. And now—.” It was all she
could say: she just clasped the little child to her bosom, fell back on
my arm, and in a few moments all was over. At first, Richard and I could
not believe that she was dead; and it was very long before the orphan
would loose her hold of the stiffening fingers; but when the neighbours
came in to prepare for the wake, we contrived to flatter her away.

Days passed on; the child was very quiet; she used to go as usual to sit
at the door, and watch hour after hour along the road that her mother
always took coming home from market, waiting for her that could never
come again. When the sun was near setting, her gaze used to be more
fixed and eager; but when the darkness came on, her blue eyes used to
droop like the flowers that shut up their leaves, and she would come in
quietly without saying a word, and allow me to undress her and put her
to bed.

It troubled us and the young ladies greatly that she would not eat. It
was almost impossible to get her to taste a morsel; indeed the only
thing she would let inside her lips was a bit of a little white bun,
like those her poor mother used to bring her. There was nothing left
untried to please her. I carried her up to the big house, thinking the
change might do her good, and the ladies petted her, and talked to her,
and gave her heaps of toys and cakes, and pretty frocks and coats; but
she hardly noticed them, and was restless and uneasy until she got back
to her own low sunny door-step.

Every day she grew paler and thinner, and her bright eyes had a sad fond
look in them, so like her mother’s. One evening she sat at the door
later than usual.

“Come in, _alannah_,” I said to her. “Won’t you come in for your own
Sally?”

She never stirred. I went over to her; she was quite still, with her
little hands crossed on her lap, and her head drooping on her chest. I
touched her—she was cold. I gave a loud scream, and Richard came
running—he stopped and looked, and then burst out crying like an infant.
Our little sister was dead!

Well, my Mary, the sorrow was bitter, but it was short. You’re gone home
to Him that comforts as a mother comforteth. _Agra machree_, your eyes
are as blue, and your hair as golden, and your voice as sweet, as they
were when you watched by the cabin-door; but your cheeks are not pale,
_acushla_, nor your little hands thin, and the shade of sorrow has
passed away from your forehead like a rain-cloud from the summer sky.
She that loved you so on earth, has clasped you for ever to her bosom in
heaven; and God himself has wiped away all tears from your eyes, and
placed you both and our own dear father far beyond the touch of sorrow
or the fear of death.




                         A GREAT MAN DEPARTED.


       There was a festive hall with mirth resounding;
       Beauty and wit, and friendliness surrounding;
     With minstrelsy above, and dancing feet rebounding.

       And at the height came news, that held suspended
       The sparkling glass!—till slow the hand descended—
     And cheeks grew pale and straight—and all the mirth was ended.

       Beneath a sunny sky, ’twas heard with wonder,
       A flash had cleft a lofty tree asunder,
     Without a previous cloud—and with no rolling thunder.

       Strong was the stem—its boughs above all ’thralling—
       And in its roots and sap no cankers galling—
     Prosperity was perfect, while Death’s hand was falling.

       Man’s body is less safe than any tree;
       We build our ship in strong security—
     A Finger, from the dark, points to the trembling sea.

       Man, like his knowledge, and his soul’s endeavour,
       Is framed for no fixed altitude—but ever
     Moves onward: the first pause, returns all to the Giver.

       Riches and health, fine taste, all means of pleasure;
       Success in highest efforts—fame’s best treasure—
     All these were thine,—o’ertopped—and over-weighed the measure.

       But in recording thus life’s night-shade warning,
       We hold the memory of thy kind heart’s morning:—
     Man’s intellect is not man’s sole nor best adorning.




                 THE ADVENTURES OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS.


“Burn all the records of the realm! _My_ mouth shall be the parliament.”
Thus spoke Jack Cade; and it would appear from the manner in which the
public records are at the present time “bestowed,” that those who have
had the stowing of them, cordially echo the sentiment. The historical,
legal, and territorial archives of this country—believed to be, when
properly arranged and systematised, the most complete and valuable in
existence—are spread and distributed over six depositories. Some little
description of three of these only, will show the jeopardy in which such
records of the Wisdom of our ancestors, as we yet possess, are placed,
and the adventures which have befallen many of them.

Many of the most valuable documents of the past—including the Chancery
Records from the reign of John to Edward I.—are kept in the Tower of
London. Some in the White and some in the Wakefield Tower, close to
which is an hydraulic steam-engine in daily operation. The basement of
the former contains tons of gunpowder, the explosion of which would
destroy all Tower Hill, and change even the course of the Thames; while
the fate of paper and parchment thrown up by such a volcano, it is not
even possible to imagine. The White Tower is also replenished with
highly inflammable ordnance stores, tarpaulins carefully pitched,
soldiers’ kits, and all kinds of wood-work, among which common labourers
not imbued with extra-carefulness are constantly moving about. That no
risk may be wanting, an eye-witness relates that he has seen boiling
pitch actually in flames, quite close to this repository. When the fire
of the Tower _did_ take place, its flames leaped and darted their
dangerous tongues within forty feet of it. So alarmed were the
authorities on that occasion, that this tower underwent a constant
nocturnal shower-bath during the time the small Armoury was burning. But
when the danger was over, though fireproof barrack-houses were built for
the soldiers, the records were still left to be lodged over the
gunpowder.

Among the treasures in these ill-kept “keeps,” are the logs and other
Admiralty documents, state papers, and royal letters, many of which have
never been consulted; because the manner in which they are stowed away
rendered consultation impossible. They are, no doubt, silently waiting
to clear up many of the disputed points, and to set right many of the
false impressions and unmitigated untruths of history. Inquisitions—the
antiquity of which may be guessed when we state that those up to the
14th of Richard II. have only yet been arranged in books—are also massed
together ready for explosion or ignition. These are amongst the most
curious of our ancient documents, being the notes of the oldest of our
legal rituals—the “Crowner’s quest.” The Chancery proceedings and privy
seals piled in the White Tower, are endless.

In the Rolls’ House, in Chancery Lane—which, with its chapel, was
annexed by Edward III., in 1377, to the office of Custos Rotulorum, or
Keeper of the Rolls—are located the Records of the Court of Chancery
from that year to the present time. That every public document, wherever
situated, may be rendered in as great jeopardy as possible, a temporary
shed, like a navvy’s hut, has been recently knocked up for the Treasury
papers in the Rolls’ Garden; other of the Records are quietly
accommodated in the pews and behind the communion-table in the Rolls’
Chapel—a building which is heated by hot-air flues, in a manner similar
to that which originated the burning of the Houses of Parliament.

Perhaps, however, our most valuable muniments repose in the
Chapter-House of Westminster Abbey, a building still surrounded by the
same facilities for fire as those which the late Charles Buller detailed
to the House of Commons fourteen years ago. “Ever since 1732,” he said,
“it had been reported to the House of Commons that there was a brewhouse
and a washhouse at the back of the Chapter-House, where the Records were
kept, and by which the Chapter-House was endangered by fire. In 1800,
this brewhouse and this washhouse were again reported as dangerous. In
1819, this brewhouse and washhouse again attracted the serious notice of
the Commissioners. In 1831, it was thought expedient to send a
deputation to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, and to request His
Majesty’s Surveyor General to report upon the perils of this brewhouse
and washhouse, and endeavour to get the Dean and Chapter to pull them
down. But the Dean and Chapter asserted the vested rights of the Church,
and no redress was obtained against the brewhouse and washhouse. In
1833, another expedition, headed by the Right Honourable Sir R. Inglis,
was made to the Chapter-House; but the right honourable baronet,
desiring not to come into collision with the Church, omitted all mention
of the brewhouse and washhouse. And thus the attention of the
Commissioners had been constantly directed to this eternal brewhouse and
this eternal washhouse, without any avail. There they still remain, as a
monument of the inefficiency of the Commissioners, and of the great
power and pertinacity of the Church of this country.” The newspaper
reports of this speech end with “Loud laughter from all parts of the
House.”

