LITTELLS LIVING AGE. No. 2024. April 7,1883. From Beginniug, Vol. CLVII. CONTENTS. SIENA THE LADIES LINDORES. Part XXIII., THE HuMoROUS IN LITERATURE. By the Author of John Inglesant, . JOHN INGLESANT ON HUMOR,. No NEW THING. Part XVII., SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. By Isabella L. Bird. Part III., MR. JOHN RICHARD GREEN, Con/emj5orary Review, B/ackwoods Magazine, Macmillans Magazine, Spectaior, Cornhill Magazine, Leisure Hour, Alkenceum, ELLISLAND, WOMANS LOVE, P 0 E T R Y. 2 SUPPOSING THERE 2 BROTHERS,. HAD BEEN Two PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & GO., BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, rerni//ed directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year,/ree ofposiage Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the m6ney should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, s8 cents. Fifth Series, Volume XLII. L II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. .3 15 25 35 33 49 2 2 ELLISLAND, ETC. ELLISLAND. THE year was in its prime, for June Was treading on the heels of May; The sun was climbing to high noon, The breezes faint made sportiv.e play, When by the winding Nith we strayed XVith pilgrim feet, that we might stand Where, neath the humble rooftrees shade, Oft sung the Bard of Ellisland. We saw the lassie buskit neat, The bonnie lassie herding yowes, And heard the sporting lambkins bleat Among the yellow broomy knowes; The ploughman whistling at the plough, He guided straight wi tenty hand, Where rigs lay red, along the howe, The fertile howe of Ellisland. We gazed adown Dalswintons plain, Across her glowing woods and braes; And lilted oer again some strain, Through which he chanted forth their praise. We watched the shadows come and go Where high the hills in grandeur stand, And fleecy clouds were drifting slow Across the blue oer Ellisland. We listened as from leafy dell The feathered chorus rung out clear, And from the sky there warbling fell The trill of lark upon our ear: And as we heard the mingling strain, We wished that some magicians wand Might yet be waved, to bring again The poet soul to Ellisland. We marked the daisy loved so dear, The thistle springing mong the corn, The opning rosebud on the brier, The lingering primrose neath the thorn; We marked them all with loving eye, Yet plucked them not with ruthless hand, But left them there, to bloom and die, Upon the holms of Ellisland. While down its dale the Nith shall go, Where Comyns ance held high command; While Solways tide shall ebb and flow, And lap its shores of yellow sand; While, like a guardian sentinel, High Criffel still shall proudly stand; While love in loving hearts shall dwell, Wilt thou be loved, dear Ellisland! Chambers Journal. A. P. WOMANS LOVE. Oh, this is womans love, its joy, its pain. To gaze on him, the loved one, and to trace His image (which no time can eer efface) On thy hearts tablets; then, when he is gone, Memry of him may cheer thee when alone; To see him smile, to watch his speaking eye Gazing on thine, as if it asked re~y; To know his voice ami,d a hundred round, And feel thy beating heart respond the sound. To lean confiding on his arm, and know, If danger threatens, twill avert the blow; To listen for his footsteps, and to hear Thy own heart beat with love, and doubt, and fear; To hear at last his step, and rise to greet The one thy heart yearns fondly thus to meet; To think of him when absent, and to pray For grace to guide him on his perlous way. To hear him praised for deeds of goodness done To see him envied, and to know thoust won His pure fond love, and that whateer betide, In weal or woe, thy place is by his side; To love him better in misfortunes hour Than in his youthful prime, his day of power; To feel, though fortune frown, though friends forsake, Though sorrows overwhelm, thou for his sake Canst smile at fate, and cheer and bless his lot The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Though sickness bows the form, and dims the eye Whose glance controlled thy youthful destiny; Though pain may chafe that spirit een to vent On thee a murmur of its discontent, Yet oer his couch wilt thou unwearied bend, And soothe and bless, though pangs thy bosom rend; To see him suffer, and to feel and know That een thy love cannot avert the blow. To watch the livelong night, and weep and pray For him, the loved one, till the dawn of day; To see the wasted form, the sunken eye Still gazing on thee, though imploringly; To press thy lips upon the pallid brow, And try to smile, lest grief thy fears avow; To catch from lips so loved the last faint breath, Then, shrinking, own the bitterness of death! Chambers JournaL M. A. L. SUPPOSING there had been two brothers, twin At birth, who grew like young plants in the sun To youth, but one died, and the other one Living fell lower every day in sin, Betraying his own heart, yet kept therein, When all things else were lost and he undone, Love of the dead strong and unstaind alone; Which thing availd of pitying god~ to win This boon, iEneas-like to pass the gate. Living, of Death, and in the fields of Hell And groves to nether Juno consecrate, To meet the luckless shade of the boy; but he Turnd his pale face away in loathing, well, Even so it is with my old self and me. Athemeum. SIENA. 3 From The Contemporary Review. SIENA. IT has been truly said that every square league of Italian soil deserves our atten- tion and study, and perhaps no part of Italy is more full of rich and varied hu- man interest than the quondam repub- lics of Florence, Pisa, Lucca, and. Siena, of the last of which I propose to write in this article. Etruscan vases and other remains have at various times been found in and around Siena; but nothing is known with cer- tainty of its history, until, in the reign of Augustus, we find it spoken of as a Roman military colony. The three hills upon which it stands rise to upwards of one thousand feet above the sea-level, and the soil of which they are composed is doubt- less the product of volcanic action. Siena has always been subject to earthquakes, which, ho~vever, at the worst, never did greater injury than the shaking down of a few chimneys. Formerly they recurred at intervals of forty or fifty years, but latterly they have been much more fre- quent, ten years rarely passing without their unwelcome advent. During the months of July and August of last year they occasioned great terror in Siena: in one day no fewer than seventy shocks were observed, and thousands of the in- habitants camped out in the squares and gardens, lest their houses should fall upon them. Scientific men tell us that the tufa upon which the city stands being to a great extent hollo~ved out, there is very little danger of the earthquakes doing real injury; but to unscientific residents, the existence of this hollo~v space underneath makes the fate of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram seem more painfully probable than if solid earth were below. Be this as it may, in spite of the panic, no damage has actually been done; and the huge masses of the churches and palaces show no rents or cracks, save one or two that are almost as venerable as the buildings themselves. Siena used to be a more favorite station for English residents than it now is. Be- fore railway days, almost all visitors to Rome from the north passed a day or two in Siena; now the railway conveys them direct from Florence, and the ancient ~little city is passed by. Those, however, who follow the older fashion find its in- terest grow upon them, as the strain and stress of the nineteenth century fades from their mind and they gradually feel more and more at home among the relics of the spirit of the Middle Ages. In the short space at my disposal, it would be vain for me to do more than briefly glance at one or two interesting episodes in the history of this little re- public, speak of some of the worthies it has produced (a few of whom, by the com- mon consent of Christendom, have been deemed worthy on fames eternal roll- call to be filed ), and then describe the Palio, the August festival of the city. In a famous passage iViacaulay de- scribes the wide-reaching effects of the ambition of Frederick the Great, and ho~v, as its bitter fruit, the natives of Coro- mandel engaged in internecine slaughter, and Red Indians scalped one another on the great lakes of Canada. In like man- ner, for hundreds of years, there was con- stant strife among the republics of Italy, and the flower of their citizens perished either on the battlefield or the scaffold, because of the rivalry of the great fac- tions having their origin in Germany, the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Indeed, the history of the Italian republics throughout the Middle Ages is the record of constant warfare in the interest of the one or the other party. Without, there- fore, trying to realize what Siena may have been when the great Etruscan league bore sway throughout central Italy, or when, having become subject to Rome, the conquering legion~ tramped through its streets on their way to Gaul or Ger- many or Britain, let us come at once to the medi~val history of the city, from which period the walls, churches, and palaces date. After the Lombard inva- sion of Italy, Siena wa~ governed by a representative of the Lombard kings; but when, in 8oo, Charlemagne destroyed, or, more properly, absorbed into his em- pire the kingdom of the iron crown, Siena was declared a free city. The lordships and baronies and rich lands he divided, with no nicro~ard hand, among his warlike SIENA. 4 followers from beyond the Alps, and some of these became the ancestors of the no- bility of Siena. The soil, then, as now, rich beyond all northern ideas, and gener- ous of corn, wine, and oil, soon rendered wealthy its fortunate possessors, who, no longer contented with the feudal castles on their estates, began to build l)alaces in Siena, and built them so solidly that now, after five or six centuries, they stand firm and strong as when erected, and there seems no reason why they should not bid defiance to time and earthquakes for five centuries more. The feudal origin of these palaces, and the fact~ that the pos- sessors derived their revenues from ~vide lordships and domains outside the city, in some degree accounts for what for a long time greatly puzzled me. As you walk through the old streets of Siena, every hundred yards, or even much more frequently, you come upon great palazzi~ for the most part built of enormously solid masonry, and often of such vast size that you would think that each one could accommodate a whole regiment. How was it l)ossible, I have often thought, for such houses to be erected and the ex- penses of such households to be borne in an inland city, shut out from the wealth derived from maritime trade, which made princes of the merchants of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa? True the wealth of many of these great families is a thing of the past. I recently, heard of a whole patrician fam- ily living in a portion of their huge palace, all being entirely supported out of the dowry of the wife of the eldest son, who was probably the daughter of some wealthy plebeian. Yet not one of this interesting family ~yould do a hands turn of work to save himself from starvation they are far too sensible of what is due to themselves and to the honor of the family.* * With a city full of huge empty palaces, one would naturally suppose that strangers would he embarrassed in their choice of des~able furnished apartments. So I expected, and put what I thought a likely advertise- ment in a little Sitisese lournal, the Lupa. Not an answer, however, did I receive, and I am assured that that Sienese patrician must he poor and miserable in- deed who would not rather see the palace of his ances- tors crumble to ruin than resign a portion of it to the occupation of strangers. I have since secured an apart- ment in the palazzo of a nohie family, whose history has been hound up with that of the repuhlic for cen- turies, and at what in England would be regarded as a Still, it would be a great mistake to sup- pose that the patrician families of Siena are poor. On the contrary, the most dis- tinguished of them remain possessed of great estates in the country as well as of their stately old palaces in the city. For instance, the Palazzo Tolomei was built in 1205. It is an imposing square Gothic pile of stone, dark with the grime of nearly seven centuries, during whi chpe- nod the family have been leading patri- cians in Siena, and they still continue to occupy an important position in the city. The Chigis, Piccolominis, Bandinis, and many others, retain their ancient state and greatness. The Piccolomini family gave two popes to Rome the celebrated Eneas Sylvius, who wore the tiara as Pius II., and his nephew, Pius III. To this family also belonged that Ascanius Pic- colomini, archbishop of Siena, who, when the prison doors of the Inquisition were opened to Galileo, received the venerable philosopher, and made a home for him within the walls of the archiepiscopal pal- ace. The persecuted philosopher seems to have been quite overcome with the kindness showered upon him by the arch- bishop, for he speaks of it in his letters as inexplicable. To this family also belongs that Ottavio Piccolomini whose defection from Wallenstein forms the subject of Schillers drama. His portrait may be seen at the Palazzo Pubblico on a charger at full gallop in somewhat the same truculent attitude in which Napoleon is popularly represented crossing the Alps. The Saracini family, whose massive palace is one of the principal ornaments of the Via della Citth, has during its long history given one pope and many cardinals to Rome. It is, however, on the point of dying out, only one aged, childless repre- sentative remaining. I am assured that the families who reckon popes among their predecessors, as for instance the Piccolomini, Chigi,and Saracini, date the greater part of their wealth and greatness from that time. The popes appear, as a matter of course, to have made use of the vas~ revenues of the ridiculously cheap rate, but under such l)eculiar cir- cumstances as in no way to militate against the above statemeut. SIENA. Church to aggrandize their families. We are wont to attribute the political maxim, To the victors the spoils, which has proved so great a curse to the great Trans- atlantic republic, to old General Andrew Jackson; but, if the above statement be true, he took no new departure when he laid down the principle, but was following a time-honored, not to say sacred, prece- dent. An unwritten law, by which only the eldest son of each patrician house has been allowed to marry, has powerfully contributed to prevent the dispersion of their inherited wealth. From the time of Barbarossa (i [52) un- til long after the last of the Imperial house of Suabia, the unfortunate Conradin, had perished on the scaffold at Naples (in 1269), Siena was always intensely Ghibel- line and anti-papal, although its sturdy independence showed itself, even when Barbarossa was at the height of his power, and caine, breathing out vengeance against the Italian free cities, determined to de- prive them of their liberty. Siena alone had the courage to shut its gates in the face of the mighty conqueror and to dare him to do his worst. Frederick sent his son Henry with a large army which closely invested the city. The besieged, how- ever, made a simultaneous sortie from the two gates, Fonte Branda and S. Marco, and, attacking the German camp at a place called the Rosaio, routed the Imperialists and put them to flight. But if Siena was Ghibelline in its politics, its great rival and sister republic, Florence, held by the Guelphs Under the great emperor Frederick II., the old quarrel between the Papacy and the Empire broke out ~vith fresh fur)-, and involved all italy in strife. Upon his death, Florence first, quickly followed by the whole of Tuscany, with the exception of Siena, threw off its allegiance to the Empire. The leaders of the Ghibelline part)- in Florence took refuge in Siena, which speedily led to hostilities between the two cities. To resist the victorious Guelphs, Siena had only the alliance of Pisa; and the little republic, hardly beset, sent pressing requests for succor to Manfred, son of the emperor Frederick, and king of Naples. S On August Ii, [259, the king sent a reply, still preserved in the archives of Siena, in which he announced the despatch of an army sufficient to place the Ghibelline cause in its old position of supremacy; but, alas! instead of the promised army, only one hundred German troopers ar- rived. The mountain had brought forth a mouse, and things looked gloomy in- deed for Siena. In this crisis, however, a leading Florentine exile, Farinata degli Uberti, whom Dante, a few years later, was to immortalize in the pages of the Inferno, cheered the drooping spirits of the Sienese. He said, We have the banner of the king; this will suffice to make him send us as many soldiers as we may require, and that ~vithout asking for them. The city was at the time closely invested by the Florentines. Uberti gave the unhappy Germans as much wine as they could drink, and, promising them double pay, persuaded them to charge the enemys lines. This they did, and with incredible fury. The Florentines, taken by surprise, and not knowing what might follow this whirlwind of one hundred German devils, were upon the point of raising the siege. When, however, they perceived the insignificant number of their assailants, they summoned heart of grace, slew the hundred troopers to the very last man, and capturing the royal banner sub- jected it to every conceivable outrage. This was exactly what the Mephistophe- lean Uberti desired. Enraged at the dis- honor done to his standard, Manfred de- spatched eight hundred German knights, under his cousin Giordano Lancia di Angalono, to the help of Siena, and with the levies from Pisa the whole of the Ghibelhine forces amounted to nine thou- sand horse and eighteen thousand five hundred foot soldiers. To maintain this host was an enormous tax upon the city of Siena, and in order to employ the army, and if possible to induce the Florentines to give battle, the Sienese commanders laid siege to the neirhborin~ cit v of Montalcmno. The Florentines were, however, not at all disposed to make easy the plans of their enemies, and obstinately remained ~vithin their walls. But the guile of 6 SIENA. Uberti was more than a match for them. With great secrecy he despatched two monks to the leaders of the people of Florence, to represent that they were the emissaries of the most powerful citizens of Siena, who, finding the tyranny of Provenzano Salvani* and Uberti insup- portable, were determined to deliver themselves from it at any cost. The mes- sei~gers added that ~vhen the Florentines, under pretext of succoring Montalcino, should reach Siena, one of the gates of the city would be opened to them. Un- happily for Florence, her leaders believed the messengers and acted upon their in- sidious advice. The people of Florence rose in mass, and aid was demanded from the allied Guelphic cities. Bologna, Pe- rugia, and Orvieto sent their cOntingents. A host of thirty-three thousand warriors gathered around the Carroccio, or sacred car of Florence. The army marched to Monte Aperto, a few miles from Siena, in the full hope and expectation that the city would soon be theirs. Towards sunset on the 3rd September (1260) the Sienese, after publicly invoking the aid of the Vir- gin, and dedicating their city to her, marched out to meet their enemies, and upon the following day the struggle took place. It was a hard fought and long doubtful battle, and it was by treachery that it was at length decided. Bocca degli Abati, a Ghibelline, who fought in the ranks of the Florentines, struck off, with one blow of his sword, the hand of Jacopo di Pazzi, who bore the standard of the cavalry. Fell panic seized the Florentine riders when they saw their banner fallen, and that there was treachery within their ranks, the extent of which they could not gauge. Each man sl)urred his horse away from the fatal field, and soon the foot-soldiers were involved in one com- mon rout. Then began a butchery which made the Arbia stream run blood; lo strazio e il grande scempio Che fece 1Arbia colorata in rosso. Meanwhile, in the city of Siena, the old men, women, and children, together with the bishop, priests, and monks of all This is the Provenzano mentioned by Dante in the eleventh canto of the Purgatorin: Colni che del cammin Si ~OCO piglia Dinanzi a me, Toscana son6 tutta Ed nra a pens in Siena sen pispiglia God era sire, quando to distrutta La rabbis fiorentina che superba Fu a quel tempo si comora ~ putta. Quegli ~, rispose Proveozan Salvani Ed ~ qui perch~ fu presuntiioso A recar Siena tutta alle sue mani. orders, were assembled in the cathedral asking mercy of God. The Twenty-four Signori, who then ruled Siena, posted a watchman on the tower of the Palazzo Marescotti, now the palace of the Sara- ci, whence the field of battle was dis- tinctly visible. The winding road over hill and dale would make the distance five or six miles; but, as a bird would fly, in a direct line, Monte Aperto is little more than three miles away. Thus, the watch- man, a certain Cerreto Ceccolino, could distinctly perceive the movements of the contending armies. Terrible was the anxiety of the crowd of old men, women, and children at the base of the tower as they waited for the report of the combat. At length the watchman strikes his drum, and, in the breathless pause that follows, he cries with a loud voice so that all may hear: They have reached Monte Sel- voli, and are pushing up the hill to secure it as a coign of vantage, and now the Florentines are in motion and they also are trying to gain the hill. Again the drum sounds: The armies are engaged; pray God for victory Next the ~vatchman cries, Pray God for ours; they seem to me to be getting the worst of it. But soon the pain and sus- pense of the anxious crowd were relieved by the watchman crying, Now I see that it is the enemy who fall back. And now in all the joy of victory the watchman beats a triumphant march, and informs the anxious ones below that the standards of Florence have all gone down, and that her soldiers are broken and routed, and how cruel a slaughter there is among them. Cruel slaughter, indeed! The Carroccio, or sacred car of Florence, drawn by white oxen, and w-ith the great standard of the city displayed from its lofty flagstaffs, was taken at a place called Fonte al Pino, close to the Arbia. Among its gallant defenders was a Florentine named Tornaquinci, with his seven sons, all of whom ~vere slain. Consternation now fell upon the army of Florence. Many threw down their arms and cried, We surrender; but the chronicler adds grimly, They were not understood. A few of the bravest from Florence, from Lucca, and from Orvieto fluno themselves into the castle of Monte Aperto, and there held out un- til the leaders of the army of Siena, sated with slaughter, admitted them to quarter.* * January 10, 1883. Yesterday I had the advantage of driving, with a friend, over the battle-field for a~ second time We called at the modern villa of Monte Aperto, ~vhere resides Signor Canale, who most comir SIENA. 7 The chroniclers estimate that ten thou- I sand of the Guelphic host fell on this fatal field, and that almost all the remain- der were made prisoners. The misery caused in Florence by the battle is inde- scribable, and in a very few years a like misery was to fall upon Siena. Monte Aperto was the last decisive victory gained by the Ghibelline cause. Nine years afterwards, in 1269, the Sienese army was routed at Colle, and exactly twenty years after that at Campaldino.* Nothing can be more melancholy than the story of the internecine fratricidal strug- gles between the cities of Italy, with their constant episodes of treachery and cold- blooded cruelty. The history of the republic of Siena during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fif- teenth centuries is a long tale of anarchy and revolution, and of incessant strug- gles between the different parties in the State. In 1277 a law excluded from the supreme magistracy not only the patri- cians but the people, and decreed that for the future the government should rest alone in the hands of good merchants loyally affected to the Guelph cause. This government by the middle classes was called the Administration of the Nine, and lasted for no less than seventy years. Though hated alike by the aris- tocracy and the people, this r4time proved advantageous to the State. Under it the Palazzo Pubblico was built and the grace- ful Mangia Tower rose, while the cathe- dral was enlarged and beautified and the city grew wealthy with trade.. When the Nine fell before a combined assault of the ari~tocracy and the people, the repub- lic seemed to be given over to anarchy (In four months and a half there were no less than five revolutions.) Yet, strange to say, it was at this very time that archi- tecture and sculpture and painting ad- vanced with wondrous strides. The great Florentine poet told of his a~vful visions in the exquisitely beautiful language then spoken in northern Italy, and crystallized into literary form the lovely Tuscan tongue; and against the black background of remorseless feuds, treacherous in- tri gues, and cruel wars, there stand out, teously pointed out to us the site of the ancient castle of the same name, and showed us exactly where the Florentine host camped on the night before the battle, and where the Carroccio was taken at Foote al Pino, around which atone pines still raise their lordly heads. * Dante himself fought at this battle, and in the fifth canto of the Purgatorio he addresses Buonconte di Montefeltro, mortally wounded on that field: Qual forca o qual ventura Ti travifl at fuor di Campaldino Cbs non si seppe mal tua ~epoltura?~~ white and spotless, some of the most per- fect exemplars of sainthood into which humanity has ever flowered. The repub- lic of Siena made amends for the turbu- lence and violence and bitter party spirit it had shQwn thrdughout its history by the united and gallant resistance it offered to Cosimo dei Medici, when he determined to add the lordship of Siena to that of Florence in the middle of the sixteenth century. Florence was in 1530 besieged and conquered by the combined arms of the emperor Charles V. and Pope Clem- ent VII. Siena, yielding to the tradi- tional hatred of many centuries, sent some pieces of artillery into the Imperial camp, and rejoiced greatly at the downfall of her ancient foe. That joy did not last long. Hardly was Florence his, when Charles determined to become possessed of Siena, and this, by fraud.and force, he succeeded in a few years in accomplishing. The better to dominate the unruly city, the Spaniards built a powerful fortress. Proud of their long self-government and jealous of their independence, the Sienese felt this to be intolerable. They sent am- bassadors to the emperor to implore him not to affix upon their free city this badge of servitude. The Imperial reply was: Sic volo, sic fit beo. They sent to Pope Julius III.; they had hope in him, for was not his mother, Christofana Saracini, a daurrhter of Siena? But Julius cared more for the shameful pleasures to which he was addicted than for the liberty of the country of his forefathers, and replied, If one castle does not suffice his lmpe- rial Majesty to keep within bounds these hare-brained Sienese, why, let him build two. Rejected on all hands, the Sienese took courage from despair. They secretly conspired, determined to dare everything, and on July 27, 1552, they rose in insur- rection against their Spanish masters. For three days a fierce struggle raged throughout the city: every street, every square, every palace, almost every house, was a battle-field. The struggle ended in the triumph of the citizens; the Span- iards were beaten, and the flag of the republic again waved from the Palazzo Pubblico. The Spaniards, who had retired to the newly erected fortress, saw themselves compelled to capitulate, and no sooner did the citizens become possessed of it than they proceeded to raze it to the ground. Where this ill-omened castle stood, there is now the garden of the Lizza, a charming little public park, which commands very extensive views of the 8 SIENA. surrounding country. Thither every evening almost all Siena resorts to breathe fresh air and to see and be seen. To go back three hundred years when Charles V. heard of the surrender of the Spanish garrison he was furious, and the year 1553 saw a Spanish army of vengeance carry~ ing fire and sword into the Sienese terri- tory. This army was checked by the unexpected and heroic resistance of the little town of Montalcino, which was closely invested for eighty days. But in the following year came another army, under the ferocious Marignano; and this time the Spaniards penetrated to the very walls of the city, and twenty-five thousand Spaniards and soldiers of Cosimo biv- ouacked before the gates. All the citi- zens were called to arms, and the priests and monks were compelled to work on the fortifications. Three ladies, named Forteguerri, Pic- colomini, and Fausti, organized three battalions of women. Three thousand maidens worked on the ramparts and in the trenches. The general-in-chief was Pietro Strozzi, a Florentine exile, and a bitter personal enemy of Cosimo. He determined to relieve Siena by a coup- de-main against Florence. Marignano marched to prevent him. Twe two ar- mies met at Marciano, where the Sienese suffered the crushing defeat of Scanna- gallo, caused by the treachery of the commander of the French cavalry in the service of Siena, who had been bought by Marignano with the price of twelve tin flasks filled with pieces of gold. The Sienese lost all their artillery and fifty- five banners, while twelve thousand men fell either killed or wounded. The siege now became more strict and more dreadful little or no quarter ~vas given. Fifteen hundred peasants, caught by Marignano while endeavoring to take supplies into the city, were hanged within sight of the despairing citizens, so that a Spanish historian, an eye-witness, adds: The trees seemed to produce more dead bodies of men tha1~ leaves. Still the citizens would not yield, and they even carried their patriotism to the height of inhumanity to their own flesh and blood, several times turning out of the gates hundreds of useless moilihs, consisting of the old, the sick, the infirm, and of women and children, who either perished by the Spanish sword, or became the prey of wild beasts, or died from cold and hun- ger. Within the city, to the ravages of the sword and of famine were added those of pestilence, and at length, on the 17th of April, 1555, Siena surrendered. Be- fore the siege it numbered forty thousand inhabitants, at its close there remained but six thousand; but the thirty-four thousand then left to be accounted for did not all perish in the siege, for seven hundred families, preferring exile to slav- ery, wandered forth into voluntary banish- ment. It is impossible not to sympathize with ones whole heart with a gallant little peo- ple thus protracting a struggle for liberty and their ancient independence, almost to the point of extermination, against such a ruler as Charles V., and such a general as Marignano ; but it is just to remember that the republic of- Siena, during the whole of its existence, had displayed more and worse vices than did even the little republics and states of ancient Greece. There was never an end to the cruel feuds and bitter party hatreds which rent asunder. the city state; and he who had rendered the greatest service to the republic was the most likely to become the object of the envy and hatred of his fellow-citizens, who would often even clamor for his blood. Aonio Paleario, of whom I shall have occasion shortly to speak, thus writes of the republic in 1530: The city rises on delightful hills, its ter- ritory is fertile and produces everything in abundance, but discord arms the citi- zens against one another, and all their energy is consumed in factions; and it is worthy of notice that it was unsafe for him to settle in Siena until the Span- ish domination was, for the first time, firmly established after 1530. Upon the surrender of th~ republic in ~ Charles V. handed i,t over in fief to his son, Philip II. of Spain, and he, in turn, at the treaty of the Chateau de Cam- bray (1559), made it over to Cosimo dei Medici, whom Italian historians are wont to call the Tiberius of Tuscany. From that time Siena remained an integral part of the grand duchy of Tuscany, until after exactly three hundred years, in 1859, it decided by a ~ldbiscite, first among its sister cities, to place itself under the tricolor flag of United Italy. From the earliest times, and during the most stormy periods of its independent existence, the republic of Siena was a lib- eral patron of the art of painting, and the deep religious feeling and tender devo- tional beauty of the ~vorks of its great masters, from th..~ thirteenth century downwards, still appeal to the traveller as well from the altars and walls of its - many churches as in the Instituto delle SIENA. Belle Arti, where the treasures of many of the suppressed convents have been col- lected. That the love of painting is not dead in this one of its old haunts is sho~vn by the splendid mosaics executed on the facade of the cathedral by Signor Luigi Mussini, the distinguished painter, di- rector of the institution just named, and by Signor Franchi, who is also attached to the institution. The excellence of the school of wood-carving in Siena is shown by the yearly increasing amount of deli- cate and costly work entrusted to Siena houses by connoisseurs of this branch of art in England; and it is interesting that the whole of the internal ornamental wood- work on, I believe, the last Cunard liner was executed here. Few buildings in Italy, or indeed in the ~vorld, present a more imposing appear.- ance than does the cathedral, built on the very summit of one of the hjlls on which Siena stands; though it takes time to accustom the eye to the alternate courses of white and black marble of which it is built, and architectural critics find fault with its style. None, however, can deny the extraordinary richness and imposing effect of the interior. More even than the cathedral, the numerous and massive pal- aces, seemingly capable of defying all enemies, including time, attest the devel- opment to which architecture had attained in Siena in the Middle Ages. In all, Siena gave nine popes to Rome, a gift possibly of doubtful advantage; but of the benefit to Christendom of the saints that were born in Siena there can be no doubt. Of these the greatest was Catherine, the daughter of a dyer, who, in her short life of thirty-three years, by her greatness of soul and absolute saintliness of character, became a power in Christen- dom, and by effecting the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome, influenced, to an extent difficult now to estimate, the history of the whole world. The purity of the style of her letters is as remarkable as the force of her character and the saintliness of her life, and she is justly re- garded, with Dante, Petrarch, and Boccac- cio, as one of the founders of that lingua Toscana which has become modern ital- ian. Her life and lifes work have been treated with such fulness and with so deep a sympathy by Mrs. Josephine Butler in her recent touching biography of the saint that I will say no more of her here.* * Within the last few months Monsignor Capel has been holding services in English in a church attached to what was once the house of the father of St. Cath- erine, for the especial benefit of the English in Siena. 9 It is interesting, too, as one comes un- der the shadow of the enormous mass of the huge Church of St. Dominic, and passes into the cloisters, now occupied as a studio by the distinguished sculptor Sarroechi, to remember that this was long the abode of the angelical doctor, St. Thomas of Aquinas. The saints of the Middle Ages gave place in the sixteenth century to thinkers and reformers. Foremost among them must be mentioned Lelius and Faustus Socinus, uncle and nephew. Born of an olc.J and famous Sienese family, and de- scended from a series of eminent juris- consults, equally distinguished by great erudition and extreme conservatism, Le- lius Socinus threw himself with such ardor into the ranks of the reformers as soon to distance and shock them. He visited, in succession, France, England, the Low Countries, Germany, and Poland, and in the end settled at ZUrich, where he died at the age of thirty-seven in 1562. His nephew, Faustus, after passing twelve years at the court of the grand duke of Tuscany, with whom he was a great favor- ite, suddenly ~vent into voluntary exile in Germany, and for the remainder of his life devoted himself with ardor and en- thusiasm to the dissemination of the views that had become associated with the name of his uncle. Maltreated and persecuted, he at length found a refrige near Cracow, where he died in 1604, at the age of seventy-five. Uncle and nephew left behind them an enormous body of heterodox divinity, now never opened but by professed students; but the ideas and influence of these two gre at men, received and handed on by later thinkers, were probably never more rife and l)otential than now, after nearly three centuries. First among the great. reformers to whom Siena gave birth stands the majestic fioure of Bernardino Ochino. He was born in 1487, just four years after Luther. He was a born saint, and endeavored by a life of privation and austerity to carry heaven by assault. He first joined the Franciscans, their rule of life appearing to him the most austere of any of the monastic orders, and when that of the Capucines seemed to him still more rigor- ous, he left the former and joined the lat- ter. As in the case of Luther, then in his Far be it from any one to attempt to rob the Roman Catholic Church of the halo shed npon it by the holy life of such, a saint, but it would be at least open to argument whether, had Catherine lived one hundred and fifty years later, she would not have talcen her stand~ by else side of vittoria Colonna and rejoiced in the dawn of the Reformation. I0 SIENA. German monastery, the severest discipline the executioners. The Lord will kno~v and most wearing austerities could not well how to find me wheresoever I may give peace to his soul, a peace which he be, ~vhen he wills that my blood shall be found only in simple trust in the divine shed. He decided upon leaving Italy mercy. - forever, and a few days later, taking the Ochino was possessed of a wonderful road of Milan and Aosta, he crossed the eloquence, which stirred mens hearts as reat St. Bernard, and descended to with the voice of a trumpet. Since Sa- Geneva, where he ~vas received with open vonarolas death no such potent preacher arms, and nominated pastor to the Italian had appeared in Italy. Under his preach- refugees, who were beginning to flock to ing for a charitable object at Naples, five the city of refuge as the only means of thousand scudi were raised. After listen- escape from the clutches of the Inquisi- ing to him the men of Perugia promised tion. From his secure asylum upon the to be reconciled to one another, and ,~o shores of Lake Leinan, Ochino continued forego the bitter hatred of centuries, to hold close and affectionate correspond- Charles V., after hearing one of his ser- ence ~vith those like-minded with himself mons, exclaimed, This man would make in Italy, and especially in Siena, and his the very stones weep. A singularly no- sermons and works, though prohibited ble presence, a face wasted by vigils and and cursed by the pope, ~vere widely dis- labois, with hair prematurely grey, and semin~ted and read throughout the penin- above all the knowledge of the purity and sula. unaffected piety of his life, heightened the And now I must bring to a close these effect of his eloquence. He passed from reminiscences of illustrious Sienese by a city to city of Italy preaching, and was notice of one who, though not born in everywhere received with almost princely Siena, was for many years l)rofessor in its honors. His headquarters were often in university, on which he conferred great the Capucine convent, close to his native honor by the lustre of his genius and the city, and the archives of Siena contain brilliancy of his eloquenceAonio Pa- many letters which passed betwee~ him leario. Born at Veroli, in southern Italy, and its rulers, which show the strong love in 1503, he from his earliest years threw he always bore to his birthplace. He ~vas himself, heart and soul, into the revival of elected general-superior of his order, and learning and letters, in that new birth of in 1542 was invited to preach the Lent the intellect to which Europe, and Italy sertnons in Venice. All Venice flocked especially, ~vere just awakening. When to hear him, and the enthusiasm evoked twenty-seven years old he visited Tus- by his eloquence knew no bounds. But cany, and spent a year among like-minded the papal legate was listening to his friends of learning at Siena. Thence he words, and on one occasion rose, inter- proceeded to the University of Padua, rupted him, and commanded him to be principally in order to attend the lectures silent in the name of the Holy Father. of Lampridius on Demosthenes. Within So great, however, was the popularity of less than a year he was recalled to Siena Ochino, that three days later he ~vas again by the danger of one of his friends in that allowed to enter the pulpit, and this time city, Antonio Bellanti. before even a larger audience. Upon The family of Bellanti had rendered reaching Verona, after leaving Venice, he the most signal and distinguished service received a summons to appear before the to the republic, only, however, to be re- Holy Office at Rome. What that sum- paid by base ingratitude. Their palace mons implied he well knew, and he deter- had been pillaged by the mob, and Anto- mined to disobey it. There is among the nio himself thrown into prison upon a manuscripts belonging to the library of capital charge based upon an obsolete Siena a letter from Ochino to Vittoria law of the republic which punished with Colonna, dated August 22, 1542, in which death any one who introduced salt into he tells her that, having learned from his the city to the detriment of the revenue. friends how ~pretended heretics are dealt It is a sad illustration of the virulence of with at Rome, he has resolved not to ap- party hatred during the last years of the pear there, because he would there have existence of the republic, that no one only one of two alternatives, either to dared to undertake the defence of the deny Christ, or to die in torments: Deny accused. Paleario did not hesitate a Christ I never can, he writes; to die, moment, but hurried back to Siena, and by the grace of God, I am ready, as he before the tribunal of the repub~ic, in himself may dispose of me, but not to one of the halls of the Palazzo Pubblico, give myself voluntarily into the hands of delivered a magnificent oration in defence SIENA. II of his friend, a discourse which, read now, after three centuries, would not seem unworthy of Cicero himself. His efforts were crowned with success and his friend ~vas acquitted; but so great was the dan- ger that the successful advocate ran of assassination, that his friends persuaded him to leave Siena speedily and return to Padua. Nor did he return until after 1535, when the Spaniards had established their authority in the republic. Paleario could now live safely in Siena, and he gave lectures on philosophy and poetry, and completed his great poem on the Immortality of the Soul, intended to be a reply to Lucretius. He purchased the Villa of Cecignano, an estate near to Colle, which had once been the property of that Aulus Cecina ~vho ~vas defended ~ by Cicero, and married. But Paleario was not only a poet, an orator, and an enthusiast for classical learning: he came of pious parents, among his intimate friends were some of the most eminent and pious churchmen of the day, and he longed for a thorough reformation of the Church without a schism. By degrees he awoke to the con- viction that this was an impossibility; and when once he clearly perceived this, his position was decided. Henceforth his life was a constant struggle against the persecutiont of the friars. They suc- ceeded in driving him from the University of Siena, and he took refuge at Lucca, where he was appointed professor of elo- quence. Here he remained from 1546 until 1555, in which year his implacable enemies compelled him to leave, and he repaired to Milan. 