In the Chapter-House of Westminster Abbey, the Conqueror’s Domesday
Book, an unequalled collection of treaties and state documents from the
twelfth to the seventeenth centuries; others bearing upon the important
events during the York and Lancastrian wars, and excambial returns
belonging to the English Crown, of the most minute and precise
character, are still at the mercy of the brewhouse and washhouse. There
is a little adventure connected with the proceedings of the Courts of
Star Chamber which we must here introduce:—Their registries and records
were kept in an apartment of the Royal Palace of Westminster from the
time of the dissolution of the Courts. They were shifted from room to
room at the mercy of the Officers of the Palace. Committees of the House
of Commons from time to time examined them, and reported equally as to
their value, and the dirt, confusion, and neglect in which they were set
apart for the public use. But it was not till the fire in the Cottonian
Library, in 1731, frightened the custodian, that an order from the Privy
Council was obtained for the removal of these documents to the
Chapter-House. This house also possesses a unique collection of the
disused dies for coining; and when the Nepaulese Minister and his suite
visited the Office, they were particularly attracted by these primitive
dies, which were at once recognised as being now used in the north-west
of India. There are the washhouse and the brewhouse still.

But the most monstrous instance furnished to us of the disregard and
contempt in which our civil, political, legal, or ecclesiastical
authorities hold the very pedigrees of their professional avocations, is
to be found in the ludicrously huge and unsuitable storehouse called
Carlton Ride—a low, brick-slated roof, workhouse-looking building, at
the east end of Carlton Terrace. Mr. Braidwood, the superintendent of
the London Fire-Brigade, has pithily said, that “The Public Records in
the Tower of London and Carlton Ride are exposed to risks of fire to
which no merchant of ordinary prudence would subject his books of
accounts.” The protective staff of this establishment, besides the
clerks and workmen during the day, consists of two soldiers, two
policemen, and two firemen, four thousand gallons of water—a sort of
open air bath at the top of the building—three rows of buckets,
ready-charged fire-mains, two tell-tale clocks, five dark lanthorns, and
a cat.

Carlton Ride was, originally, the Riding-House of the Prince of Wales’s
residence, Carlton House. Under it are arched storehouses for carriages
and horse furniture; and these were used for the carriages and horses of
the late good Queen Dowager. When a question was raised as to the
capability of the structure to support the thousands of tons of records
which were to be treasured therein, the district Clerk of the Works
satisfied all enquiries by noticing the fact, that the strength of the
building had been tested to the utmost during the Spa Fields riots, when
it was occupied by the horses and ammunition-waggons of the Royal
Artillery, packed together as close as they could stand.

To adapt the interior of this place for the public archives, the first
process of building, and that only, was resorted to;—scaffolding was put
up, so that, on entering this receptacle of the national records of
Great Britain, the visitor finds himself in one of a series of gloomy,
dimly-lighted, mouldy-smelling alleys, or stacks, of wooden scaffolding,
the sides of which are faced with records, reaching to some thirty feet
high. At first sight it reminds him of an immense mediæval timber-yard,
in which no business has been done since the time of the Tudors. Here
two-thirds of our country’s public and private history are huddled
together; not with the systematic red tapery of a public office, but,—to
use an expressive vulgarism—“anyhow.” Whichever way the eye turns, it
meets reams of portfolios, piles of boxes, stacks of wills—rolls of
every imaginable shape, like those of a baker—square, round, flat,
oblong, short, and squat; some plaited like twopenny twists, others
upright as rolls of tobacco; a few in thick convolutions, jammed
together as if they were double Gloucester cheeses; there are heaps laid
lengthwise, like mouldering coffins; some stacked up on end, like
bundles of firewood, and others laid down, like the bottles in a
wine-bin. The hay-loft which extends over the riding-school is similarly
occupied, and all the racks, presses, shelves, boxes, beams, and
scaffolding, being of wood, Mr. Braidwood has good right for estimating
that a fire would burn it up “like matches” in less than twenty minutes.
That, however, there should be no accidental deficiency of combustibles,
the riding-school was partitioned into two divisions, one side for the
records of the Courts of Common Pleas and Exchequer, and the other for
the domestic furniture, china, paintings, weapons of warfare of all
kinds, books, prints, &c., belonging to Carlton House. It is evident
that in the estimation of the powers that were, the records were classed
with the other lumber. But this store of second-hand furniture could not
take fire of itself; and that no chance might be lost, the functionary
in charge of it, finding his half of the “ride” a dreary, comfortless,
and cold place, even for a lumber store, warmed it by means of a large
stove with a chimney-flue which perforated one side of the building. On
several occasions he was observed during the winter months—particularly
after meal-time—to be somnolently reposing by the stove, while the flue
was judiciously emulating his example, by acquiring all the heat
possible from the fire—and, indeed, once or twice its face was illumined
by a red glow of satisfaction rather alarming to those in charge of the
records, who witnessed it. Some five or six years ago, by the
instigation of Lord Lincoln, who was then Chief Commissioner of Woods
and Forests, Prince Albert paid a visit to Carlton Ride, and after
examining the furniture, &c., directed that it should be all removed,
and that the remainder of the building should be given up for the
records; consequently, a variety of important parchments were removed
into it—chiefly ecclesiastical records, touching the property belonging
to the religious houses dissolved in King Henry VIII.’s time, together
with a most valuable and minute series of documents, relating to the
receipt and expenditure of the royal revenue, from Henry II. down to
Charles II. To these were added various Exchequer and Common Pleas
records.

The water as well as the fire test of destruction has been also applied
to our national muniments. The Common Pleas records previous to the
coronation of George IV. were deposited in a long room, called “Queen
Elizabeth’s Kitchen,” lying under the Old Court of Exchequer on the west
side of Westminster Hall. This room was frequently flooded during the
prevailing high tides of spring or autumn. Rats and vermin abounded, and
neither candle nor soap could be kept in the rooms, although mere public
documents were deemed quite safe there. The consequence was, that before
these could be removed, the authorities had to engage in a little
sporting. The rats had to be hunted out by means of dogs. We believe
this was about the time that the celebrated dog “Billy” was in the
height of fame; and we are not quite sure that his services were not
secured for this great Exchequer Hunt. After several fine “bursts” the
rats allowed the documents to be removed, and turned into a temporary
wooden building, which was so intensely cold during winter time, that
those wishing to make searches prepared themselves with clothing as if
they were going on an Arctic expedition. Here mice abounded in spite of
the temperature; and the candles, which the darkness of this den
rendered necessary, were gradually consumed by them. But this light sort
of food wanted a more consolidating diet, and they found a relishing
_piece de resistance_ in the prayer-book of the Court, a great portion
of which they nibbled away. Ten years afterwards the records were packed
off to the King’s Mews, Charing Cross, into stables and harness lofts;
and on the demolition of this building in 1835, Carlton Ride was
selected as their resting-place. The records of the Queen’s Remembrancer
of the Exchequer (an officer who was presumed to preserve “memoranda or
remembrances” of the condition of the royal exchequer) kept company with
the Common Pleas muniments in their trials and journeyings.

At present, we repeat, the whole of the records of the three Courts,
Queen’s Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas, are located under the same
roof at Carlton Ride. Such of the records as are in this building are
reasonably accessible to the public. Many of them are of intense
interest. Fees only nominal in amount are imposed, to restrain
inquisitive, troublesome, or merely idle inquirers; a restriction highly
necessary against pedigree-hunters and lady-searchers. One poor deluded
female, who fancied herself Duchess of Cornwall, and claimed the
hereditary fee-simple of the counties of Devon and Cornwall, caused the
employment of more clerks and messengers to procure the documents for
her extravagant humours than any legion of lawyers’ clerks hot with the
business of term time. She begged, she implored, she raved, she
commanded, she threatened, she cried aloud for “all the fines,” for “all
the recoveries,” for “all the indentures of lease and release” touching
the landed property of these two counties.