1-le was constantly warned by his friends of the danger of the boldness of his utterances as to the necessity of a reform of the Church, and that his only chance of safety was flight beyond the Alps; but he would not heed them, and indeed seemed to think that his mission in the world was to be a con- fessor. At the age of sixty-six he ~vas arrested in Milan by the agents of the Inquisition, and taken as a prisoner to Rome. There he was sentenced to death on the i5th of October, 1569, and the sentence was carried into execution on the 3rd of July, 1570. And now let us turn to a letter preserved among the man- uscripts in the Public Library of Siena. It is the farewell of Paleario to his wife and children, and is as follows : To Marietta Paleario. Mv DEAREST CONSORT, I desire that thou shouldst not find displeasure in my pleasure, nor evil in my good. The hour has come when I must pass from this life to my Lord and Master and God. Very joyfully do I go to the marriage supper of the Son of the great King, as I have ever prayed my Lord that of His infinite goodness and bounty He would grant me admittance. Therefore, my beloved consort, comfort thy- self in the will of God and in my contentment, and look well to the little family left in deel) dismay, and bring them up and guard them in the fear of God, and be thou to them both father and mother. I am already seventy years old and useless. Our sons must labor with virtue and with sweat of the brow to provide what is necessary to live honorably. May God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with your spirits. AoNlo PALEARTO. RoaTE, 7idy 3, 1570. \Vith this are a few lines to his sons Lampridio and Fedro, in ~vhich he gives some directions about his small property. This letter thus begins: My most courteous lords (the Inquisitors) are not wanting in politeness to me to the very last, and allow me to write to you. It pleases God to call me to Himself by means that you will understand, though they will ap- pear hitter and sharp to you. if, however, you consider that it is with my entire contentment and satisfaction, in order to conform myself to the will of God, so it ought to content you. It was on the evening of the 2nd of July that eight members of the Confra- ternity of San Giovanni Decollato, a phil- anthropic society which devoted itself to rendering services to the condemned in the hour of death, presented themselves at the l)riSon of Tordinona, and informed Palearin that he had only a few hours to live. They obtained permission for him to write the letters above quoted, and faithfully transmitted them to his wife at Colle. Just as day was breaking over the eternal city, he was led out to die. The scaffold was erected on the bridge of St. Angelo. He was strangled, and his body ~vas then thrown into the flames. Truly, never did Christian philosopher and con- fessor go forth to meet his death with more sublime serenity. It may be asked, how stands it now with Protestantism in the city of Ochino and Paleario? As in the greater part of Italy, in Spain, and else~vhere, the Holy Office did its work thoroughly, and crushed and burned out the Reformation. So far as I know, beyond one or two Swiss and English, there are no Protestants in Si- ena. A very handsome Waldensian tem- pIe was erected in a leading boulevard near to the Church of St. Dominic more 12 SIENA. which the vines had been trained. At this season, too, women and boys are to be seen up among the branches gathering the grapes, and the great, white, large- horned, meek-eyed oxen draw primitive vans through the fields on which are the tubs or baskets in which the grapes are collected. The landscape, as seen from the walls, is occasionally relieved by groves of the stone pine and copses of oak and other trees. These latter are, I fear, becoming scarcer year by y-ear, for the Sienese seem to have less respect for trees than even the Italians gene rally, and to have no compunction in cutting them down. There is but one excel)tion to this sad rule, and that is the cypress, a grove or avenue of which every Italian gentleman strives to have ar6und his villa. Very beautiful is its flame-like form, but after all not so beautiful as the oak, which nowhere flourishes better than here in Tuscany, if only allowed to do so. It is painful to look at the denuded con- dition of Italy as re~,ards wood,* and then think of the magnificent forests of oak that have been felled within the last thirty years to provide sleepers for its railway system. To return to the view from the walls of Siena. The distant hillsides are cov- ered with ilex and oak, but for the most part only scrub, as the charcoal-burner is always at work, and long before the trees have reached maturity they fall before the inexorable axe. These hills stretch atvay, range beyond range, into the distance, and in the soft vaning light present the most exquisite shades of purple. To the south the wooded Monte Amiata rises to a height of fifty-six hundred feet, about half-way distant between Siena and Rome, while to the north the main chain of tile Apen- nines, on the confines of Modena, rises than a year ago, and though no service has yet been held there, yet as a large building is now in process of construc- tion beside it to serve as a presbytery, it may be hoped that the church will soon be opened. Occasional Waldensian ser- vices are now held in the house of a Swiss resident. But I have dwelt, I fear, too long upon the memory of some of those who shed lustre upon Siena by their genius and virtue in the past. The old city sits a queen upon three hills, and from every point in the sur- rounding country its cathedral, its towers and walls form a picture of singular beauty. In its medi~eval walls, still intact and perfect, were once no fe~ver than thirty-eight gates; of these, thirty have been closed, so that eight remain open. The circuit of the walls is seven kilome- tres, and they enclose an irregular star- shaped space, a good deal of which is laid out in olive-yards and gardens. Once Siena numbered one hundred thousand inhabitants; now there are but twenty- four thousand. After the ravages of the plague, in 1348, and the last struggle for the freedom of the rel)ublic in 15545, many houses were razed, and the ground occupied by them was turned into gar- dens, as we now see them. The sur- rounding country, as seen from the walls of the fortress, appears one great olive- yard and vineyard. The vines are either trained upon mulberries or upon other trees, rarely upon olives. In the winter the grey, silvery sheen of the olives stands out against the bright red earth, which has given its name to burnt Siena; but with the spring the young corn l)lanted everywhere between the olives and the mulberries covers the ground ~vith exqui- site verdure; and when the vines and other trees put out their leaves towards the middle of May-, it is difficult to con- * Since this article has been in type, I have heard ceive of a fairer green than the country of an English family who thirty years ago found the exhibits, neighborhood of Siena beautifully wooded with oaks. Twenty years later they returned to find the greater In a month or six weeks all is changed; part felled, and two years since nearly all were gone. hill and valley alike are golden with ripe Men of good position and in other respects sane seem grain, and as soon as the grain is bar- afflicted with a mischievous madness which shows itself lo an utter hatred of trees. A few years back between vested the land re~-erts to its native red- the outer and inner gate at Camollia was a superb aye- ness, thourh late in the autumn this is nue of hex. Every tree was felled in one year by a tree-hating stud co, and now in this most exposed relieved by some green crops, as ~velcome place there is not a particle of shade against the blazing to the eye as they doubtless are to the Italian sun. A mile outside the city are some fine cattle for whose sustenance they are in- villas, and there used to he some lovely shady lanes, with fine old oaks on either side, through whose urn- tended. Last year the yield of grapes brageousfoliagethehotsuncoiildiiotpen~tr~15 These was exceptionally abundant, and it was oaks have nearly all been slaughte~d, the proprietor having no other idea but to make what he calls a curious, as one drove along distant coun- c :nSo iolitoa clean field; and even where along try lanes, to see great purple clusters a little hollow flows a rivulet, erst shaded by ~ihlows, the flat has gone forth, and all the trees are at this mu hanging by the roadside from the topmost mnent being felled. They make a desolation, and call branches of oaks and other trees upon it a camjlojlali/o. SIENA. 3 high above the other hills by which the city is surrounded, and in winter deep in snow, and gleaming white in the sun- shine, presents a truly Alpine appearance. When you enter one of the gates of Siena, you pass along narrow streets, many of which are so steep as to be impassable to vehicles. Along the more level streets come lumbering country wains, each drawn by two milk-white oxen, with great, branch- ing horns, and large, soft eyes. The con- tadine from the surrounding district, with bright, handsome, wholesome faces and immense waving Tuscan hats, give much picturesqueness to the streets, as do the numerous ecclesiastics in their shovel hats and knee-breeches. In August comes the great festival of the city, the Palio. Its origin is lost in hoar antiquity. In fact, there is reason to believe that when only the summits of the three hills upon ~vhich Siena sits were built upon, the inhabitants used to come do~vn to meet one another into what is now the Piazza del Campo, the great mar- ket-place. It is a true amphitheatre, hav- ing exactly the form of an immense upturned cockle-shell, and probably it was once the crater of a volcano. Its size may be estimated by the fact that it is said to hold, and indeed on at least one occa- sion has held, as many as thirty-five thou- sand people, though half that number is sufficient to give it a crowded appearance. The principal building in the piazza is the magnificent Palace of the Republic, stand- ing now as strong and intact and perfect as if it had not witnessed the daily life, the games, and the life and death struo- gles of Siena in countless revolutions throughout nearly six centuriesfor it was commenced in T284 and finished about 1330. Rising gracefully by the side of the Palace of the Republic is the so-called Mangia Tower, which from every part of the city and for many miles around is visi- ble, a miracle of lightness and strength. The Palazzo Pubblico, with the Mangia Tower, forms the diameter or base of the semicircle, and stands at the lowest part of the piazza, while the semicircle of pal- aces faces it from higher ground in a reg- ular amphitheatre. In remote times the citizens used here to celebrate a game called Elmora, which was in truth more than a game; it was a regular battle with sticks and stones and other weapons, and always caused the death of at least one citizen. For this, in 1291, was substituted boxing, which continued to be practised down to the beginning of the present cen- tury. But the public games of the con- trade began in 1482, in which year, for the first time, jousts and tourneys were held by them in the Piazza. From 1500 to 1599 the contrade had annual bull-fights, to which each contrada brought its own bull. A little fortress, too, was con- structed and adorned with banners by each contrada, in which the bull-fighters sought refuge when too closely pressed by the tormented animals. This cruel sport gave place, from i6oo to i6~o, to races between buffaloes, each ridden by a jockey; but as this also was almost al- ways accompanied by death or severe wounds to some of the coml)etitors, in i6~o horses were substituted for buffaloes, and the races have thus been run do~vn to the l)resent day. The word con/rada simply means a street or district of the city, but the contrade are more than lay corporations; each has a church, a dis- tinctive banner, and special regulations of its own. They are probably as old as the republic itself. In 1328 there were fifty-nine of these con trade. Thirteen ceased to exist at the time of the plague, and twenty-three more after the siege. Six were suppressed in 1675 for having insulted the judges at the tourney of that year, thus leaving the seventeen which still remain. The contrade mostly take their name from some animal, a picture of which is emblazoned upon their respective banners. These emblems are as follows: the tortoise (the most ancient), the goose, the tower, the giraffe, the conch-shell, the wood, the caterpillar, the wolf, the eagle, the owl, the wave, the dragon, the snail, the panther, the sheep, the unicorn, and the porcupine. Of these only ten are al- lowed to run horses at the Palio, the course being too narrow to admit of more with safety. For weeks before the event actually comes off the greatest excitement prevails throughoutT the city, every one being anxious for the success of the horse belon~in~ to his or her contrada. At length the great day arrives. The ten horses that are to run are led into the churches of their respective contrade, and are there blessed by the priests. The banners of all the seventeen contrade wave everywhere throughout the city. The people are crowded into the immense shell-like space of the Piazza del Campo, the centre of which is occupied by the spectators, as are tier upon tier of seats arranged against the ground floor of the palaces, and also balconies at a higher level. The course is a stone pavement, about thirty feet wide, on the outside circumfer 4 SIENA. ence of the Piazza, and exactly below the tiers of seats at the base of the palaces. It is now covered three or four inches deep with sand and earth, and even with this concession it seems a desperate course for mortal horses to run. Not only are the turns short and sharp, but there are constant steep ascents and de- scents. Where the descending slope is steepest, near the beautiful little chapel erected hard by the Palazzo Pubblico, not only have hoardings been freely erected, but they have been well padded with beds and mattresses, to give if possible a soft reception to any unfortunate rider who may be spilt here. A troop of carbineers, who, throughout Italy, are employed on police duty, and who are particularly fine men, well horsed, and with superb uni- forms, canter round the course two or three times to clear it of people. The appearance of the Piazza during last years Palio was at this moment very striking. An old gentleman, in one of the balconies, who said he was seventy- four years old, and that he had witnessed more than fifty Palios, estimated the num- ber of people present at nearly thirty thousand. He was, of course, a laudator temporis ac/i, and thought the present show very inferior to those of his youth. Probably, however, the change was more in the spectator than in the scene. The tiers of seats crowded with gaily dressed spectators, the bright-colored clothing of the crowd, the characteristic immense broad waving Tuscan hats of the coun- trywomen, the waving of fans, the hum of many voices, like the roar of the sea when the wind drives shorewards its thundering breakers, the grand old palaces decked out for the occasion, on whose topmost balconies up to the towers and roofs were grouped spectators, the music of the bands, the roll of the drums, the waving of banners, the signal shots from mortars, the capering of the horses, and the wild joy of an entire people, together formed a strange and intoxicating tout ensemble of movement, color, and sound. The clusters of many-colored elastic bal. loons, inflated by the vendors and floated up almost to the level of the roofs of the palace, were a distinct addition to the brightness of the scene. But now, in a moment, every voice is hushed and every neck is craned. From the street Casato, preceded by a band of music, appear the representatives of the seventeen contrade, greeted by the ap- plause of their respective partisans. Each contrada is represented by a captain, clothed in splendid armor, two ensigns, ~vho act as wavers of banners, a first page, who ~valks by himself, carrying a banner on his shoulder, a drummer, and four other pages, all attired in the brilliant and picturesque fashion of the Middle Ages. Then follows the horse of parade, a show horse, richly caparisoned, bearing a rider armed cap~-pie as a knight, and, lastly, the horse that is to do the running, with- out even a saddle, and quite without orna- ment. Where these horses are procured, or how selected, I do not know; they must be chosen for qualities of speed or endurance, but they are said to be horses that, except on this festal day, are busy all the year round drawing carts an dper- forming other humble duties. They are little creatures and have a weedy appear- ance. The bright colors of the costumes of the Middle Ages, the plumes on the helmets, the burnished cuirasses, the rich caparisons of the horses, the flashing~ swords, the gracefully attired pages, the bold knights, the dexterous ensigns, who, proud of their office, wave their ban- ners in a thousand capricious curves, yet so that they always remain unfurled, and every now and again hurl them into the air, catching them with wonderful agility, and the captains with a grave and sol- emn air, befitting the dignity of their po- sition in short, all this wealth of cos- tume, all this varied luxury of dress and of arms, carries even the most matter-of- fact beholder many centuries backwards on the stream of time, to the days of em- battled castles with moats and draw- bridges, and of jousts and tourneys. Cer- tainly our modern dress, when placed side by side with that of the Middle Ages, looks mean and common indeed. As the contrade defile past the balcony, where sit the judges of the course, they stop to salute them, to wave their ban- ners, and to throw them into the air. Last comes the carroccio, or sacred war car of the republic, the pride of the an- cestors of those who now surround it, in defence of which the flower of the youth of Siena bled and died on many a hard-fought field. It is adorned with the standard which waved at the famous bat- tle of Monte Aperto, and with the ban- ners of all the contrade of Siena. The representatives of the contrade~, nearly two hundred in all, now range themselves on tiers of seats, al)propriately raised at the foot of the Palazzo Pubblico; and a wonderful picture the old palace makes, with the graceful Mangia Tower rising be- side it, its windows alive ~vith gay and THE LADIES LINDORES. happy faces, and at its base a perfect par. terre of bright colors, formed by the rep- resentatives of the contrade. The roll of drums ceases, the many-colored banners are no longer waved, the music is hushed, and there only remains the murmur of the agitated and expectant crowd. The show having finished, the business of the day now begins. The horses that are to com- pete are ridden bare-backed. However humble their ordinary employment, they seem now affected by the general enthu- siasm around them and are eager for the start. Hark! the roll of a drum, the re- port of a gun, the rope falls, and the ten horses are off in a ~vild gallop. The partisans of the respective contrade are in a state of great excitement, and cheer their champions on ~vith frantic cries. The horse of the Lze~o (wolf) is a little ahead of any of the others; but that of the Torre (tower) presses him hard, al- though the rider of the latter had been thrown and slightly hurt at the trial race in the morning. There is a sharp strug- gle between the two riders ~vith their leather thongs, the horses all the time at full gallop, and then the horse of the Torre shoots ahead, passes the starting- point for the third time, and wins. The contrada of the Torre is that which sur- rounds the Mangia Tower and the Pa- lazzo Pubblico, and great is the delight of its inhabitants. A woman begins to ring the bell of the chapel of the Piazza. The victorious rider receives the prize from the hands of the judges, and the flag with the date, glorious for him and for his contrada, worked upon it. It is diffi- cult to say whether man or horse is the hero of the hour: both are greeted with transports of joy, and are even fondly em- braced by both men and women. They are then led in triumph into a church, where a priest intones the TEe Deum, ~imid the evvivas of the people, for the Italians see nothing irreverent in this strange pro- ceedi n About a fortnight after the Palio, the conquering contrada gives a dinner to the representatives of all the other contrade. This year it took place in a narrow street at one side of the Palazzo Pubblico, right down the middle of which tables were placed. On either side the houses were brilliantly illuminated with tapers and Chinese lanterns of many colors, and, of its kind, nothing could be more pictur- esque. This dinner takes place at 9 P.M., and lasts far into the night. The narrow old street, with its lofty houses lighted from basement to garret, with here a tri umphal arch of evergreens, and there a transparency of the arms of the con- trada; the interested, but most orderly, citizens of Siena, with their wives and children, assisting at the banquet by walk- ing down one side of the tables and up the other; the narrow streak of soft, blue Italian sky between the housetops on either side, illuminated by a full, clear moon which,being in the zenith, looked down upon the festivity, altogether formed a really charming tableau. I am assured that there is little drunk- enness, and not much betting on these occasions. Certainly I, personally, saw no drunkenness, nor did I hear any bets made. This is, however, strictly negative evidence, and onewould expect a great deal of betting in a country where in every town, little and great, there is an office for the sale of tickets in the government and municil)al lotteries, institutions for na- tional demoralization worthy only of the darkest of dark ages. Be this as it may, I never beheld a gentler or more well- behaved crowd, and the great Piazza was quickly emptied by means of the eleven streets or passages which open into it. St. Catherine speaks of the sailgue doZce of her beloved Sienese; and there is a feeling in the city that it is not consist- ent with this trait of their character that the riders at the Palio should be allowed to strike one another with their whips, a clear survival from the old days when the Elmora always counted its victims slain, and boxing and bull-fighting were the order of the day. SAMUEL JAMES CAPPER. From Blackwoods Magazine. THE LADIES LINDORES. CHAPTER XXXIX. ROLLS disappeared on the evening of the day on which he had that long consul- tation with Mr. Monypenny. He did not return to Dalrulzian that night. Marget, with many blushes and no small excite- ment, served the dinner, which Bauby might be said to have cooked with tears. If these salt drops were kept out of her sauces, she bedewed the white apron, ~vhich she lifted constantly to her eyes. Maister John in jyal! and oor Tammas gone after him; and what will I say to his mammaw? Bauby cried. She seemed to fear that it might be supposed some want of care on her part which had led to this dreadful result. But even the sorrow 5 i6 THE LADIES LINDORES. of her soul did not interfere with her sense of what was due to her masters guest. Beauforts dinner did not suffer, whatever else mio~ht. It was scrupulously cooked, and served with all the care of which Marget was capable; and when it was all over, and everything carefully put aside, the women sat down together in the kitchen, and had a good cry over the desolation of the house. The younger maids, perhaps, were not so deeply con- cerned on this point as Bauby, who was an old servant, and considered Dalrulzian as her home: but they were all more or less affected by the disgrace, as well as sorry for the young master, who had nae pride, and always a pleasant word for his attendants in whatevqr capacity. Their minds were greatly affected, too, by the absence of Rolls. Not a man in the house but the stranger gentleman! It was a state of affairs which alarmed and depressed them, and proved, above all other signs, that a great catastrophe had happened. Beaufort sent for the house- keeper after dinner to give her such in- formation as he thought necessary; and Bauby was supported to the door by her subordinates, imploring her all th~ way to keep up her heart. Youll no let on to the strange gentleman. Yell keep up a good face, and no let him see how sair cast down ye are, they said, one at either hand. There was a great deal of struggling outside the door, and some stifled sounds of weeping, before it ~vas opened, and Bauby appeared, pushed in by some invisible agency behind her, which closed the door promptly as soon as she was within. She was not the im- portant person Beaufort had expected to see ; but as she stood there, with her large white apron thrown over her arm, and her comely countenance, like a sky after rain, lighted up with a very wan and uncertain smile, putting the best face she could upon it, Beauforts sympathy over- came the inclination to laugh which he might have felt in other circumstances, at tIle sight of her sudden entrance and troubled clinging to the doorway. Good evening, h~ said, Mrs They call me Bauby Rolls, at your service, said Bauby, with a curtsey and a suppressed sob. Mrs. Rolls, said Beaufort, your master may not come home for a few days; he asked me to tell you not to be anxious; that he hoped to be back soon; that there ~vas nothing to be alarmed about. Eh! and was he so kind as think upon me, and him in such trouble, cried Bauby,giv- in g way to her emotions. But Im no alarmt; no, no, why should I be, she added in a trembling voice. He will be hame, no doubt, in a day or twa, as ye say, sir, and glad, glad well a be. Its not that we have any doubt but oh ~vhat will his mammaw say to me? cried Bauby. After the tremulous momentary stand she had made, her tears flowed faster than ever. There has no such thing happened among the Erskines since ever the name was kent in the country- side, and thats maist from the beginning, as its written in Scripture. Its all a mistake, cried Beaufort. That it is that it is, cried Bauby, drying her eyes. And then she added with another curtsey, I hope youll find everything to your satisfaction, sir, till the maister comes hame. Tammas thats the butler, Tam- mas Rolls, my brother, sir, if ye please is no at hame to-night, and you wouldna like a lass aboot to valet ye; theyre all young but me. But if you would put out your does to brush, or anything that wants doing, outside your door, it shall a be weel attended to. Im real sorry theres no another man aboot the house: but a that women can do well do, and with good-will. You are very kind, Mrs. Rolls, said Beaufort. I was not thinking of myself you must not mind me. I shall get on very well. I am sorry to be a trouble to you at such a melancholy moment. Na, na, sir, not melancholy, cried Bauby, with her eyes streaming; sin ye say, and abody must allow, that its just a mistake: we manna be put aboot by such-like trifles. But nae doubt it will be livelier and mair l)lees. ant for yoursel, sir, when Mr. John and Tammas, they baith come hame. Would you be wanting anything more to-night? Na, I never let on, Bauby said, ~vhen she retired to the ready support of her handmaidens outside the door no me; I keepit a stout heart, and I said to him, Its of nae consequence, sir, I said, Im nane cast down; its just a mis- take everybody kens that; and that he was to put his things outside his door. He 0-ot nothing that would go against the credit of the house out of me. But in spite of this forlorn confidence in her powers of baffling suspicion, it was a wretched night that poor Bauby spent. John w-as satisfactorily accounted for, and it was known where he was; but who could say where Rolls might be? Bauby sat up half through the night alone in the great empty kitchen with the solemn- sounding clock and the cat purring loudly by the fime. She was as little used to the THE LADIES LINDORES. 7 noises of the night as Lord Rintoul was, and in her agony of watching felt the per- petual shock and thrill of the unknown going through and through her. She heard steps coming up to the house a hundred times through the night, and stealing stealthily about the doors. Is that you, Tammas? she said again and again, peering out into the night: but no- body appeared. Nor did he appear next day, or the next. After her first panic, Bauby gave out that he was with his mas- ter that she had never expected him in order to secure him from remark. But in her own mind horrible doubts arose. He had always been the most irreproach- able of men; but what if, in the shock of this catastrophe, even Tammas should have taken to ill ways? Drink that was the natural suggestion. Who can fathom the inscrutable attractions it has, so that men yield to it who never could have been suspected of such a weakness? Most women of the lower classes have the conviction that no man can resist it. Heart-wrung for his master, shamed to his soul for the credit of the house, had Rolls, too, after successfully combating temptation for all his respectable life, yielded to the demon? Bauby trembled, but kept her terrors to herself. She said he might come back at any moment he was with his maister. Where else was it likely at such a time that he should be? But Rolls was not ~vith his master. He was on the eve of a great and momentous act. There were no superstitious alarms about him, as about Rintoul, and no ques- tio~ in his mind what to do. Before he left Dalrulzian that sad morning, he had shaped all the possibilities in his thoughts, and knew what he intended; and his con- versation with Mr. Monypenny gave sub- stance and a certain reasonableness to his resolution. But it was not in his nature by one impetuous movement to precipi- tate affairs. He had never in his life acted hastily, and he had occasional trem- ors of the flesh which chilled his impulse and made him pause. But the interval, which was so bitter to his master, although all the lookers-on congratulated them- selves it could do him no harm, was exactly what Rolls wanted in the extraor- dinary crisis to which he had come. A humble person, quite unheroic in his hab- its as in his antecedents, it was scarcely to be expected that the extraordinary project which had entered his mind should have been carried out with the enthusi- astic impulse of romantic youth. But few youths, however romantic, would have LIVING AGE. VOL. XLII. 2134 entertained such a purpose as that which now occupied Rolls. There are many who would risk a great deal to smuggle an illustrious prisoner out of his prison. But this was an enterprise of a very dif- ferent kind. He left Mr. Monypenny with his head full of thoughts which were not all heroic. None of his inquiries had been made without meaning. The self- devotion which was in him was of a sober kind, not the devotion of a Highland clansman, an Evan Dhu; and though the extraordinary expedient he had planned appeared to him more and not less alarm- ing than the reality, his own self-sacrifice ~vas not without a certain calculation and caution too. All these things had been SeriQusly weighed and balanced in his mind. He had considered his sisters interest, and even his own eventual advantage. He had never neglected these primary objects of life, and he did not do so now. But though all was taken into account and carefully considered, Rollss first rnagnan- imous purpose was never shaken; and the use he made of the important breath- ing-time of these intervening days was characteristic. He had, like most men, floating in his mind several things which he intended some time to do, a vague intention which, in the common course of affairs, is never carried out. One of these things was to pay a visit to Edinburgh. Edinburgh to Rolls was as much as Lon- don and Paris and Rome made into one. All his patriotic feelings, all that respect for antiquity which is natural to the mind of a Scot, and the pride of advancing progress and civilization which becomes a man of this century, were involved in his desire to visit the capital of his own country. Notwithstanding all the facili- ties of travel, lie had been there but once before, and that in his youth. With a curious solemnity he determined to make this expedition now. It seemed the most suitable way of spending these all-impor- tant da)-s, before he took the step beyond which he did not know what might happen to him. A more serious visitor, yet one more determined to see everything and to take the full advantage of all he saw, never entered that romantic town. He looked like a rural elder of the gravest Calvinistic type as he walked, in his black coat and loosely tied white neckcloth, about the lofty streets. He ~vent to Holy- rood, and gazed with reverence and pro- found belief at the stains of Rizzios blood. He mounted up to the Castle, and examined Mons Meg with all the care of i8 THE LADIES LINDORES. a historical observer. He even inspected which he had bought for the purpose. the pictures in the National Collection Then, having concluded everything, he with unbounded respect, if little knowl- set out solemnly on his way to Dunearn. edge, and climbed the Observatory on the It was a long walk. The autumnal Calton Hill. There were many specta- afternoon closed in mists; the moon rose tors about the streets, who remarked him up out of a haze the harvest moon, with as he ~valked about, looking conscien- a little redness in her light. The land- tiously at everything, with mingled amaze- scape was dim in this mellowed vapor, ment and respect; for his respectability, and everything subdued. The trees, with his sober curiosity, his unvarying serious- all their fading glories, hung still in the ness, were remarkable enough to catch haze; the river tinkled with a far-off an intelligent eye. But nobody suspected sound; the liThts in the cottages were that Rollss visit to Edinburgh was the blurred, and looked like huge, vague lamps solemn visit of a martyr, permitting him- in the milky air, as Rolls trudged on self the indulgence of a last look at the slowly, surely, to the place of fate. It scenes. that interested him most, ere giv- took him a long time to walk there, and ing himself up to an unknown and myste- he did not hurry. Why should he hurry? rious doom. He was sure, went he ever so slowly, to On the morning of the 24th, having sat- arrive in time. As he xvent along, all isfied himself fully, he returned home. things that ever he had done came up He was quite satisfied. Whatever might into his mind. His youthful extrava- now happen, he had fulfilled his intention, gances for Rolls, too, had once been and realized his dreams: nothing could young and silly; his gradual settling into take a~vay from him the gratification thus manhood; his aspirations, which he once secured. He had seen the best that earth had, like the best; his final anchorage, contained, and now was ready for the which, if not in a very exalted post, nor worst, whatever that miaht be. Great perhaps what he had once hoped for, was and strange sights, prodigies unknown to yet so respectable. Instead of the long his fathers, were befitting and natural lines of trees, the hedgerows, and cottages objects to occupy him at this moment of which marked the road, it was his own fate. It was still early when he got back: life that Rolls walked through as he went he stopped at the Tinto station, not at on. He thought of the old folk, his father that which was nearest to Dalrulzian, and and mother; he seemed to see Bauby and slowly making his way up by the fatal himself and the others coming home in road, visited the scene of Torrances just such a misty autumn night from death. The lodge-keeper called out to schooL Jock, poor fellow! who had gone him, as he turned that way, that the road to sea, and had not been heard of for was shut up; but Rolls paid no heed. years; Willie, who listed, and nearly He clambered over the hurdles that ~vere broke the old mothers heart. How many placed across, and soon reached the scene shipwrecks there had been among the of the tragedy. The marks of the horses lads he once knew! Rolls felt, with a hoofs were scarcely yet obliterated, and warmth of satisfaction about his heart, the one fatal point at which the terrified how ~vell it was to have walked uprightly, brute had dinted deeply into the tough to have won through the storms of clay, its last desperate attempt to hold its life, and to have been a credit and a coin- footing, was almost as distinct as ever. fort to all belonging to him. If anything The terrible incident with which he had was worth living for, that was. Willie so much to do came before him with a and Jock had both been cleverer than he, confused perception of things he had not poor fellows! but they had both dropped, thought of at the time, reviving, as in a and he had held on. Rolls did not want dream, before his very eyes. He remem- to be proud; he ~vas quite willing to say, bered that Torrance lay with his head If it had not been for the grace of down the stream a point which had not God but yet it gave him an ele- struck him as important; and he remem- vating sense of the far superior pleasure bered that Lord Rintoul had appeared out it ~vas to conquer your inclinations in the of the wood at his cry for help so quickly days of your youth, and to do Well what- that he could not have been far away ever inigh t oppose. When the name of when the accident took place. What Rolls was mentioned by any one about special signification there might be in Dunearn, it would always be said that these facts Rolls was not sufficiently two of them had done very well Tam- clear-headed to see. But lie noted them mas and Bauby: these were the two. with great gravity in a little note-book, They had always held by one another; THE LADIES LINDORES. 9 they had always been respectable. But here Rolls stopped in his thoughts, taking a long breath. After this, after what was going to happen, what would the folk say then? Would a veil drop after to-day upon the unblemished record of his life? He had never stood before a magistrate in all his days never seen how the world lo~ed from the inside of a prison, even as a visitorhad no-thing to do, no-thing to do with that side of the world. He waved his hand, as if separating by a mystic line between all that was doubtful or disreputable, and his own career. But now Thus through the misty dark- ening road, with now a red gleam from a smithy, and now a softer glimmer from a cottage-door, and anon the trees standing out of the mists, and the landscape wid- eni n g about him, Rolls came on slowly, very seriously, to Dunearn. The long tower of the Town House, which had seemed to threaten and call upon Lord Rintoul, was the first thing that caught the eye of Rolls. The moon shone upon it, making a white line of it against the cloudy sky. Mr. Monypenny was at dinner ~vith his family. They dined at six oclock, which was thought rather a fashionable hour, and the comfortable meal was just over. In- stead of wine, the good man permitted him- self one glass of toddy when the weather grew cold. He was sitting between the ta- ble and the fire, and his wife sat on the oth- er side giving him her company and con- solation, for Mr. Monypenny was some- what low and despondent. He had been moved by Sir James Montgomerys warm and sudden partisanship and belief of John Erskines story; but he was a prac- tical man himself, and he could not, he owned, shaking his head, take a sensa- tional view. To tell him that there should have been just such an encounter as seemed probable high words between two gentlemen but that they should part ~vith no harm done, and less than an hour after one of them be found lying dead at the bottom of the Scaurthat was more than he could swallow in the way of a story. To gain credence there should have been less or more. Let hirh hold his tongue altogethera man is never called upon to criminate himself or let him say all. Then you must just give him a word, my dear, to say nothing about it, said Mrs. Monypenny, who was anxious too. But thats just impossible, my dear, for he blurted it all out to the sheriff just as he told it to me. Do you not think its a sign of innocence that he should keep to one story, and when its evidently against himself, so far as it goes? A sign of innocence! Mr. Monypenny said, with a snort of impa- tience. He took his toddy very sadly, finding no exhilaration in it. Pride will prevent him departing from his story, he said. If he had spoken out like a man, and called for help like a Christian, it would have been nothing. All this fuss is his own doing a panic at the moment, and pride pride now, and nothing more. If ye please, said the trim maid who was Mr. Monypennys butler and foot. man all in one the table-maid, as she was called theres one wanting to speak to ye, sir. Ive put him into the office, and he says he can wait. One! and who may the one be? said Mr. Monypenny. Weel, sir, hes got his hat cloon on his brows and a comforter aboot his throat, and he looks sore forfoughten, as if he had travelled all the day, and no a word to throw at a dog; but I think its Mr. Rolls, the butler at Dalrulzian. Rolls ! said Mr. Monypenny. Ill go to him directly, Jeanie. Thats one thing off my mind. I thought that old body had disappeared rather than bear witness against his master, he said, when the girl had closed the door. But oh, if hes going to bear witness against his master, it would have been better for him to disappear, said the sympathetic wife. Nasty ,body! to eat folks bread, and then to get them into trouble. Whesht with your foolish re+narks, my dear: that is clean against the law, and it would have had a very bad appear- ance, and prejudiced the court against us, Mr. Monypenny said as he went away. But to tell the truth, he was not glad; for Rolls was one of the most dan- gerous witnesses against his master. The agent went to his office with a darkened brow. It ~vas not well lighted, for the lamp had been turned down, and the fire was low. Rolls rose up from where he had been sitting on the edge of a chair as Mr. Monypenny came in. He had un- wound his comforter from his neck, and taken off his hat. His journey, and his troubled thoughts, and the night air, had limped and damped him; the starch was out of his tie, and the air of conscious rectitude out of his aspect. He made a solemn but tremulous bow, and stood waiting till the door ~vas closed, and the man of business had thrown himself into 20 THE LADIES LINDORES. a chair. Well, Rolls so you have come back! Mr. Monypenny said. Ay, sir, Ive come back. Ive brought you the man, Mr. Monypenny, that did yOfl. Good Lord, Rolls! that did what? You take away my breath. ill do it more or Im done. The man that coupit yon poor lad Tinto and his muckle horse ower the brae. Mr. Monypenny started to his feet. Do you mean to tell me Lord bless us, man, speak out, cant ye! The man that Are ye in your senses, Rolls? And who may this man be? You see before you, sir, one thats nae better than a coward. I thought it would blow by. I thought the young master would be cleared in a moment. There ~vas nae ill meaning in my breast. I did the best I could for him as soon as it was done, and lostna a moment. But my courage failed me to say it was me You! cried Monypenny, with a shout that rang through the house. Just me, and no other; and what for no me? Am I steel and aim, to t~ike ill words from a man that was no master of mine? Ye can shut me up in your prison I meant him no hairm and hang me if you like. Ill no let an innocent man suffer instead of me. Ive come to give myself up. CHAPTER XL. DEAR MR. ERSKINE, I do not know what words to use to tell you how pained and distressed we are I speak for my mother as well as myself to find that nothing has been done to relieve you from the consequence of such a ridiculous as well as unhappy mistake. We found my brother Robin as anxious as we were, or more so, if that were possible, to set matters right at once; but unfortunately on the day after, the funeral took up all thoughts: and what other obstacles in- tervened next day I cannot rightly tell, but something or otherI am too im- patient and pained to inquire what came in the way; and they tell me now that to-morrow is the day of the examina- tion, and that it is of no use now to fore- stall justice, which will certainly set you free to-morrow. Oh, dear Mr. Erskine, I cannot tell you how sick and sore my heart is to think that you have been in confinement (it seems too dreadful, too ludicrous, to be true), in confinement all these long days. I feel too angry, too miserable, to think of it. I have been crying, as if that would do you any good, and rushing up and down abusing every- body. I think that in his heart Robin feels it more than any of us: he feels the injustice, the foolishness; but still he has been to blame, and I dont know how to excuse him. We have not dared to tell poor Carry though, indeed, I need not attempt to conceal from you, who have seen so much, that poor Carry, though she is dreadfully excited and upset, is not mis- erable, as you would expect a woman to be in her circumstances. Could it be ex- pected? But I dont know what she might do if she heard what has happened to you. She might take some step of her own accord, and that would be not pru- dent, I suppose; so we dont tell her. Oh, Mr. Erskine, did you ever think how miserable women are? I never realized it till now. Here am I, and, still more, here is my mother. She is not a child, or an incapable person, I hope! yet she can do nothingnothing to free you. She is as helpless as if she were a baby. It seems to me ridiculous that Robins opinion should be worth taking, and mine not; but that is quite a different matter. My moth- er can do nothing but persuade and plead with a boy like Robin, to do that ~vhich she herself, at her age, wise as she is, good as she is, cannot do. As you are a man, you may think this of no impor. tance; and mamma says it is nature, and cannot be resisted, and smiles. But if you suppose she does not feel it! if she could have been your bail, or whatever it is, you may be sure you would not have been a single night in Ikat place! but all that we can do is to go down on our knees to the men who have it in their power, and I, unfortunately, have not been brought up to go down on my knees. Forgiveme for this outburst. I am so miserable to think where you are, and why, and that I I mean wecan do nothing. What can I say to you? Dear Mr. Erskine, our thoughts are with you constantly. My mother sends you her love. EDITH. Edith felt perhaps that this was not a very prudent letter. She was not think- ing of prudence, but of relieving her own mind and comforting John Erskine, op- pressed and suffering. And besides, she was herself in a condition of great ex- citement and agitation. She had been brought back from Tinto, she and her mother, with a purpose. Perhaps it was not said to her in so many words; but it was certainly conveyed to the minds of the female members of the family gener THE LADIES LINDORES. 