Pedigree-hunters abound. One of these requested to be allowed to remain
among these founts of antiquity day and night. In his unwearied and
invincible zeal he brought his meals with him, and declared that rest
was out of the question until he was satisfied which of his ancestors
were “Roberts,” and which “Johns,” from the time of the Seventh Henry. A
hair-brained quack doctor has seriously asserted his claim to a large
quantity of these public documents.

On the other hand, persons really interested in these records take no
heed of them. Messrs. Brown, Smith, and Tomkins buy and sell manors and
advowsons, Waltons and Stokes, and Combes cum Tythings, without knowing
or caring that there are records of the actual transfers of the same
properties between the holders of them since the days of King John!
There is no sympathy for these things, even with those who might fairly
be presumed to have a direct interest in the preservation of them, or
with the public at large. Out of many examples of this sort, we need
only cite one from the “Westminster Review:”—The Duke of Bedford
inherits the Abbey of Woburn, and its monastic rights, privileges, and
hereditaments; and there are public records, detailing with the utmost
minuteness the value of this and all the church property which “Old
Harry” seized, and all the stages of its seizure; the preliminary
surveys to learn its value; perhaps the very surrender of the monks of
Woburn; the annual value and detail of the possessions of the monastery
whilst the Crown held it; the very particulars of the grant on which the
letters patent to Lord John Russell were founded; the inrolment of the
letters patent themselves. But neither his Grace of Bedford, the duke
and lay impropriator, nor his brother, the Prime Minister and the
historian, have seemed to regard these important documents as worthy of
safe keeping.

On public grounds, nothing was for a long time done, although, as Bishop
Nicholson said in 1714, “Our stores of Public Records are justly
reckoned to excel in age, beauty, correctness, and authority, whatever
the choicest archives abroad can boast of the like sort.”

We are happy to perceive by the “Eleventh Report of the Deputy Keeper of
the Public Records” that the work of arranging, repairing, cleaning,
cataloguing, and rendering accessible these documents, proceeds
diligently. But we are more happy to discover that the disastrous
adventures of our Public Records are nearly at an end. The Deputy Keeper
acknowledges “with extreme satisfaction the receipt of communications
made to Lord Langdale from the Lords Commissioners of Your Majesty’s
Treasury, intimating that their Lordships propose to commence the
building of the Repository so emphatically urged by his Lordship the
Master of the Rolls, and so long desired; the site thereof to be the
Rolls Estate, and the Building to be comprehended within the boundaries
of such Estate, the said site being in all respects the best and most
convenient which the metropolis affords.”




                     A MIGHTIER HUNTER THAN NIMROD.


A great deal has been said about the prowess of Nimrod, in connexion
with the chase, from the days of him of Babylon to those of the late Mr.
Apperley of Shropshire; but we question whether, amongst all the
sporting characters mentioned in ancient or modern story, there ever was
so mighty a hunter as the gentleman whose sporting calendar now lies
before us.[5] The annals of the chase, so far as we are acquainted with
them, supply no such instances of familiar intimacy with Lions,
Elephants, Hippopotami, Rhinoceroses, Serpents, Crocodiles, and other
furious animals, with which the human species in general is not very
forward in cultivating an acquaintance.

Footnote 5:

  A Hunter’s Life in South Africa. By R. Gordon Cumming, Esq., of
  Altyre.

Mr. Cumming had exhausted the Deer forests of his native Scotland; he
had sighed for the rolling prairies and rocky mountains of the Far West,
and was tied down to military routine as a Mounted Rifleman in the Cape
Colony, when he determined to resign his commission into the hands of
Government, and himself to the delights of hunting amidst the untrodden
plains and forests of Southern Africa. Having provided himself with
waggons to travel and live in, with bullocks to draw them, and with a
host of attendants; a sufficiency of arms, horses, dogs, and ammunition,
he set out from Graham’s-Town, in October 1843. From that period his
hunting adventures extended over five years, during which time he
penetrated from various points and in various directions from his
starting-place in lat. 33 down to lat. 20, and passed through districts
upon which no European foot ever before trod; regions where the wildest
of wild animals abound—nothing less serving Mr. Cumming’s ardent
purpose.

A lion story in the early part of his book will introduce this fearless
hunter-author to our readers better than the most elaborate dissection
of his character. He is approaching Colesberg, the northernmost military
station belonging to the Cape Colony. He is on a trusty steed, which he
calls also “Colesberg.” Two of his attendants on horseback are with him.
“Suddenly,” says the author, “I observed a number of vultures seated on
the plain about a quarter of a mile ahead of us, and close beside them
stood a huge lioness, consuming a blesblok which she had killed. She was
assisted in her repast by about a dozen jackals, which were feasting
along with her in the most friendly and confidential manner. Directing
my followers’ attention to the spot, I remarked, ‘I see the lion;’ to
which they replied, ‘Whar? whar? Yah! Almagtig! dat is he;’ and
instantly reining in their steeds and wheeling about, they pressed their
heels to their horses’ sides, and were preparing to betake themselves to
flight. I asked them, what they were going to do? To which they
answered, ‘We have not yet placed caps on our rifles.’ This was true;
but while this short conversation was passing, the lioness had observed
us. Raising her full round face, she overhauled us for a few seconds and
then set off at a smart canter towards a range of mountains some miles
to the northward; the whole troop of jackals also started off in another
direction; there was, therefore, no time to think of caps. The first
move was to bring her to bay, and not a second was to be lost. Spurring
my good and lively steed, and shouting to my men to follow, I flew
across the plain, and, being fortunately mounted on Colesberg, the
flower of my stud, I gained upon her at every stride. This was to me a
joyful moment, and I at once made up my mind that she or I must die.”
The lioness soon after “suddenly pulled up, and sat on her haunches like
a dog, with her back towards me, not even deigning to look round. She
then appeared to say to herself, ‘Does this fellow know who he is
after?’ Having thus sat for half a minute, as if involved in thought,
she sprang to her feet, and facing about, stood looking at me for a few
seconds, moving her tail slowly from side to side, showing her teeth,
and growling fiercely. She next made a short run forwards, making a
loud, rumbling noise like thunder. This she did to intimidate me; but,
finding that I did not flinch an inch, nor seem to heed her hostile
demonstrations, she quietly stretched out her massive arms, and lay down
on the grass. My Hottentots now coming up, we all three dismounted, and
drawing our rifles from their holsters, we looked to see if the powder
was up in the nipples, and put on our caps. While this was doing, the
lioness sat up, and showed evident symptoms of uneasiness. She looked
first at us, and then behind her, as if to see if the coast were clear;
after which she made a short run towards us, uttering her deep-drawn
murderous growls. Having secured the three horses to one another by
their reins, we led them on as if we intended to pass her, in the hope
of obtaining a broadside; but this she carefully avoided to expose,
presenting only her full front. I had given Stofolus my Moore rifle,
with orders to shoot her if she should spring upon me, but on no account
to fire before me. Kleinboy was to stand ready to hand me my Purdey
rifle, in case the two-grooved Dixon should not prove sufficient. My men
as yet had been steady, but they were in a precious stew, their faces
having assumed a ghastly paleness; and I had a painful feeling that I
could place no reliance on them. Now, then, for it, neck or nothing! She
is within sixty yards of us, and she keeps advancing. We turned the
horses’ tails to her. I knelt on one side, and, taking a steady aim at
her breast, let fly. The ball cracked loudly on her tawny hide, and
crippled her in the shoulder; upon which she charged with an appalling
roar, and in the twinkling of an eye she was in the midst of us. At this
moment Stofolus’s rifle exploded in his hand, and Kleinboy, whom I had
ordered to stand ready by me, danced about like a duck in a gale of
wind. The lioness sprang upon Colesberg, and fearfully lacerated his
ribs and haunches with her horrid teeth and claws; the worst wound was
on his haunch, which exhibited a sickening, yawning gash, more than
twelve inches long, almost laying bare the very bone. I was very cool
and steady, and did not feel in the least degree nervous, having
fortunately great confidence in my own shooting; but I must confess,
when the whole affair was over, I felt that it was a very awful
situation, and attended with extreme peril, as I had no friend with me
on whom I could rely. When the lioness sprang on Colesberg, I stood out
from the horses, ready with my second barrel for the first chance she
should give me of a clear shot. This she quickly did; for, seemingly
satisfied with the revenge she had now taken, she quitted Colesberg,
and, slewing her tail to one side, trotted sulkily past within a few
paces of me, taking one step to the left. I pitched my rifle to my
shoulder, and in another second the lioness was stretched on the plain a
lifeless corpse.”

This is, however, but a harmless adventure compared with a subsequent
escapade—not with one, but with six lions. It was the hunter’s habit to
lay wait near the drinking-places of these animals, concealed in a hole
dug for the purpose. In such a place on the occasion in question, Mr.
Cumming—having left one of three rhinoceroses he had previously killed
as a bait—ensconsed himself. Such a savage festival as that which
introduced the adventure, has never before, we believe, been introduced
through the medium of the softest English and the finest hot-pressed
paper to the notice of the civilised public. “Soon after twilight,” the
author relates, “I went down to my hole with Kleinboy and two natives,
who lay concealed in another hole, with Wolf and Boxer ready to slip, in
the event of wounding a lion. On reaching the water I looked towards the
carcase of the rhinoceros, and, to my astonishment, I beheld the ground
alive with large creatures, as though a troop of zebras were approaching
the fountain to drink. Kleinboy remarked to me that a troop of zebras
were standing on the height. I answered, ‘Yes;’ but I knew very well
that zebras would not be capering around the carcase of a rhinoceros. I
quickly arranged my blankets, pillow, and guns in the hole, and then lay
down to feast my eyes on the interesting sight before me. It was bright
moonlight, as clear as I need wish, and within one night of being full
moon. There were six large lions, about twelve or fifteen hyænas, and
from twenty to thirty jackals, feasting on and around the carcases of
the three rhinoceroses. The lions feasted peacefully, but the hyænas and
jackals fought over every mouthful, and chased one another round and
round the carcases, growling, laughing, screeching, chattering, and
howling without any intermission. The hyænas did not seem afraid of the
lions, although they always gave way before them; for I observed that
they followed them in the most disrespectful manner, and stood laughing,
one or two on either side, when any lions came after their comrades to
examine pieces of skin or bones which they were dragging away. I had
lain watching this banquet for about three hours, in the strong hope
that, when the lions had feasted, they would come and drink. Two black
and two white rhinoceroses had made their appearance, but, scared by the
smell of the blood, they had made off. At length the lions seemed
satisfied. They all walked about with their heads up, and seemed to be
thinking about the water; and in two minutes one of them turned his face
towards me, and came on; he was immediately followed by a second lion,
and in half a minute by the remaining four. It was a decided and general
move, they were all coming to drink right bang in my face, within
fifteen yards of me.”

The hunters were presently discovered. “An old lioness, who seemed to
take the lead, had detected me, and, with her head high and her eyes
fixed full upon me, she was coming slowly round the corner of the little
vley to cultivate further my acquaintance! This unfortunate coincidence
put a stop at once to all further contemplation. I thought, in my haste,
that it was perhaps most prudent to shoot this lioness, especially as
none of the others had noticed me. I accordingly moved my arm and
covered her; she saw me move and halted, exposing a full broadside. I
fired; the ball entered one shoulder, and passed out behind the other.
She bounded forward with repeated growls, and was followed by her five
comrades all enveloped in a cloud of dust; nor did they stop until they
had reached the cover behind me, except one old gentleman, who halted
and looked back for a few seconds, when I fired, but the ball went high.
I listened anxiously for some sound to denote the approaching end of the
lioness; nor listened in vain. I heard her growling and stationary, as
if dying. In one minute her comrades crossed the vley a little below me,
and made towards the rhinoceros. I then slipped Wolf and Boxer on her
scent, and, following them into the cover, I found her lying dead.”

Mr. Cumming’s adventures with elephants are no less thrilling. He had
selected for the aim of his murderous rifle two huge female elephants
from a herd. “Two of the troop had walked slowly past at about sixty
yards, and the one which I had selected was feeding with two others on a
thorny tree before me. My hand was now as steady as the rock on which it
rested, so, taking a deliberate aim, I let fly at her head, a little
behind the eye. She got it hard and sharp, just where I aimed, but it
did not seem to affect her much. Uttering a loud cry, she wheeled about,
when I gave her the second ball, close behind the shoulder. All the
elephants uttered a strange rumbling noise, and made off in a line to
the northward at a brisk ambling pace, their huge fanlike ears flapping
in the ratio of their speed. I did not wait to load, but ran back to the
hillock to obtain a view. On gaining its summit, the guides pointed out
the elephants; they were standing in a grove of shady trees, but the
wounded one was some distance behind with another elephant, doubtless
its particular friend, who was endeavouring to assist it. These
elephants had probably never before heard the report of a gun; and
having neither seen nor smelt me, they were unaware of the presence of
man, and did not seem inclined to go any further. Presently my men hove
in sight, bringing the dogs; and when these came up, I waited some time
before commencing the attack, that the dogs and horses might recover
their wind. We then rode slowly towards the elephants, and had advanced
within two hundred yards of them, when, the ground being open, they
observed us, and made off in an easterly direction; but the wounded one
immediately dropped astern, and next moment she was surrounded by the
dogs, which, barking angrily, seemed to engross her attention. Having
placed myself between her and the retreating troop, I dismounted, to
fire within forty yards of her, in open ground. Colesberg was extremely
afraid of the elephants, and gave me much trouble, jerking my arm when I
tried to fire. At length I let fly; but, on endeavouring to regain my
saddle, Colesberg declined to allow me to mount; and when I tried to
lead him, and run for it, he only backed towards the wounded elephant.
At this moment I heard another elephant close behind; and on looking
about I beheld the ‘friend,’ with uplifted trunk, charging down upon me
at top speed, shrilly trumpeting, and following an old black pointer
named Schwart, that was perfectly deaf, and trotted along before the
enraged elephant quite unaware of what was behind him. I felt certain
that she would have either me or my horse. I, however, determined not to
relinquish my steed, but to hold on by the bridle. My men, who of course
kept at a safe distance, stood aghast with their mouths open, and for a
few seconds my position was certainly not an enviable one. Fortunately,
however, the dogs took off the attention of the elephants; and just as
they were upon me I managed to spring into the saddle, where I was safe.
As I turned my back to mount, the elephants were so very near, that I
really expected to feel one of their trunks lay hold of me. I rode up to
Kleinboy for my double-barrelled two-grooved rifle: he and Isaac were
pale and almost speechless with fright. Returning to the charge, I was
soon once more alongside, and, firing from the saddle, I sent another
brace of bullets into the wounded elephant. Colesberg was extremely
unsteady, and destroyed the correctness of my aim. The ‘friend’ now
seemed resolved to do some mischief, and charged me furiously, pursuing
me to a distance of several hundred yards. I therefore deemed it proper
to give her a gentle hint to act less officiously, and accordingly,
having loaded, I approached within thirty yards, and gave it her sharp,
right and left, behind the shoulder; upon which she at once made off
with drooping trunk, evidently with a mortal wound. Two more shots
finished her: on receiving them she tossed her trunk up and down two or
three times, and falling on her broadside against a thorny tree, which
yielded like grass before her enormous weight, she uttered a deep hoarse
cry and expired.”

Mr. Cumming’s exploits in the water are no less exciting than his land
adventures. Here is an account of his victory over a hippopotamus, on
the banks of the Limpopo river, near the northernmost extremity of his
journeyings.