21 ally that Millefleurs was at the end ot his patience, and his suit must have an answer once for all. Carry had been told of the proposal by her mother, and had pledged herself to say nothing against it. And she had kept her promise, though with difficulty, reserving to herself the power to act afterwards if Edith should be driven to consent against her will. Another of us shall not do it, Carry said; oh, not if I can help it! I do not believe that Edith will do it, said Lady Lindores; but let us not interfere let us not in- terfere! Carry, therefore, closed her mouth resolutely; but as she kissed her sister, she could not help whispering in her ear, Remember that I will always stand by youalways, whatever hap- pens! This was at Lindores, where Carry, pining to see once more the face of the outer world since it had so changed to her, drove her. mother and sister in the afternoon, returning home alone with re- sults which were not without importance in her life. But in the mean time it is Edith with whom we have to do. She reached home with the sense of having a certain ordeal before her something which she had to pass through, not with- out painwhich ~vould bring her into direct antagonism with her father, and convulse the household altogether. Even the idea that she must more or less vex Millefleurs distressed and excited her; for indeed she was quite willing to admit that she was very fond of Millefleurs, though it ~vas ridiculous to think of him in any other capacity than that of a brotherly friend. And it ~vas at this moment she made the discovery that, notwithstanding the promises of Rintoul and Millefleurs, nothing had been done for John. The consequence ~vas, that the letter which we have just quoted was at once an expres- sion of sympathy, very warm, and indeed impassioned more than sympathy, in- dignation, wrath, sentiments which were nothing less than violentand a way of easing her own excited mind which noth- ing else could have furnished. I am going to write to John Erskine, she said, with the boldness produced by so great a crisis; and Lady Lindores had not inter- fered. She said, Give him my love, and that was all. No claim of superior prudence, or even wisdom, has been made for Lady Lindores. She had to do the best she could among all these imperfec- tions. Perhaps she thought that, having expressed all her angry, glowing heart to John, in the outfiowing of impassioned sympathy, the girl would be more likely, in the reaction and fear lest she had gone too far, to be kind to Millefleurs; for who can gauge the ebbings and flowingsof these young fantastic souls? And as for Lady Lindoress private sentiments, she would not have forced her daughter a hair- breath; and she had a good deal of pain to reconcile herself to Millefleurss some- what absurd figure as the husband of Edith But yet, when all is said, to give your child the chance of being a duchess, who would not sacrifice a little? If only Edith could make up her mind to it! Lady Lindores ~vent no further. Never- theless, when the important moment ap- proached, she could not help, like Carry, breathing a word in her childs ear, Re- member, there is no better heart in exist- ence, she said. A woman could not have a better man. Edith, in her excite- ment, grasped her mothers arms with her two hands; but all the answer she gave was a little nervous laugh. She had no voice to reply. You ~vill remember, Millefleurs, that my daughter is very youngandand shy, said Lord Lindores, on the other side. He was devoured by a desire to say, If she refuses you, never mind I will make her give in; which indeed was ~vhat he had said in a kind of paraphrase to Tor- rance. But Millefleurs was not the sort of person to whom this could be said. He drew himself up a little, and puffed out his fine chest, when Iris future father- in-law (as they hoped) made this remark. If Edith was not as willing to have him as he was to have her, she was not for Millefleurs. He almost resented the in- terference. I have no doubt that Lady Edith and I will quite understand each other whichever way it may be, Mille- fleurs added with a sigh, which suited the situation. As a matter of fact, he thought there could not be very much doubt as to the reply. It was not possible that they could have made him stay only to get a refusal at the end and Millefleurs was well aware that the girls were very few who could find it in their hearts to refuse a future dukedom: besides, had it not, been a friendship at first sight an im- mediate liking, if not love? To refuse him now would be strange indeed. It was not until after dinner that the fated moment came. Neither Lord Lindores nor Rintoul came into the drawing-room; and Lady Lindores, having her previous orders, left the field clear almost immedi- ately after the entrance of the little hero. There was nothing accidental about it, as there generally is, or appears to be, about 22 THE LADIES LINDORES. the scene of such events. The great drawing-room, all softly lighted and warm was never abandoned in this way in the evening. Edith stood before the fire clasping her hands together nervously, the light falling warm upon her black dress and the gleams of reflection from its jet trimmings. They had begun to talk before Lady Lindores retreated to the background to look for something, as she said; and Millefleurs allowed the sub- ject they were discussing to come to an end before he entered upon anything more important. He concluded his little argu- ment with the greatest propriety, and then he paused and cleared his throat. Lady Edith, he said, you may not have noticed that we are alone. He folded his little hands toget her, and put out his chest, and made all his curves more remarkable, involuntarily, as he said this. It was his way of opening a new subject, and he was not carried out of his way by excitement as Edith was. She looked round breathlessly, and said, Has mamma gone? with a little gasp a mixture of agitation and shame. The sense even that she was false in her pre- tence at surprise for did she not know what was comino-? agitated her still more. Yeth, said Millefleurs, drawing out his lisp into a sort of sigh. I have asked that I might see you by yourself. You will have thought, perhaps, that for me to stay here when the family was in affliction, was, to say the least, bad taste, dont you know? No, said Edith, faltering, I did not think so; I thought-.. That is exactly so, said Millefleurs seriously. It is a great bore to be sure; but you and I are not like two nobodies. The truth is, I had to speak to your fa- ther first: it seemed to be the best thing to do, and now I have been waitmno- to have this chance. Lady Edith, I hope you are very well aware that I am very fond of you, dont you know? I always thought we were fond of one another You were quite right, Lord Mille- fleurs, cried Edith nervously; you have been so nice you have been like another Thanks; but it was not quite in that way. Here Millefleurs put out his plump hand and took hers in a soft, loose clasp a clasp which was affectionate but to- tally unimpassioned. He patted the hand with his fingers as he held it in an en- couraging, friendly way. Thats very pleasant; but it doesnt do, dont you know? People would have said we were, one of us, trifling with the other. I told Lord Lindores that there was not one other girl in the ~vorld that is in this country whom I ever could wish to marry but you. He was not displeased, and I have been waiting ever since to ask; dont you think we might marry, Lady Edith ? I should like it if you would. I hope I have not been abrupt, or anything of that sort. Oh no! you are always considerate, always kind, cried Edith; but, dear Lord Millefleurs, listen to me, I dont think it would do No? he said, ~vith rather a blank air, suddenly pausing in the soft pat of encouragement he was giving her upon the hand; but he did not drop the hand, nor did Edith take it from him. She had recovered her breath and her composure; her heart fluttered no more. The usual half laugh with which she was in the habit of talking to him came into her voice. No? said Millefleurs. But, in- deed, I think it ~vould do very nicely. We understand each other very ~vell; we belong to the same milieu (how pleased Lord Lindores would have been to hear this, and how amazed the duke !) and we are fond of each other. We are both young, and you are extremely l)retty. Dear Edithmaynt I call you so? I think it would do admirably, delight. fully Certainly you may call me so, she said, with a smile; but on the old footing, not any new one. There is a difference between being fond of any one, and being in love; Edith said this with a hot, sudden blush ; then shaking her head as if to shake that other sentiment off, added, by way of reassuring he rself, dont you know? with a tremulous laugh. Little Millefleurss countenance gre~v more grave. He was not in love with any pas- sion ; still he did not like to be refused. Excuse me, but I cant laugh, he said, putting do~vn her hand; it is too serious. I do not see the difference, for my part. I have always thought that fall- ing in love was a rather vulgar way of describing the matter. I think we have all that is wanted for a happy marriage. If you do not Jove me so much as I love you, there is no great harm in that; it will come in time. I feel sure that I should be a very good husband, and you Would not be a good ~vife oh no, no! cried Edith, with a little shudder, THE LADIES LINDORES. 23 shrinking from him; then she turned to- wards him again with sudden compunction. You must not suppose it is unkindness; but think, two people who have been like brotherand sister. The only time, said Millefleurs, still more seriously, that I ever stood in this position before, it ~vas the relationship of mother and son that was suggested to me with equal futility, if you will permit me to say so; brother and sister means little. So many people think they feel so, till some moment undeceives them. I think I may safely say that my feelings have never except, perhaps, at the very first been those of a brother, any more, he added in a parenthesis, than they were ever those of a son. \Vhat Edith said in reply was the most curious request ever made perhaps by a girl to the man who had just asked her to marry him. She laid her hand upon his arm, and said softly,. Tell me about her! in a voice of mild coaxing, just tempered with laughter. Millefleurs shook his head, and relieved his plump bosom ~vith a little sigh. Not at this moment, dear Edith. This affair must first be arranged between us. You do not mean to refuse me? Re- flect a moment. I spoke to. your father more than a week ago. It was the day before the death of poor Mr. Torrance. Since then I have waited, hung up, dont you know? like Mahomets coffin. When such a delay does occur, it is generally understood in one way. When a lady means to say no, it is only just to say it at oncenot to permit a man to commit himself, and leave him, dont you know? hanging on Dear Lord Millefleurs My name is Wilfrid, he said, with a little pathos; no one ever calls me by it: in this country not even my mother calls me by my name. In America, said Edith boldly, you were called so by the other lady He waved his hand. By many peo- ple, he said; but never mind. Never by any one here. Call me Wilfrid, and I shall feel happier I was going to say that if yo~ had spoken to me, I should have told you at once, Edith said. When you under- stand me quite, then we shall call each other anything you please. But that cannot be, Lord Millefleurs. Indeed you must understand me. I like you very much. I should be dreadfully sorry if I thought what I am saying would really hurt you but it will not after the first minute. I think you ought to marry her Oh, there would be no hindrance there, said Millefleurs; that was quite unsuitable. I dont suppose it could ever have been. But with you, he said, turn- ing to take her hand again, dear Edith! everything is as it should be it pleases your people, and it will delight mine. They will all love you; and for my part, I am almost as fond of dear Lady Lindores as I am of you. Nothing could be more jolly (to use a, vulgar word for I hate slang) than the life we should lead. I should take you over there, dont you know? and show you everything, as far as San Francisco if you like. I know it all. And you would form my opinions, and make me good for something when we came back. Come! let it be settled so, said Millefleurs, laying his other hand on Ediths, and patting it softly. It was the gentlest, fraternal, affectionate clasp. The hands lay within each other without a thrill in them the young man kind as any brother, the girl in no ~vise afraid. Do you think, said Edith, with a little solemnity, from which it cost her some trouble to keep out a laugh, that if I could consent (which I cannot: it is impossible), do you think it would not be a surprise, and perhaps a painful one, to the other lady if she heard you were coming to America so? Lord Millefleurs raised his eyes for a moment to the ceiling, and he sighed. It was a tribute due to other days and other hopes. I think not, he said. She was very disinterested. Indeed she would not hear of it. She said she regarded me as a mother, dont you know? There is something very strange in these things, he added, quickly forgetting (as appeared) his position as lover, and putting Ediths hand unconsciously out of his. There was not, you. would have supposed, any chance of such feelings arising. And in point of fact it was not suitable at all. Still, had she not seen so very clearly what was my duty I know now, said Edith; it was the lady who advised you to come home. 1-le did not reply directly. There never was anybody with such a keen eye for duty, he said; when she found out I hadnt ~vritten to my mother, dont you know? that was when she pulled me up. Dont speak to me, she said. She would not hear a word. I was just obliged to pack up. But it was perfectly unsuit 24 THE LADIES LINDOREs. able. I never could help acknowledging gentleman he was. The discovery was that. not entirely agreeable to his amour-pro. Wilfrid, said Edith, half in real, half Are, and wounded his pride a little; but in fictitious enthusiasm,for it served in the mean time the necessary thing ~vas her purpose so admirably that it was diffi- to set Edith at her ease so far as was cult not to assume a little more than she possible, and make her forget that she felt, how can you stand there and tell had in any way committed herself. What me that there was anything unsuitable in he did was to set a chair for her, with her a girl who could behave so finely as that, back to the lamp, so that her countenance Is it because she had no stupid little title need not be revealed for the moment, and in her family, for example? You have to sit down by her side with confidential titles enoucrh for half a dozen, I hope. calmness. Since you wish it, he said, Are you not ashamed to speak to one girl and are so kind as to take an interest in of another like that her, there is nothing I should like so Thank you, said Millefleurs softly, much as to tell you about my dear Miss thank you; you are a darling. All Nelly Field. I should like you to be you say is quite true. But she is not friends. exactly a girl. The fact is she is older XVould it were possible to describe the than my people would have liked. Of silent hush of the house while these two course that was a matter of complete in- talked in this preposterous manner in the difterence to me. solitude so carefully prepared for them! 0 oh ! of course, said Edith Lord Lindores sat breathless in his library faintly: this is a point on which girls are listening for every sound, fixing his eyes not sympathetic. She was very much upon his door, feeling it inconceivable taken aback by the intimation. But she that such a simple matter should take so recovered her courage, and said with a long a time to accomplish. Lady Lin. great deal of interest, Tell me all about dores in her chamber, still more anxious, her now. foreseeing endless struggles with her bus- Are you quite decided? he said sol- band if Millefleurs persevered, and almost emnly. Edith, let us pause a little; worse, his tragical wrath and displeasure dont condemn me, dont you know? to if Millefleurs (as was almost certain) ac- disappointment and heartbreak, and all cepted at once Ediths refusal, sat by her that, without sufficient cause. I feel sure fire in the dark, and cried a little, and we should be happy together. I for one prayed, almost without knowing what it would be the happiest man ____ was that she asked of God. Not, surely, I could not, I could not, she cried, that Edith should sacrifice herself? Oh vith a sudden little effusion of feeling, no; but that all might go well that there quite unintentional. A flush of hot color might be peace and content. She did not ran over her, her eyes filled with tears, dictate how that ~vas to be. After a while She looked at him involuntarily, almost both father and mother began to raise unconscious, with a certain appeal, which their heads, to say to themselves that un- she herself only half understood, in her less he had been well received, Millefleurs eyes. But Millefleurs understood, not at would not have remained so long oblivious the half word, as the French say, but ~t of the passa~e of time. This brought a the half thought which he discovered in smile upon Lord Lindoress face. It dried the delicate, transparent soul looking at his wifes eyes, and made her cease pray. him through those two involuntary tears. ing. Was it possible? Could Edith, He gazed at her for a moment with a sud- after all, have yielded to the seductions of den startled enlargement of his own keen the dukedom? Her mother felt herself little eyes. To be sure! he cried, struck to the heart by the thought, as if How was it I never thought of that be- an arrow had gone into her. Was not she fore? pleased? It ~vouId delight her husband, Edith felt as if she had made some it would secure family peace, it would give great confession, some cruel admission, Edith such a position, such prospects, as she did not know what. She turned away far exceeded the utmost hopes that could from him trembling. This half comic have been formed for her. Sdmehow, mntervie~v suddenly turned in a moment however, the first sensation of which Lady to one of intense and overwhelming, al- Lindores was conscious was a humiliation most guilty emotion. What had she deep and bitter. Edith, too! she said tQ owned to? What was it he made so sure herself, with a quivering smile upon her of? She could not tell. But now it was lips, a sense of heart-sickness and down~ that Millefleurs showed the perfect little fall within her. She had wished it surely THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE. 25 she had felt that to see her child a duchess would be a fine thing, a thing worth making a certain sacrifice for; and Millefleurs had nothing in him to make a woman fear for her daughters happiness. But women, everybody knows, are inac- cessible to reason. It is to be doubted whether Lady Lindores had ever in her life received a blow more keen than when she made up her mind that Edith was going to do the right thing, the prudent, ~vise thing, which would secure family peace to her mother, and the most dazzling future to herself. XVhen a still longer interval had elapsed, and no one came to tell her of the great decision, ~vhich evidently must have been made, Lady Lindores thought it best togo back to the drawing-room, in which she had left Edith and her lover. To think that Edith should have found the love-talk of Millefleurs so delightful after all, as to have forgotten how time passed, and everything but him and his conversation, made her mother smile once moie, but not very happily. When she entered the drawing-room she saw the pair at the other end of it, by the fire, seated close together, he bending forward talking eagerly, she leaning towards him, her face full of smiles and interest. They did not draw back, or change their position, as lovers do, till Lady Lindores, much mar- velling, came close up to them, when Millefleurs, still talking, jumped up to find a chair for her. And that was the last time we met, Millefleurs was saying, too much absorbed in his narrative to give it up. An idea of duty like that, dont you know? leaves nothing to be said. Lady Lindores sat down, and Mille- fleurs stood in front of the two ladies, with his back to the fire, as Englishmen love to stand. There was a pause of extreme bewilderment on the part of the new-coiner. Then Millefleurs said, in his round little mellifluous voice, folding his hands, I have been telling dear Edith of a very great crisis in my life. She un- derstands me perfectly, dear Lady Lin- dores. I am very sorry to tell you that she will not marry me; but we are friends for life. From Macmillans Magazine. THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE. BY THE AUTHOR OF JOHN INGLESANT. WAS Hamlet a fluke? Is the highest attainment possible to the human intel- lect to roll joyously about on a dung- hill, thinking no evil? as was said of Rabelais. Is all consciousness and in- tention fatal to the highest literature ? and is design, driven from theology, to be allowed no resting-place in letters either? Is the quality we call humor the only salt that will keep the memory of a writer fresh for centuries? and, if so, what are the essentials of this surprising quality? Who are the masters in the science of it? Who is the chief priest of its ritual? Is it another name for human life, or is it something apart and partial? Is it a modern faculty and of recent birth, or has mankind always possessed and valued it? Had Shakespeare humor? What was the of the word? Did it oriolnate with origin the surgeons? Did . . . but Have you any more questions? the startled reader may reasonably ask; and seeing that ~ve may never be able to answer those already propounded, it may be as well, at least for the present, not to ask any more. Some l)eople probably would make very short work of some of these questions. It is not the highest result of the intellect to roll about on a dung~hill, joyously or otherwise. Humor is not human life, but only a certain aspect of it, and that not a very elevated one. If I believed this last assertion I should not go on with this paper, but if the sources of this word lie so deep in the realities of life that the highest genius cannot exist without the recognition of its meaning; if, as the race grows more intellectual, it may be ex- pected to grow more sensitive to the influ- ence of this quality, though its poweg of achieving it may possibly become less, then it may be worth while to try to clear our minds a little concerning this word, and to settle to our own satisfaction, if possible, what we mean by it. For it would seem that beneath the masque of the comic actor lie the issues of great controversies, and that the oppo- nents have recognized in the jesters laugh the truest test of what lies at the root of human existence. On the one hand we are asked lugubriously whether the greatest men, those of deepest and widest outlook Sophocles, Dante, Shakespeare, Beethoven have found the world a merry place, or have been much pleased with life. No one is so, we are charitably informed, but chil- dren and grown-up children, some of the selfish rich, and a few peculiarly happy natures. On the other hand we hear, if the great humorist Circumstance 26 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE. proves to be so fond of fun, he must be a benevolent king, and therefore all is well; we have nothing to do but roll joyously about upon our dung-hill. Can it be that Touchstones motley garb is the emblem of a solution which will deliver us from these extremesfor extremes are always wrong? Have men always possessed and valued the quality of humor, and how long have they called it by this word? I have some difficulty in deciding which of these ques- tions to take first, they are both so impor- tant. The word is yet scarcely fitted to the quality, yet if the latter be such as we believe it to be, it must have been the most ancient possession of the race. I think we shall find it such, for the humor of Aristophanes is as pure as that of later days, and runs upon the same lines- mans folly and far-reaching thought, his littleness and his lofty dreams, his ~veak- ness and his power. In the Plutus is the germ of Don Quixote and Sancho. In the Birds and Frogs, human life is played with, amid graceful rhythm and music, with as delicate and genial a touch as Addisons, and with a melody as per- fect as Mr. Matthew Arnolds. Much the same may be said for Terence, but the distinguishing quality is not so marked it is more of the unconscious sort; nor is the medium so delicate and graceful; for it does not follow that because man had not yet learned to use the word, that there were not even then conscious and uncon- scious humor. Now, I think, we must go back again to our first question, Was Hamlet a fluke? for this brings us at once face to face with a question which we must answer, Is gen- ius conscious or unconscious? Speak- n g of \Verther, Goethe said that there was an old prejudice that a book must have a didactic purpose; a true exhibi- tion of life, he says, has no such pur- pose. It neither justifies nor blames, but unfolds ideas and actions in their rela- tions, and thereby reaches and enlight- ens. In other words, is genius so infi- nite that intention is contrary to its na- ture and shows that it is not genius? or, to put it another way, human life is so in- finite in its incongruities, in its pathos, in its meanings, and its hopes, that to de- scribe it with the intention and puny vision of a finite being is to destroy its infiniteness and to confuse its delicate lines; whereas, if the artist copies un- consciously the life which is about and before him, he cannot errthe lesson must be read aright. If this be so, then the paltriest fact of human existence, the stupidest life of the veriest clown, is more pregnant of truth, more full of teaching, than the maturest thought of the greatest genius, and we cannot shrink from the climax reached in the modern paradoxthat the humor of Cervantes, which has to do largely with the unseen and the divine, is terrene, while that of Sterne, which never recog- nizes aught save the exigences of the moment including an insistent exigence called death is derived from the eter- nal order of things. But may we not oppose to this brilliant theory, with some show of reason, that in- tention is necessary to art; that if life be a lesson so easily read by him that runs, wherein is the advantage of letters at all? The careless do not read the lesson of life ; it is the function of the true artist, whom we take to be the humorist, to point the moral, and we say that by the manner in which he does so he shows his skill. The greatest genius, qua genius, that ever wrote, undoubtedly lends a vast sup- port to the theory which I am opposing. Indeed it would probably never have been propounded had Shakespeare never lived; for in Shakespeare we find neither con- sciousness nor intention, nothing but life in infinite variety, fed from the well- springs of human feeling, and ruled by the inevitable forces that keep the issues of life and death. That, when he began Hamlet, Shakespeare had no intention of doing more than dramatizing a bald story out of Saxo Gram maticus, is proba- bly true; but it surely is a poor compli- ment to creative genius to assert that it is too stupid to understand a character as it grows under its touch. It will be ad- mitted, I think, by those who have at- tempted such things, that the most de- lightful part of their experience is the way in which characters do grow and de- velop, as it seems, independently of the author. They form their own story, and pursue their own course; but is the author the only person concerned who is not allowed to see this? Hamlet be- caine a lesson for all time because S hake- speare, having set himself to write a story with a tragic ending, had the sense to let his character work itself out upon those lines, and those alone, which lead to tragic issues. It is a text, says Dr. Gervin us, from true life, and therefore a mine of the profoundest wisdom. That Shake- spear& understood the character of Ham- let, and also that such meaning grew upon him, we seem to have positive proof, from THE HUMOROUS the additions which he afterwards made to the first cast of the play; every one of which, as Dr. Gervinus also says, assist to a more true understanding of the piece. But whatever we may say of Hamlet, it is certain that the Quixote was not a fluke. The one thing which in this, the great masterpiece of humor, is kept be- fore the reader from the first page to the last, is the nobility of this crazed Spanish gentleman, and, what is more, the humor is not only recognized by the author, it is perceived by the characters themselves, as, in real life, people understand the hu- mor of the situation. With an exquisite truth all the gen/le;nen are made to recog- nize it. There is not a gentleman in,the book, but, the moment he comes across Don Quixote, recognizes not only his worth but the humor of his craze. Para aquellos que la tenian del humor de Don Quixote era todo esto materia de grandis- sima nsa. For all those who under- stood the humor of Don Quixote all this was a matter of infinite laughter. And even those who were not gentlemen, but who as servants were accustomed to asso- ciate with gentlemen, saw it. If this be not a concerted jest, said one of the ser- vants of Don Lewis, I cannot persuade myself that men of such good under- standing as all these are or seem to be, can venture to affirm such things. The crass stupidity which talked of laughing Spains chivalry away, has been, I should hope, sufficiently exposed. On the con- trary, most of his hearers being gentle- men, to whom the use of arms properly belongs, they listened to him gladly. Antes como todos los mas eran caval- leros, 4 quien son anexas las armas, le escuchiavan de muy buena gana. I do not contend that Cervantes realized the full extent of his conception,io do so would have been to limit its applicability. He could not, for instance, see the force of the allegory, which grows in import and truth as the years go on, which un- derlies the story of the liberation of the galley slaves, and it is possible that he may have been unaware of the perfect ending of the whole matter which his genius led him to adopt. He may have pandered to what he supposed was the popular opinion of his hero by making him die r~pentant and false to the ideal of his life; but by doing so he did but point with supreme force the allegory and les- son of his wonderful book. Whatever Cervantes may not have intended, or have been conscious of, it is certain that he IN LITERATURE. 27 intended to point out the incongruity of human existence, the contrast of mans highest aspirations with his possibilities, and not, as has been asserted, his ludi- crous futility in his relations to his fellow. man. Man is not futile in such rela- tions; he is most helpful and competent. It is when he comes into contact with the universal harmony that the futil- ity manifests itself. From the first the 0 uixote has been read from these dif- ferent points of view; is it possible that some inquiry into the origin of the fac- ulty of humor will enable us to reconcile them? The word must have had its birth in Europe, for we have seen that Cervantes uses it in precisely the same sense that Ben Jonson understands by it. What does the author of Every Man out of his Humor say? Why, Humour - . - we thus define it To be a quality of ayre or water And in itself holds these two qualities Moisture and fluxure: as, for demonstration, Powre water on this floor, twill wet and run Likewise the ayre (forct through a horn, or trumpet) Flowes instantly away, and leaves behind A kind of dew; and hence we may conclude That whatsoeer hath fluxure, and humiditie, As wanting power to contain itself Is Humour. So in every humane body The Choller, melancholy, flegme, and blood, By reason that they flow continually In some one part, and are not continent, Receive the name of humours. Now thus far It may, by metaphor, apply itself Unto the general disposition As when some .one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers. In their confluctions, all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a Humour. No inkling of the modern sense here. Asper, further on, says, I go To turn an actor, and a Humorist; but he means nothing more than that he will reoresent the humors of other men. He charges indeed these ignorant well-spoken days with abuse of this word Humour; so that if an Idiot Have but an apish, or phantastic strain, It is his Humour. And it may be possible to find a o~erm of future growth in these last words, for 28 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE. these quotations seem to me of chief as in the pagan times the eternal exist- value as pointing out that the condition of ences as the pagan never saw them. The true humorous thought is individuality, antithesis was complete, the incongruities This assertion receives confirmation of life flashed upon the human conscious- from the time when humor began to be ness, and humor became a conscious fac- consciously talked of, especially in Italy, ulty of the brain. where Cervantes had lived. This great brain-wave passed over into In the Middle Ages, life was too se- England, where the vibration of its note rious for the individual to grow. Thought found strings of perfect accord. The was epic; its theme was mans greatness, sadness and melancholy of the English rather than his littleness. It occupied humor, vivified and warmed by this bril- itself with those qualities in which he re- liant sunbreak from the lands of color and sembles the gods, not with those in which of pleasure, formed a setting of surpassing he resembles nothing save a creature as mellowness, and elevated and purified the complex as himself, if such there be. In wildness and license of the original birth an age of great ideals the individual is into a work of perfect, if fantastic, tone. crushed: where all men are of one mind There is something of wonderful grace in there is no room for humorous eccen- this developmentof the Renaissance spirit tricity. The surroundings are stern and in the Shakespearian drama. In Jacques Oppressive, and the result is a simple and Touchstone in Loves Labors character and singleness of eye. The Lost, and in Olivia and the Duke in force which was after~vards developed as Twelfth Night, there is something of humor acted in other ways. It spoke out Italian courtliness, mingling with the sad, in the arising of chivalry. Europe was rough phlegm of the English humor, regenerated by the enthusiasm for women which is peculiarly charming, and very which was a passion, a humor of the curious, especially when found in Shake- Germanic tribes. This vital force was speare, usually so reckless in projecting overpowered by superstitioi~ and the the habits and thought of England into priesthood, and once again it broke out, all countries and times. The mere in very different form, in the Renaissance, masques and pantomimes which, in the There is always this blessed quality in preceding reigns, had ~vandered over into superstition it stupefles itself. Life is England by the medium of the French crippled, defaced, caricatured, a mere wars, culminate here, in the Elizabethan torso of humanity as in Rabelais. Then culture, in this combination of perfect superstition loses its power, and life humor, wherein breaks out once more. The Renaissance The wise mans folly is anatomized was a peculiar manifestation of this force: Even by the squandring glances of the fool. its ideal was humanity, it developed a new science, humanism, and it culminated in But our insular dulness was too gross. humor. The English genius kept the humor, but, Human life became individual at the except for a moment in Addison, lost the Renaissance, for it was then that man be- grace. The superiority of the English gan to realize the certainties of his state genius, however, is shown by comparing and d~velling-place. To this sympathy this combination, while it lasted, with the with, and understanding of, humanity as humor of Scarron and Le Sage. The it is, was added an inheritance which the nearest approach to it in these latter classic times knew nothino- ofthe lurid writers will be found, I think, in Le Die- glow of the infinite a world of emotion ble ilol/eux, elevated and relieved as this and of hope, and of unspeakable possi- admirable picture of a great city is, by bilities. Men could not forget altogether the beautiful story of the Count de Bel- the ideals of the past centuries. When fleur. this new forcethis principle of human- I have said that the English genius ism awoke, with new-born delio-ht in a kept the humor while losing the grace. world of color and of form and the recol- That it did so was greatly owing to pecul- lections of the old humanity, it found iar circumstances which favored the cul. itself also in contact with these awful ture of individual character. As in the realities, these great beliefs, which once Middle Ages, the individual had little conceived could never be forgotten. Then scope, so in modern centralization it is humanity was seen for the first time in again lost. It is, therefore, in the period relation to its eternal environment, the between these two epochs that ye mUst unswerving realities of existence by ~vhich look for humor, and accordingly it is here, it is conditioned; humanity as complete in the seventeenth and eighteenth centu THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE. 29 ries, that we shall find it. The last cen- tury ~vas particularly fertile in individual character among all classes of the people. Village life was peculiarly productive of it. The difficulty of locomotion kept peo- ple in one place, and undisturbed by con- stant contact from without, the individual had time and room to expand and grow. Newspapers were unknown, and all mens minds were not modelled into one fashion every morning by the newspaper train. The clergy, the doctors, and many of the gentry, inhabiting the innutnerable manor houses and parsonages that covered the land, carried with them a quaint and orig- inal scholarship from universities as yet innocent of the degree grinding-mill. The distinction of classes was much less marked than at present. Domestic ser- vice was a friendly and intimate relation. The village lad was constantly rising to the university, by the aid of twenty pounds from the squire. A two~ days journey by stage or on horseback was an education in life, ~vith its constant change of com- panionship, and its study of character. in the villages, and in cathedral and mar- ket towns, all classes lived side by side in friendly and mutual help, and the smiling plenty of the landrivers abounding with fish and coverts with game which as yet no absorbing central markets tore ruthlessly from the dwellers on the soil, a smokeless sky, and ample leisure, mel- lowed the human mind, and disposed it to~vards a genial and gay esteem of life a strikino characteristic of the old civil- ization, most inadequately replaced by the tyrannous chatter of to-day. This village life, with its plenty, its hu- morous instinct, and its genial neighborli- ness is well seen in Sterne, and has been well depicted by the late Lord Lytton, and by one, who, within the lines which he set himself, and which he never overpassed, was perhaps the most perfect humorist that ever wrote Washington Irving. In Hones Table Book* there is a sketch of a city worthy, written by Hone himself, but which would do credit to Charles Lamb, which illustrates with dis- tinctness what a fertile source of humor this individuality of character was, and how, ~vith such examples around him, the humoristic writer naturally grew into ex- istence, and found materials ready to his hand. The whole nation, familiar with this life, recognized the Shandean humor as true, and it was continued in English liter- * VoL ii., p. 446, ed. x83o. ature. Curious and graphic examples of it are to be found, even to a late date, in Poor Robins Almanac, which, started, as is said, by the poet Herrick, himself no mean humorist, was for more than a cen- tury the most original of its brethren. But Sternes humor was only developed by this life; Don Quixote, Sir Roger de Coverley, and Uncle Toby are, alike, the offspring of it. They all correspond to this highest mark of the humorous char- acter perfection in itself the ridicu- lous and pathetic blended into one. It is not enough to depict a ludicrous character and side by side with it, apathetic. This is the work of the dramatist but not of the humorist. It must be admitted, I think, that the humor of The Spectator is mostly of this character. The effect is pro- duced by the alternation of grave and lively papers, now a lively letter from a rake, then a discourse upon immortality, but in Sir Roger the two are united, as far as each goes, as much as in the highest effort of humorous writing. Sir Roger is, in fact, a mild reproduction of Don Quixote. Let us turn back in recollection over the pages of The Spectator, and see with what a magic touch Mr. Addison brings the world of English life, both of city and country, before us. Mr. Thack- eray does not, I venture to think, rise to the full estimate of Addisons ~vork. It is as a tattler of small talk that we love him, he says, and as a spectator of mankind. The last is surely true, but is the first? Addisons talk is never small; his lightest touch in the description of the slightest fop, has as deep a meaning as his paper upon Westminster Abbey. In Addisons kind court only minor cases are tried. Indeed I I should have thought that was a hanging assize in which the foul plays were lashed with a withering sarcasm. Addisons humor was permeated with intention and purpose, and with insight into the whole of lite. It is here that he rises immeasurably above Fielding, and here, I think, we again gain a clear insight into the real facts of the unconscious theory with re- spect to genius. The theory contains much truth, as we have seen, but the chances are that such writers as Fielding are unconscious, because they only see, and can therefore only describe part of life. Tom Jones is nature, but, as Ad- dison said, nature in its lowest form. Fielding has always gained by being con- trasted only with Richardson, and by being opposed by him. Addison ~as dead it was fortunate for Fielding that 30 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE. the rapier was rusted, and the skilled erately was marching down with noble band cold. Holborn before me, forming in mental Miss Martineau speaks graphically cogitation a map of the dear London in somewhere, of an upright manhood fol- prospect, thinking to traverse Wardour lowing upon a gallant youth, and Sir Street, etc., when diabolically . . . In Richard Steele, in The Spectator, says this love of city life, of this weakness a man that is temperate, generous, val- and this purity, all humorists indeed are iant, chaste, faithful, and honest, may at alike the realities of life, the petty de- the same time have wit, humor, mirth, tails, the daily paltriness, the soil and good-breeding, and gallantry. While he tarnish, the glitter and the taint, the ser- exerts these latter qualities [for the pur- pent trail even if these be not the field pose, Sir Richard means, of filling an agree- of humor, then humorists have been ble part in play or tale] twenty occasions wrong. might be invented to show that he is master I have already ventured to differ from of the other noble virtues. Such characters Mr. Thackeray in his opinion of Addi- would smite and improve the heart of a son. I have also to do so as to Pope and man of sense when he is given up to his Swift. I fail to detect the slightest hu- pleasures. Rather a different ideal this, mor in Pope; indeed I have sometimes to the handsome booby, devoid of intel- thought that Mr. Thackerays lecture upon lect and of every conceivable virtue, save Pope must have been inspired by sly hu- a certain stupidity which prevents his mor itself. How else can we account for being a hypocrite, who drags his tedious his extraordinary enthusiasm for the con- and dirty steps through a slough of cluding passage of the Dunciad .? The coarseness and filth. That Fielding could artificial ~atire of Pope seems to be wit, do better, he proved in the character of and the savagery of Swift, satire illumi- Amelia, ~vhere we get that most exquisite nated by wit. sightthe purity which walks unspotted But Mr. Thackeray was not only a through evil of every kind. ~vriter upon humor. He was the author It has been well l)Ointed out that this of one book which will probably in the contrast forms the raison d~tre of the future stand among the few masterpieces obscene in humor. It arises from an of humor. I mean of course Vanity acute apprehension of this great and eter- Fair. It would be grotesque to dwell nal incongruity of mans existencethe upon the excellences of this great work conflict of a spiritual nature, and such its life-painting, minute as a photo- aspirations as mans, with conditions en- graph yet ~varm and rounded with all the tij-ely physical, and perhaps the only truly delicacy of color, its crowded canvas, gay philosophical definition of the word in- and bustling with movement, the reserved decency would be this, a painful and strength of its invective, the point of its shocking contrast of mans spiritual with irony, the power of its narrative, as in the his physical nature. Very true! but in scenes in Belgium, which never drops into order to have this contrast, we must mere narrative, but constantly preserves surely have both sides represented in the human character-play, so that it is not something like equal proportion, and it is the author who narrates, but the real per. worthy of notice that Richard Steele, who sonages of the novel who act the trem- may be supposed to have kno~vn some- ulous change from the comic to the pa- thing about the matter, charges the play- thetic, and the perfect tone of its pathos. wright with being obscene merely bedause The comic in Thackeray may sometimes his wit and invention fail. Mr. Traill, drop into caricature as in the schoolmas- one of the charms of whose brilliant mon- ter, the Rev. Lawrence Veal, but his pa- ograph is impartiality, will admit that this thos (unlike that of Dickens) invariably charge is sometimes true of Sterne. rings clear and true. The Spectator shirks no evilthe It has always seemed to me one of the fopling, the rake, the coquette, the fallen greatest proofs of the power of this book, seamstress, the stage at its lowest depths. that it survived the most painful illustra- Old London rises before us with all the tions with which the author, with a dis- sin and all the charm of city life when tressing perversity, insisted upon orna- cities were inhabited that life and that menting it. It is not only that they are humor which Charles Lamb so loved, badly drawn; they are utterly contrary to A few months before his death he the conception which the author had wr$tes: On XVednesday I was a-gad- formed of his own characters. The men ding, Mary gave me a holiday, and I set are broken-down swindlers, the women off to Snow-hill. From Snow-hill I delib. impossible scarecrows. THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE. 31 But, while fascinated by the brilliancy pared to Sir Roger de Coverley. It is a of Vanity Fair, what we have to decide perfectly beautiful creation, and did it is whether,. and in what, it falls short of occur in Vanity Fair would ~o far to the very highest perfection. I venture to perfect the book; but coming from Mr. think that it does so fall short, and that Thackerays pen, it can scarcely fail to the reason is given on its title-page. It strengthen the painful feeling suggested is there called A Novel without a Hero. by his good women, that goodness is This seems to me to be precisely what it weak. None of Mr. Thackerays good is, and what all Mr. Thackerays xvork is; women are real; they are so unnaturally it lacks the ideal. The standard is low foolish. I shall gain no thanks by the even for Vanity Fair, but curiously the assertion, so I make it without hesitation story is not confined to Vanity Fair; if it that the heroine of the exquisite were, the book would not be so great as it Story of Elizabeth is worth all the undoubtedly is. It presents life; it is con- good women Mr. Thackeray ever drew; scious of the infinite, but it has no hero. and the same may be said of Dolly in Dobbin is unselfish and noble, but his Old Kensington. ideal is Amelia. Constantly spooning after It is this presence of the ideal which a foolish woman is not the end of existence, perfects the masterpieces of German hu- and that book which represents it as such mor, the result of that outburst of intel- cannot take the highest rank as a mirror lectual development which began with of human life. Henry Esmond fails in a Lessing. \Vilhelm Meister is full of precisely similar way, but with even less the ideal, so is Werther and the Wahl- excuse. He sacrifices himself and his verwandtschaften. Here, as in a bi~rial country, almost his honor, to a.