“There were four of them, three cows and an old bull; they stood in the
middle of the river, and, though alarmed, did not appear aware of the
extent of the impending danger. I took the sea-cow next me, and with my
first ball I gave her a mortal wound, knocking loose a great plate on
the top of her skull. She at once commenced plunging round and round,
and then occasionally remained still, sitting for a few minutes on the
same spot. On hearing the report of my rifle two of the others took up
stream, and the fourth dashed down the river; they trotted along, like
oxen, at a smart pace as long as the water was shallow. I was now in a
state of very great anxiety about my wounded sea-cow, for I feared that
she would get down into deep water, and be lost like the last one; her
struggles were still carrying her down stream, and the water was
becoming deeper. To settle the matter I accordingly fired a second shot
from the bank, which, entering the roof of her skull, passed out through
her eye; she then kept continually splashing round and round in a circle
in the middle of the river. I had great fears of the crocodiles, and I
did not know that the sea-cow might not attack me. My anxiety to secure
her, however, overcame all hesitation; so, divesting myself of my
leathers, and armed with a sharp knife, I dashed into the water, which
at first took me up to my arm-pits, but in the middle was shallower. As
I approached Behemoth her eye looked very wicked. I halted for a moment,
ready to dive under the water if she attacked me, but she was stunned,
and did not know what she was doing; so, running in upon her, and
seizing her short tail, I attempted to incline her course to land. It
was extraordinary what enormous strength she still had in the water. I
could not guide her in the slightest, and she continued to splash, and
plunge, and blow, and make her circular course, carrying me along with
her as if I was a fly on her tail. Finding her tail gave me but a poor
hold, as the only means of securing my prey, I took out my knife, and
cutting two deep parallel incisions through the skin on her rump, and
lifting this skin from the flesh, so that I could get in my two hands, I
made use of this as a handle, and after some desperate hard work,
sometimes pushing and sometimes pulling, the sea-cow continuing her
circular course all the time and I holding on at her rump like grim
Death, eventually I succeeded in bringing this gigantic and most
powerful animal to the bank. Here the Bushman quickly brought me a stout
buffalo-rheim from my horse’s neck, which I passed through the opening
in the thick skin, and moored Behemoth to a tree. I then took my rifle,
and sent a ball through the centre of her head, and she was numbered
with the dead.”

There is nothing in “Waterton’s Wanderings,” or in the “Adventures of
Baron Munchausen” more startling than this “Waltz with a Hippopotamus!”

In the all-wise disposition of events, it is perhaps ordained that wild
animals should be subdued by man to his use at the expense of such
tortures as those described in the work before us. Mere amusement,
therefore, is too light a motive for dealing such wounds and death Mr.
Cumming owns to; but he had other motives,—besides a considerable profit
he has reaped in trophies, ivory, fur, &c., he has made in his book some
valuable contributions to the natural history of the animals he wounded
and slew.




                                 CHIPS.

                     A MARRIAGE IN ST. PETERSBURG.


A fair Correspondent supplies us with the following “Chip” from St.
Petersburg:—

In England we used to think the marriage ceremony, with all its solemn
adjuncts, an impressive affair; but it is child’s play when compared
with the elaborate formalities of a Russian wedding. In England, the
bride, though a principal, is a passive object; but in Russia she has,
before and at the ceremony, to undergo as much physical fatigue and
exertion as a prima donna who has to tear through a violent opera,
making every demonstration of the most passionate grief. But you shall
hear how they manage on these occasions.

The housekeeper of Mons. A., who has been in his service for eighteen
years, and consequently no very youthful bride, took it into her head to
marry a shoemaker, who, like his intended, is not remarkable for his
personal beauty. Friday was fixed for the happy day, and about two in
the afternoon I caught sight of the bride, weeping and wailing in a most
doleful manner. I saw or heard no more of her till six in the evening,
when she appeared in Mad. A.’s room, attired for the ceremony. Her dress
was of dark silk, (she not being allowed to wear white, in consequence
of some early indiscretions,) with a wreath of white roses round her
head, and a long white veil, which almost enveloped her. She sobbed,
howled, went off into hysterics, and fainted; I felt excessively sorry
for her, but did all my soothing in vain, for she refused to be
comforted. As soon as she became calm, we all assembled in the
drawing-room, and Mons. A.’s godson, a little fellow of five years old,
entered the room first, bearing the patron saint, St. Nicholas, then
came the bride, followed by her train of female friends. She knelt down
before Mons. and Mad. A., and they each in turn held the image over her
head, saying they blessed her, and hoped she would “go to her
happiness.” She kissed their feet frantically; and they then assisted
her up, kissed her, and she was conducted weeping to the carriage.

On arriving at the church about half-past seven we were met by friends
of the bridegroom, who stood at one end of the church, surrounded by his
family, and every now and then casting anxious and tender looks at the
beloved one, who was again howling and sobbing like a mad woman. I
thought how painful it must be for him, poor man, to witness such
distress, and wondered why she should marry any one for whom she
manifested so much dislike. After administering restoratives, she became
calmer, and the priests appeared—when off she went again into a fit of
hysterics more sudden, though not so violent as her previous
performances; but, this time, was soon restored, and the ceremony
commenced.

One priest stood at the altar, and two others at a kind of table or
reading-desk at some distance. The un-happy couple were placed beside
each other, behind the priests, who commenced chaunting the service in
beautiful style. The bride and bridegroom held each a lighted wax taper
in their hand; a little more chaunting, and rings were exchanged; more
chaunting, and then a small piece of carpet was brought, upon which they
both stood; two crowns were then presented to them, and after they had
kissed the saint upon them, these were held over their heads by the
bridesmen. More chaunting; then there was wine brought, which they were
obliged to drink, first he and then she; they made three sups of it,
though, at first, there appeared only about a wine-glassful; after this
the Priest took hold of them and walked them round the church three
times, the bridegroom’s man following holding the crowns over their
heads to the best of his ability; but he fell short of his duty, for the
bridegroom was rather tall and his man rather short: hence there was
some difficulty and slight awkwardness in this part of the proceedings;
then followed a kind of exhortation, delivered in a very impressive
manner by the senior Priest. After this, they proceeded to the altar,
prostrated themselves before it, kissing the ground with great apparent
fervour; then all the saints on the wall were kissed, and lastly the
whole of the party assembled. We then adjourned to the carriages, and
after a quick ride soon found ourselves at home.

Here Monsieur and Madame A. performed the part of _Père et Mère_, met
the bridal party, carrying the black bread and salt which is always
given on such occasions. This was, with some words—a blessing, of
course—waved over the heads of the newly married couple, who were on
their knees kissing most vehemently the feet of their _Père et Mère_.
After this ceremony, which means “May you never want the good here
offered you,” they arose, and again the kissing mania came upon the
whole party with greater vehemence than ever. Nothing was heard for some
time but the sound of lips; at length a calm came, and with it
champagne, in which every one of them drank “Long life and happiness to
the newly-wed pair,” all striking their glasses till I thought there
would be a universal smash, so violently were they carried away by their
enthusiasm; then came chocolate, and lastly fruit.

As soon as the feasting was over, the dancing commenced with a
Polonaise; the steward, a great man in the house, leading off the bride,
who by this time had forgotten all her sorrows. About twenty couple
followed, and away they went, through one room, out at another, until
they had made the whole circuit of the apartments.

We left them at half-past eleven, but they kept up the fun till five in
the morning, when they conducted the happy pair to their dwelling.

Upon my expressing pity for the bride, and also my astonishment why she
married a man who appeared so very repugnant to her, I learnt that she
would not be considered either a good wife or a good woman unless she
was led to the altar in a shower-bath of tears; in fact, in Russia, the
more tears a woman sheds, the better her husband likes her!




                 A NEW JOINT-STOCK PANDEMONIUM COMPANY.


Gaming without risk, certainty in chance, Fortune showering her favours
out of the dice-box, are promised by the promoters of a New Joint-Stock
Company just set on foot in Paris, the prospectus of which now lies
before us. This is nothing less than a society for the propagation of
gambling in San Francisco; “capital, one hundred and fifty thousand
francs, in three hundred shares of five hundred francs each,
provisionally registered on May 10, 1850. Chief Office, No. 17, Rue
Vivienne.”