~retched urn, wrote Goethe of this last, many a girl, who repeatedly jilts him. In both sad experience is buried. Some may these lives, the result, even when the coy- hesitate in applying the title of humorist eted end is obtained, is declared by Mr. to Goethe at all; but if it be humor to Thackeray to be vanity. Love even is blend with surpassing skill into one life- vanity, piece the noble and the frivolous, the The victor hours scorn simple-hearted and the sarcastic, the pure The long result of love, and the foul, then the genius which has given Philina in the same book that re This is the lesson which Thackeray set vealed the secrets of a beautiful soul himself to teach, with what struck even ( fair saint as Carlyle has chosen to himself at last as a wearisome iteration, call her), which has created in the dra;ntz- Allis vanity! It is not true. Life is tis personce of the Le/Pja/zre a phan- not vain. There is success before every tasmal and yet real world of marvellous man, if self-surrender, serenity of mind, variety, of gaiety and pathos, has surely and euthanasia be any test of success. conferred upon its possessor the right to woes spring, be~~~called. If he who liveth, learning whence it was reserved for Germany to Endureth patiently, striving to pay produce in Jean Paul Richter the greatest His utmost debt for ancient evil done and most perfect humorist, if we except In Love ai~d Truth aiway; the author of Don Quixote, that the He dyingleaveth as the sum of him world has yet seen. I doubt even whether A life-count closed, whose ills are dead and Jean Paul does not surpass Cervantes in quit, some respects. I am content to rest this Whose good is quick and mighty, far and near, assertion on the fantastic story of the So that fruits follow it. friends Leibgeber, with their whimsical changes of identity and simulated deaths, No need bath such to live as ye name life: which begins in Siebenk~s, and is com- That which began in him when he began pleted in Titan. The story from the Is finished: he bath wrought the purpose beginning is strangely touching, and full through of the deepest humor; but when in Ti- Of what did make him man. tan one of these friends, who now calls (Light of Asia.) himself Schoppe, becomes, as is perhaps Thackerays perfectly successful char- not to be wondered at, finally deranged, acters, Major Pendennis, Foker, Barnes the psychological interest is intensified Neweome, are all of this type, men with- with a marvellous power of genius. out an ideal. George Warrington is per- Schoppes madness is of a different haps the finest character he ever drew. kind from that of Don Quixote, or of any Colonel Newcome may very fitly be com- enthusiast, and of a far more terrible 32 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE. kind. To the crazed brain of the Span- ish gentleman nothing came amiss, noth- ing disturbed him. Giants might turn into windmills, ladies into peasant girls, and their soft hands into hard cords, but this was only what might be expected to occur in the death struggle in which he was engaged with the powers of evil en- chantment and guile. The madness of Schoppe is of that terrible kind which is recognized by its victim ; and surely, in the ~vhole range of literature, never has the terrible disease been so perfectly por- trayed. It has been said that the machinery of ventriloquism and jugglery (diczb/erie in fact) which is introdu~ed into Titan impairs its beauty and does not help the development of character, but with this criticism I am quite unable to agree. These fantastic, but quite accountable appearances, the father of death, the inflated figure carried up to heaven by gas, the complicated machinery which, at the fated moment, animates statues and hearts without a breast, the I3aldhead and his madhouse of wax figures, the forgotten burial-ground in the mystic gar- dens; all these are not only full of a grotesque humor, but actually exerted a powerful influence upon the characters of the romance. Events such as these which are laughable or childish to a self-con- tained mind, are productive of surprising and terrible results ~vhen seen through the medium of passion or of disordered intellect. At a certain period of incipient derangement, a very slight apparent vio- lation of the expected and the known is unspeakably terrible, and may upset ir- revocably the equilibrium of the mind. When the mind is struggling to retain its hold upon fact, and to do its duty, so to speak, to the real, there is a sense of un- speakable wrong and injustice when the real seems to change its nature and to cease to be depended upon. Were the earth as firm as adamant, he could not keep his step correctly; but when the earth shifts too, when by accident, or the fantastic action of other men, or by vil- lanous design, nature seems to enter into the plot, what becomes of the wretch, then? In Schoppes case the psychological study is appallingly instructive. The man had chosen To vary from the kindly race of men, And pass beyond the goal of ordinance Where all should pause, as is most meet for all. He had struggled forward after infinite reality beyond the point at which the human brain can maintain its steadiness on the dizzy ridge, and returned crazed and scared from the glance into the pit itself. He had despised the common realities among which man is meant to dwell; he had neglected natures teach- ing, which is present in every mouthful of common food by which the brain is fed, and in consequence nothing is real to him. This is the most terrible form of insanity, when the sense of phantasm is present at every moment to the victim. He himself is phantasmal; he is not him- self some~vhere among the festivals and village maidens, the pleasant meadows and moist hills and woods of his native land (that blessed sense of moisture which he can never feel), there is another and a happy being, his former selfhis sane, his collected self the self of former years, when love had not given place to irony, nor allowance to sarcasm; the self of boyhood and of youth, ~vhen those brilliant ouides and thoughts of the mind were fresh and innocent, which have since led him such a wizards satanic dance. But if he is not himself, what then is he? Ah, God! should he ever meet that other one, anywhere, face to face! It is surely a most appropriate function of genial and kindly humor to point such a moral as this, but it can only be very seldom that a genius arises equal to the dual task. I incline to think that it will be found the most surprising fact in liter- ature that the humorist who had such a childlike, fanciful delight in sunshine and flowers, whose heart melted with love to God and tenderness and sympathy at the sight of every living thing, to whom not only the very beasts, but the most de- graded and repulsive of his fellow-men were dear could conceive and execute so elaborate and careful a study of a mental course so opposed to his own. It is not a sketch merely; Schoppes whole life and conversation is before us, worked out in the fullest detail, and we trace step by step the downward course of a nature at the bottom genial and kindly, but whose very geniality is alienated by the want of such quality in others, to whom the sar- castic and the bitter have become the food and sustenance, not the corrective salt of the mind. XVith its grotesqueness, with its ludicrous side, with its terrific earnest- ness, with its ghastly terror, its laughter and its tears, this surely must be perfect humor if such can be found. Laughter and tears. This brings us THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE. 33 back to the old definition of humor, and we begin to ask ourselves what this jux- taposition really means. We read of a certain incident, and we laugh why? because the incident recalls a chain of associated ideas connected with laughter in past years. We read of another inci- dent, or perhaps the same, and we weep why? because the incident now re- calls an association of ideas connected with the pleasing melancholy which re- sults in tears. A delicate and high note is struck when laughter passes into tears we recognize our own story; the comic, the commonplace, is touched, as it has been some time, surely, with all of us, by a divine emotion; the mystic chord is struck, which is peopled by a magic throng the sunlit garden of childhood, the first ideal, the remembrance of the dead, the benign influences which stand within the portal, and the kindly ritual of the hearth. I have said the pleasing melancholy which results in tears, for we must de- cide what tears mean. One of the greatest of poets, in a most often quoted line, speaks of Thoughts which lie too deep for tears, And another, perhaps equally great, has called such tears as these idle, though at the same moment he says that they spring from the depths of some divine despair. Let us think what we mean when we glibly quote these words. What are these things which lie too deep for tears? One thing, indeed, we knowcrushing sorrow no man ever wept at that. No man ever wept at the apprehension that what was dearest to him would be taken away; nor did he weep even when it was so taken: and none ever ~vept under a still more terrible visitation, the misgiving at lifes lesson, which is despair. The lady who could find no tears for the crush- ing blow which desolated her life, weeps at the sight of her infant child. For these crushing sorrows, either of our own or others, are, happily, not part of our daily lives, and have no chords of associa- tion connecting them with a happy past. They stand aside, like gaunt Erinnyes, and our heartstrings feel no responsive tremor to their touch. It ~vould seem then that it is these thoughts which do not lie too deep for tears with which we have to do; and I think that we shall soon see how near akin is laughter to such genial, beneficent tears. There are many kinds of laugh- LIVING AGE. VOL. XLIL 2135 ter, the innocent laugh of the child, easily turned, by the by, to tears; the drunken laugh of the fooland have we not heard of maudlin tears ?and the laugh of the cynic. In the same way there are different kinds of tears tears of passion, tears of grief, tears of tender- ness. AHl these have one source, associa- tion of idea; the sole difference is in the nature of the idea evoked. It is a subject that would lead us into discursive paths, but one thing seems pretty certain, that Cervantess master- piece, which, at its first appearance, was received with shrieks of laughter, will come in the end to be recognized as one of the saddest books ever written. Can it be possible, then, that the emotion ~vhich displays itself sometimes in laugh- ter and sometimes in tears is, in fact, one and the same? When we think over vari- ous humorous scenes we begin to won- der where the laughter is. When Don Quixote, believing himself the victim of enchantment, sits steadily through the dark night upon his horse, whose hind legs Sancho has tied to a tree so that his master may not move forwards to confront the fearful unkno~vn danger in front of them, you may look at the scene through Sanchos eyes even, and I think that on the whole the smile will be faint and the seriousness deep. For the thoughts which move the nerves of laughter, also, the quality of as- sociation slightly changed, stir the source of tears. The incongruities of life, when first they strike the mental retina, have the effect of surprise and cause laughter, but, when familiar, are associated ~vith ideas of tenderness which have lain long in deep remembrance. The idea of Don Quixote with his horses legs tied, strikes the brain of one man as a ludicrous one. He has been accustomed to laugh at such things, the like ideas, as we say, tickle him; this tickling sensation and the con- sequent laughter are pleasant to him, therefore instinctively he repeats the proc- ess. To another man this self-same idea suggests other associations. He has been accustomed to view the realities of life, its incongruities and littlenesses, from the pathetic side, and to derive pleasure from so doing, and curiously this sort of pleas- ure, acting by association, does not pro- duce laughter. The idea is conveyed to the sensorium as before, but instead of being transmitted thence to the muscles of the mouth it is conveyed to the ducts of the eyes. In the far-off, pre-historic age, tears, for some reason unknown to 34 THE HUMOROUS IN LITERATURE. us, became the form by which sorrow was by story that the world was won to God; expressed, and consequently that sensi- and, if words mean anything, we must bilitywhat we may call the nerve of mean by this, that it was because man- tenderness, or what the last century would kind recognized its own nature in the call the tear of sensibility which preaching of the life and death of Jesus realizes thouahts akin to sorrow, takes the that it was attracted by it. One of the same course. As I am a great lover of many brilliant epigrams with which Mr. mankind, says Mr. Addison, my heart Matthew Arnold has enriched the Ian- naturally overflows with pleasure at the guage, is that in which he describes reli- sight of a prosperous and happy multi- gion as conduct touched by emotion. tude, insomuch that at any public solemni- It was the emotion born of the daily re- ties I cannot forbear expressing my joy, lations of human life which men found wit/i tears that have stolen down my satisfied in the story of Jesus Christ, for cheeks. the patient tendency of a slow develop- These two perceptions of the ludicrous ment had prepared men to reco~,nize the and pathetic, this sympathy with the pass- kind of God of which they had need; ing joy of a people to whom sorrow is a and, from the beginning of the race ,forces familiar guest, is what we mean by per- were working to this end, which deserve fect humor. It is the most delicate feel- scientific examination as much as any ing we experience. It is laughter purified, that at present occupy the attention of gaiety refined into a joy of tenderness and the physical schools. The origin of all peace and love as we frequently observe religion is in the needs and incidents of a joyful cheerfulness among people who daily life. All emotion, that is all love have known sorrow. For tenderness and and passion, springs from the same sympathy, being the highest joy, take the source. No form of religion ever suc- same form of expression as the sorrow ceeded which did not spring from these which is their source and sustenance; and incidents, ~vhich did not pretend at least so completely is this the case that it is to satisfy these needs. scarcely an hyperbole to say that in a per- It was no new idea that God should fectly joyful world, there would be no take upon him the form of man. Begin- such thing as joy. ning probably with a healthy enjoyment There is still one question before us. of the beauty of life, men formed the con- If humor be what we have claimed for it, ception that the gods themselves must not mere farce but a depicting of the desire to share it. But, as the sorrowful whole of human life, then we should ex- predominates in most lives, this idea grew pect that the highest literature should be imperceptibly into a nobler one, that the found to contain it. We should expect to God became incarnate to bring healing find it everywhere, that it should satisfy and help. This was the form which the all that desire which a reading in theology, cultus of Apollo took among the Greeks, or philosophj, or science, or history, or and at last, in the Scandinavian Balder, a study in art has created in man; are we get the idea that the God was incar- there then any great books, or still more nate and then died. any great forces of human life which In these, and such as these, the notion seem devoid of it? Is there any humor was of a Godgreat and gloriousbut in the Gospels? This is a dilemma that the preachers of the Cross told, indeed, of must be faced, for if humor be life itself a Healer, but of a rejected Healer. They how can human life in its highest develop- told of a houseless wanderer, of harlots ment dispense with it? and sinners, of shepherds and sowers and In the sixty-eighth Spectator, Addi- fishermen, of the wine-press and vin& son says, speaking of the son of Sirach, dressers, of father and mother, and of With what strokes of nature, I had almost family life, of marriage and festival, of the said of humor, has he described a treach- bridegroom and his friend. They spoke erous friend. If humor is nature then of suffering and of failure, and of unrec- if the laughter in it is only a preliminary ognized death. Then men saw in all this step to the seriousness which is the high- something different from the bright sun- est joy, to that joy which Mr. Addison god of the Hellenes, or the fated Balder says he could not forbear expressing by of the chivalrous north, and said with tears at the sight of the solemnities and whispered breath to themselves and to enjoyments of men, then we may remem- each other, This is the God we need. ber that though it is true that there is no And the same magic is working to the laughter in the story of the Cross, yet present day. The book which, in the this familiar phrase reminds us that it was present century, has had the greatest sale 35 JOHN INGLESANT ON HUMOR. of all others is John Kebles Christian But, suddenly, in the midst of his de- Year, and why? Because, across the light, some trouble passes over the old poetic F.,znfaisie* of flowers and woods mans face; his eldest son is not in his and winds and hills, we trace the passion- place, and they bring him word that he is play of a suffering, self-denying life and without, and refuses to come in. Some death. The footsteps of the God are perception of a neglected truth passes upon earth and among earthly things, throuTh the fathers mind, he rises and beside our paths and homes, goes out, Therefore came his father Our paths of sin, our homes of sorrow. out and entreated him. And if his feet are torn and bleeding by The eldest son had been out all day the roughness of the ~vay, the purple workino in the vine ards: all his life had stains upon the flower tissues that form been y one long performance of duty, taken our home-garlands prove only that we are for granted, and, therefore, unpraised and his kin, unrecognized. In how many households But is it true that there is no humor in will silent witness be borne that this is the Gospels? What strokes of nature, real life the gentle and obedient service if not of humor, to use Mr. Addisons overlooked, nay, more than this, the cross words again, may we find in the story, let word or hasty temper vented where there us say, of the prodigal son? What, in the is no fear that it will be returned. light of the modern conception of humor, All these years have I served thee will come out of this? - . - and yet thou never gayest me a kid, Here, surely, there is no ~vant of real that I might make merry with my friends. life of low life, even. Here is a wild I am a man like others, gaiety and feast- young scamp, as like Tom Jones as heart ing are pleasant to me, as to them. could wish. Here is ingratitude, forget- A look of perplexed, but growing insight fulness of parents, riotous living, tavei~ns, comes into the fathers face. Son, thou harlots, what not? Then be oary and art ever with me, and all that I have is feeding swine and living upon husks. thine. Then, when evil living is found not to an- This is all very well, still he is conscious swer, penitencelike Tom Jones a am tl2at there is something to be said for the And when he was yet a great way f, eldest son, too. But his lost son his his father saw him, along the stony road wayward, and therefore loved, son is beneath the vine-clad hills. Who can tell come again. us how often the fathers eyes had gazed It is meet that we should make merry lonoingly down the road since his sons and be glad, for this thy brother was dead figure, gay, reckless of the benefits just and is alive again. We can see the piti- bestowed, accompanied ~y servants, eager ful, pleading look in the old mans eyes for the pleasures of the world, had van- thy brother was dead! ished from his sight? Now, at last, after Yes, Addison must be right. Nature so long waiting and looking, he sees, in and humor cannot be far apart. The the far distance, a very different sight. source and spring of humor is human life. He sees a solitary figure, worn and bent Its charm consists not merely in laughter, down, in rags, dragging on its weary or even in joy, but in the stirring of those steps; how could the old mans gaze ex- sympathies and associations which exist pect such a sight as this? Nevertheless, invariably in the race, for we inherit a his father knew him, and ran and fell on world-life and a religion, the earth-springs his neck. He did not wait for any ac- of whose realities lie, perchance, too deep cents of repentance, nor did he enforce for laughter, but not, heaven be thanked, any moral precepts which might advan- too deep for tears. tage posterity. He fell on his neck and J HENRY SHORTHOUSE. kissed him. Foolish old father Tom Jones is brought in. He goes to the bath. The familiar feeling of luxury comes over him once more. He is clothed From The Spectator. in fine linen and has a gold ring placed JOHN iNGLESANT ON HUMOR. upon his finger; the past seems an evil MR. SHORTHOUSE, in the fine piece of dream. Then the fatted calf is killed. Enolish which he has contributed to iliac- The banquet is spread, and there is fes- mit/ans Ma~azine on The Humorous tivity, music, and dancino-nirls. in Literature, has, as ~ve understand him, * Fantaisie is the name of a princes garden in tried to make out a case for the necessa Jean Paul. rily close connection between the source 36 JOHN INGLESANT ON HUMOR. of laughter and the source of tears, in all nibus conductors question was accepted true humor. He holds, apparently, that gravely by Lamb as a thoughtful inquiry the condition of true humorous thought as to the sufficiency of his own last meal, is individuality, and that you can never there was no pathetic chord touched at get close to the sources of any individu- all, nor was the touching of any such ality without getting at the common source I chord possible, and yet no one could of what is ridiculous and what is pathetic, deny that it played such a variation on without a blending of that which stirs th~ feelings with which the conductors laughter and that which stirs tears. Now, commonplace business inquiry had been we have no objection at all to the doctrine heard, as to be in the very truest sense that one of the finest and highest kinds of humorous. Indeed, if we understand humor does play on the involutions of Mr. Shorthouses drift aright, it would these blending chords of bright and sad shut out Englands greatest humorist, feeling, and awaken them in the closest Dickens, from the ranks of great humor- connection, and therefore in the most ists altogether. The cases in which vivid contrast. Undoubtedly, this is one Dickenss humor displays itself by sud- of the highest kinds of humor, and we denly passing from the livelier to the entirely agree with Mr. Shorthouse that sadder phases of human things, are com- if Jean Paul Richter is to be taken as the paratively very rare, and, even when they type of perfect humor, it is in feats of occur, are not by any means the best humor of this particular kind that the specimen of Dickenss humor. His great perfect humor has manifested itself. But power was not, like Thackerays, one of what we do not see our way to conceding tremulous change from the lively to is that true humor is limited to humor of the sad, but rather, like Shakespeares, this special kind, which we understand to the power of throwing a strong light on be the drift and tendency, though not the the mingled self-importance and empti- express assertion, of Mr. Shorthouses ness of men, till it seems as if your whole essay. He does not say that Dickens is mind were lost in amazement that empti- no true humorist because his pathos often ness can be so self-important, and self- rings false; but that is what we should importance so empty. Shakespeare s certainly gather as the general meaning Malvolio, his Polonius, his Dogberry, and of his essay, ~vhich appears to insist on a hundred other portraits of that class, the tremulous change from the comic to are surely great feats of humor, whatever the pathetic which is so perfectly dis- we may think of Dickenss great Lrea- tinctive of Thackeray as well as of Jean tions, ~vhich, to our mind, are even Paul Richter, as the most important of all greater feats of humor of the same gen- the criteria of humor. This is where we eral type,but they are not feats of hu- cannot follow Mr. Shorthouse. It seems mor of the kind which Mr. Shorthouse to us that this, though a criterion of one selects as the most characteristic of the of the noblest species of humor, is a cri- quality; and to tell the truth, we doubt tenon of one species only. Humor con- whether Shakespeare often does touch sists in all variations played on the feel- the common source of laughter and tears ings by the subtle caprice of man, and after the fashion which seems to Mr. appears just as truly in Charles Lambs Shorthouse the very highest. Mr. Short- sudden answer to the omnibus conduct- house speaks of the wonderful humor in or s question, All full inside? Well, Hamlet; and, of course, strong con- I cant answer for the other gentlemen, trasts,like that, for instance, between but that last apple-dumpling at Mrs. Gil- the gravediggers coarse and jovial indif- mans did the business for me; or in ference to death, and the grief felt for the Sydney Smiths grave question to the hapless Ophelia, are the sort of con- doctor who ordered him to take a walk trasts to which he alludes; but there is no on an empty stomach, On whose? tremulousness in that transition; it is as in Thackerays curious power of trem- not the gradual and finely shaded passing ulous change from the comic to the pa- from one feeling to the other, such as Mr. thetic. It is the power of suddenly and Shorthouse very justly admires in Thack- grotesquely varying the tone of feeling eray, in which Shakespeare exdels. On struck, in which the humorists skill con- the contrary, he likes to introduce the con- sists. And that may be done as effect- trast in the sharpest possible form, to give ually where neither of the chords of us Hamlet musing over the skull of Yor- feeling brought into sudden contrast is ick, and suggestng that the dust of C~- pathetic, as where one of them is pa- sar may be used eventually to stop a thetic and one comic. When the om- bunghole. If this sharply drawn intel- JOHN INGLESANT ON HUMOR. 37 lectual contrast between the smallness and the greatness of human nature be what Mr. Shorthouse means by the high- est humor, we admit that Shakespeare, as a humorist, comes up to the standard of Mr. Shorthouse. But we hold that these sharply drawn intellectual contrasts be- tween the greatness and the littleness of life, such as Hamlet, for instance, so often indulges in, and such as Shakespeare still more often effects by bringing purely comical natures into close contact with grand natures, are not efforts of humor, properly so called, at all, because they are all results of explicit intention, all in- tellectual contrasts, from which the capricious shimmer of humorous feeling is conspicuously absent. Mr. Shorthouse refers all Popes, and apparently most of Swifts, achievements in this field to the sphere of wit, rather than of humor, and quite rightly at least in the case of Pope, ~ve suppose because it is so evidently the spell of the intellect, and not of the feelings, by which these achievements are effected. But surely it is the spell of the intellect with which Hamlet ~vorks ~von- ders, when he muses over the skull of Vorick, or in the soliloquy, What a piece of work is man! and it is only by the device of referring everything of special individuality in man to his humor, that Mr. Shorthouse contrives to suggest that Hamlets finest soliloquies are the solilo- quies of a great humorist, rather than the soliloquies of a great thinker. We should have preferred to say that Shakespeare, as a humorist, is seen not in such great creations as Hamlet, but in what are dis- tinctly recognized as his comic charac- ters, and that the kind of humor which Mr. Shorthouse most admires, though it is often found in Shakespeare, as, for instance, in the description of the death of Falstaff, is not particularly Shake- spearian, that that tremulous shimmer amongst subtly contrasted and yet subtly allied feelings which was so wonderful in Thackeray, is not by any means one of the most characteristic moods of Shake- speare. The difficulty of Mr. Shorthouses the- ory of humor that it is coextensive with individuality, and shows itself especially by commanding at once the source of smiles and the source of tearscomes out especially in the close of his essay, when he tries to show that the Gospels, in touching the deepest springs of human nature, must also give examples of the deepest humor of which man is capable. But the truth is, we think, that humor is not coextensive with human nature, that? it is coextensive only with the unexpected and bafflino~ caprices of human feeling; and that where the predominating feeling is all of one kind, and that the kind which enhances to the highest degree the impor- tance of every word and act of human beings, the element of humor is excluded, simply because one of the terms of con- trast is banished from the field. In the Gospels, where God becomes man, all that was small and insignificant in man seems to vanish away beneath the glance of the incarnate divinity, and it is almost as im- possible to find room for those grotesque mnterlacings of opposite feelings on which humor depends, as it is to find room for the contrasts between light and shade un- der the burning sun of an Arabian noon. Mr. Shorthouse brings before us, in a passage of much beauty, the parable of the Prodigal Son, appealing to his readers ~vhether, in its fine and unexpected transi- tions from joy to sorrow, and from sorrow back to joy, there is not all the reality of true humor. We cannot say that he suc- ceeds in carrying the least conviction to our minds. It is not in the mere blend- ing of joy and sorrow,joy on one ac- count, and sorrow on another, that we should ever find an illustration of humor. When the humorist plays upon the blend- ing chords of joy and sorrow, he does so in a manner to bewilder us, to confuse us as to whether we are glad or sorry at the same thing, to make us uncertain as to our real feeling, and disposed to confound the pathetic with the absurd. That is not in the least the way in which joy and sorrow are blended in the parable of the prodi- gal son. The joy is unmixed, so far as the penitent prodigal is concerned; the sorrow caused by the jealousy of the elder brother is unmixed also; but the two feel- ings are perfectly consistent and in no sense bewildering. The magic of the humorist consists in producing a certain bewilderment of feeling, in so rapidly changing from one current of feeling to another, that you do not recognize clearly the true significance of your own emo- tions; and of this there is no trace in the story of the prodigal son, nor, so far as ~ve know, in the Gospels at all. One mighty chord vibrates too loud in the Gospels to be confounded with any other chord, and in this perfect absence of confusion of feeling, the complete absence of humor from the Gospels is almost necessarily involved. 38 NO NEW THING. From The Corohill Magazine. poor opinion that he had formed of his NO NEW THING. nephews business capacities. You will never make a banker, he CHAPTER XXVII. said; you will never make a man of WALTER GOES TO A BALL. business at all. It isnt in you. But it will do you no harm to work. Slave away, IT is probable that, for the first few morning and night, summer and winter months after Walters departure from thats what I did at your age, and you see home, the whole city of London did not I am none the worse for it, and a good contain a more thoroughly disconsolate deal the richer. I am an old man now young man than he. He had known that I go with the century and never had a he would dislike sitting upon a high stool, days illness in my life, sir, that I can that he would find the persons with whom recollect. Its your idle people who grow he would have to associate uncongenial in sickly; we busy men havent the time. most respects; but the reality far outdid Why, I could ~valk from here to Lombard his expectations. More than once he was Street and back again now, and eat my sorely tempted to look back like Lots dinner all the better for it afterwards. ~vife; esl)ecially as he was unable to de- It ~vas all very ~vell for Mr. Boulger, tect any signs of a Zoar in the distance who had been taken into partnership at to compensate him for this toilsome the age of thirty, to boast of his health march throuah a dreary waste of ciphers. and wealth; but to a young man who had Not only did he abominate his work; but little prosl)ect of the one to console him it must be confessed that he did it badly. for the possible loss of the other the ca- He had no head for figures, and indeed reer thus described was scarcely fascinat- was not quick at acquiring any fresh ing. Walter, however, was not discour- branch of knowledge, nor did he receive aged. He could but do his best, he the smallest assistance or encouraaemen t thought to himself; and even if nothing from Mr. Boulger, a surly, burly oeid man came of it at all, hard labor at least pre- with a red face, who seldom spoke to his vented him from brooding over certain subordinates, and when he did speak to private sorrows of his own that we know them, did so in such a manner that they of. Moreover, he was becoming accus- would willingly have dispensed with the tomed to the life, as every one becomes attention, accustomed at last to everything in this But if Walter Brune was not dowered world; and from time to time he came with a large supply of brains, he pos. across a college friend, and had a refresh- sessed no bad substitute for them in the ing talk over old days, which, together shape of plenty of perseverance and a with those Sunday dinners, during the strong will; and so, in process of time, winter, at Marescalchis club, made him he conquered the first difficulties of the feel that he was not altogether an outcast business which he had set himself to from civilization. learn, and was rewarded by a grunt or Had it not been for such occasional two of approval from his uncle, who glimpses as these of his own world, he now began to take a little more notice would have led an existence of complete of him. Every Thursday he ~vas invited solitude ; for the Brunes were not people to dine at the large, cold, and uninhabited- who had a large acquaintance, and Walter looking house at Clapham where the had abstained from calling upon the few old banker had resided for close upon friends whom he possessed in London, half a century, and where XValters young being, like most young men crossed in face made an odd contrast to those of love, in a temporary condition of enmity the half-dozen or so of elderly gentle- against the whole of the other sex. It men who usually completed the party. was therefore with some surprise that, on ln private life Mr. Boulger was gruff, returning to his rooms one evenincv but not particularly ungracious. He heginnino~ of June, he found n upon his ta- seemed rather to like tai~king to his ble a square envelope addressed in a nephew, and Walter sometimes ha~ a ladys hand, which envelope, when opened, hope that mention might be made of him proved to contain a formal invitation to in his wealthy relatives will. As for the dinner from Lady Travers. l)artnership of which he had once spoken Walters first impulse was to write a so confidently, that appeared to be very far refusal. He was shy, and he was rather off indeed. Mr. Boulger never made the afraid of the magnificent people whom he most remote allusion to the subject, and supposed that he would meet at Travers did not hesitate to give expression to the House. Besides which, he did not wish NO NEW THING. 