The promoters of this precious CERCLE DE SAN FRANCISCO declare that
certainty will be the issue of this notable scheme, the essence of which
is hazard. “There never was,” they say, “an enterprise more sure of
gain. Three years, with twelve dividends, paid once a quarter, will
produce enormous results. These have been accurately tested by the most
conscientious (?) calculations, based on the produce of the German
gaming-houses, and we have ascertained that each share of five hundred
francs will yield an annual dividend of three thousand francs over and
above interest at six per cent!”

The future House itself is thus painted in bright perspective:—“A fine
house of wood, of two stories, with a magnificent coffee-room on the
ground floor; a vast saloon on the first-floor for two roulette-tables;
on the second, apartments for the manager, the servants; and the
officers; the whole completely furnished, with all necessary
appurtenances for warming and lighting. Tables, implements, counters,
iron coffers for the specie, &c., are to be immediately exported by a
sailing vessel. M. Mauduit, the manager, will accompany these immense
munitions, together with subordinates of known probity. M. Charles,
chief-of-the-play at Aix, in Savoy, is to follow, as director of the
expedition, at the end of October, by steamer. It is expected that
preparations will be complete, so as to open the Cercle in San Francisco
on the 31st December of this year.”

Of all the bare-faced schemes that was ever presented to a French
public, this is surely the most extravagant. There is nothing in _Jerome
Patûrot_ that equals it in impudence.




                           YOUTH AND SUMMER.


It is Summer. Day is now at its longest, the season at its brightest;
and the heat comes down through the glowing heavens—broiling the sons of
labour, but whitening the fields for the harvest. Like hapless Semele,
consumed by the splendours of her divine lover, Earth seems about to
perish beneath the ardent glances of the God of Day. The sun comes
bowling from the Tropics to visit the Hyperboreans. The strange
phenomenon of the Polar day—when for six months he keeps careering
through the sky, without a single rising or setting, rolling like a
fiery ball along the edge of the horizon, glittering like a thousand
diamonds on the fields of ice—is now melting the snows that hide the
lichens, the rein-deer’s food; and, quivering down through the azure
shallows of the Greenland coast, infuses the fire of love and the lust
for roaming into the “scaly myriads” of the herring tribe.

On ourselves, the Summer sun is shining, glowing—robing in gold the
declining days of July, and taking her starry jewels from the crown of
Night—nay, lifting the diadem from her sable brow, and invading the
skies of midnight with his lingering beams. Oh, what a glory in those
evening skies! The sun, just set, brings out the summits of the far-off
hills sharp and black against his amber light: Nature is dreaming;
yonder sea is calm as if it had never known a storm. It is the hour of
Reverie: old memories, half-forgotten poetry, come floating like dreams
into the soul. We wander in thought to the lonely Greek Isle, where Juan
and Haidee are roaming with encircling arms upon the silvery sands, or
gaze in love’s reverie from the deserted banquet-room upon the
slumbering waters of the Ægean. We see the mariner resting on his oars
within the shadow of Ætna, and hear the “Ave Sanctissima” rising in
solemn cadence from the waveless sea. We stand beneath the lovely skies
of Italy—we rest on the woody slopes of the Apennines, where the bell of
some distant convent is proclaiming sundown, and the vesper hymn floats
on the rosy stillness, a vocal prayer.

         “Ave Maria! blessed be the hour,
           The time, the clime, the spot where I so oft
         Have felt that moment in its fullest power
           Sink o’er the earth so beautiful and soft;
         While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,
           And the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft;
         While not a breath stole through the rosy air,
         And yet the forest leaves seem’d stirr’d with prayer!”

Study is impossible in the Summer evenings—those long, clear, mellow
nights, when the Evening Star hangs like a diamond lamp in the amber
skies of the West, and the hushed air seems waiting for serenades. The
very charm of our Study is then our ruin. Whenever we lift our eyes from
the page, we look clear away, as from a lofty turret, upon the
ever-shifting glories of sunset, where far-off mountains form the magic
horizon, and a wide arm of the sea sleeps calmly between, reflecting the
skyey splendours. Our heart is not in our task. There is a vague
yearning within us, for happiness more ethereal than any we have yet
beheld, a happiness which the eye cannot figure, which only the soul can
feel—it is the Spirit dreaming of its immortal home. Now and then we
pause—the beauty without, half-unconsciously fixes upon itself our
dreamy gaze.

                          “Oh, Summer night!
                          So soft and bright!”

That air, that lovely serenade of Donizetti’s, seems floating in the
room. A sweet voice is singing it in my ear, in my heart. Ah, those old
times! I think of the hour when first I heard that strain, and of the
fair creature singing it—with the twilight shadows around us, and her
lip, that might have tempted an Angel, curling, half-proudly,
half-kindly, as “upon entreaty” she resumed the strain. I fall into
deeper reverie as I recollect it all—those evenings of entrancement,
those days of boyish pain and jealousy. And ever the melody comes
floating in through my brain, yet without attracting my thoughts—a
strain of sweetest sounds accompanying the dissolving views which are
dreamily, perpetually, forming and changing, gathering and dispersing,
before my mind’s eye, like the rose-clouds of sunset. Those shapes are
too ethereal for the mind to grasp them. Is it a Juno-like form, beneath
the skies and amid the flowers of Summer—with Zephyr playing among her
golden curls, as she lifts from her neck a hair-chain to yield it to the
suit of love! Or is it a zigzag path on a hill-side—a steed backing on a
precipice—a lovely girl on the green bank, clinging to her
preserver—sinking, swooning, quivering from that vision of sudden death!
Who shall daguerreotype those airy shapes? We feel their presence rather
than know their form, and the instant we try to see what we are seeing,
they are gone!

We are no bad risers in the morning, but we never saw the sun rise on
Midsummerday but once. It is many years ago, yet we remember it as
vividly as if it had been this morning. It was from the summit of the
Calton Hill, the unfinished Acropolis, the still-born ruin of Modern
Athens. The whole sky in the south and west, opposite to where the sun
was about to appear, was suffused from the horizon to the zenith with a
deep pink or rose hue; and in the midst, spanning the heavens, stood a
magnificent Rainbow! A symbol of peace in a sea of blood! There lay the
palatial edifices of the New Town, white and still in the hush of early
morning, and high above them and around them rose that strange emblem of
mercy amid judgment. Such an apparition might fitly have filled the
skies of the Cities of the Plain on that woeful morn, the last the
blessed sun ever rose upon them;—ere amid mutterings in the earth and
thunders in the clouds, the volcano awoke from its sleep, and the red
lava poured from its sources of fire—when clouds of stones and ashes,
falling, falling, falling, gathered deeper and deeper above the Plain,
and the descending lightnings set fire to the thousand founts of naphtha
bubbling up from their subterranean reservoirs—when a whirlwind of flame
shot up against the face of the sky, like the last blasphemy of a
godless world; and with a hollow groaning, the sinking, convulsed earth
hid the scene of pollution and wrath beneath the ever mournful-looking
waters of the Dead Sea. The skies of night and morning are familiar to
me as those of day, but never but that once did that Heavenly Spectre
meet my eye.

As I reached the northern brow of the hill, it wanted but a minute or
two of sunrise; in a few seconds a new Day would dawn—a flake would
separate itself from the infinite Future, and be born into the world. I
stood awaiting the Incarnation of Time. A flapping wing broke on the
solemn stillness. Two rooks rose slowly from the ground, where they had
been preying upon the tenants of the turf. Below me, to the east and
north, spread out the waters of the Firth of Forth—not a billow breaking
against its rocky islets—its broad expanse of the colour of lead, sombre
and waveless, like the lifeless waters of the Asphaltite Sea; while,
toiling like an imp of darkness, a small steam-boat tore up its
leaden-like surface, disappearing behind the house-tops of Leith. The
spirits of night seemed hurrying to their dens, to escape the golden
arrows of the God of Day. In the bowery gardens below me, the birds
began an overture as the curtain of the Dawn was lifting. At length the
sun shot up into the sky; then seemed to pause for some time, his lower
limb resting on the dark sea, his upper almost touching a bank of
overhanging cloud. Pale tremulous rays, like those of the aurora
borealis, darted laterally from the orb, shooting quiveringly along the
sky, and returning: the waves of light were ebbing and flowing on the
sands of Night. The sea and the slopes of the Calton still lay in the
dull hues of dawn; but a strange cold sun-gleam which one felt
instinctively would be short-lived, glittered around me on the crest of
the hill, and on the white stone monuments that crown it as with a
diadem. Foremost and loftiest rose the noble columns of the National
Monument, even in their imperfection the most Grecian of British
edifices, standing aloft like the ruins of Minerva’s temple on the bluff
Cape of Sunium, visible from afar to mariners entering the romantic Bay
of the Forth. The glitter which now tinged them with gold was bright and
brief as the national fervour which gave them birth. In a few minutes
the sun passed up behind the bank of cloud, and nothing remained of his
beams but a golden streak on the far edge of the waters.

Fair Summer has come, and the ocean wooes us. Breaking her ward, she has
leapt like a lovely Bacchante to our arms; while men who have been
“sighing like furnace” for her, and chiding the dull delay of her
coming, now fly from her embraces into the sea—plunge into the haunts of
the Nereids. In what “infernal machines” do they go a-wooing! And yet
they appear to have every confidence in their natural powers of
attraction; the Nereids run no danger of being deceived as to the
_physique_ of their human admirers. Queer fishes some of them are
certainly! Only look at yon big fat old fellow, for all the world like a
skinned porpoise, floundering and blowing in the shallows like a
stranded whale! while another more modest animal, of like dimensions,
floats like cork or blubber in deep water, thumping energetically with
leg and arm, and hides obesity in a cataract of foam. Yonder, over the
clear blue depths, breasting at his ease the flood, goes the long steady
stroke of the practised swimmer—an animal half-amphibious, seen at times
afar off, lifting on the crest of a wave a mile at sea. With laugh and
splutter a band of juveniles rub their heads with water in the most
approved manner, as if they were a set of old topers afraid of apoplexy;
or with whoop and hollo engage in a water-combat, or in a race in
bunting that reminds one of running in sacks; while a still younger
member of the human family roars lustily as he clings to his pitiless
nurse’s neck, or emerges half-suffocated from the prescriptive
thrice-repeated dip. Yet there is something gladsome in the flash of the
waters around the sportive bathers, and in the glancing glitter of the
sun-beams on the ivory-like arms that are swaying to and fro upon the
blue waters. It speaks of Summer; and that of itself awakens gladness.

As we look upon the earth in a glorious summer-day, we feel as if all
nature loved us, and that a spirit within is answering to the loving
call of the outer world. We feel as if _caressed_ by the beauty floating
around—as if the mission of nature were to delight us. And it is so. It
was to be a joy for Man that this glorious world sprang out of Chaos,
and it was to enjoy it that we were gifted with our many senses of
beauty. How narrow the enjoyment of the body to the domain of the
spirit! The possessions and enjoyments of man consist less in the acres
we can win from our fellows, than in the wide universe around us.
Creature-comforts are unequally divided, but the charm of existence, the
joy that rays from all nature, are the property of all. Who can set a
price upon the colours of the rose or the hues of sunset? Yet, would the
Vernon Gallery be an adequate exchange? Water and air, prime necessaries
of physical life, are not more free to all, than is its best and highest
food everywhere accessible to the spirit. What we want is, to rub the
dust of the earth off our souls, and let them mirror the beauty of the
universe. What we want is, to open the nature within to the nature
without—to clear the mind from ignorance, the heart from prejudice. We
must learn to see things as they are—to find beauty in nature, love in
man, good everywhere; not to shut our eyes or look through a distorting
medium. We scramble for the crumbs of worldly success, and too often
have neglected the higher delights that are free to our taking. Like the
groveller in the Pilgrim’s Progress, we rake amid straws on the ground,
when a crown of joy is ready to descend upon us if we will only look up.
We turn aside the river from its bed, and toil in the sand for golden
dust, destroying happiness in the search for its symbol, and forget that
the world itself may be made golden, that the art of the Alchemist may
be ours. The true sunshine of life is in the heart. It is there that the
smile is born that makes the light of life, the rosy smile that makes
the world of beauty, and keeps life sweet—the smile that “makes a summer
where darkness else would be.”

We are in one of the pretty lanes of England. The smoke of a great city
is beginning to curl up into the morning skies, but the sounds of that
wakening Babylon cannot reach us in our green seclusion. As we step
along lightly, cheerily, in the cool sunlight, hark to the glad voices
of children; and lo! a cottage-home, sweeter-looking than any we have
yet passed. Honeysuckles and jessamine wreathe the wooden trellis of the
porch with verdure and flowers. In those flowers the early bee is
hanging and humming, birds are chirping aloft, and cherubs are singing
below. An urchin, with his yellow curls half-blinding his big blue eyes,
sits on the sunny gravelwalk, playing with a frisky, red-collared
kitten. On the steps of the door, beneath the shade of the trellis-work,
sit two girls, a lapful of white roses before them, which they are
gathering into a bouquet, or sticking into each other’s hair. What are
they singing?

             Come, come, come! Oh, the merry Summer morn!
                   From dewy slumbers breaking,
                   Birds and flowers are waking.
             Come, come, come! and leave our beds forlorn!

             Hark, hark, hark! I hear our playmates call!
                   Hurrah! for merry rambles!
                   Morn is the time for gambols.
             Yes, yes, yes! Let’s go a-roving all!

             Haste, haste, haste! To woodland dells away!
                   There flowers for us are springing,
                   And little birds are singing—
             “Come, come, come! Good-morrow! come away!”

A wiseacre lately remarked, as a proof of the _sober sense_ of the age,
that no one now sang about the happiness of childhood! _Sombre_ sense,
he should have said,—if he misused the word “sense” at all. No
happiness,—nay, no peculiar happiness in childhood! Does he mean to
maintain that we get happier as we get older?—that life, at the age of
Methuselah, is as joyous as at fifteen? Has novelty, which charms in all
the details of existence, no charm in existence itself? Is
suspicion—that infallible growth of years, that baneful result of
knowledge of the world—no damper on happiness? Is innocence nothing? Is
_ennui_ known to the young? No, no!

Youth is the summer of life; it is the very heyday of joy,—the poetry of
existence. Youth beholds everything through a golden medium,—through the
prism of fancy, not in the glass of reason; in the rose hue of idealism,
not the naked forms that we call reality.

                   “All that’s bright must fade,
                   The brightest still the fleetest!”

We have but to look around us and within us to see the sad truth
exemplified. Summer is fading with its roses—Youth vanishes with its
dreams. “Passing away” is written on all things earthly. Yet “a thing of
beauty is a joy for ever.” We have a compensating faculty, which gives
immortality to the mortal in the cells of memory; the joys of which Time
has robbed us still live on in perennial youth. Nay, more, they live
unmarred by the sorrows that in actual life grow up along with them. As
the colours of fancy fade from the Present, they gather in brighter
radiance around the Past. We conserve the roses of Summer—let us embalm
the memories of Youth.




                     THE POWER OF SMALL BEGINNINGS.


A grim Lion obstructs the paths of ardent Benevolence in its desire to
lessen the monster evils of society, and constantly roars “Impossible!
Impossible!” Well-disposed Affluence surveys the encroaching waves of
destitution and crime as they roll onwards, spreading their dark waters
over the face of society, and folds its hands in powerless despair,—a
despair created by a false notion of the inefficacy of individual or
limited action. “Who can stem such a tide?” it exclaims; “we must have
some great comprehensive system. Without that, single efforts are
useless.”