39 to have anything to do with any one who had ever borne the name of Winnin~ton. So he sat down and wrote that Mr. Walter Brune regretted that he would be unable to dine with Lord and Lady Travers on the day named. Then he frowned thought- fully on this missive for five minutes, and ended by tearing it up. It was true that Edith had shown herself unworthy of an honest mans love; it ~vas true also that he had himself got over a boyish affection so obviously misplaced. Still, he would rather like to know what had become of her. He had been too proud to mention Miss Winnington in his letters home; but the fact was that he did feel some curios- ity upon this point, and no doubt Lady Travers would satisfy it without any ques- tions being put to her. Accordingly, he took another sheet of paper, and wrote that Mr. Walter Brune would have much pleasure, etc.; and ten days later, exactly as the clocks were striking eight, Mr. Walter Brune was mounting the great staircase of Travers House. If he had learned nothing else in the City, he had at least learned to be punctual; whence it resulted that he had to spend a quarter of an hour by himself in a vast drawing- room, feeling very hot and uncomfort- able, before Lady Travers came in and apologized. I am afraid, she began, I have kept you waiting, Mr. Bruneor may I not say Walter? I have been so accustomed to hear you talked about as Walter, that I can hardly think of you by any other name. Walter said that he much preferred to be called by his Christian name; he, too, was much more accustomed to that mode of address than to a more formal one. He added, rather disingenuously, that he did not know by whom Lady Travers could have heard him spoken of at all. By Margaret, of course, she an- swered laughing. Who else should have talked to me about you? And then she looked so hard at Wal- ter that that bashful young man became very red, and said it was a hot day for the time of year. XVhat an ass she must think me I he ejaculated inwardly. Of course she knows all about it, and I be- lieve shes laughing at me. I wish to goodness I hadnt come. But Lady Travers did not seem to no- tice his embarrassment, and gave him time to recover himself by talking without intermission until the arrival of other guests obliged her to leave him. The room was soon full of people; and Walter lost his self-consciousness in pleasure and curiosity when he found himself close to a knot of celebrities, amongst whom were a Cabinet minister and two foreign am- bassadors. He was not introduced to Lord Travers, a fierce-looking old man who was wheeled into the drawing-room in a chair, but who did not appear at the dinner-table, his gout forbidding him to touch any of the delicacies set before his I guests. At dinner \Valter ~vas placed next to a good-humored lady who knew all about him, having had a son in the Ox- ford eleven, and who talked quite know- ingly on the subject of cricket; so that, upon the whole, our young friend spent a pleasant enough evening; though he could not quite understand why he should have been asked. Going away already? said Lady Travers, when he went up to bid her good-night. Why are you in such a hurry? I wanted to have a chat with you about dear old Crayminster; ~ut you must come and see me again soon. You will be almost sure to find me any day between five and six, and I shall always be at home to you. It is so seldom that I meet any- body who belongs to our part of the world now. I suppose you know that my moth- er and Edith are in London. Walter said no; he had not heard. Oh, yes; they have taken a house in Park Street for the season. By the way, I have a little dance next Thursday, and I shall be so glad to see you, if you care to come. Walter was completely mystified. Why all this excessive cordiality? And what did Lady Travers mean by talking about her mother and sister? One thing was certain, she could not be aware of the cir- cumstances under which he had seen them last, and in any case he was deter- mined not to run the risk of meeting Edith at this dance. He began some un- intelligible excuse, which Lady Travers cut short without ceremony. I think you had much better come, she said. I cant come, answered Walter in despair. If you will allow me, I kill call upon you some day, and tell you why. -I cant explain with all these people in the room. Explanations are not required, she answered smiling. I know what your reason for refusing is; but it is such a bad one that I cannot accel)t it. Why, my dear Walter, if everybody felt the scru- ples that you do, society would come to an end, because half the men in London 40 NO NEW THING. would be afraid to go out anywhere, lest they should meet somebody ~vhom they didnt want to meet. She added in a lower voice, Dont be so faint-hearted. What do you mean? Walter began eagerly. But Lady Travers was already speaking to some one else, and only looked over her shoulder, as she shook hands with him to say, I shall expect you on Thursday, then. Walter trudged homewards in a state of much wonder and excitement. If Lady Travers had meant anything at all, she must have meant that there was hope for him; and if there was hope for him, Edith must have mentioned him to her; and if Edith had mentioned him But at this point Walter called common sense to his aid, and told himself that he was not going to believe anything of that sort. He had heard from the girls own lips that she did not care enough about him to face any trial for his sake; that, surely, was conclusive enough to satisfy anybody. And then he recalled those fatal words, and went through the conclusion of that melancholy interview at Longbourne once more, as he had done many and many a time before, when he had been tempted to think that he had been too hasty, and that, after all, it might have been nothing but sheer terror of Mrs. Winnington that had induced Edith to dismiss him. Nev- ertheless, the more he thought of itand he thought of very little else for the next few days and nightsthe more he be- came convinced that Edith must have taken her sister into her confidence, and surely Lady Travers would not have been so cruel as to encourage him unless there were some real ground for encourage- ment. He made up his mind that he would speak to Edith there could be no harm in his doing that; for Mrs. Win- nington herself had admitted that they must speak, if they met and then he would very soon find out the truth. In the mean time, he could not help admitting a delightful suspicion into his mind that Edith had taken the very first possible means of communicating with him that had come within her reach since their severance. Even if she only wanted to tell him that she was sorry for having treated him with so much heartlessness, that would be something. He pictured her seizing an opportunity to whisper a few hurried words of penitence to him in the hall-room, her color coming and going as of old, and he could very easily imag- ine himself forgiving her. Walter was nothing if not practical; yet the thought of a romantic leave.taking and of two faithful hearts destined to beat forever apart was not without its charms for him. He nursed these pleasing illusions up to the supreme moment when he accosted Edith on the Thursday evening, and then was robbed of them all at a blow; for her start of surprise and her face of conster. nation sufficiently convinced him that this meeting had been entirely unforeseen by her. She was looking radiantly beautiful; she was exquisitely dressed; she wore about her neck the magnificent pearls which had come to Mrs. Winnington by inheritance, and which had enhanced the charms of each of her daughters in suc- cession; half-adozen men were pressing round her, begging for a dance, and Wal- ter had time to say no more than How do you do? before he was jostled beyond speaking distance. For the little dance to which he had been invited was in reality a crowded ball. Five minutes afterwards, the good-na- tured lady who had sat beside Walter on the night of the dinner party said to Lady Travers, Would you like to see a bank- ers clerk in a towering rage? If so, just cast a glance at poor Mr. Brune. Has the girl of his heart thrown him over, or is it only that somebody has trodden on his toe? Lady Travers hastened to join her young friend, who indeed was leaning with his broad shoulders against the wall, lookino~ as black as a thunder-cloud. YVhat is the matter? she asked, try- ing hard not to laugh. Why did you make me come here? returned he. You knew quite well what it was that induced me to accept your in- vitation, and I suppose you knew, too, what I should get for my pains. Well; it was a capital joke, and I hope you are satisfied. Your sister stared at me, as if she had seen a ghost, when I spoke to her; but the shock hasnt upset her much. You see she is enjoying herself immense- ly, dancing with that curly-headed fellow whoever he may be. My dear Walter, you must not speak so loud; and you are not to scold me in my own house, if you please. If you are so ungrateful and unreasonable, I shall send you about your business. Cant you understand that, if I had told certain peo~ pIe that you were to be here, certain people would probably have remained away? I have put your foot on the first step of the ladder; but I really cannot carry you up upon my shoulders. Now do, like a good, sensible fellow, watch NO NEW THING. 4 your opportunity and take advantage of it, and dont make me a rebuke to the foolish by standing sulking there till people ask me who you are and what is the matter with you. Im afraid I was awfully rude, said XValter contritely; you have been very kind to me Im sure I dont know why and I beg your pardon for speaking as I did. But look here, Lady Travers, Im the worst man in the world at understand- ing hints. I wish you ~vould tell me plainly whether there is any hope. There is always hope for a man. If a man does not get ~vhat he wants, he has himself to blame; it is only women who are condemned to be hopeless. Women are very often obliged to say things that they dont mean, and to do things that they dont want to do; they have no choice. However, there is one thing that a woman can do; she can always throw over a partner in favor of some one else whom she likes better. Fortified by this hint, which, at all events, could not be complained of on the score of obscurity, Walter shouldered his way by degrees to the open window, where he could see Edith talking to the curly-headed youth whom he had men- tioned so contemptuously, and hovered about within a few yards of her until the music struck up again, when he boldly advanced, and said, I think this is our dance, Miss Winnington. Edith gave him a scared look, turned pink and white, and white and pink again, and at last answered hurriedly, Oh, no; I think not. I think you must have made a mistake. No mistake at all, returned Walter firmly; and he offered his arm, which she took after a moment of hesitation. Oh, not into the room, please, she said, with a little nervous laugh, as he be- gan to follow the crowd. I cant dance with you under the eyes of my partner, and mamma would be so angry if she saw us. It was very wrong of you to claim me in this way, when you know you never asked me for a dance at all; but perhaps, just for once, as we are such old friends _____ Yes; let us do wrong for once as we are such old friends, said Walter drily. Where can we go to get out of this crush ? That window opens on to a balcony; ~ve might go out there for a few minutes. Only for a few minutes, though; I ought not to be speaking to you at all. How do you come to be here? Oh, I assure you I was asked. It is very extraordinary that I should have been, no doubt; but fashionable society is getting so dreadfully mixed nowadays, you know, answered Walter, for he had not quite expected to be greeted after this fashion, and it struck him that there was a shade too much of patronage in Ediths tone. I dont think it is very kind of you to speak like that, she said, in a low voice. They were out upon the balcony now, and Edith, who had removed her hand from Walters arm, was leaning over the cushioned balustrade, looking down upon the passing vehicles in Park Lane, and upon the dark trees beyond. Kind? returned Walter. No; I dare say it is not particularly kind. Per- haps, if you were in my place, you wouldnt be very much disposed to be kind. No; I didnt mean that! Dont go, Edith dont be angry with me. You know I would not be unkind to you for the whole world. Of course my being here is odd; I never go anywhere; I havent been to a single ball all the time that I have been in London, and I sup- pose I was a great ass to come to this one. But when Lady Travers told me that I should meet you here, how could I help myself? Edith, who had made a movement as if to return to the ball-room, had resumed her former attitude, and now stood silent, with her back turned to her companion. Wont you at least say that you are a little bit glad to see me? he pleaded, after waiting in vain for her to speak. I am very glad to see you, Walter; I should always be glad to see you, she answered quickly, without looking at him. And ~ve are old friends, you know; though you dont seem to like my saying so. I thought you had forgotten me alto- gether. You never inquired whether I was dead or alive when you wrote to Nel- lie. You did ask Nellie about me, then? I seem to be losing all my old friends, Edith went on , ignoring this interruption. Nellie will hardly speak to me now; I suppose I must have offended her in some way. Are you pleased about her en~a~e- ment? I never thought she cared so much for Philip did you? It is. not always easy to tell whom women care for. Nellie is a girl who knows her own mind, anyhow. She wouldnt have taken him unless she had cared for him; you may be quite sure of that. 42 NO NEW THING. Wouldnt she? She would have been very foolish if she had, certainly, consid- ering that she is perfectly free to do as she likes. A great many girls are obliged to accept men whom they dont care for, and Edith, if you have accepted somebody else, for Gods sake say so, and let us get it over. You told me you did not care for me. Whether you quite meant that at the time, or whether you were fright- ened into saying it, I dont know; but it comes to much the same thing; for you could not have said it if you had really cared for me ____ If you think that, interrupted Edith, what is the use of alluding to the sub- ject at all? We had much better not allude to it. I have not accepted anybody, and I think most likely I never shall; but that can be nothing to you. I did not expect that you would ever speak to me again. You have every reason to hate and despise me. Ali, but I dont; I love you. You must not say that, Walter. Even supposing that it were true I certainly should not say it if it were false.. But you must not say it at all. If we are to meet sometimes now, we must never talk about that; we must talk about other things. What do you think of this extraordinary discovery of Philips? Do you believe he is really your cousin? I dont know what to think. My father believes it. It is a bad look-out for us, Im afraid. But I cant discuss Philip now. Edith I dont want to discuss Philip either; I would much rather hear about you. Are you getting on well? and do you dis- like your work very much? I cant say I like it; but it gives me something to do, and leaves me little lei- sure for thinking which is a blessino- Do you ever play cricket now? No; I havent the time. Edith, I dont ~vant to take an unfair advantage of you; but you dont know what a differ- ence it would make in my life if you could tell me that you still cared for me, ever so little. You said I could not really care for you What a lovely night! is it not, Mr. Lovelace? I came out here to o-et a breath of fresh air; it is so stiflin~ in- doors. Our dance?and nearly over? I am so sorry; but if you had been searching for me high and low, as you say, you could not have helped finding me. I only left the room a few minutes ago. Good-night, Mr. Brune. Are you coming to lunch here on Sunday by any chance? Oh, I thought perhaps you might be. And so Edith was led away into the throng by her justly incensed partner, and Walter understood that he ~vas dismissed for that evening. If he could have seen Lady Travers, he would have asked her boldly whether he might call upon her on Sunday; but Lady Ti-avers was nowhere to be discovered, and the only familiar face tl~at he came across in the course of his search was that of Mrs. XVinnin~ton, who stared very hard at him, and gave him an undecided sort of bow, as he brushed past her. It was only just past midnight when he emerged upon Park Lane; and as he felt quite certain that he would not be able to sleep if he went home, he thought he would walk down to the New University Club, of which he was a member, and think things over there with the help of a pipe. Turning the corner of St. Jamess Street, he met a tall pedestrian of military bearing, who peered at him in the light of a gas-lamp, stopped short, and then said, Is that Walter Brune? And the next minute he was shaking hands with Colonel Kenyon. It is rather a piece of good fortune, my meeting you, the colonel remarked. I heard something to-day which I think you ought to know about. Could you spare me a quarter of an hour? Walter said, An hour, if you like, and proposed that they should walk on a few steps to his club, where Colonel Ken- yon said what he had to say at gr~ater length than need be reported. In fulfil- ment of the resolution which he had made some time before, while at Longbourne, he had been to Conduit Street, and had heard from Philips former landlady the whole history of Mrs. Marescalehis ill- ness and death. Thus the mystery was at last solved, and the only question was whether it would be right that he should make the matter known to Miss Brune, or not. It was upon this point, Hugh said, that he had been anxious to consult her brother. The business is not quite so bad a one as I was afraid that it might be; but in all conscience it is bad enough. Why, at the very time when he proposed to your sister his wife can hardly have been dead a month! Can you imagine a man being such a heartless scoundrel ? Walter shook his head. He had not spoken during Colonel Kenyons recital, NO NEW THING. 43 except once, when he had ejaculated un- Ah, well; you are the exception that der his breath, So that was what became proves the rule, I suppose. I quite agree of poor little Fanny! What an odd thing with you that it would have been better if that I should never have suspected it! Philip had been more straightforward; and although he looked a good deal but then again there are lots of people vexed and distressed, he had hardly ex- who would say that a man isnt hound to pressed so much indignation as his in- tell the whole story of his past life as formant had expected that he would do. soon as he becomes engaged. We dont Somebody ought to tell Miss Brune, know what he may have to say for himself said Colonel Kenyon decisively; the either; and I am sure you are wrong more so as I dont for one moment be- about his having broken Fannys heart. lieve that the fellow himself will tell her, Philip is just the same now that he used unless he is obliged. I might write to to be at school. He does a heap of things Margaret; but the fact of the matter is that he ought not to do; but he never in- that 1 have given so much offence already tends to hurt anybody he never means by what I have said from time to time any harm. about this precious young rascal that Of all the noxious reptiles that crawl that in short, I would much rather leave the earth, commend me to the man ~vho it alone. I think you would be the proper doesnt mean any harm! called out person to ~vrite to your sister. Colonel Kenyon, whose heat was greatly I suppose so, said Walter doubtfully. increased by the others misplaced len- Only, dont you think it would look iency. Well; do you mean to write to rather like stealing a march upon Philip? your sister, or dont you? Stealing a march upon him ! repeated Oh, yes, Ill ~vrite, answered Walter; Hugh scornfully. How is one to deal theres no doubt that she ought to be with a fellow like that, unless one steals a told. march upon him? I confess, he went And I sincerely hope and trust, said on, with some impatience, that I cant Hugh, getting up, that she will break understand the weakness that all you peo- off her engagement. Theres no saying pie seem to have for Marescalchi. Here what she may do, though, or how she may is a fello~v who sneaks off to Italy to try take it. I dont profess to understand and do your father out of his property, women myself. who coolly proposes to your sister when They are curious creatures, certainly, he hasnt a sixpence to bless himself with, agreed Walter, thinking of his own expe- who keeps a wife in London on the sly, rience of the sex. breaks her heart, I suspect, and rushes Most extraordinary, said Hugh off to engage himself to somebody else most extraordinary. Well,good-night, before she is cold in her grave a fellow Walter. If you could see your way to who laughs at you, and humbugs you, and telling this story without brin~in~ my tells lies right and left, by George ! and name into it, you know, I should be just upon my word and honor, I believe you as well pleased. think its all right. If I venture to sug- And, having given this incidental proof gest to Margaret that it would be as well that he understood something of the na- to look after him a little more closely, she ture of at least one ~voman in the world, turns her back upon me; and now, when Colonel Kenyon struggled into his great. I ask you to tell your sister a plain and coat and went away. simple fact which no gentleman in Mares- calchis place would have concealed from CHAPTER XXVIII. her, you talk about stealing a march upon TOM STANNIFORTH FINDS HIS MATCH. him! I must confess that I cant make it out. It fairly beats me. IF \Valter had not been in such a des- Walter smiled deprecatingly. You perate hurry to leave Lady Traverss ball, see, said he, we have known Philip all he might probably have been called upon our lives, and well, it is not very easy to shake hands with an old acquaintance, to make a stranger understand how we in whose movements he had good reason feel towards him; but the truth is that one to be interested. Tom Stanniforth, in cant help liking Philip. I never met this month of June, when public business anybody yet who didnt like him. was being rapidly pushed forward and I beg your pardon, said Hugh with philanthropic measures were in imminent hearty emphasis; you have met one man danger of being shelved by an impatient who dont like him, never did, and never Legislature, was too actively occupied a will. man to have much time for dancing; but 44 NO NEW THING. between twelve and one oclock he did manage to hasten up from Westminster to Travers House, and the first person to whom he spoke on his arrival, was Edith. How late you are! said she. I thought you were not comino- So did I, I can tell you, at one time. I got away as soon as 1 could; but I was bound not to miss the division. When I saw Torkington get upon his legs, I gave myself up for lost; but happily he had forgotten his notes, so he treated us to a confused oration, which was quite short for him, and soon after that we ~vere let out of school. I hope you got the flowers I sent you? Thank you, yes; they arrived quite safely, and they were very pretty. You have not brought them with you though, I see. They did not match my dress. And, Mr. Stanniforth, I hope you will not take the trouble to go to Covent Garden, or wherever it is that you buy flowers, any more on my account. I am sure it must be a great tax upon you. Good gracious me! I havent the time to go to Covent Garden. I send out to the florists to order them. I see, said Edith, with a quiet smile. But in future your servant might be spared the ~valk to the florists. I dont think I care much for bouquets. Dont you? Well, I rather agree with you. They are a barbarous sort of things in themselves, and they must be a great nuisance for one to carry about; but I thought You thought it would be the proper thing to send them, and I am sure you are very kind; but henceforth we will take tbe will for the deed. Dont you want to go and dance with somebody now? It is useless to ask me; I am much too tired and too hot to move from my seat, now that I have found one. It ~vill be seen from the above that contact with the world had rubbed off a good deal of the shyness with which Edith was afflicted when we first made her acquaintance; but that she was still sub- ject to timidity, under certain circum- stances, ~vas plainly shown when Mrs. Winnington came sailing up to say, Oh, Mr. Stanniforth, how kind of you to send those lovely flowers! I hope you will forgive me for not allowing Edith to bring them; but pink and green, you know! I have such a dreadfully sensitive eye for color; it is quite a misfortune to me; and I really could not let her carry them with that dress on though she was very angry with me about it. Werent you, Edith ? And Mrs. Winnington accompanied this query with a look which caused her daughter to cast all regard for truth to the winds, and to answer, Yes, mamma, with the utmost promptitude. Miss Winnington has been telling me that she doesnt care for bouquets, observed Tom. What nonsense! Mrs. Winnington was beginning; but To mwenton, Nor do I, I must say. So we are agreed. I like nothing better than wild flowers myself. Well, perhaps bouquets are rather stiff; still you could hardly walk into a ball-room with a bunch of buttercups and daisies in your hand. By-the-by, Mr. Stanniforth, I want to tell you how very much interested I was in reading your speech of last night. So telling, and so perfectly unanswerable! The poor home secretary ! I felt quite sorry for him though I suppose you would say that he deserved it all. But I must nOt keep you from dancing. I am not going to dance, answered Tom. That is another point upon which your daughter and I are of one mind. We think it is much better fun to sit still and look on in such weather as this. It was quite the same thing to Mrs. Winnington whether this couple sat still or danced, provided that they remained together; so she only exclaimed play- fully, Oh, you shockingly lazy people! and passed on in high good-humor. It would occupy rather too much space to record the gradual process by which Mr. Stanniforth had been brought, or had brought himself, to the point of pay- ing serious addresses to Edith Winning- ton. When he had been rejected by the only woman whom he had ever loved, he had made up his mind, as a natural con- sequence of that disappointment, that he would remain a bachelor for the rest of his days; but since then he had seen reason to reconsider this determination. His father, who was growing alarmed lest the family of Stanniforth should be- come extinct in the zenith of its glory, and its wealth be distributed among dis- tant collaterals, urged him frequently and piteously to take a wife without fur- ther loss of time; Tom himself began to think that it was almost his duty to do so; and while he was still wavering these considerations alone being not quite weighty enough to decide him came the NO NEW THING. 45 news of Nellies engagement to Philip, until the end of the session. If, in the which clinched the matter. There was, mean time, she could use him as a weapon of course, no good reason for its doing so, to keep other admirers at a distance, there since he had abandoned all idea of gain- would be that much, at all events, gained. ing Nellies love for himself; but the And he was really a very pleasant kind of feeling was not, perhaps, an altogether man to have .for a friend. He knew all unnatural one. Thus it came to pass that, sorts of people, and could provide any- when Mrs. Winnington let him know of thing that was required of him at a mo- her arrival in Park Street by an invitation ments notice, from a box at one of the to dinner, he not only accepted this hos- theatres to places in the ladies gallery of pitality, but came to the conclusion that the House of Commons. He had even he might do a great deal worse than ac- upon more than one occasion, procured cept what was delicately offered at the invitations for Mrs. Winnington and her same time; and from that day forth he daughter from ladies with whom they set himself to prosecute his suit in the were not upon visiting terms; though this intervals of business. The House of last was a proof of friendship with which Commons, the habitual drunkards, and Edith would willingly have dispensed. the oppressed railway servants occupied Nobody, however, need hesitate about by far the most important place in his asking for an invitation for a man; and thoughts (for he was firmly resolved to that was why, after Mrs. Winnington had think no more of Nellie); but there still left Mr. Stanniforth and Edith to enter- remained to him, under the head of relax- tam one another, as already related, the ation, an hour or t~vo out of every day to latter broke in upon the rdsumd which her be devoted to Miss Winnington, whom he neighbor was giving of the prime minis- considered a very nice girl, and much im- ters speech, by saying, proved in manner of late. He was not in You know Lady Cecilia Caroll, dont love with her, and did not attempt to per- you? suade himself that he was so; but he Oh, yes; I know her. believed that he could make her happy, I want you to get me a card for her and that, in a comparative fashion, she concert on the 5th. Do you think you would make him happy too. Indeed, so can manage it? long as there were habitual drunkards But I thoug~it you told me that you and other such unfortunates in the land, were going. he was not likely to be dependent upon So we are. It was not for myself that domesticity for comparative happiness. I wanted the invitation, but for a friend of Mr. Stanniforth, then, became so mine, who was here this evening Mr. marked in his attentions to the ladies in Walter Brune. Park Street that Mrs. Winnington, feel- What, young Brune from Broom Leas? ing this bird to be well in the hand, began Dear me, is he in London? Well, Ill do to beat the bush in search of other and what I can; but I rather expect I shall rarer ones, and had fairly good sport with be snubbed. Old Lady Cecilia is not the a few young peers, until their respective most amiable woman in the world, and mammas turned upon her, and gave her she prides herself upon never crowding to understand that such poaching ~vould her rooms. I was rather surprised at not be permitted. Edith, for her part, her gave Mr. Stanniforth no little encourage- At her asking us ment. She had the weakness of will in- No, no, my dear Miss Winnington, nate in her fathers family; but she had cried Tom, ~vho may, nevertheless, have also, as many weak persons have, a con- had some such thought in his mind when siderable power of passive resistance, he checked himself; I was going to say when driven to extremities. Mrs. Win- that I was surprised at her asking me. nington could lead her to the water any Do you very particularly wish for this in- day with the greatest ease; but it ~vas not vitation? quite so certain that she could be made I should have liked Walter to have it. to drink. 1-ler present idea was to tem- He is very fond of music, and I don~ t porize; and this, she thought, could be think he often gets a chance of hearing best accomplished by allowing Mr. Stan- any; but pray dont trouble yourself, if niforth and others to suppose that she there is any difficulty about it. meant to accept him. She had measured He shall have it, answered Mr. Stan- quite accurately the extent of his affection niforth confidently. I can bring pres- for her, and knew that there would be no sure to bear upon the old lady through difficulty at all in staving off his proposal her son, who is a red-hot Radical, and 46 NO NEW THING. looks up to me with admiring eyes. Will you give me Brunes address, or shall I send the card to you? You can send it to me, answered Edith; or, rather, you can give it to me the next time we meet. And, Mr. Stan- niforth, you neednt mention it to mamma, please. She doesnt much like the I3runes. All right; I wont say a word. Do you everahem!hear anything of the Brunes now? I saw Walter to-night for a few min- utes. I hear of the others through Mar- garet every now and then. And are they all quite ~vell down there? Miss Brune in the seventh heav- en of happiness, I suppose that sort of thino~ said Mr. Stanniforth, with some- what exaggerated carelessness. I dont know about that. She did not seem to me to be particularly happy when I saw her last; but I suppose she ought to be so. Mr. Brune is not much pleased with her engagement, I believe. One could hardly expect him to be pleased, young Marescalchi having no money and no profession, said Mr. Stan- niforth, who of course had heard nothing of Philips supposed claims to Long- bourne; but that only shows all the more that it must have been a love match, dont you see? Did anybody ever suggest that it was anything else? said Edith, smiling. People may be in love and yet not be happy, you know. How tired I am! I wish it was time to go away. Would you mind hunting up mamma, and persuading her to move? I shall meet you here at luncheon on Sunday, shall I not? Mr. Stan niforth said that Lady Travers had been kind enough to ask him, and then xvent off in search of Mrs. Winning- ton, as he was told. It will now be understood why Walter had not been bidden to this Sunday feast. A meeting between him and Tom Stanni- forth might, or might not, be awkward; and as a matter of fact Lady Travers had at first fully intended to ask him; but, after witnessing his behavior in the ball- room, she had perceived that he was not nearly man of the world enough to be trusted in a situation requiring some pa- tience and self-control. She liked him none the less for his lack of these ser- viceable qualities; but she dared not run the risk of a scene especially as Lord Travers was accustomed to honor her ~vith his company in the middle of the day. This last consideration likewise pre- vented her from including her mother in the party. Lord Travers, who hated a good many people, hated his mother-in- law more than his wife, his doctor, and his lawyer all put together which was saying a great deal. He had not spoken to her for years, and had long ago given orders that she was upon no pretence to be admitted into his house at any time when there could be a possibility of his meeting her. Mrs. Winnington ~vas very forgiving about it. She went to the large entertain- ments at Travers House, and sent Edith to the small ones, saying that one really could not bring oneself to cross or con- tradict poor George, who was such a con- stant sufferer; but that he held views upon religious subjects which she felt that she ought not to listen to without a protest; and therefore it was just as well that they should not often meet. Fur- thermore, she could not quite approve of Sunday entertainments for herself, though she was far from condemning others who saw their way to participating in them. It may be taken for granted that this orthodox churchwoman was not missed by any of those who assembled at Tray- ers House on the day in question; and probably by none of them was her ab- sence less regretted than by the daughter whom she had dropped in Park Lane on her way back from church. It was not often that Edith escaped from her moth- ers tender supervision, and when she did so she enjoyed her liberty to the utmost. She would have enjoyed this luncheon party had it consisted entirely of elderly spinsters, instead of being composed, as it was, principally of very agreeable young men, who vied ~vith one another in their efforts to amuse her. The talk was gen- eral, and was entertaining enough in its way, and there was a great deal of laugh- ter, to which Edith contributed her fair share. The old man in the wheeled chair, at the other end of the table, did not act as a dafnper upon the spirits of the younger people. He had a few friend~ of his own around him, who talked to him about racing and the prospects of the moors for he had been a great sports- man in days gone byand he took not the slightest notice of his wifes guests. Here is your card, said Tom Stanni. forth, when luncheon was over and he had an opportunity of speaking to Edith in private. Oh, thank you ! she answered grate- fully, taking the envelope and slipping it NO NEW THING. 47 into her pocket. I hope you didnt have a great deal of trouble in getting it. There would be no pleasure in oblig- ing a friend, if it did not cost one a little trouble to do so, answered Mr. Stanni- forth, who indeed had carried his point after an interview with Lady Cecilia which had been almost too much even for his indomitable good temper. It is to be a very good concert, I am told, if Brune cares for that kind of thing. I didnt fancy he was musical. Edith looked rather guilty for a mo- ment, but recovered herself quickly. I dont know that he is exactly musical, she replied; but he likes music; all the Brunes do. Nellie delights in it. Does she? Perhaps that was one of the things that attracted her to young Marescalchi, ~vho is going to be the great singer of the day, I hear. When is he expected back from Italy? I dont know. Mr. Stanniforth, you saw a great deal of Nellie at one time; I wish you would tell me whether she really cares for Philip, or not. Now, my dear Miss Winnington, is it likely that I should know that, if you dont? Have you any reason for doubt- ing it? Yes, I have a reason; but it is only a sort of a kind of a reason; and Nellie never tells me anything. I thought per- haps she might have been more commu- nicative with you. Oh, dear no! Miss Brune never liked me, I am sorry to say. Have you heard the rumor that there is a split in the ministry? Yes; you told me. At least, I dont quite remember; but I shall read all about it in the Observer when I go home, I dare say. I never can take an interest in politics, and I darent open my lips when people get upon these subjects, lest I should display my appalling ignorance. I am afraid I must often have bored you beyond endurance, said Mr. Stanni- forth, with tardy compunction. By telling me of all those wonderful schemes of yours? Oh, no; you have not bored me; only I cannot always make out what it is all about. Now, Nellie takes the greatest interest in everything of that kind, and has the whole act or bill, or whatever you call it, at her fingers ends in no time. She was quite excited over that Anti-Vaccination Bill that you used to talk about no; not anti-vaccina- tion. What was it? The anti-vivisection measure? sug- gested Tom wonderingly. The pertinac ity with which Miss Winnington recurred to Nellies name puzzled and rather an- noyed him. He did not want to talk about Nellie; nor was it agreeable to him to hear comparisons drawn between the girl whom he wished and the one whom he intended to marry. I find that all the ladies are with me upon the subject of vivisection, he began, by way of gently leading the conversation towards gener- alities. But Miss XVinnington was not to be baffled. Nellie certainly would be, said she; for she is so devoted to all animals horses and dogs especially. I never heard the true history of that es- cape of hers out hunting. Wasnt it you who picked her up, and dressed her wounds, and set her upon your own beast? It was in this wily manner that Mr. Stanniforth was lured into the beginning of a dialogue long before the end of which Edith had found out all that she had wanted to do, and knew as well as if she had been told it in so many words that her companions heart was no longer his own to dispose of. For more reasons than one, the discovery gave her a good deal of satisfaction; and she determined to use it for her own purposes, feeling no scruple in so doing. For what business has a man to be paying court to one lady when lie is manifestly and ridiculously in love with another? Edith had no manner of doubt but that her admirer would throw her over ruthlessly, if Nellie were free and willing to accept his hand; and that, thought she, was a game at which two could play. Before she went away she found out XValters address from her sister, and posted the card which had been given to her for him, writing the initials E. W. in the corner of the envelope in order to prevent niisconceptions. It was quite possible that Walter, who knew so little of London life, might be surprised at re- ceiving an invitation from a total stranger, and might have the stupidity to decline it. As for Tom Stanniforth, lie left Travers House, that afternoon, more disposed to be in love with Edith than he had ever been before. He was astonished to find how much lie had enjoyed talking to her, and how quickly the time had passed. She had been lively, she had been loqua- cious, she had actually, once or twice, been amusing. And she really was a good girl. How kindly and pleasantly she had spoken about Nellie! and how very seldom it is that you hear one woman 48 NO NEW THING. praise another in that hearty and unre- Walter said he was sorry to hear it. served way! The poor man is hardly to Yes; I thought you would be sorry. be blamed if he fancied that it was the You ~vill not have the pleasure of meeting sunshine of his presence that had caused her for some time now; and I suppose I this shrinking flower to expand so charm- shall have to act as Ediths chaperon. ingly, and he should surely be praised in At this Walter grinned; but presently that he resolved, for the hundredand- heaved a deep sigh. It doesnt make fiftieth time, to think thenceforward more much difference to me, he said despond- of her and less of Nellie. ently; I dont live in your world. She It was a few days after this that Walter sent me this, he added, pulling an en- thought the time had come for him to call velope out of his pocket. Its an invi- upon Lady Travers, whom he was fortu- tation to a concert from a Lady Somebody nate enough to fit~d sipping her afternoon Something, whom I never heard of. Ive cup of tea alone, and who began to laugh a great mind not to co. as soon as she saw him. I wouldnt go if I were you, said Now I do yonder what you are laugh- Lady Travers calmly. I would display ing at, said he rather crossly. a proper spirit by remaining away, and I am laughing at you, Walter, she sulking like a great baby, and showing answered; so now you know. Edith how stupid it was of her to move Walter sat down, and looked indignant heaven and earth to get an invitation for notes of interrogation, you which has been refused to hundreds Dont you think you are very funny? of people. That is the way to make your- asked Lady Travers, still laughin~ self appreciated at your right value. I think you are making fun b of me, if Walter lifted both his hands to his thats what you mean. head and rumpled his hair despairingly. No, I am not; but why do you march What are you driving at? he asked. into the room in that defiant way, looking What would you have me do? as if you were not to be trifled with and I would have you remember that it wouldnt stand any nonsense? was not Edith who enticed you out of your I suppose I look as I feel, replied seclusion. You have no right to stalk up Walter curtly. to her looking like an angry turkeycock, But you really must not feel like that. and ask, Why did you send for me, if you Of course, if you choose to go at things have nothing to say to me? You might in a hammer-and-tongs style, and demand also remember that you are not yet in a a plain yes or no to every question, you position to marry. will get your ans~ver. You will get a plain I admit all that, answered Walter; no, if that will do for you. If you want and if you tell me that I have no right to the answer to be yes, you must try to be think of marrying Edith, I shall not con- a little more humble. tradict you. The only right that I do Lady Travers, I will be as humble as claim is that of being told whether I am you please; I am ready to kneel down in to hope or not. I care for Edith a great the dust before her. But I wont be deal too much to enjoy the chance of an played fast and loose with; I wont be occasional flirtation with her on the sly. flirted ~vith for a season and then pushed I would rather never see her at all than be on one side and told that I ought to feel allowed, as a great favor, to see her some- very thankful for having been admitted times in that way. into the society of my betters. Either If I were not the most patient woman Edith loves me, or she doesnt. If she alive, cried Lady Travers, I should doesnt, well and good; I have no right to wash my hands of you. You are imprac- complain. But if she does, I think she ticable! You ought to understand that it ought to say so. is not always possible to state things in I have had to do with a good many such very plain terms as you seem to re- dense and obstinate people, remarked quire. But I am exceedingly patient; and Lady Travers; but never yet have I met I dont wish Edith to be as unhappy as your equal. I am not at all sure that I as some people are who marry for posi- should not do more wisely to send you tion and wealth. You must be aware that away and encourage Edith to marry some that is the sort of marriage which she will decent old man with plenty of money, be forced to make, unless somebody holds who would buy pretty things for her and out a helping hand to save her. Now, get on well with my mother. By the you know, Walter, I like you very much, way, my mother is laid up with the gout in spite of your bad manners, and I again. should be delighted to do anything that I SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 49 could to oblige you; but you wont mind my saying that it was not out of pure affection for you that I took the trouble to discover ~vhere you lived and to drag you into society by the hair of your head. I thought that you and I could save Edith between us; and I think so still though you are most discouraging. How am I to make you understand things? Try to imaoine yourself in Ediths place fright- ened to death of somebody whom we need not name, in daily peril of receiving an offer which you could hardly dare to re- fuse, miserably unhappy at home, and longing above aU things to escape from it dont you think you would feel as if it was not much use to firht against fate? But if you knew that there was some one who cared for you a great deal, and that he was content to wait patiently for better times and trusted to you to be patient too, and if you could see his face, from time to time, to give you a dose of cour- age then, perhaps you ~vould be able to go on fighting. Ah but will she be content to wait patiently? That depends very much upon you, I should think. I cant say whether she would or not; but I am afraid she might not, if you were rough with her and fright- ened her. You dont know, and you are a great deal too stupid, my poor Walter, to take in, how brave and ho~v cowardly women can be. You yourself, I suppose, are afraid of nothing. You would like to settle all difficulties, literally and meta- phorically, with your fists. But ~ve dont fight with those weapons, you see, and they would be of no use at all to you here. If you must fight, fight in another sense. Fight your way up in the world: that is what I should do, if I were a man. I should make up my mind that I would be a partner in Boulgers bank, for in- stance. That is easy to say, observed XVal- ter. And if it is not easy to do, let it be done with difficulty! cried Lady Tray- ers intrepidly. A man can have any- thing in the world that he wants, if he will only determine to have it. Look at Napoleon; look at Washington and and And Whittington, thrice lord mayor of London, said Walter, laughing. Well, if trying is any good, Ill try ; you may be sure of that. And, Lady Travers, youll let me see her as often as you can, wont you? Yes; but not too often. And you are LIVING AGE. VOL. XLII. 2136 not to take things too much for granted, please, or to expect her to throw herself into your arms, or to look black when she talks to another man. All these injunctions XValter promised that he would faithfully observe; and so, after a little more good advice, he was dis- missed. From The Lesure Hour. SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. BT ISABELLA L. BIRD, AUTHOR OF ~A LADY S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUN- TAINS~ UNBEATEN TRACKS IN TAPAN, RTC CHAPTER IV. British Resideocy, Seramhaog, Suogei Ujoog, January 26th. B~ the date of my letter you will see that our difficulties have been surmounted. d continue my narrative in a temperature which, in my room shaded though it is has reached 87g. After hearing many pros and cons, and longing much for the freedom of a solitary traveller, I went out and visited the tomb of a famous hadji, a great pro~)het, the policeman said, who was slain in ascending the Linggi. It is a raised mound, like our churchyard graves, with a post at each end, and a jar of oil upon it, and is surrounded bx- a lat- tice of reeds on which curtains are hang- ing, the whole being covered with a thatched roof supported on posts. The village looks prosperous, and the Chinaman as much at home as in China striving, thriving, and oblivious of every- thing but his own interests, the sole agent in the development of the resources of the country, well satisfied with our or any rule under which his gains are quick and. safe. There are villaoe officers or headmen, ~an galus, in all villages, and every hamlet of more than forty houses has its mosque and religious officials, though Moham- medanism does not recognize the need of a priesthood. If one sees a man, with the upper part of his body unclothed, paddling a log-canoe face forwards, one is apt to call him a savage, especially if he be dark-skinned; but the Malays would be much offended if they were called sav- ages, and, indeed, they are not so. They have an elaborate civilization, etiquette, and laws of their own, are the most rigid of monotheists, are decently clothed, build secluded and tolerably comfortable houses, and lead domestic lives after their 50 SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. fashion, especially where they are too poor to be polygamists,. though I am of opinion that the peculiar form of domes- ticity which we still cultivate to some ex- tent in England, and which is largely connected with the fireside, cannot exist in a tropical country. After the obtrusive nudity and promiscuous bathing of the Japanese, there is something specially pleasing in the little, secluded bathing- sheds by the Malay rivers, used by one person at a time, who throws a sarong on the thatch to show that the shed is occu- pied. Babu ntade some excellent soup, which, together with curry made with fresh coco- nut, was a satisfactory meal, and though only in a simple white Indian costume, he waited as grandly as at Malacca. Mr. Haywards knowledge of the peculiarities of the Malay character at last obtained our release from what was truly durance vile. He sent for a boatman apart from his fellows, and induced him to make ~ bargain for taking us up the river at night; but the man soon returned in a state of great excitement, complaining that the villagers had set on him, and were re- solved that we should not go up, upon which the police ~vent down and inter- fered. Even after everything was settled, Miss Shaw was feeling so ill that she wanted to stay in the police-station all night at least; but Mr. Hayward and I, who consulted assiduously about her, were of opinion that we must move her, even if ~ve had to carry her, for if she were going to have fever, I could nurse her at Captain Murrays, but certainly not in the verandah of a police-station! This worthy man, who is very brave and used to facing danger who was the first European to come up here, who acted as guide to the troops during the war, and afterwards disarmed the popu- lation positively quailed at having the charge of these t~vo fragile girls. Oh, he repeated several times, if anything were to happen to the Miss Sha~vs I should never get over it, and they dont know what roughing it is; they never should have been allowed to come. So I thought too as I looked at one of them lying limp and helpless on a Malay bed; but my share of the responsibility for them was comparatively limited. Doubt- less his thoughts strayed, as mine did, to the days of travelling without encum- brance. There was another encumbrance of a literal kind. They had a trunk! This indispensable impediment had been left at Malacca in the morning, and ar rived in a four-paddled canoe just as we were about to start! Mr. Hayward prescribed two table- spoonfuls of whiskey for Miss Shaw, for it is somewhat of a risk to sleep out in the jungle at the rainy season, for the miasma rises twenty feet, and the day had been exceptionally hot. Our rather dis- mal procession started at seven, Mr. Hay- ward leading the way, carrying a torch made of strips of palm branches bound tightly together and dipped in gum damar, a most inflammable resin; then a police- man; the sick girl, moaning and stum- bling, leaning heavily on her sister and me; Babu, who had grown very plucky, a train of policemen carrying our baggage; and lastly, several torch-bearers, the torches dripping fire as we slowly and speechlessly passed along. It looked like a funeral or something uncanny. We crawled dismally for fully three-quarters of a mile to cut off some considerable wi ndi n gs of the river, crossed a stream on a plank bridge, and found our boat lying at a very high pier with a thatched roof. The mystery of night in a strange place ~vas wildly picturesque; the pale, green- ish, undulating light of fireflies, and the broad, red, waving glare of torches flash- ing fitfully on the skeleton pier, the lofty jungle trees, the dark, fast-flowing river, and the dark, lithe forms of our half- naked boatmen. The tra/in was a flattish- bottomed boat about twenty-two and a half feet long by six and a half feet broad, with a bamboo gridiron flooring, resting on the gunwale for the greater part of its length. T his was covered for seven feet in the middle by a low, circular roof, thatched with atta~. It was steered by a broad paddle, loosely lashed, and poled by three men, ~vho, standing at the bow, planted their poles firmly in the mud, and then walked half-way down the boat and back again. All boats must ascend the Lin_oj by this laborious process, for its current is so strong that the Japanese would call it one long rapid. Descending, loaded with tin, the stream brings boats down with great rapidity, the poles being used only to keep them off the banks and shallows. Our boat was essentially native. The Golden I~l~ersonese is very hot, and much infested by things which bite and sting. Though the mercury has not been low-er then 800 at night since I reached Singapore, I have never felt the heat overpowering in a house; but the night on the river was awful, and, after SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 5 the intolerable blaze of the day, the fight- ing with the heat and mosquitos was most exhausting, crowded as we were into very close and uneasy quarters, a bamboo gridiron being by no means a bed of down. Bad as it was, I was often amused by the thought of the unusual feast which the jungle mosquitos were having on the blood of four ~vhite people. If it had not been for the fire in the bow, which helped to keep them down by smoking them (and us), I at least should now be laid up with mosquito fever. The Miss Shaws and I were on a blan- ket on the gridiron under the roof, which just allowed of sitting up; Mr. Hayward, who had never been up the river before, and was anxious about the navigation, sat, vigilant and lynx eyed, at the edge of it; Babu, who had wrapped himself in Oriental impassiveness and a bernouse, and Mr. Haywards police attendant, sat in front, all keeping their positions throughout the night as dutifully as the figures in a tableau vivant. And so we silently left Permatang Pasir for our jun- gle voyage of eighteen hours, in which time, by unintermitting hard work, we were propelled about as many miles, though some say t~venty-nine. No description could exaggerate the tortuosity of the Linggi or the sharpness of its tortuosities. The boatmen measure the distance by turns. XVhen they were asked when we should reach the end, they never said in so many hours, but in so many turns. Silently we glided away from the torch- light into the apparently impenetrable darkness, but the heavens, of which we saw a patch now and then, were ablaze with stars, and ere long the forms of trees above and around us became tolerably distinct. Ten hours of darkness follo~ved as we poled our slow and tedious way through the forest gloom, ~vith trees to right of us, trees to left of us, trees be- fore us, trees behind us, trees above us, and, I may ~vrite, trees under us, so innu- merable were the snags and tree-trunks in the river. The night was very still not a leaf moved, and at times the silence was very solemn. I expected, indeed, an unbroken silence, but there were noises that I shall never forget. Several times there was a long, shrill cry, much like the Australian Coo-ee ! answered from a distance in a tone almost human. This was the note of the grand night bird, the Argus pheasant, and is said to resemble the cry of the orang-utan, the jakkuns, or the wild men of the interior. A sound like the constant blowing of a steam. ~vhistle in the distance was said to be produced by a large monkey. Yells hoarse or shrill, and roars more or less guttural, were significant of any of the wild beasts with which the forest abounds, and recalled the verse in Psalm civ., Thou makest darkness that it may be night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do move. Then there were cries as of fierce gambols, or of pursuit and capture, of hunter and v~ctim; and at times, in the midst of profound stillness, came huge plungings, with accompanying sJ)lashings, which I thought were made by alligators, but which Captain Murray thinks were more likely the riot of elephants, disturbed while drinking. There were hundreds of mysterious and unfamiliar sounds great and small, significant of the unknown beast, reptile, and insect world which the jungle hides, and then silences. Sheet lightning, very blue, revealed at intervals the strong stream swirling past under a canopy of trees, falling and erect, with straight stems, one hundred and fifty feet high probably, surmounted by crowns of drooping branches; palms with their graceful plumage; lianas hanging, loop- ing, twisting, their orange fruitage hang- ing over our heads; great black snags; the lithe, wiry forms of our boatmen al- ways straining to their utmost, and the motionless white turban of the hadji all for a second relieved against the broad blue flame, to be again lost in darkness. The Linggi above Permatang Pasir, with its sharp turns and muddy hurry, is, I should say, from thirty to sixty feet wide, a mere pathway through the jungle. Do not think of a jungle as I used to think of it, as an entanglement or thicket of profuse and matted scrub, for it is in these regions at least a noble forest of majestic trees, many of them buttressed at their roots by three buttresses, behind which thirty men could find shelter. On many of the top branches of these other trees have taken root from seeds depos- ited by birds, and have attained consider- able size; and all send down, as it a~~ears, extraordinary cylindrical strauds from two to six inches in diameter, and often one hundred and fifty feet in length, smooth and straight until they root themselves, looking like the guys of a mast. Under these giants stand the lesser trees, grouped in glorious confusion coco, sago, areca, and go~nuti palms, ;zi~s/t and ;zibeng dwarf palms, tree ferns fifteen and twenty feet high, the bread-fruit, the ebony, the damar, the india-rubber, the 52 SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. gutta-percha, the cajeput, the banyan, the upas, the bombax or cotton-tree, and hosts of others, many of which bear brilliant flowers, but have not yet been botanized; and I could only give such barbarous names as cliumpaka, kamooning, mar- bow, seu;n, dadag5, and, loveliest of all, the waring/ian, a species of ficus, grace- ful as a birch; and underneath these again great ferns, ground orchids, and flowering shrubs of heavy delicious odor are interlocked and inter~voven. Oh, that you could see it all ! It is wonderful; no words could describe it, far less mine. Mr. Darwin says so truly that a visit to the tropics (and such tropics) is like a visit to a new planet. This new wonder-world, so enchanting, tantalizing, intoxicating, makes me despair, for I cannot make you see what I am seeing! Amidst all this wealth of nature, and in this perennial summer heat, I quite fail to realize that it is January, and that with you the withered plants are shrivelling in the frost-bound earth, and that leafless twigs and the needles of half-starved pines are shiver- ing under the stars in the aurora-lighted winter nights. I3ut to the jungle again. The great bamboo towers up along the river-sides in its feathery grace, and behind it the much- prized Malacca cane, the rattan, creeping along the ground, or climbing trees and knotting them together, with its tough strands, from a hundred to twelve hundred feet in length, matted and matting to- gether; while ferns, selagin ellas, and ly- copodiums struggle for space in which to show their fragile beauty, along with bar- dierfoliaceous plants, brown and crimson, green and crimson, and crimson flecked with gold; and the great and lesser trees alike are loaded with trailers, ferns, and orchids, among which huge masses of the elk-horn ferns, and the shining five-foot fronds of the Aspienium nidus, are every- where conspicuous. Not only do orchids crowd the branches, and the Hoya car- nasa, the yam, the blue-blossomed thun- bergia, the vanilla (?), and other beautiful creepers conceal the stems, and nearly every parasitic growth carries another parasite, but one sees here a filament carelessly dangling from a branch sustain- ing some bright-hued epiphyte of quaint, mocking form; then a branch as thick as a clippers mainmast reaches across the river, supporting a festooned trailer, from whose stalks hang, almost invisibly sus- pencled, oval fruits almost vermilion-col- ored; then again the beautiful vanilla and the Hoya carnosa vie with each other in wreathing the same tree; or an audacious liana, with great clusters of orange or scarlet blossoms, takes possession of sev- eral trees at once, lighting up the dark greenery with its flaming splotches; or an aspiring trailer, dexterously linking its feebleness to the strength of other plants, leaps across the river from tree to tree at a height of a hundred feet, and, as though in mockery, sends down a profusion of crimson festoons far out of reach. But it is as useless to attempt to catalogue as to describe. To realize an equatorial jungle one must see it in all its ~vonder- ment of activity and stillnessthe heated, steamy stillness, through which one fancies that no breeze ever whispers, with its colossal flowering trees, its green twilicrht its inextricable involvement, its butterflies and moths, its brilliant but harsh-voiced birds, its lizards and flying fpxes, its infinite variety of monkeys sitting, hanging by hands or tails, leaping, grimacing, jabbering, pelting each other with fruits; and its loathsome saurians, lying in ~vait on the slimy banks under the mangroves. All this and far more the dawn revealed upon the Linggi River; but strange to say, through all the tropic splendor of the morning I saw a vision of the Trientalis Europe~, as we saw it first on a mossy hillside in Glen Cannich! But I am forgetting that the night with its blackness and mystery came before the sunrise, that the stars seldom looked through the dense leafage, and that the pale green lamps of a luminous fungus here and there, and the cold blue sheet lightning, only served to intensify the solemnity bf the gloom. XVhile the blackest part of the night lasted the views was usually made up of the black river under the folia~e, with scarcely ten yards of its course free from obstruction great snags all along it sticking up menacingly, trees lying half or quite across it with barely room to pass under them, or sometimes under water, where the boat drove heavily~~ over them, while great branches brushed and ripl)ed the thatch continually; and as one obstacle was safely passed, the rapidity of the cur- rent invariably canted us close on another, but the vigilant skill of the boatmen averted the slightest accident. 7aga / 7aga / ~ caution! caution ! was the constant cry. The most unpleasant sen- sations were produced by the constant ripping and tearing sounds as ~ve l)assed under the low tunnel of vegetatio n,and by the perpetual bumping against tim- ber. SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 53 The Miss Shaws passed an uneasy night. The whiskey had cured the yoLlnger one of her severe sick headache, and she was the prey of many terrors. They thought that the boat would be ripped up; that the roof would be taken off; that a tree would fall and crush us; that the boatmen, ~vhen they fell over- l)oard, as they often did, ~vould be eaten by alligators; that they would see glaring eyeballs whenever the cry Harimou I a tiger! was raised from the bow; and they continually awoke me with news of something that was happening, or about to happen, and were drolly indi~- nant because they could not sleep; while 1, a blasi old campaigner, slept whenever they would let me. Day broke in a heavy mist, which dis- appeared magically at sunrise. As the great sun ~vheeled rapidly above the hori- zon and blazed upon us ~vith merciless fierceness, all at once the jungle became vociferous. Loudly clattered the busy cicada, its simultaneous din, like a con- centration of the noise of all the looms in the world, suddenly breaking off into a simultaneous silence; the noisy insect world chirped, cheeped, buzzed, whis- tled; birds hallooed, hooted, whooped, screeched; apes in a loud and not inhar- monious chorus greeted the sun; and monkeys chattered, yelled. hooted, quar- relled, and spluttered. The noise was tremendous. But the forest was abso- lutely still, except when some heavy fruit, over ripe, fell into the river with a splash. The trees above us were literally alive with monkeys, and the curiosity of some of them about us was so great that they came down on monkey ropes and branches for the fun of touching the roof of the boat with their hands, while they huno by their tails. They were all full of frolic and mischief. Then we had a slim repast of soda- water and bananas, the hadji ~vorshipped with his face towards Mecca, and the boatmen prepared an elaborate curry for themselves, with salt fish for its basis, and for its tastiest condiment blachong a Malay preparation much relished by European lovers of durian and decom- posed cheese. It is made by trampling a mass of putrefying prawns and shrimps into a paste with bare feet. This is sea- soned with salt. The smell is penetrating and lingering. Our men made the boat fast, rinsed their mouths, washed their hands, and ate, using their fingers instead of chopsticks. Poor fellows! they had done twelve hours of splendid work. Then one of them prepared the betel nut for the rest. I think I have not yet alluded to this abominable practice of betel-nut chewing, which is universal among the inhabitants of the Malay Pe- ninsula. The betel nut seems as essen- tial to a Malay as tobacco to a Japanese, or opium to the confirmed Chinese ol)ium- smoker. It is a revolting habit, and if a person speaks to you while he is chewing his quid of betel, his mouth looks as if it were full of blood. People say that the craving for stimulants is created by our raw, damp climate; but it is as strong here at the equator, in this sunny, balmy air. I have not yet come across a region in which men, weary in body or spirit, are not seeking to stimulate or stupefy them- selves. The Malay men and women being prohibited by the Koran from using alco- hol, find the needed fillip in this nut, but it needs preparation before it suits their palates. The betel nut is the fruit of the lovely, graceful, slender-shafted areca palm. This tree at six years old begins to bear about one hundred nuts a year, which grew in clusters, each nut being about the size of a nutmeg, and covered with a yellow, fibrous husk. The requisites for chewino~ are a small piece of areca nut, a leaf of the sin/i or betel pepper, a little moistened lime, and, if people wish to be very luxurious, a paste made of spices. The sink leaf was smeared with a little fine lime taken from a brass box; on this was laid a little brownish paste, on this a bit of the nut; the leaf was then folded neatly round its contents, and the men began to chew, and to spit, the inevitable consequence. The practice stains the teeth black. I tasted the nut, and found it pungent and astringent, not tempting. The Malays think that you look like a beast if you have white teeth. The heat was exhausting, the mercury 87~ in the shade as early as 8.30, and we all suffered more or less from it in our cramped position and enforced inactivity. At nine, having been fourteen hours on the river, we came on a small cleared space, from which a bronzed, frank-faced man, dressed in white linen, hallooed to us jovially, and we were soon warmly greeted by Captain Murray, the British resident in the state of Sungei Ujong. On seeing him we hoped to find a gharrie and to get some breakfast, and he helped us on shore as if our hopes were to be realized, and dragged us under the broil- ing sun to a long shed, the quarters of a hundred Chinese coolies, who are making 54 SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. a road through the jungle. We sat down on one of the long matted platforms which serve them for beds.and talked, but there was no hint of breakfast, and we soon learned that the Malacca runner had not reached the residency at all, and that the note sent from. Permatang Pasir, which should have been delivered at I AM., had not been received till 8 AM., so that Cap- tain Murray had not been able to arrange for our transport, and had had barely time to ride down to meet us at such full speed as a swampy and partially-made road would allow. So our dreams of break- fast ended in cups of stewed tea given to us by a half-naked Chinaman, and to our cha- grin we had to go hack to the boat and be poled up the shallowing and narro~ving river for four hours more, getting on tvith difficulty, the boatmen constantly jumping into-the water to heave the boat off mud banks. When we eventually landed at Nioto, a small village, Captain Murray again met us, and we found a road and two anti- quated buggies, sent by a Chinaman, with their component parts much lashed together with rope. I charioteered one of these with reins so short that I could only reach them by sitting on the edge of the seat, and a whip so short that I could not reach the pony with it. At a Chinese village some policemen brought us coco- nut-milk. After that the pony could not or would not go, and the Malay syce with difficulty got it along by dragging it, and we had to ~valk up every hill in the fierce heat of a tropic noon. At the large Chi- nese village of Rassa a clever little Su- matra pony met us, and after passing through some rough ish clearings, on which tapioca is being planted, we arrived here at 4 AM., having travelled sixty miles in thirty-three hours. The residency is on a steepish hill in the middle of an open valley, partially cleared and much defaced by tin-diggings. The Chinese town of Seramnbang lies at the foot of the hill. The valley is nearly surrounded by richly wooded hills, some of them fully three thousand feet high. These, which stretch away to the north- ern state of Salangor, are bathed in indi- go and cobalt, slashed with white here and there, where cool streams dash over for- est-shaded ledges. The house consists of two at/ap-roofed bungalows, united by their upper verandahs. Below there are a garden of acclimatization and a lawn, on which the resident instructs the bright little daughter of the Datu Klana in lawn tennis. It was very hot, but the afternoon airs were strong enough to lift the British ensign out of its heavy folds and to rustle the graceful fronds of the areca palms. Food was the first necessity, then baths, then sleep, then dinner at 7.30, and then ten hours more sleep. Residency, Sungei Ujong, January 30th. XVE have been here for fourdays. The heat is so great that it is wonderful that one can walk about in the sunshine but the nights, though the mercury does not fall below 800, are cool and refresh- ing, and the air and soil are both dry, though a hundred inches of rain fall in the year. These wooden bungalows are hot, for the a/Ia~ roofs have no lining, but they are also airy. There is no one but myself at night in the one in which my room is, but this is nothing af- ter the solitude of the great, rambling Stadthaus. Since we came a sentry has been on duty always, and a bulldog is chained at the foot of the ladder which leads to both bungalows. But there is really nothing to fear from these treaQh- erous Malay-s. It is most curious to see the appurtenances of civilization in the heart of a Malay jungle, and all the more so because our long night journey up the Linggi makes it seem more remote than it is. It is really only sixty miles from Mal acca. The drawing-room has a good piano, and many tasteful ornaments, books, and china~gifts from loving friends and rela. tions in the far-off home and is as liv- able as a bachelor would be likely to make it. There is a billiard table in th.e corri- dor. The dining-room, which is reached by going out of doors, with its red-tiled floor and walls of dark, unpolished wood, is very pretty. In the middle of the din- ner table there is a reflecting lake for hothouse flowers; and exquisite crys- tal, menu cards with holders of Dresden china; four classical statuettes in Parian, with pineal)ples, granadillas, bananas, pomegranates, and a durian blanda, are the table decorations. The cuisine is almost too elaborate for a travellers pal- ate, but plain meat is rarely to be got, and even when l)rocurable is unpalatable un- less disguised. Curry is at each meal, but it is not made with curry powder. Its basis is grated coco-nut made into a paste with coco-nut milk, and the spices are added fresh. Turtles when caught are kept in a pond until they are needed, and we have turtle soup, stewed turtle,. curried turtle, and turtle cutlets ad ;iau- scam. Fowls are at every meal, but SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 55 never l)lain roasted or plain boiled. The first day there was broiled and stewed elephant trunk, which tastes much like beef. Babu, who is always en grand tenue, has taken command of everything and saves our host all trouble. He carves at the sideboard, scolds the servants in a stage whisper, and pushes them indig- nantly aside when they attempt to offer anything to his young ladies, reduces Captain Murrays butler to a nonenity, and as far as he can turns the residency into Government House, waiting on us assiduously in our rooms, and taking care of our clothes. The dinner-bell is a bugle. In houses in these regions there is always a brick-floored bathroom, usually of large size, under your bedroom, to which you descend by a ladder. This is often covered by a trap-door, which is often concealed by a couch, and in order to de- scend the sofa cushion is lifted. Here it is an open trap in the middle of the room. A bath is a necessity not a luxury so near the equator, and it is usual to take one three, four, or even five times a day with much refreshment. One part of I3abus self-imposed duty is to look under our pillows for snakes and centipedes, and the latter have been found in all our rooms. I must now make you acquainted with our host, Captain Murray. He ~vas ap- pointed when the Datu Klana asked for a~ resident four years ago. He devotes him- self to Sungei Ujong as if it were his own property, though he has never been able to acquire the language. He is a man about thirty-eight, a naval officer, and an enterprising African traveller; under the middle height, bronzed, sun-browned, restless, almost eccentric, never still for five minutes, disconnected in his conver- sation from the habit of living without any one in or out of the house to speak to; professing a misanthropy which he is very far from feeling, for he is quite unsuspi- cious, and disposed to think the best of every one; hasty when vexed, but thor- oughly kindhearted; very blunt, very un- dignified, never happy (he says) out of the wilds; thoroughly well-disposed to the Chinese and Malays, but impatient of their courtesies, thoroughly well-meaning, thoroughly a gentleman, but about the last person that I should have expected to see in a position which is said to require much tact if not finesse. His success leads me to think, as I have often thought before, that if we attempt to deal with Orientals. with their own methods we are apt to find them more than a match for us, and that thorough honesty is the best policy. He lives alone, unguarded, trusts him- self by night and day without any escort among the people, keeps up no ceremony at all, and is approachable at all hours. Like most travellers, he has some practi- cal knowledge of medicine,and he gives advice and medicines most generously, allowing himself to be interrupted by pa- tients at all hours. There is no doctor nearer than Malacca. He has been so successful that l)eople come from the neighboring states for hist~advice. There is very little serious disease, but children are subject to a loathsome malady called puru. Two were brought with it to-day. The body and head are covered with pus- tules containing matter, looking very much like small-pox, and the natives be- lieve that it must run its course for a year. Captain Murray cures it in a few days with iodide of potassium and iodine, and he says that it is fast disappearing. Captain Murray is judge, sitting in equity, superintendent of police, chan- cellor of the exchequer, and surveyor of taxes, besides being Board of Trade, Board of Works, and I know not what be- sides. In fact, he is the ~-overntment, although the Datu Klanas signature or seal is required to confirm a sentence of capital punishment, and possibly in one or two other cases; and his residential authority is subject only to the limitations of his own honorand good sense, sharp. ened somewhat, were he other than what he is, by possible snubs from the gov- ernor of the Straits Settlements or the colonial secretary. He is a thoroughly honorable man, and means well by all the interests of his little kingdom, and seems both beloved and trusted. On Sunday morning we had English service and a sermon, the congregation being augmented by the only other En- glish people a man from Australia, who is here road-making, and his wife and in the afternoon, disregarding a tempera- ture of 5~O, we went through the Chinese village of Serambang. It is still the new-year holidays, and hundreds of Chinamen were lounging about, and every house was gaily deco- rated. The Malays never join house to house, the Chinese always do so, and this village has its streets and plaza. The houses are all to a certain extent fireproof that is, when a fire occurs, and the atta~ thatched roofs are burned, the 56 SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. houses below, which are mostly shops, are rived by the government from the gain- safe. These shops, some of which ~are bling fari~s is over 900 a year. very larue are nearly dark. They deal J Spirits are sold in three or four places, mainly in Chinese goods and favorite Chi- and the license to sell them brings in nese articles of food, fireworks, mining nearly 700 a year, 1)ut a drunken China- tools, and kerosene oil. In one shop man is never seen. There are a few opium twenty assistants, with only their loose inebriates, lean like skeletons, and very cotton trousers on, were sitting at round vacant in expression; and every coolie tables having a meal not their ordinary smokes his three whiffs of o )ium ever y diet, I should think, for they had seven- night. Only a few of the richer China- teen different sorts of soups and stews, men have wives, and there are very few some of them abominations to our think- ~vomen, as is usual in a mining population. ing. We ~vent to pay complimentary visits We visited the little joss-house, very for the new year to these captains with gaudily decorated, the main feature of the the Malay interpreter, and were received decorations being two enormous red silk with a curious mixture of good-will and umbrellas, exquisitely embroidered in gold solemnity. \Vine, tea, and sweetmeats and silks. The crowds in this village re- were produced at each house. Their mind me of Canton, but the Chinese look houses are very rude considering their anything but picturesque here, for none ample means, and have earthen floors. of them or at all events, only their cap- They have comfortable carriages, and tains wear the black satin skull-cap; their gentle, sweet - mannered children and their shaven heads, ~vith the small were loaded with gold and diamonds. In patch of hair which goes into the compo- one house a sweet little ~irl handed round sition of the pigtail, look very ugly. The the tea and cake, and all, even to babies pigtail certainly begins with this lock of who can scarcely toddle across the .f~oor, hair, but the greater part of it is made up came up and shook hands. A Chinese of silk or cotton thread plaited in with family impresses one by its extreme or- the hair, and blue or red strands of silk derliness, filial reverence being regarded in a pigtail indicate mourning or rejoic- as the basis of all the virtues. The nan- ing. Noi~e of the Chinese here wear the ners of these children are equally removed beautiful long robes worn by their com- from shyness and forwardness. They all patriots in China and Japan. The rich wore crowns of dark red gold of very wear a white, shirt-like garment of em- beautiful workmanship, set with diamonds. broidered silk crape over their trousers When these girl children are twelve years and petticoat, and the poorer only wear old, they will, according to custom, be loose blue or brown cotton trousers, so strictly secluded, and will not be seen by that one is always being reminded of the any man but their father till the bride- excessive leanness of their forms. Some groom lifts the veil at the marriage cere- of the rich merchants invited us to go in mony. and drink champagne, but we declined After these visits, in which the Capi- everything but tea, which is ready all day tans China, through the interpreter, as- long in teapots kept hot in covered baskets sured us of their perpetual and renewed very thickly padded, such as are known satisfaction with I3ritish rule, Mr. Hay- with us as Norwegian kitchens. ward, the interpreter, and I paid another In the middle of the village there is a visit of a more leisurely kind to one of large, covered, but open-sided building the Chinese gambling-houses, which, as like a market, which is crowded all day usual, was crowded. At one end several and all night too by hundreds of these barbers were at ~vork. A Chinaman is poor, half-naked creatures standing round always being shaved, for he keeps his the gaming-tables, silent, ea~er, excited, head and face quite smooth, and never staking every cent they earn on the turn shaves himself. The shaving the head of the dice, livinc~ on the excitement of was originally a sign of subjection im- their gains a truly sad spectacle. Prob- posed by the Tartar conquerors, but it is ably we were the first European ladies now so completely the nati6nal custom who had ever walked through the gain- that prisoners feel it a deep disgrace when bling-house, but the gamblers were too their hair is allowed to grow. Coolies intent even to turn their heads. There twist their five feet of pigtail round their also they are always drinking tea. Some heads while they are at work, but a ser- idea of the profits made by the men who vant or other inferior only insults his farm the gambling licenses may be superior if he enters his presence with gained from the fact that the revenue de- his pigtail otherwise than pendent. The SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 57 gaming-house, whose open sides allow it to present a l)erpetual temptation, is full of tables, and at each sits a croupier, well clothed, and as many half-naked China- men as can see over each others shoul- ders crowd round him. Their silent, concentrated eagerness is a piteous sight, as the cover is slowly lifted from the heavy brass box in which the dice are kept, on the cast of which many of them have staked all they possess. They ac- cept their losses, as they do their gains, ~vith apparent composure. They work very hard and live on very little, but they are poor just now-, for the price of tin has fallen nearly one-half in consequence of the great tin discoveries in Australia. Along with Mr. Hayward I paid a visit to the Court House, a large, whitewashed room, with a clean floor of red tiles, a tiled dais with a desk for the judge, a table with a charge-sheet and some books upon it, and three long benches at the end for witnesses and their friends. A punkah is kept constantly going. There are a clerk, a Chinese interpreter who speaks six Chinese dialects, and a Malay interpreter who puts the Chinese inter- preters words into English. As the judge does not understand Malay, it will be observed that justice depends on the fidelity of this latter official. Though I cannot say that the dignity of justice is sustained in this court, there is not a doubt that the intentions of the judge are excellent, and if some of the guilty es- cape, it is not likely that any of the inno- cent suffer. The Datu Bandar sometimes sits on the bench with the resident. The benches were crowded almost en- tirely with Chinamen, and a number of policemen stood about. I noticed that these were as anxious as our own are to sustain a case. The case which I heard, and which occupied more than an hour, was an accusation against a wretched Chinaman for stealing a pig. I sat on a bench and heard every word that was said, and arrived at no judicial conclusion, nor did the resident, so the accused was dismissed. He did steal that pig, though I do not see how truth can be arrived at in an Oriental court, especially where the witnesses are members of Chinese secret societies. Another case, of alleged noc- turnal assault, was tried, in which the judge took immense pains to get at the truth, and the prisoner had every advan- tage; and when he was found guilty, was put into a good gaol, from which he will be taken out daily to work on the roads. Malays being Mussulmans, are mostly tried by the divine law of the Koran, and Chinamen are dealt with in equity. The question to be arrived at simply is, Did the prisoner commit this crime or did he not? If he did he is punished, and if he did not he is acquitted. There are no legal technicalities by which trial can be delayed or the ends of justice frustrated. Theft is the most common crime. One hundred and fourteen per- sons were convicted last year, which does not seem a large proportion (being less than one per cent.) out of an unsettled mining population of twelve thousand. The residents restlessness, which often gives him the appearance of eccentricity, came out very strongly during the tedious business of disposing of charges. He was never still for two minutes, but was either hammering on the desk, whittling its edge, humming snatches of airs, mak- ing remarks to me, exclaiming, Ilother these fellows! or Do get on, and dont keep us broiling here forever! know-ing that only the Malay interpreter understood him. Mr. Hay~vard, through whose hands the crime of Singapore and Malacca has filtered for twenty years, was very critical on the rough-and-ready method of pro- ceeding here, and constantly interjected suggestions, such as, You dont ask them questions before you swear them, etc. informal as its administration is, I have no doubt that justice is substantially done, for the resident is conscientious and truly honorable. He is very lovable, and is evidently much beloved, and is able to go about in unguarded security. It was not far from the Court House to the prison, a wholesomely situated build- ing on a hill at Rassa, made of concrete, with an at/ar roof. The whole building is one hundred feet long by thirty feet broad. There are six cells for solitary confinement. A gaoler, - turnkey, and eight ~varders constitute the prison staff. The able-bodied prisoners are employed on the roads and other public works, and attend upon the scavengers cart, which outcome of civilization goes round every morning! The diet, which costs four- pence a day for each prisoner, consists of rice and salt fish, but those who work get twopence-halfpenny a day in addition, with which they can either buy luxuries or accumulate a small sum acrainst the time when their sentences expire. Old and weakly people do light work about the prison. One man was executed for murder last year under a sentence signed by the Datu Klana. I have not been in a prison since I was in that den of horrors, 58 SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. the prison of the Naam-Hoi magistrate at Canton, and I felt a little satisfaction in the contrast. The same afternoon we all made a very pleasant expedition to the Sanatorium, a cabin which the resident has built on a hill three miles from here. A chair with four Chinese bearers carried Miss Shaw up, her sister and the two gentlemen walked, and I rode a Sumatra pony on an Australian stockmans saddle not only up the steep jungle-path, but up a staircase of two hundred steps in which it termi- nates, the sagacious animal going up quite cunningly. One charm of a tropi- cal jungle is that every few yards you come upon something new, and every hundred feet of ascent makes a decided difference in the vegetation. Fhis is a very grand forest, with its straight, smooth stems running up over one hundred feet before branching, and the branches are loaded ~vith orchids and trailers. One cannot see what the foliage is like which is borne far aloft into the summer sun- shine, but on the ground I found great red trumpet.flowers, and crimson corol- las, like those of a Brobdingnagian honey- suckle, and flowers like red dragon-fries enormously magnified, and others like large, single roses in yellow xvax, falling slowly down now and then, messengers from the floral glories above, ~vasting (?) their sweetness on the desert air. A traveller through a tropical jungle may see very few flowers and be inclined to disparage it. It is necessary to go on adjacent rising ground and look down where trees and trailers are exhibiting their gorgeousn ess. Unlike the coarse weeds vhich form so much of the under- growth in Japan, everything which grows in these forests rejoices the eye by its form or color; but things which hurt and sting and may kill lurk amidst all the beauties. A creeping plant with very beautiful, waxy leaves, said by Captain Murray to be vanilla, grows up many of the trees. When we got up to the top of this, which the resident calls Plantation Hill, I was well pleased to find that only the undergrowth had been cleared away, and that the Sanatorium consists only of a cabin with a single room divided into two, and elevated on posts like a Malay house. The deep verandah which sur- rounds it is reached by a step-ladder. A smaller house could hardly be, or a more picturesque one, from the steepness and irregularity of its roof. The cook-house is a small a/tap shed in a place cut into the hill, and an enclosure of a//aft screens ~vith a barrel in it. Under the house is the bathroom. The edge of the hill, from which a few trees have been cleared, is so steep that but for a bamboo rail one might slip over upon the tree-tops below. Some Liberian coffee