Upon this untrue and timid premise many a purse is closed, many a
generous impulse checked. It is never remembered that all great facts,
for evil or for good, are an aggregate of small details, and must be
grappled with _in_ detail. Every one who hath and to spare, has it in
his power to do some good and to check some evil; and if all those to
whom the ability is given were to do their part, the great
“Comprehensive System” which is so much prayed for would arrange itself.
The hand of Charity is nowhere so open as in this country; but is often
paralysed for the want of being well directed.

Of what individual energy can accomplish in a very limited sphere, we
can now afford a practical instance. What a single individual in
energetic earnest has effected in the “Devil’s Acre,” described in a
former number,[6] can be done by any other single individual in any
other sink of vice and iniquity, in every other part of the globe.

Footnote 6:

  At page 297.

In the spring of 1848 the attention of Mr. Walker, the Westminster
Missionary of the City Mission, was called to the necessity of applying
some remedy to the alarming vice and destitution that prevailed amongst
a large section of a densely peopled community, whose future prospects
seemed to be totally neglected. A vast mass of convicted felons, and
vagrants, who had given themselves up as entirely lost to human society,
and whose ambition was solely how they could attain the skill of being
the most accomplished burglars, congregate upon the “Devil’s Acre.” Most
of these degraded youths were strangers to all religious and moral
impressions—destitute of any ostensible means of obtaining an honest
livelihood, and having no provision made for them when sent from prison.
They had no alternative but again resorting to begging or stealing for a
miserable existence; and not only they themselves being exposed to all
the contaminating influences of bad example, and literally perishing for
lack of knowledge, but also leading others astray—such as boys from nine
to twelve years of age, whom, in a short time, they would train as
clever in vice as themselves, and make them useful in their daily
avocations.

Nearly ten years’ experience in visiting their haunts of misery and
crime, and entering into friendly conversation with them, taught Mr.
Walker that punishment acted with but little effect as a check upon
criminal offenders; and it was thought more worthy of the Christian
philanthropists to set on foot a system of improvement, which should
change the habits and elevate the character of this degraded part of our
population,—a system which should rescue them from the haunts of infamy,
instil into their minds the principles of religion and morality, and
train them to honest and industrious occupations. With these great
objects in view, a scheme of training was commenced which has since
flourished. _One lad_ was selected from the Ragged School, fed, and
lodged, as an experiment. The boy had been a thief and vagrant for
several years, was driven from his home through the ill-usage of a
step-grandfather: the only clothing he possessed was an old tattered
coat, and part of a pair of trousers, and these one complete mass of
filth. After five months’ training, through the kindness of Lord Ashley,
he was accepted as an emigrant to Australia. Finding he was successful,
his joy and gratitude were unbounded. A short time before he embarked,
he said, “If ever I should be possessed of a farm, it shall be called
Lord Ashley’s Farm. I shall never forget the Ragged Schools; for if it
had not been for it, instead of going to Australia with a good
character, I should have been sent to some other colony loaded with
chains.” He has since been heard of as being in a respectable situation,
conducting himself with the strictest propriety.

Being successful in reclaiming one, Mr. Walker was encouraged to select
six more from the same Ragged School, varying from the age of fifteen to
nineteen years; although at the time it was not known where a shilling
could be obtained towards their support, he was encouraged to persevere.
A small room was taken at two shillings per week; a truss of straw was
purchased, and a poor woman was kind enough to give two old rugs, which
was the only covering for the six. They were content to live on a small
portion of bread and dripping per day, and attend the Ragged School; at
last an old sack was bought for the straw, and a piece of carpet, in
addition to the two rugs, to cover them. One of them was heard to say
one night, while absolutely enjoying this wretched accommodation, “Now,
are we not comfortable?—should we not be thankful? How many poor
families there are who have not such good beds to lie on!” One of those
he addressed, aged nineteen years, had not known the comfort of such a
bed for upwards of three years, having slept during that time in an
empty cellar. Five of those lads are now in Australia, and the other—who
had been the leader of a gang of thieves for several years—is now a
consistent member and communicant in the Church, and fills a responsible
situation in England.

When the experiment was in this condition, a benevolent lady not only
contributed largely towards the support of the inmates, but also
recommended her friends to follow her example. A larger room was taken;
the lady ordered beds and bedding to be immediately purchased: the
merits of the system became more publicly known; two additional rooms
were taken, and ultimately the whole premises converted into a public
institution, known as the Westminster Ragged Dormitory, and particularly
alluded to in the article before mentioned.

Since its establishment, there have been one hundred and sixty-three
applications. Seventy-six have been admitted from the streets; thirteen
from various prisons, recommended by the Chaplains; twenty-three did not
complete their probation; four were dismissed for misconduct; three
absconded after completing their probation; five were dismissed for want
of funds; two restored to their friends; two are filling situations in
England; fifteen emigrated to Australia; five to the United States; and
thirty are at present in the Institution.

The expense at which fifty-four young persons were thus, between April
1848 and May 1850, rescued from perdition, has been 376_l._ 16_s._
3_d._, which took two years to collect and disburse. More than double
the number of cases presented themselves than could be admitted, and
five were obliged to be hurled back into crime and want after admission,
for want of funds. We mention this to show what might have been done,
had Mr. Walker’s efforts been seconded with anything like liberality.

As a specimen of the sort of stuff the promoters of this humble
Institution had to work upon, we add the “case” of a couple of the
inmates which was privately communicated to us. We shall call the boys
Borley and Pole.

“R. Borley, 14 years of age, born in Kent Street, Borough; never knew
his father; his mother died two years ago; she lived by hawking. Since
her death he has lived by begging, sometimes got a parcel to carry at
the Railway Station; also got jobs to carry baskets and hold horses at
the Borough Market; when he had money, lodged in low lodging-houses,
near the London Docks and in the Mint in the Borough. The most money he
ever got in one day was 9_d._ He has been in the habit of attending the
different markets in London. He has been weeks together without ever
being in a bed; he generally slept about the markets, in passages, under
arches, and in carts. He had no shirt for the last twelve months, no
cap, no shoes; an old jacket and a pair of trousers were his only
covering; sometimes two days without food, and when he had food, seldom
anything but dry bread; sometimes in such a state of hunger, that he has
been compelled to eat raw vegetables, this was the case when he took the
fever; he had been lying out in the streets for some nights; he was in
such a weak state that he dropped down in the streets. A gentleman
lifted him up, took him to a shop and gave him some bread and cheese,
afterwards took him to a magistrate, who sent him to the workhouse,
where it was found the poor boy had fever, and was immediately sent to
the fever hospital. When brought to Pear Street yesterday, he was not a
little surprised to find the boy Pole in the school; he would not have
known him but for his speech, so much had he improved in appearance.
Pole had lived in the lodging-houses with him. He said he has cause to
remember Pole. On one occasion he was Pole’s bedfellow, they were both
in a most destitute state for want of clothing; neither of them had a
shirt, but of the two, Borley had the best trousers; when he rose in the
morning Pole was off and had put on Borley’s trousers, leaving behind
him a pair that had but one leg, and that was in rags; although
yesterday was their first meeting after this robbery, still it was a
very happy one! They congratulated each other at the good fortune of
being received into such an Institution. Borley tells me that Pole was a
dreadful thief. He stole wherever he could; he brought the articles he
stole to the lodging-house keepers, who bought them readily. So
notorious did Pole become, that before morning he would have stolen the
article he had sold or anything else, and sold it to another
lodging-house keeper. Thus he went on until he could scarce get lodgings
either in the Borough or Whitechapel. Since Pole has been in Pear
Street, he has never shown anything but a desire to do what is right.
Borley is an interesting lad, and will do well.”

 May 16, 1850.

One Mr. Walker, who would begin, as he did, with one wretched boy in
each metropolitan district, and in each town throughout Great Britain,
would do more to reduce poor’s rates, county rates, police rates—to
supersede “great penal experiments,” and to diminish enormous judicial
and penal expenditure, than all the political economists and “great
system” doctors in the world. But the main thing is to begin at the
cradle. It is many millions of times more hopeful to prevent, than to
cure.


    Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand.
            Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London.

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                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


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