shrubs, some tea, cm- chona, and ipecacuanha, and some heart. less English cabbages, are being attempt- ecl on the hillside, and the resident hopes that the State will have a great future of coffee. The view in all directions was beauti- ful to the north a sea of densely wooded mountains with indigo shadows in their l~ollo~vs;to the south the country we had threaded on the Linggi River, forests, and small tapioca clearings, little valleys where rice is ~ rowing, and scars where tin-min- ing is going on; the capital, the little town of Serambang, with its larger clear- ings, and to the west the gleam of the shining sea. In the absence of mos- quitos we ~vere able to sit out till after dark, a rare luxury. There ~vas a gor- geous sunset of the gory, furnace kind, which one only sees in the tropics waves of violet light rolling up over the mainland, and the low Sumatran coast looking like a purple cloud amidst the fiery haze. Dinner was ~vell cooked and served with coffee after it, just as at home. The primi- tive bathroom was made usable by our eleven servants and chairbearers being sent to the hill, where the two gentlemen mounted guard over them. After dark the Chinamen made the largest bonfire I ever saw, or at all events the most bril- liant, with trunks of trees and pieces of gum damar several pounds in weight, which they obtained by digging, and this was kept up till dayli~ht, throwing its splendid glare over the whole hilltop, lighting up the forest and bringing the cabin out in all its picturesqueness. When it grew dark, tiny lamps began to move in all directions. Some came from on high, like falling stars, but most moved among the trees a few feet from the ground with a slow undulatory mo- tion, the fire having a pale blue tinge, as one imagines an incandescent sapphire might have. The great tree-crickets kept up for a time the most ludicrous sound I ever heardone sitting in a tree and calling to another. From the deafening noise which at times drowned our voices, one would suppose the creature making it to be at least as large as an eagle. The accommodation of the Sanato- rium is most limited. The two gentle- men, well armed, slept in the verandah, the two Miss Shaws in camp beds in the inner cabin, and I in a swinging cot in the outer, the table being removed to make room for it. The bulldog mounted guard over all, and showed his vigilan cebyan occasional growl. The eleven attendants stowed themselves away under the cabin, except a garrulous couple, who kept the fire blazing till daylight. My cot was most comfortable, but I failed to sleep. The forest was full of quaint, busy noises, broken in upon occasionally by the hoot of the spectre bird, and the long, low, plaintive cry of some animal. All the white residents in the Malacca settlements have been greatly excited about a tragedy which has just occurred at the Dindings, off this coast, in which Mr. Lloyd, the British official, was horri- bly murdered by the Chinese, his wife, and Mrs. Innes, who was on a visit to her, narrowly escaping the same fate. Lying awake, I could not help thinking of this, and of the ease with which the -resident could be overpowered and murdered by any of our followers who might have a grudge against him, when, as I thought, the door behind my head from the back ladder was burst open, and my cot and I came down on the floor at the head, the simple fact being that the rope, not hav- ing been perfectly secured ,gave way with a run. An hour afterwards the foot-ropes gave way, and I was deposited on the floor altogether, and was soon covered with small ants. Early in the morning the apes began to call to each other with a plaintive Hoo- houey, and in the grey dawn I saw an iguana fully four feet long glide silently down the trunk of a tree, the branches of which were loaded with epiphytes. Cap- tain Shaw asked the imaum of one of the mosques of Malacca about alligators eggs a few days ago, and his reply was that the young that went down to the sea became alligators, and those which came up the rivers became iguanas. At daylight, after coffee and bananas, we left the hill, and after an accident, promptly remedied by Mr. Hayward, reached Serambang when the sun was high in the heavens. I should think that there are very few cir- cumstances which Mr. Hayward is not prepared to meet. He has a reserve of quiet strength which I should like to see fully drawn upon. He has the scar of a spear-wound on his brow, which Captain Murray says was received in holding sixty armed men at bay while he secured the retreat of some helpless persons. Yet 59 he continues to be much burdened by his responsibility for these fair girls, who, however, are enjoying themselves thor- oughly, and will be none the worse. He had scarcely returned, when a large company of Chinamen carrying ban nerets and joss-sticks came to the residency to give a spectacle or miracle-play, the first part consisting of a representation of a huge dragon, which kicked, and jumped, and crawled, and bellowed in a manner totally unworthy of that ancient and splen- did myth and the second, of a fierce ;n~lde or succession of combats with spears, shields, and battle-axes. The performances were accompanied by much drumming, and by the beating of tomtoms, an essentially infernal noise, which I can- not help associating with the orgies of devil-worship. The Capitan China, in a beautiful costume, sat with us in the ve- randah to see the performance. I have written a great deal about the Chinese and very little about the Malays, the nominal possessors of the country, but the Chinese may be said to be every- where, and the Malays nowhere. You have to look for them if you want to see them. Besides, the Chinese are as twelve to two of the ~vhole population. Still the laws are administered in the name of the Datu Klana, the Malay ruler. The land owned by Malays is being measured, and printed title-deeds are being given, a pay- ment of two shillings an acre per annum being levied instead of any taxes on prod- uce. Export duties are levied on certain articles, but the navigation of the rivers is free. Debt-slavery, one curse of the Malay States, has been abolished by the energy of Captain Murray with the cordial co-operation of the Datu Klana, and now the whole population have the status and rights of free men. It is a great pity that this prince is in Malacca, for he is said to be a very enlightened ruler. The pho- tograph which I enclose is of the mar- riage of his daughter, a very splendid affair. The buffalo in front was a mar- riage present from the Straits govern- ment, and its covering is of cloth of gold thick with pearls and precious stones. We visited yesterday a Malay kam~ong called Mambu, in order to pay an uncere- monious visit to the Datu Bandar, the rajah second in rank to the reigning prince. His house, ~vith three others, a go-down on very high stilts, and a mound of groves, whitened by the petals of the frangipani, with a great many coco-nut and other trees, was surrounded, as Malay d~velIings often are, by a high fence, SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 6o SKETCHES IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. within which was another enclosing a neat sanded level, under coco palms, on which his private residence and those of his wives stand. His secretary, a nice-looking lad in red turban, baIzi, and sarong, came out to meet us, followed by the Datu Bandar, a pleasant, able-looking man, with a cordial manner, who shook hands and welcomed us. No notice had been given of our visit, and the rajah, who is reclaiming and bringing into good cultivation much of his land, and who sets the example of working with his own hands, was in a checked shirt, and a common, checked, red sarong. Vulgarity is surely a disease of the West alone, though, as in Japan, one sees that it can be contagious, and this Oriental, far from apologizing for his d6skabil/e, led us up the steep and difficult ladder by which his house is entered with as much courteous ease as if he had been in his splendors. I thoroughly like his house; it is both fitting and tasteful. We stepped from the ladder into a lono~ corridor, well-matted, which led to a doorway with a gold-em- broidered silk valance, and a looped~up porti~re of white-flowered silk or cre~~e. This was the entrance to a small room, very well proportioned, with two similar doorways, curtained with flowered silk, one leading to a room which we did not see, and the other to a bamboo gridiron platform, which, in the better class of Malay houses, always leads to a smaller house at the back, where cooking and other domestic operations are carried on, and which seems given up to the ~vomen. There was arich, dim light in the room, which ~vas cool, and wainscoted entirely ~vith dark-red wood, and there was only one long, low ~vindow, with turned bars of the same wood. There were three hand- some cabinets, with hangings of gold and crimson embroidery, and an ebony frame containing a verse of the Koran in Arabic characters hung over one doorway. In accordance with Mohammedan prohibi- tions, there was no decoration which bore the likeness of any created thing, but there were some artistic arabesques under the roof. The furniture, besides the cab- inets, consisted of a divan, several ebony chairs, a round table covered with a cool yellow cloth, and a table against the wall draped ~vith crimson silk flowered with gold. The floor was covered with fine matting, over which were Oudh rugs, in those mixtures of toned-down rich colors ~vhich are so very beautiful. Richness and harmony characterized the room, and it was distinctively Malay; one could not say that it reminded one of anything ex- cel)t of the flecked and colored light which streams through rich old stained glass. The Datu Bandars brother and uncle came in, the first a very handsome hadji, with a bright, intelligent countenance. He has lived in Mecca for eight years, studying the Koran under a renowned teacher, and in this quest of Mussulman learning has spent several thousand dol- lars. We never go to Mecca to trade, he said; we go for religious purposes only. These men looked superb in their red dresses and turbans, although the Malaxs are anything but a handsome race. Their hospitality was very graceful. Many of the wealthier Mohammedans, though they do not drink wine, keep it for their Christian guests, and they offered us champagne, which seems supposed to be an irresistible temptation to the Chris- tian palate. On our refusing it they brought us cows milk and most delicious coffee, with a very fragrant aroma, and not darker in color than tea of an average strength. This was made from roasted coffee leaves; the berries are exported. A good many pretty, quiet children stood about, but, though the rajah gave us to understand that they were the offspring of three mothers, we were not supposed to see any of the mean ones within the gates. Our hosts had a good deal to say, and did not leave us to entertain them, though we are but infidel dogs. That ~ve are regarded as such along with other unbelievers, always makes me feel shy with Mohammedans. Some time ago, when Captain Shaw pressed on the Ma- lays the impropriety of shooting China- men, as they were then in the habit of doing, the reply of one of them was, Why not shoot Chinamen? theyve no reli~ion ; and though it would be highly discourteous in members of a ruled race to utter this sentiment regarding their rulers, I have not the least doubt that it is their profound conviction concerning ourselves. We returned after dark, had turtle-soup and turtle-steak, not near so good as veal, which it much resembles, for dinner, sang Auld Lang Sync, which brought tears into the residents kindly eyes, and are now ready for an early start to-morrow. Stad/hazes, Malacca. We left Seram- bang before daylight on Thursday in bug- gies, escorted by Captain Murray, the buggies, as usual, being lent by the Chi. nese Capitans. Horses had been sent~ on before, and after changing them we MR. JOHN RICHARD GREEN. drove the secbnd stage through most magnificent forest, until they could no longer drag the buggies through the mud, at which point of discomfiture three saddled horses and two chairs were wait- ing to take us through the jungle to the river. We rode along an infamous track, much of it knee-deep in mud;through a green and silent twilight, till we emerged upon something like English park and fox-cover scenery, varied by Malay karn- 75Ongs under groves of palms. In the full blaze of noon we reached the Linggi police-station, from which we had started in the sarn~an, and were received by a company of police with fixed bayonets. XVe dined in the police-station verandah, and as the launch had been obliged to drop down the river because the water was falling, we xvent to the sarn~an in a native boat, paddled by four Malays with paddles like oval-ended spades with spade- handles, a guard of honor of policemen going down with us. There we took leave of our most kind and worthy host, who with tears in his kind eyes, immedi- ately turned up the river to dwell alone in his bungalow ~vith his bulldog, his re- volver, and his rifle, a self-exiled man. After it grew dark we had the splendid sight of a great tract of forest on fire close to the sea. We landed here at a pier eight hundred feet long, accessible to launches at high water, where several peons and two insl)ectors of police met us. Our expedition had been the talk of the little foreign world of Malacca. XVe had an enthusiastic welcome at Govern- ment House, but Captain Sha~v says he will never forgive himself for not writing to Captain Murray in time to arrange our transport, and for sending us off so hur- riedly with so little food, but I hope by reiteration to convince him that thereby we gained the night on the Linggi River, which, as a travelling experience, is worth all the rest. he never lost, in spite of the wide dif- erences between his earlier and later points of view. His absorbing passion for reading and his power of reading fast sho~ved themselves very early, and at school his taste for historical books seems to have been already fully developed. At fifteen he left school, and read with differ- ent private tutors till one of the first open scholarships at Jesus caught his attention at the age of eighteen. He tried for it, and unfortunately won it unfortunately, because the Welsh college, with its strong local feeling and its poverty of literary traditions, was by no means the best nursery for a mind which was sensitive and precocious, and literary before every- thing else. He took a dislike to the col- lege, to the lectures, to his fellow under- graduates, and in his quick way deter- mined that Oxford was uncongenial to him, and that he would read as he liked, and not as his tutors liked. History was already a passion with him, and while his classical work went but languidly on, his whole attention was given to the great folios of Matthew Paris or YVilliani of Malmesbury, which used to litter his room while he ought to have been thinking of his Ethics. It ~vas while he was still an undergraduate that lie produced a re- markable series of papers on Oxford in the Eighteenth Century, which, amid many faults, gave ample promise of the vivid style and the love for effective de- tail which were to characterize him as an historian. His friendship with Stanley, then a canon of Christchurch, threw a welcome light over the last part of his university career. Stanleys lecturesat- tracted him greatly, and at one of them some betrayal by the shy and little noticed Jesus man of an intimate knowledge of the history of Oxford drew Stanleys at- tention to him. The two went home to the lecturers rooms together, and the in- cident was the beginning of a friendship which was very important to Mr. Green during a critical time of development. His High Church training had led him to incline towards takincr orders from very From The Athenaum. early days; and although it would seem MR. JOHN RICHARD GREEN. that his views were broadening towards IT is with deep regret that we announce the close of his university life, his purpose the death of Mr. John Richard Green, remained the same. In all his l)repara- the historian, at the early age of forty- tions for this new step Stanley gave him five. help and counsel, recommending him Mr. Green was an Oxford boy, and was when lie left Oxford to the good offices of educated at ?vlagdalen College School. Tait, then Bishop of London, and smooth- His childhood ~vas passed, both at home ing over for him some of the difficulties and at school, under strong High Church which for most sensitive minds are insep- influences, some of the traces of which arable from the conditions of English 62. MR. JOHN RICHARD GREEN. orders. In iS6o, after his ordination, he which he always showed surprising readi- became curate to the Rev. Henry Ward, ness and facility. of St. Barnabass, King Square. St. The Short History ~vas written and Barnabass is a large and very poor par- rewritten, corrected and cancelled and ish, inhabited mainly by watchmakers. revised, till it seemed as if the process Mr. Green threw himself into the work, ~vou~d never have an end; but the publish- finding brightness and relaxation in the ers, Messrs. Macmillan, were patient and family of his vicar, to whose children he encouraging, and in the midst of a con- was the most delightful, the most inven- stant struggle with ill health, which in tive, the most long-suffering friend that 1870 began to oblige him to spend his children ever had. From St. Barnabass winters abroad, his task went steadily Bishop Tait appointed him to a sole forward. At last in 1874 the book was charge at Hoxton in 1862, and very ready. On the eve of its publication Mr. shortly afterwards he became vicar of Green was much depressed by one or two St. Philips, Stepney. Few of those friendly but discouraging estimates of it friends who only lcnew him in his invalid in proof from people whose opinion he years could realize what he was as an respected, which reached him through his East-end vicar. He was indeed an ad- publishers. Never mind, one of his mirable parish clergyman, and fully as best friends said to him; it maynt be a ingenious and energetic in his manage- success this time, but you are sure to sue- ment of clothing-clubs or penny banks or ceed some day. A month from that parish nurses as he showed himself after- time the Short History of England wards in purely literary affairs. During was acknowledged to be one of the great all these years, however, his historical literary successes of this generati~n. It work was going forward at a great rate, was selling with extraordinary rapidity, at and was beginning already to take some the rate of hundreds a week, and, better sort of shape in his mind. His study at than that, it was attracting the eager no- Stepney, with its parish litter in the midst tice of that class of readers all over the of a scholars library of historical books, country men distinguished in letters was a pleasant sight, and he stored up and affairs which it is the dearest wish here much of that wealth of information, of a writer to influence. The success of that knowledge not only of the great the book might he said to be assured be- roads but of the corners and by~vays of fore the reviews caine out, but they helped history, which made him from first to last and spread the chorus of praise. Mr. one of the most brilliant and instructive Greens Short History, said Mr. Sam- of talkers. His reading, indeed, was not uel Gardiner in a memorable article, all of it happiness. His position as a is the one general history of the coun- clergyman was becoming more and more try for which, if young and old are wise, uncongenial to him, and mental disturb- all others will be speedily and surely ance, natural delicacy, and overwork dur- thrown aside. The words expressed a ing the cholera time of i868, all conduced widespread feeling, and Mr. Green found to a break-down in health ~vhich obliged himself at once in the full tide of fame him to give up his living and to resi~n and popularity, invited and courted by himself to the life of an invalid. Some public men, and with the ball of literature, lonely years followed, a great contrast to so to speak, at his feet. It ~vas a great the active life at Stepney. Archbishop change from the lonely despondency of Tait had made him librarian at Lambeth, the previous months, and it was delightful in succession to Professor Stubbs. No- to his friends to see his whole nature ex- body who ever saAv him in his post there pand under its influence. will forget his eager, enthusiastic knowl- The chorus of unmixed praise, indeed, edge of the palace and its contents. But lasted but a short time. The objections his true life was lived in his Beaumont to the workmanship of the book felt by a Street rooms on the second floor, which certain number of persons were put in a would have been gloomy but for the vigorous way by Mr. Rowley in a review friendly faces of the books which lined of the Short History which appeared the walls and the inviting look of the in Fraser early in 1875, and attracted a great armchairs in which he delighted to good deal of attention. What the review settle his guests for a talk. The Short proved was that in dealing with such an History was rapidly growing into shape, immense mass of materials under the and meanwhile he was supporting himself unfavorable conditions of very weak by work for the Salurday Review, in health and constant journeyings, Mr. MR JOHN RICHARD GREEN. 63 Green had made a certain number of slips in names, in dates, and afew minor statements; that the book contained a good many printers errors; and that Mr. Greens views on many points differed very considerably from those of his critic. A proposal was made at the time by a friend of Mr. Greens, who had been for years a student of English history, that a categorical reply to Mr. Rowley should be printed in one of the weekly newspapers, containing answers strictly confined to matters of fact, to a good many of Mr. Rowleys statements, and to an exposure of the critics o~vn mistakes. But Mr. Green refused; he shrank from con tro- versy at all times; his one wish was to amend, correct, and enlarge his book; and lie felt that whatever might be said on either side, the Short History must ultimately stand or fall on its merits. Very likely he was right. The further a good book travels from the controversies which surround its start the greater it looks in relation to them. At the same time Mr. Rowleys criticisms, and some others which followed in their wake, tended to rouse a certain unreasonable distrust of Mr. Green, especially in that outer circle of clever people who are too apt to take their tone rather from the blame than from the praise of current criticism. The inner historical circle be- lieved in him always, and as the leaders of it were his intimate friends they had ample means of judging. Mr. Green, writes one who fills a foremost place in the ranks of English historical criticism, and who knew him well and long, pos- sessed in no scanty measure all the gifts that contribute to the making of a great historian. He combined, so far as the history of England is concerned, a com- plete and firm grasp of the subject in its unity and integrity with a wonderful com- mand of details and a thorough sense of perspective and proportion. All his work was real and original work; few people besides those who knew him well would see, under the charming ease and vivacity of his style, the deep research and sus- tained industry of the laborious student. But it was so; there was no department of our national records that he had not studied and, I think I may say, mastered. Hence I think the unity of his dramatic scenes and the cogency of his historical arguments. Like other people, he made mistakes sometimes; but scarcely ever does the correction of his mistake affect either the essehce of the picture or the force of the argument. And in him the desire of stating and pointing the truth of history was as strong as the wish to make both his pictures and his arguments telling and forcible. He never treated an opposing view with intolerance or con- tumely; his handling of controversial matter was exemplary. And then, to add still more to the debt we owe him, there is the wonderful simplicity and beauty of the ~vay in which lie tells his tale, which more than anything else has served to make English history a popular and, as it ought to be, if not the first, at least the second study of all Englishmen. In this judgment, the fruit of knowledge and sympathy, most people will be con- tent to rest; but Mr. Greens method and its success have undoubtedly brought into great prominence the conflict between the two theojies of historical work now cur- rent among us. Professor Seeley and Mr. Cotter Morison tell us that history has no business to be literary. Scientific accuracy and orderliness of statement, we are told on the one side, are all that an historian should aim at. Leave no de- tail unnoticed, said Mr. Green, only through the most careful detail can you reach reality, but when the historian has got all his facts the probleni remains how to be read. To be read, to influence mankind, the facts must be so recast as to bring them within the domain of litera- ture, and to convey to the reader the emotions and the judgments they had ex- cited in the writer. It was on these principles at any rate that his own work was done. Almost im- mediately after the appearance of the Short History Mr. Green set to work upon an enlarged library edition of it in four volumes, dedicated to my two dear friends, my masters in the study of En- gI isli history, Edward Augustus Freeman and William Stubbs. In this work lie was helped by the devoted wife whose presence brightened the last six years of his life. From 1877 onwards, indeed, it seemed as if a new era had begun for him; lie was better in health, his niarri age had brought him companionship, and the success of his book sufficient means and many new friends. The scheme of the history and literature primers had been started some years before ; the present ~vrter remembers the winter afternoon on which the project was first mooted, and Mr. Green walking eagerly up and down the room, sketching an imaginary primer of English literature with a vividness and minuteness which made the listener feel as if there was nothing more to do than 64 MR. JOHN RICHARD GREEN. to go home and write the book. But the scheme was carried out and developed after his marriage, and in most respects proved a great success. Presently he and his wife settled down into a pleasant, cheerful house in Kensington Square, and in spite of occasional fits of illness all went fairly well with his health for two or three years. The lung which had been so much affected was quiescent and his general health was more satisfactory. Then came the unlucky winter of i88o, when, iostead of betaking himself to hi~ favorite Capri, he determined to go to Egypt for what he and the doctors hoped might prove a last enforced winter abroad, at any rate for some years. But the ex- periment turned out very badly. The heat and dust of Luxor especially tried him. He was extremely ill on the way home, and when he arrived in Kensington Square his friends were terrified by the change in him. But by the help of the most careful and tender nursing, revived, too, by the return to London from what he always considered as banishment, he struorled on t owards recovery, and dur- ing that trying summer he performed per. haps a greater feat than any he had yet accomplished. Almost all the actual writing of The Making of England was got through in two months, during which those who saw him from day to day could hardly believe that he would ever live through the coming winter. His doctor and friends said good-bye to him in September, i88r, when he started for Mentone, with the worst forebodings, but Mentone proved an extraordinary suc- cess. The winter of 18812 was one of almost unbroken sunshine, and it was pleasant to see him basking in the little villa garden, high up in the west bay, the French newspapers and his books on the table beside him, the garden bright with January roses, and the blue Mediterra- nean in front. He could not walk a hun- dred yards without fatigue, but his mind was never more active and his sympathy never more ready. He devoured books. A closely printed octavo took him gen- erally two days to get through, and while looking for The Making of England, which he had left behind him in En- gland. and which appeared in the spring of 1882, he was planning another vol- ume in continuation on the period of the Danish inroads and colonization. He returned home in April, and at once be. gan work on his new book. He was as eager as ever about it, making the most minute topographical study of all the dis. tricts affected by the Danish invasions, discovering a number of new facts about the most ancient boundaries and exten- sions of London, or lighting with glee upon the long-wanted proof of Alfreds connection ~vith Oxford. It was pathetic to see how at any time, after a morning of pain and weariness, he would brighten up if a friend came in to see him, and ho~v his talk gathered strength and brilliancy as it went on, till one forgot altogeth erthe hectic color and emaciated frame in the novelty and abundance of both thought and illustration. Nobody was ever more suggestive as a talker. Ali, he would say, such a book wants writing. Why dont you do it? I should take some line of this kind. And then he would~ketch away till the whole thing rose into shape be- fore his own eyes and those of his listener. If his health had allowed him ever to be a teacher on a great scale, he must, one would think, have given a great iml)ulse to historical study in England. The or- ganizing power which he showed in his parish he showed to the last in literary affairs. One of his latest schemes was an Oxford historical society, which had always been a favorite dream of his, and may, we hope, some day be realized. He started for Mentone in October, 1882, with very fair prospects of improve- ment during the winter. The lung dis- ease was in a more favorable state, and the doctors hoped a great deal from the southern sun, ~vhich had already done wonders. But, alas! the winter was a gloomy one, and after the first month of enjoyment a period of steadily increasing weakness set in. To the last his book was constantly in his though ts, and little more than a week before the end he still dwelt upon his fresh plans for it, and struggled to revise and correct it. When it is given to the world, as we trust it may- be given, it will bear eloquent witness not only to his historical gift, but to the indomitable courage and devotion with which he worked under the stress of some of the worst hindrances which body can offer to spirit. He will be much missed, for he had many friends, and he deserved all their affection.

LITTELLS LIVING AGE. Fifth Series, Volume XLII. No. 2025.April 14, 1883. From Begiiming, Vol. CLVII CONTENT S. i. A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY II. UNDER THE SNOW, . III. Miss BURNEYS OWN STORY,. IV. THE THREE STRANGERS, . V. QUEEN VICTORiA AS GODDESS, VI. STARTLING POETRY, . . VII. THE CONDITIONS OF THE GRAND STYLE, VIII. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CROWDS, IX. THE ENCHANTED LAKE, . Nineteenth Century, Macmillans Magazine, Contemporary Review, Longman.r Magazine, Spectator, Spectator, Spectator, Queen, . Contemporary Review,. P 0 E T R Y. HALF-WAY IN LOVE, . . . . 66 MY LIBRARY,. SADDER THAN THEY, WHOSE YOUTH I THE ENCHANTED LAKE, is LEFr BEHIND, . . . 661 66 124 PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LIT TELL & CO., BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for ayear,freeofpstage Remitlances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money shonidhe sent in a registered letter. Allpostmasters are obliged to register loiters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, aS cents. - 67 75 89 104 114 117 120 123 - 124 66 HALF-WAY IN LOVE, ETC. HALF-WAY IN LOVE. You have come, then; how very clever! I thought you would scarcely try; I was doubtful myself however You have come, and so have I. How cool it is here, and pretty! You are vexed; Im afraid Im late; Youve been waiting 0 what a pity! And its almost half past eight. So it is; I can hear it striking Out there in the grey church tower. Why, I wonder at your liking To wait for me half an hour! I am sorry; what have you been doing All the while down here by the pool? Do you hear that wild-dove cooing? How nice it is here, and cool! How that elder piles and masses Her great blooms snowy-sweet; Do you see through the serried grasses The forget-me-nots at your feet? And the fringe of flags that encloses The water; and how the place Is alive with pink dog-roses Soft-colored like your face! You like them? shall I pick one For a badge and coin of June? They are lovely, but they prick one And they always fade so soon. Heres your rose. I think love like this is, That buds between two sighs, And flowers between two kisses, And when its gathered dies. It were surely a grievous thing, love, That love should fade in ones sight; It were better surely to fling love Off while its bloom is bright. The frail life will not linger, Best throw the rose away, Though the thorns having scratched ones finger Will hurt for half a day. What! youd rather keep it, and see it Fade and its petals fall? If you will, why amen, so be it: You may be right after all. Athen~um. MY LIBRARY. & rrtv O& Xaaoa, ri~ 66 vo icaraa~36ciet; A~scH., Again. As one who pauses on a rock, The bastion of some sea-nymphs home, And feels the ripples round him flock, Then cleaves the foam, And glides through cool pellucid ways Where creepers kiss each thrilling limb, And hears, or thinks he hears low lays Of cherubim; And marvels at the wondrous scene, The ruins upon ruins hurled, The moving hosts, the darkling sheen, The awful world; Then rises, snatching first some gem, Some token of his sojourn there, And flings a dewy diadem From face and hair, And in the sunlight, with the sigh Of sea-winds whistling in his ears, Views his found treasure, till his eye Is dim with tears; So, where in lordly sweeping bays, In distant dark retiring nooks, Stretches before my eager gaze, This sea of books, I pause, and draw one fervent breath, Then plunge, and seem to pass away Into deep waters still as death, Yet clear as day; To move by boulders of the past, By caves where falter dimly pure Gleams of the future, all the vast Of literature; Then to return to life above, From regions where but few have trod, Bearing a gem of larger love To man and God. Blackwood i Magazine. L. J. G. SADDER than they, whose youth is left behind, What shall we do, who never have been young? Muter than they, whose singing is all sung, How shall we chant, who never tune could find? Why should we laugh, to whom the bitter rind Nought but the rind of lifes round fruit is fluncx? Whose unblown roses withered where they hung, And birds, the while they nested, drooped and pined? Sadder than they whose spring is in the past, We watch our spring time leave us, without ruth; For us no hurrying April flies too fast; We do but pray that each may be the last. Grey looks the world, and waste, to us, in sooth, Who live too long, and yet have had no youth. Atheoxum. A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 67 From The Nineteenth Century. A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE stormy antipathies of Thomas Carlyle have to answer for many a mis- carriage of historical justice; but for none more unfounded than that superior air with which he teaches the nineteenth century to sit in judgment on the eigh- teenth. The age of prose, of lying, of sham, said he, the fraudulent-bankrupt century, the reign of Beelzebub, the peculiar era of cant. And so growls on our Teufelsdr~ckh through thirty oc- tavo volumes, from the first philosophy of clothes to the last hour of Friedrich. Invectives against a century are even more unprofitable than indictments against a nation. We are prepared for them in theology, but they have quite gone out of serious history. Whatever else it may be, we may take it that the nineteenth century is the product of the eighteenth, as that was in turn the product of the seventeenth; and if the prince of darkness had so lately a hundred years of rule in Europe, to what fortunate event do we owe our own deliverance, and indeed the nativity of Thomas Carlyle? But surely invectives were never more out of place, than when hurled at a century which ~vas simply the turning epoch of the modern world, the age which gave birth to the movements wherein we live, and to all the tasks that we yet labor to solve. Look at the eighteenth century on all sides of its manifold life, free the mind from that lofty pity with which prosperous folk are apt to remember their grand- fathers, and we shall find it in achieve- ment the equal of any century since the Middle Ages; in promise and suggestion and preparation, the century which most deeply concerns ourselves. Though Mr. Carlyle seems to count it the sole merit of the eighteenth century to have provided us the French Revolution (the most glorious bonfire recorded in profane history), it is not a little curious that almost all his heroes in modern times, apart from Oliver Cromwell, are children and representatives of that un- speakable epoch. Such were Friedrich, Mirabeau and Danton, George Washing- ton, Samuel Johnson and Robert Burns, Watt and Arkwright; and, for more than half of the century, and for more than half his work, so was Goethe himself. It sounds strange to accuse of unmitigated grossness and quackery the age which gave us these men; and which produced, beside, Robinson Crusoe and The Vicar of. Wakefield, the Elegy in a Churchyard and the lines To Mary and To my Mothers Picture, Berke- leys dialogues and Burkes addresses, Reynolds and Gainsborough, Flaxman and Stothard, Handel and Mozart. But one remembers that according to the Teufelsdrdckhian cosmogo ny, great men are dropped ab extra into their age, much as some philosophers assure us that pro- toplasm, or the primitive germ of life, was casually dropped upon our planet by a truant aerolite. A century which opens with The Rape of the Lock and closes with the first part of Faust, is hardly a century of mere prose, especially if we throw in Gray, Cowper, and Burns, The Ancient Mariner and the Lyrical Ballads. A century which includes twenty years of the life of Newton, twenty-three of Wrens, and sixteen of Leibnitz, and the whole lives of Hume, Kant, Adam Smith, Gib- bon, and Priestley, is not the age of mere shallowness; nor is the century which founded the monarchy of Prussia, and the empire of Britain, which gave birth to the republic in ~America and then in France, and which finally recast modern society and formed our actual habits, the peculiar era of quackeries, bonfires, and suicides. Measure it justly by the light of scientific history, and not by the tropes of some biblical saga, and it holds its own beside the greatest epochs in the modern world; of all modern eras perhaps the richest, most various, most creative. It raised to the rank of sciences, chemistry, botany, and zoology; it created the conception of social science and laid its foundations; it produced the historical schools and the economic schools of England and of France; the new metaphysic of Germany, the new music of Germany; it gave birth to the new poetic movement in England, to the new romance literature of England 68 A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. and of France, to the true prose literature of Europe; it transformed material life by manifold inventions and arts; it trans- formed social life no less than political life; it found modern civilization in a mil- itary phase, it left it in an industrial phase it found modern Europe fatigued, op- pressed with worn-out forms, uneasy with the old life, uncertain and hopeless about the new; it left modern Europe recast without and animated with a new soul within; burning with life, hope, and energy. The habit of treating a century as an organic whole, with a character of its own is the beaten pathway to superficial com- parison. History, after all, is not grouped into natural periods of one hundred years, as different from each other as the life of the son from that of his father. Nor, ~vhat- ever the makers of chronologies may say, does mankind really turn over a new page in the great record, so soon as the period of one hundred years is complete. The genius of any time, even though it be in a single country, even in one city, is a thing too marvellously complex to be hit off by epithets from the minor prophets or Gar- gantuan anathemas and nicknames. And as men are not born at the beginning of a century, and do not die at the end of it, but grow, flourish, and decay year by year and hour by hour, we are ever enter- ing on a new epoch and completing an old one, did we but know it, on the first day of every year we live, nay~ at the ris- ing and the setting of every sun. But, though a century be an arbitrary period, as purely conventional as a yard or a mile, and though every century has a hundred characters of its own, and as many lives and as many results, we must for convenience take note of conventional limits, and fix our attention on special features as the true physiognomy of an epoch. History altogether is a wilder- ness, till we parcel it out into sections more or less arbitrary, choosing some class of facts out of the myriads that stand recorded, steadily turning our eyes from those which do not concern our im- mediate purpose. And so, we can think of a century as in some sort a definite whole, in some sense inspired with a def mite spirit, and leading to a set of definite results. And we are quite right in so doing, provided we keel) a watchful and balanced mind, in no mechanical way, and in no rhetorical or moralizing mood, but in order to find what is general, dominant, and central. If we seek for some note to mark off the eighteenth from all other centuries we shall find it in this: it was the time of final maturing the great revolution in Europe, the mightiest change in all hu- man history. By revolution we mean, not the blood-stained explosion and struggle in France which was little but one of its symptoms and incidents, but that resettle- ment of modern life common to all parts of the civilized world; which was at once religious, intellectual, scientific, social, moral, political, and industrial ; a resettle- ment whereon the whole fabric of human society in the future is destined to rest. The era as a whole (so far from being trivial, sceptical, fraudulent, or suicidal) was, in all its central and highest mo- ments, an era of hope, enterprise, indus- try, and humanity ; full of humane eager- ness for improvement, trusting human nature, and earnestly bent on human good. It sadly miscalculated the difficulties and risks, and it strangely undervalued the problems it attempted to solve with so light a heart. Instead of being really the decrepit impostor amongst the ages, it was rather the naif and confident young- ster. The work of political reformation on which it engaged in a spirit of artless benevolence brought down on its head a terrible rebuff; and it left us thereby a heritage of confusion and strife. But the hurly-burly at Versailles and the Reign of Terror are no more the essence of the eighteenth century, than the Irish atroci- ties and the Commune of Paris are the es- sence of the nineteenth. Political chaos, rebellions, and wars are at most but a part of a centurys activity, and sometimes in- deed but a small part. In the core, the epoch was hearty, manly, humane; second to none in energy, mental, practical, and social; full of sense, work, and good fellowship. Its manliness often fattened into grossness; soon to show new touches of exquisite tender- A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 69 ness. Its genius for enterprise plunged it into changes, and prepared for us evils which it little foresaw. But the work was all undertaken in genuine zeal for the im- provement of human life. If its poetry was not of the highest of all orders, the century created a new order of poetry. If its art ~vas on the ~vhole below the aver- age, in the noble art of music it was cer- tainly supreme. In philosophy, science, moral and religious truth, it was second to none that ~vent before. In politics it ended in a most portentous catastrophe. But the very catastrophe resulted from its passion for truth and reform. Nor is it easy for us now to see how the catas- trophe could have been avoided, even if we see our way to avoid such catastrophes again. And in such a cause it was better to fail in striving after the good than to perish by acquiescing in the evil. If one had to give it a name, I would rather call it the humane age (in spite of revolutions, wars, and fashionable corruption); for it was the era when humanity first distinctly perceived the possibilities and conditions of mature human existence. It would be easy enough to find scores of names, facts, and events to the con- trary of all this; but it would be quite as easy to find scores to the contrary of any opinion about any epoch. A century is a mass of contradictions by the necessity of the case; for it is made up of every element to be found in human nature. The various incidents are in no way to be overlooked; neither are they to be exag- gerated. To balance the qualities of an epoch, we must analyze them all sepa- rately, compare them one by one, and then find the centre of gravity of the mass. England will concern us in the main; but the spirit of the age can never be strictly confined to its action in any one country. Such movements as the Renascence in the sixteenth, or the Revo- lution in the eighteenth century, are espe- cially common to Europe. It would be impossible to understand the eighteenth century in England, if we wholly shut our eyes to the movements abroad of which the English phase was the reflex and organ. Nor must we forget how much our judgment of the eighteenth century is warped (it is obvious that Mr. Carlyles was entirely formed) by literary standards and impressions. Literature has been deluged with the affectations, intrigues, savagery, and uncleanness of the eigh. teenth century. Other centuries had all this in at least equal degree; but the eigh. teenth was the first to display it in pungent literary form. Industry, science, inven- tion, and benevolence were less tempting fields for these brilliant penmen. And thus an inordinate share of attention is given to the quarrels of poets, the vices of courts, and the grimacing of fops. It is the business of serious history to cor- rect the impression which torrents of smart writing have left on the popular mind. We are all rather prone to dwell on the follies and vices of that era, with which we are more familiar than ~ve are with any other, almost more than we are with our own. It is the first age, since that of Augustus, which ever left inimitable pictures of its o~vn daily home existence. We recall to mind so easily the ladies of quality at the Spectators routs, the riot- ers and intrigues of Herveys memoirs, and of Walpoles, and of the little Bur. neys ; the Squire \Vesterns, the Wilkes- es and the Queensberrys; the Hell-fire Clubs and the Rakes Progresses; the political invectives of Junius and Burke; the courts of St. Jamess and Versailles; the prisons, the assizes, the parties of pleasure to Bedlam and to Bridewell; the Wells at Tunbridge, Bath, and Epsom; the masquerades at Vauxhall and Rane- lagh ; the taverns, the streets, the Mo- hawks, and the duellists; the gin-drink- ing and the bull-baiting, th egamblingand the swindling; and a thousand pictures of social life by a crowd of consummate art- ists. Perhaps we study these piquant miniatures with too lively a gust. The question is not whether such things were, but what else there was also. The pure, the tender, the just, the merciful, is there as well, patiently toiling in the even tenor of its way ; and if we look for it honestly, we shall find it a deeper, wider, more effective force in the main, shaping the issue in the end for good. Addison and Steele were not the great. 70 A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. est of teachers, but they have mingled with banter about fans and monsters something deeper and finer, such as none had touched before, something of which six generations of moralists have never criven us the like. To love her was a liberal education. Is there a nobler or profounder sentence in our language? It is a phrase to dignify a nation, and to pu- rify an age; yet it was ~iung off by poor Dick, one of the gayest wits, for one of the lightest hours of a most artificial so- ciety. Western, be it never forgotten, was the name not only of a boisterous foxhunter, but of the most lovable woman in English fiction. What.a mass of manly stuff does our English soil seem to breed as we call up the creations of Fielding! What homes of sturdy vigor do we enter as we turn over the pages of Defoe, and Swift, and Smollett, and Goldsmith, and Johnson; or again in the songs of Burns, or the monotonous lines of Crabbe; or in such glimpses of English firesides as we catch in the young life of Miss Edge- worth, or in our old friend Sandford and Merton, or the record of Scotts early years, or the life of Adam Smith, or Bishop Berkeley! XVhat a world of hardi- hood and patience is there, in the lives of Captain Cook, and Watt, Brindley, and Arkwright, Metcalfe, and Wedgwood! \Vhat spiritual tenderness in the letters of Cowper, and the memoirs of Wesley, Howard, Wilberforce, and scores of hard workers, just spirits and faithful hearts who ~vere the very breath and pulse of the eighteenth century! What a breeze from the uplands plays round those rustic images in all forms of art; the art often thin and tame itself, but the spirit like the fragrance of new hay; in such paintings as Morlands, or such poems as Thom- sons, Beatties, and Somervilles, or such prose as Fieldings, Goldsmiths, and Smolletts! How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! If in that mass of toiling, daring, hearty, simple life, we think overmuch of the riot of fashion and the gossip of courts, the fault is perhaps with those who look to fashion for the keynote, and care more for crowds than they care for homes. A century is never, we have said, a really organic whole, but a group of vari- ous movements taken up and broken off at two arbitrary points. The eighteenth is as little a whole as any other ; but we may group it into parts in some degree thus. The first ten or fifteen years are clearly more akin to the seventeenth century than the eighteenth. Locke, Newton and Leibnitz, Wallis and XVren; Burnet and Somers; James II., Louis XIV., and William III.; Bossuet and F~nelon, lived into the century, and Dry- den lived up to itbut none of these be- long to it. As in French history it is best to take the age of Louis by itself, so in English history it is best to take the XVhig Revolution by itself; for Anne is not easily parted from her sister, nor is Marlborough to be severed from XVilliam and Portland. In every sense the reign of Anne was the issue and crown of the movement of i688, and not the forerun- ner of that of 1789. For all practical purposes, the eighteenth century in En- gland means the reigns of the first three Georges. This space we must group into three periods of unequal length i. From the accession of the house of Hanover (1714), down to the fall of Wal- pole (1742). This is the age of Boling- broke and Walpole; Swift, Defoe, Pope, Addison, Steele, Bishop Berkeley and Bishop Butler, Halley, Stephen Gray, and Bradley. 2. From the fall of Walpole (1742) to the opening of the French Revolution (1789). It is the age of Chatham, of E rederick, XVashington, ~nd Turgot; of Wolfe, Clive, and Hastings, Rodney and Anson; of Gibbon and Robertson; of Hume and Adam Smith; of Kant, Vol- taire, Diderot, and Rousseau; of Rich- ardson and Fielding, Sterne and Smollett, Johnson andGoldsmith; of Cowper and Gray, Thomson and Beattie; of Reynolds and Gainsborough, Hogarth and Girrick; of Cook, Watt, Arkwright, Brindley, Herschel, Black, Priestley, I-I unter, Franklin, and Cavendish; of Handel, Bach, Haydn, and Moza~-t; of Wesley, Whitefield, Howard, and Raikes. This is the central typical period of the eighteenth century, with a note of its own; some fifty years of energy, thought, research, adventure, invention, industry; of good fellowship, a zest for life, and a sense of humanity. 3. Lastly come some twelve years of the Revolution (17891801); a mere frag- ment of a larger movement that cannot be limited to any country or any century; the passion and the strife, the hope and the foreshadowing of things that were to come and things that are not come. It is the age of Pitt, Fox, I3urke; and Grattan of Cornwallis and Nelson; of Ben tharn and Romilly-, Wilberforce and Clarkson; A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 7 of Goethe and Burns, Coleridge and Wordsworth; of Telfor~I and Stevenson; of Flaxman, Bewick, Romney, and Stot- hard; the youth of Sir H. Davy, Scott, Beethoven, and Turner; the boyhood of Byron and Shelley. It is impossible to omit this critical period of the century, though we too often forget that it forms an integral part of it, quite as truly as the age of Pope or the age of Johnson. The century is not intelligible if we cast out of it the mighty crisis in which it ended, to which it was leading all along; or if we talk of that new birth as a bonfire or a suicide. Even in art ~ve are apt to forget that the cen- tury of Pope and Johnson it was that gave us Faust, the Ancient Mariner, The Task, the Lyrical Ballads, Flax- man, Stothards and Blakes delicate and weird fancies, Turners first manner, Beet- hovens early sonatas, and Scotts trans- lations from the German. All that we value as specially distinctive of our age lay in embryo in many a quiet home, whilst the struggle raged at its hottest on the banks of the Seine, or on the Rhine, the Po, and the Nile. When the eighteenth century opened, the supremacy in Europe belonged to England, as it has hardly ever belonged before or since. In William III. she had one of the greatest and most successful of all modern statesmen, the one great ruler she ever had since Cromwell. The Revolution of i688 had placed her in the van of freedom, industry, and thought. Her armies were led by one of the most consummate soldiers in modern history. Her greatest genius in science, her great- est genius in architecture, and one of her wisest spirits in philosophy, were in full possession of their powers; glorious John, the recognized chief of the Resto- ration poets, was but just dead, and his young rival was beginning to unfold his yet more consummate mastery of rime. The founders of English prose were equipping our literature with a new arm, the easy and flexible style of modern prose; Swift, Addison, and Defoe were the first to show its boundless resources, nor has any improvement been added to their art. The nation was full of energy, wealth, and ambition; and it still glowed with the sense of freedom, ~vith all that it shook off in the train of the Stuarts. We should count the last days of Wil- liam and the whole reign of Anne rather with the Revolution of i688, of which they were the fruit, than with the Hano- verian period, for which they paved the way. And thus we may pass the cam- paigns of Churchill, and the overthrow of Louis, and all else that was the sequel and corollary of the struggle with the Stuarts. On the other hand, when we reach the close of the century, England is struggling with a movement which she had only indirectly created, but which she was equally unable to develop or to guide. The characteristic period of the eighteenth century for England is that between the death of Anne and the great war with the Republic (17141793). The first fourteen years of~the century belong to the history of the English Revolution: the last years to the history of the French Revolution. The eighty years of com- parative non-intervention and rest are for Englishmen at least the typical years of the eighteenth century. It was an era of peace. Indeed it was the first era of systematic peace. In spite of Fontenoy and Minden, Belleisle and Quiberon Bay, it was the first period in our history where the internal welfare of the nation took recognized place before the interests of the dynasty, and its pres- tige in Europe. The industrial prosperity of the nation, and the supreme authority of Parliament, were made, for the first time in our history, the guiding canons of the statesman. Walpole is the states- man of the eighteenth century; a states- man of a solid, albeit a somewhat vulgar type. If history was the digest of pun- gent anecdote, it would be easy to multi- ply epigrams about the corruption of Walpole. Yet, however unworthy his method, or gross his nature, Robert Wal- pole created the modern statesmanship of England. The imjerial Chathain in one sense developed, in another sense dis- torted the policy of Walpole; much as the first consul developed and distorted the revolutionary defence of France. And so the early career of William Pitt was a mere prolongation of the system of Walpole: purer in method, and more sci- entific in aim, but less efficient in result. Alas after ten glorious years as the min- ister of peace and of reform, Pitts career and his very nature were transformed by that aristocratic panic which made him the unwilling instrument of reaction. But Walpole has left a name that is a symbol of peace, as that of Chatham and of Pitt is a symbol of war. And thus Walpole remains, with all his imperfec- tions on his head, the veritable founder of our industrial statesmanship, the Parlia- mentary father of Fox, of Peel, of Cob. den, of Gladstone. 72 A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. That industrial organization of peace by means of a Parliamentary government was the true ~vork of our eighteenth cen- tury; for the European triumphs of Anne should be counted amongst the fruits of the heroic genius of William, and the cru- sade of Pitt against the Republic should be counted as a backward step of reac- tionary panic. It was not well done by the statesmen of peace, that industrial organization of England; it was most corruptly and ignobly done: but it was done. And it ended (we must admit? in a monstrous perversion. The expansion of wealth and industry, which the peace- policy of Walpole begot, stimulated the nation to seek new outlets abroad, and led to the conquest of a vast empire. When the eighteenth century opened, the king of England ruled, outside of these islands, over some two or three millions at the most. When the ninet~eenth cen- tury opened, these two or three had be- come at least a hundred millions. The colonies and settlements in America and in Australia, the maritime dependencies, the Indies East and West, were mainly added to the crown during the eighteenth century, and chiefly by the imperial pol- icy of Chatham. So far as they were a genuine expansion of our industrial life, they are a permanent honor of the age; so far as they are the prizes of ambitious adventure, they ~vere the reversal of the system of Walpole. It was Chatham, says his bombastic monument in Guild- hall, who made commerce to flourish by ~var. It is an ignoble epitaph, though Burke himself composed it. But for good or for evil, it was the policy and the age of the two Pitts which gave England her gigantic colonial and maritime empire. And whether it be her strength and glory as many think it, or her weakness and burden as I hold it, it was assuredly one of the most momentous crises in the whole of our history. A change, at least as momentous, was effected at home from within. The latter half of the eighteenth century converted our people from a rural to a town population, made this lessen- tially a manufacturing, not an agricultural country, and established the factory sys- tem. No industrial revolution so sudden and so thorough can be found in the his- tory of our island. If ~ve put this trans- formation of active life beside the forma- tion of the empire beyond the seas, we shall find England swung round into a new world, as, in so short a time, has hardly ever befallen a nation. The change which in three generations has trebled our population, and made the old kingdom the mere heart of a huge empire, led to portentous consequences both moral and material which were hardly understood till our own day. It is the singular boast of the nineteenth century to have covered this island with vast tracts of continuous cities and works, factories and pits ; but it was the eighteenth century which made this possible. Appalling as are many of the forms which the fabulous expansion of industry has taken to-day, it is too late now to deplore or resist it. The best hours of the twentieth century, we all trust, will be given to reform the indus- trial extravagances of the nineteenth cen- tury; but it will be possible only on condition of accepting the industrial rev- olution which the eighteenth century brought about. Whatever be the issue of this great change in English life, there can be no question about the sterling qualities of the men to ~vhose genius and energy it was due. The whole history of the En- glish race has no richer page than that which records those hardy mariners who with Cook and Anson girdled the globe; the inventors and workers who made the roads and the canals, the docks and the lighthouses, the furnaces and the mines, the machines and the engines: the art- potters like Wedgwood, inspired spinners like Crompton, roadmakers like the blind Metcalfe, engineers like Smeaton, discov- erers like Watt, canalmakers like Bridge- water and Brindley, engravers like Be- wick, opticians like Dollond, inventors like Arkwright. Let us follow these men into their homes and their workshops, watch their lives of indefatigable toil, of quenchless vision into things beyond, let us consider their patience, self-denial, and faith before we call their age of all others that of quackery, bankruptcy, and fraud. We may believe it rather the age of sci- ence, industry, and invention. A striking feature of those times was the dispersion of intellectual activity in many local centres, though the entire population of the island was hardly twice that of London to-day. Birmingham, Manchester, Derby, Bristol, Norwich, Leeds, Newcastle, and otl~er towns were potent sources of science, art, and culture, and all the more vigorous that they de- peuded little on the capital. A hundred years ago the population and extent of Birmingham was hardly one hundredth part of what it is now. But what a wealth of industry, courage, science, and genius in that quiet midland village lay grouped A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 73 round Dr. Darwin and his Lunar Society! with James Watt and Matthew Boulton, then at work on their steam-engine, and Murdoch, the inventor of gas-lighting; and Wedgwood, the father of the pot- teries; and Hutton the bookseller, and Baskerville the printer, and Thomas Day, and Lovell Edgeworth; a group to whom often came Franklin, and Smeaton, and Black, and in their centre their great philosopher and guide and moving spirit, the noble Joseph Priestley. Little as we think of it now, that group, where the indomitable Boulton kept, open house, was a place of pilgrimage to the ardent minds of Europe; it was one of the intel- lectual cradles of modern civilization. And it is interesting to remember that our great Charles Darwin is on both sides the grandson of men who were leading members of that Lunar Society, itself a provincial Ro~-al Society. What forces lay within it! What a giant was Watt, fit to stand beside Gutemberg and Columbus, as one of the few ~vhose single discov- eries have changed the course of human civilization! And, if we chose one man as a type of the intellectual energy of the century, we could hardly find a better than Joseph Priestley, though his was not the greatest mind of the century. His versatility, eagerness, activity, and hu- inanity; the immense range of his curi- osity, in all things physical, moral, or social; his place in science, in theology, in philosophy, and in politics; his pecul- iar relation to the Revolution, and the pathetic story of his unmerited sufferings, may make him the hero of the eighteenth century. The strength of the century lay neither in politics nor in art; it lay in breadth of understanding. In political genius, in poetry, in art, the eighteenth was inferior to the seventeenth century, and even to the sixteenth; in moral, in social, and in material development it was far inferior to the nineteenth. But in philosophy, in science, in mental versatility, it has hardly any equal in the ages. Here, especially, it is impossible to limit the view to one country. Politics, industry, and art are local. Science and research know noth- ing of country, have no limitations of tongue, race, or government. In philoso- phy then the century numbers: L~ihnitz, Vico, Berkeley, Montesquieu, Diderot, DAlembert, Condorcet, Kant, Turgot, Hume, Adam Smith. In science, it counts Buffon, Linn~us, Lavoisier, La- place, Larnarck, Lagrange, Halley, Her- bchel, Franklin, Priestley, Black, Caven. dish, Volta, Galvani, Bichat, and Hunter. To interpret its ideas, it had such masters of speech as Voltaire, Rousseau, Swift, Johnson, Gibbon, Lessing, Goethe, and l3urke. It organized into sciences (crys- tallizing the data till then held in solution) physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, com- parative anatomy, electricity, psychology, and the elements of social science, both in history and in statics. It threw up these three dominant movements: (i) the idea of law in mind and in society, that is, the first postulate of mental and social science; (2) that genius for synthesis of which the work of Buffon, of Linn~us, and the Encyclop~dia itself, were all phases; (3) that idea of social reconstruc- tion, of which the new rdgime of 89, the American Republic, and our reformed Parliament are all products. The seven- teenth century can show perhaps a list of greater separate names, if we add those in poetry, politics, and art. But for mass, result, multiplicity, and organic power, it may be doubted if any century in modern history has more to show than the eigh- teenth. There is this stamp upon every stroke of eighteenth-century work: the habit of regarding things as wholes, bearing on life as a whole. Their thirst for knowl- edge is a practical, organic, working thing; their minds grasp a subject all round, to turn it to a useful end. The Encyclop~edic spirit animates all: with a genius for clearness, comprehension, and arrangement. It was for the most part somewhat premature, often impatient, at times shallow, as was much of the work of Voltaire, Diderot, Johnson, and Gold- smith. But the slightest word of such men has to my ear a human ring, a living voice that I recognize as familiar. It awakens me, and I am conscious of being face to face with an interpreter of human- ity to men. When they write histories whole centuries glow with life; we see and we hear the mighty tramp of ages. In twelve moderate octavos, through all which not a sentence could belong to any other book, Gibbon has compressed the history of the world during more than a thousand years. Is there in all prose lit- erature so perfect a book as this? In these days we write histories on far pro- founder methods ; but for the story of ten ordinary years Mr. Freeman and Mr. Froude ~vill require a thousand pages; and Macaulays brilliant annals, we are told, needed more time to write than the events needed to happen. I often take up my Buffon. They tell A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. us now that Buffon hardly knew the ele- ments of his subject, and lived in the pa- l~ozoic era of science. It may be, but 1 find in Buffon a commanding thought, the earth and its living races in orderly rela- lation, and in the centre man with his touch of them and his contrast to them. What organic thought flows in every line of his majestic scheme! What sugges- tions in it, what an education it is in itself! And if Buffon is not a man of science, assuredly he is a philosopher. No doubt his ideas of fibres and cells ~vere rudi- mentary, his embryology weak, and his histology rude; but he had the root of the matter ~vhen he treated of animals as liv- ing organisms, and not simply as accu mu- lations of microscopic particles. Now Buffon is a typical worker of the eigh- teenth century, at its high-water mark of industry, ~ariety of range, human interest, and organizing life. We may take Adam Smith, Hume, Priestley, Franklin; they are four of the best types of the century; with its keen hold on moral, social, and physical truth at once; its genius for scientific and for social observation, its inexhaustible curi- osity; and its continual sense that man stands face to face with Nature. They felt the grand dualism of all knowledge in a way that perhaps we fail to grasp it with our infinity of special information, and a certain hankering after spiritualities that we doubt, and infinitesmal analyses which cease to fructify. Adam Smith, the first (alas! perhaps the last) real economist, did not devote his life to polishing up a theory of rent. Astronomy, society, education, govern ment, morals, psychology, lan- guage, art, were in turns the subject of his study, and in all he was master; they all moved him alike, as part of mans work on earth. He never would have founded political economy if he had mere- ly been an economist. And all this is more true of Hume, with a range even wider, an insight keener, a judgment riper, a creative method even more original. And so, Priestley and Franklin: as keen about gases and electric flashes as about the good of the commonwealth and the foundations of human belief. And when Turgot, himself one of the best of this band of social reformers, said of Frank- lin, Eripuit c~lo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis, it is true, in a wide sense, of them all, and especially of Turgot himself. They all sought to conquer the earth, as the dwell- ing-place of a reformed society of men. This Encyclop~dic,social spirit belongs to all alike. We recognize in all the zeal to make their knowledge fruitful, system- atic, common to all, useful to man. Out of fashion as such a thing is to us, every sentence they utter bears its meaning on its face; every book, every voyage, every discovery, is hailed with enreka through Europe; the voyages of travellers, or the surgical operation for cataract, instantly affect history, morals, logic, and philoso- l)hy. They cannot rest till every corner of the planet is explored, till the races of man are compared, and the products of the earth are stored in museums, classified in orders, grouped into kingdoms. Sci- ence and social life, nay, philosophy and morals, were strangely transformed when the limits and the form of mans earth were first exactly realized. Cook and Banks, Anson and Bougainville, reveal to Europe the antipodes, and their human, brute, and vegetable worlds; and every science and every art is alive with new ideas; history, philosophy, morals, and social economy, are lit up ~vith new laws. We see the same thing to-day; but the sacred fire perhaps burns with a soberer flame; the wonder and the sympathy are a little dulled by use; and through the mountains of our materials the volcanic shock of a new truth is less distinctly felt. The universal human interest of these men throbs in every page they ~vrite. Defoe is politician, romancer, theologian, economist, pamphleteer, and philosopher. Swift is all this, verse-maker, and many things beside. Voltaire is poet, historian, critic, moralist, letter-writer, polemist, ar- biter in science, philosophy, and art in general; like Virgils monster, with a hundred tongues and a hundred throats of brass. Diderot was a very Encyclo- p~edic Briareus. But the intense social aim comes out in all alike, however differ- ent in nature and taste. Cowper himself has it, as he sits beside his tea-urn, watches his hare and his spaniel, or apostrophizes his sofa. Fielding clothes it with flesh and blood, hot blood and solid flesh; it lights up the hackwork of Goldsmith, and sheds a fragrance forever through his lovely idyll of the vicars home; Johnson in his armchair thunders it out as law to the club; Bentham tears up the old statute- book by passionate appeals to the greatest happiness of the greatest number; Burns sang for it the songs which will live for- ever in English homes; Hogart h, the Fielding of the brush, paints it; Garrick, - the most versatile of actors, played it; A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 75 Moiart, the most sympathetic of all musi- cians, found its melody; Reynolds caught every smile on its cheek, and the light upon its eye; and Hurne, Adam Smith, Priestley, and Burke sounded some of its deepest notes. Of all in this century, three men stand out, in three countries, as types of its vast range, of its organizing genius, of its hold on the reality behind the veil that we see: Kant in Germany, Diderot in France, Hume in England. For us here, Hume is the dominant mind of the age; with his consummate grasp of human life in all its moral, social, and physical condi- tions; by his sense, good-fellowship, ur- banity, and manliness. This was not the age of the lonely thinkers in their studies, as Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, had been. Nor was it the age of Bacon, Pascal, Hobbes, and Locke; when philosophy was shaken by political and religious fanaticism. It was not the age of the wonderful specialists of our own day, when mountains of observation defy all attempts at system. It was an age more like the revival of thouaht and learning but with a notable difference. Its curi- osity is as keen, its industry even greater; its mental force as abundant. But it is far less wild; its resources are under command; its genius is constructive; and its ruling spirit is social. It was the sec- ond and far greater revival that new birth of time whereof the first line was led by Galileo, Harvey, Descartes, and Bacon; whereof the second line was led by Newton, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, Hume, and Kant; whereof the third line will be led by those who are to come. In the progress of Europe, especially in its mental progress, there is an inces- sant ebb and flow, a continual give and take. The intellectual lead passes from one to the other, qualified and modified by each great individual genius. In the six- teenth century it was Spain and Italy, in the seventeenth it was Holland and En- gland, in the eighteenth it was France, and now perhaps it is Germans-, which sets the tone, or fashion, in thought. For the first generation perhaps of the eiTh- teenth century, England had the lead which Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Harvey, Crom~vell, and William, had given her in the century preceding. The contemporaries of Newton, Locke, Dryden, Pope, Swift, Defoe, and Addi- son, were a force in combination which the worshippers of Louis the Fourteenth did not immediately perceive, but which was above anything then extant in Europe. The revelation of this great intellectual strength in England was made by Mon. tesquieu and Voltaire. Voltaire, if not exactly a thinker, was the greatest inter. preter of ideas ~vhom the world has ever seen; and became the greatest literary power in the whole history of letters. When in 1728 he took back to France his English experience and studies, he car- ried with him the sacred fire of freedom whereby the supremacy of thouaht beaan to pass to France. Within ten years that fire lit up some of the greatest beacons of the modern world. Voltaire wrote his Essay on Manners in 1740; Montes- quieus Spirit of the Laws appeared in 1748, and its influence was greater than that of any single work of Voltaire. The forty years, 17401780, were perhaps the most pregnant epoch in the history of hu- man thought. It contained the works of Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, I)Alem- bert, Vauvenargues, Buffon, Lavoisier, Rousseau, the Encyclop~edists, Condorcet, and Turgot in France; and in England, those of Fielding, Richardson, Sterne, Gibbon, Robertson, Hume, Adam Smith, Priestley, Johnson, Goldsmith, and Gray. During the last twenty years of the cen- tury France was absorbed in her tremen- dous Revolution, and again the supremacy in literature passed away from her to give to Germany Kant, Hegel, Goethe, Schil- her, Beethoven; to give to England Burke, Bentham, Cowper, Burns, Byron, Cole- ridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Scott. So sways the battle of ideas from age to age and from shore to shore. This is not the place to discuss the vast movement of the human mind which is loosely called the Revolution. As an Oxford wit used to say, To sit in judg- ment on the Revolution is like asking if the fall of man were a justifiable proceed- ing. Our judgment on all this depends on the bent of our minds in theology, phil- osophy, and politics. One who holds on to his Bible chiefly for its damnatory re- sources has assured us that this was the Satanic age. If we look at its achieve- ments, one is tempted to wish that our own age were more often visited by that accomplished gentleman. The century completely transformed all that had previ- ously been known as to heat, gases, met- als, electricity, plants, animals, tissues, diseases, geography, geology, the races, products, and form of the earth, l)sychol- ogy, chronology, history, political and social and economic science. It would take a volume to enlarge on these. One can but give the names of those depart- 76 A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ments of knowledge. Compare the ana tomical resources of Dr. Radcliffe with those of Hunter, Bichat, and Dupuytren; the chemical and physical notions of Boyle with those of Davy, Volta, and Galvani; the physiology of Boerhaave with that of Lamarck; compare the classi- ficatory notions of Ray with those of Buffon, Linn~us, and Cuvier; take the ideas on of Hobbes or Harrino- society ton, and compare them with those of Hume, A. Smith, Burke, and Bentham; compare Gibbons idea of history with that of Raleigh, Bacon, Milton. Compare the psychology of Kant with that of Des- cartes, or Locke; and we see that the century made a stride, not as we have done by enlarging the sciences, but in creating them or turning their rudiments into mature organisms. The weak side of the century was cer- tainly in beauty; in poetry, and the arts of form. It was essentially the age of prose ; but still it was not prosaic. Its imaginative genius spoke in prose and not in verse. There is more poetry in The Vicar of Wakefield than in The Deserted Village, in Tom Jones than in Popes Iliad, and the death of Clarissa Harlowe is more like Sophocles than the death of Addisons Cato. The age did not do well in verse ; but if its verse tended to prose, its prose ever tended to rise into poetry. XVe want some word (Mr. Matthew Arnold will not let us use the word poetry) to express the imagina- tive power at work in prose, saturating it with the fragrance of proportion and form, shedding over the whole that inde- finable charm of subtle suggestion, which belongs to rare thoughts clothed in per- fect words. For my part I find the vision and the faculty divine in the in- exhaustible vivacity of Tom Jones, in the mysterious realism of Robinson Crusoe, in the terrible tension of Cla- rissas tragedy, in the idyllic grace of the vicars home. This imaginative force has never since been reached in prose save by Walter Scott himself, and not even by him in such inimitable witchery of words. If it be not poetry, it is quite unlike the prose that we read or write to- day. Besides, one cannot allow that there is no poetry in the century. Let us give a liberal meaning to poetry; and where we find creative fancy, charm of phrase, the vivid tone of a distinct voice that we could reco(rnize in a thousand there, we are sure, is the poet. For my part, I go so far as to admit that to be poetry which is quite intelligible, even if it have no sub- tlety, mystery, or inner meaning at all. Much as I prefer Shelley, I will not deny that Pope is a a poet. Tennyson l)erhaps would never have run so near common- place as do stanzas here and there in the famous Elegy, but does any one doubt that Grays Elegy is poetry? And though Wordsworth is a greater man than Cowper, it is possible, had there never been a Task, that there might never have been an Excursion. The poetry of of the century is below our lofty English average, but it is not contemptible; and when it is good it has some rare qualities indeed. In the poetry of the century are three distinct types: first, that of Pope; next, that of which the Elegy is the master- piece; lastly, the songs of Burns. Now the first belongs to the age of Louis XI V. The second is the typical poetry of the century. The third is but the clarion that heralds the revolutionary outburst which gave us By-ron, Shelley, Scott, Colerid~e, Wordsworth, Goethe, and Schiller. Cow- per in part belongs to the three types; he is the connecting link between them all: touching Pope by his easy mastery of rime, akin to Gray by his exquisite cul- ture and grace, foretelling Wordsworth and Shelley by his moral and social ear- nestness. If the century produced little true poetry, it produced some little that is very good, and a good deal which has some very fine qualities. The Rape of the Lock is a poem in a class by itself, and Pope wrote other pieces of magical skill and verve. Goldsmiths poems would please us more if he had not bet- tered them himself in his own prose. Burns wrote the most ringing songs in our literature. Cowper is a true l)oet of a very rare type, one of the most im- portant in the development of English poetry. And Grays Elegy is better known and more widely loved than any single poem in our language. All this should be enough to save the age of prose from the charge of being prosaic. In the best poetry of the century (at least after Popes death) there is a new power, a new poetic field, a new source of poetry. The new source of poetry is the people; its new field is the home; the new power within it is to serve the cause of humanity. It told the short and sim- ple annals of the poor. It is a field un- known to Chaucer, Spenser, Shake- sl)eare, Milton, Dryden, or Pope. But Goldsmith has it in his heart of hearts; such men as Thomson and Collins and A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 77 Beattie and Crabbe have it, though they remain on the lower ranges at their best; Burns is the very prophet of it; and it glows in a gentle hermit-like way in every murmur of Cowpers tender soul. The Task is by reason of this one of the landmarks of our literature, though its own nobler progeny may have lessened its charm to us. It is because the orioinal charm is still as fresh as ever, that we may call the Elegy in a Country Churchyard the central poem of the age. Our young word-mongers and unutterables will tell us to-day that its moralizing is as obvious as a tombstone, that its melody is rudimen- tary and its epithets almost trivial. Yes! and for that reason it has sunk into the soul of all who speak the English tongue; it has created the new poetry of the cot- tage; its very surrender of brilliancy, sub- tlety, or novelty, is its strength. The sustained undertone of pathos, the magi- cal unity of its thought and its coloring, the simple humanity of it, all these make the Elegy the poem of the eighteenth century, the voice of the humane age at its best. Poetry is the central art; but it is not all art: and the art of the century de- serves a word. We may give up archi- tecture at once. People were so much absorbed in making their homes comfort- able within, that they seemed blind to ugliness elsewhere; and if Mr. Ruskin is certain that Satan had to do ~vith the churches of the Georgian era, there is no means of disproving it. But Reynolds remains the greatest English painter; Gainsborough and Romney have not been surpassed in their own line; Hogarth re- mains still our greatest humorist with the pencil; Garrick is still our greatest actor; Flaxman is still our greatest sculptor; and it is well to remember that Turner was of the Royal Academy before the century was out. But besides all these, Crome, Stothard, Blake, Bewick, Chippendale, Wedgwood, and Bartolozzi worked in the centuryand in their given lines these men have never been surpassed. There is another art which lies closer to civilization than any art but poetry. Music is a better test of the moral culture of an age than its painting, or its sculp- ture, or even its architecture. Music, by its nature, is ubiquitous, as much almost as poetry itself, in one sense more so, for its vernacular tongue is common to man- kind. Music in its nature is social, it can enter every home, it is not the privilege of the rich; and thus it belongs to the social and domestic life of a people, as painting and sculpture, the arts of the few, never have done or can do. It touches the heart and the character as the arts of form have never sought to do, at least in the modern world. When we test the civilization of an age by its art, we should look to its music next to its poetry, and sometimes even more than to its poetry. Critics who talk about the debasement of the age when church~vardens built those mongrel temples must assuredly be deaf. Those churchwardens and the rest of the congregation wept as they listened to Handel and Mozart. One wearies of hearing how grand and precious a time is ours, now that we can draw a cornflower right. Music is the art of the eighteenth cen- tury, the art wherein it stands supreme in the ages; perfect, complete, and self- created. The whole gamut of music (ex- cept the plain song, part song, dance, and mass) is the creation of the eighteenth century: opera, sonata, concerto, sym- phony, oratorio; and the full uses of instru- mentation, harmony, air, chorus, march, and fugue, all belong to that age. If one thinks of the pathos of those great songs, of the majesty of those full quires, of the inexhaustible melody of their operas, and all that Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Gluck, and the early yeais of Beethoven gave us, it is strange to hear that that age was dead to art. Neither the age which gave us the Madonnas and the Sistine, nor the age which gave us Reims and \Vest- minster Abbey, nor even the age which gave us the Parthenon, did more for hu- manity than the age to which we owe the oratorios, and the operas, the sonatas, symphonies, and masses of the great age of music. Not merely was music of the highest order produced, not merely did that age create almost all the great orders of music, but the generation gave itself to music with a passion such as marks all ages wherein art reaches its zenith. When Handel and Buononcini, Gluck and Piccinni, Farinelli and Caffarelli, di- vided the town, it was not with the languid partisanship which amuses our leisure, but ~vith the passions of the Red and Green factions in the Circus of Byzan- tium. England, it is true, had few mu- sicians of its own; but Handel is for practical purposes an English musician, and the great Italian singers and the great German masters were never more truly at home than when surrounded by English admirers. Our people bore their fair share in this new birth of art, especially 78 UNDER THE SNOW. if our national anthem was really the It means Howard and Clarkson just as product of this age. And not our people much as it means Fielding and Gibbon; only, but the men of culture, of rank, of it means Wesley and XVhitefield quite power, and the court itself. And the as much as it means Hume or Watt. story that the king caused the whole And they who shall see how to reconcile house to rise when the Hallelujah Cho~ Berkeley with Fielding, XVesley with rus was heard is a happy symbol of the Hume, and Watt with Cowper, so that enthusiasm of the time. I all may be brought home to the fold of Their music showed that their hearts humanity at last, will not only interpret were in the right place; but they showed aright the eighteenth century, but they it in more practical ways. The age, with will anticipate the task of the twentieth. all its grossness, laid the seeds of those A few words about the eighteenth cen- social reforms, which it is the boast of tury afford no space to touch on the great- our own time to have matured. It was est event of itthe Revolutionary crisis then that the greatest part of the hospi- itself. The intellectual preparation for it tals as we know them were founded; the is all that we can here note; and we may asylums, reformatories, infirmaries, bene- hear the rumblings of the great earth- fit societies, Sunday schools, and the like, quake in every page of Hume, Adam It was then, amidst a sea of misery and Smith, Priestley, and Bentham; nay in cruelty, that Howard began what Burke Cowper and Burns and Wordsworth and called his circumnavigation of charity. Coleridge. The Rights of Man, the Then too began that holy war against Declaration of Independence, The slavery and the slave-trade, against bar- Negros Complaint, the greatest hap- barous punishments, foul prisons, against piness of the greatest number, A mans the abuses of Justice, the war with igno- a man for a that, the new birth of rance, drunkenness, and vice. Captain the Methodists, were-all phases of one Coram, and Jonas Hanway, and John movement to attain the full conditions of Howard, and Thomas Raikes, led the humanity. The Revolution did not hap. way for those social efforts which have pen in 1789 nor in 1 793. The Terror was taken such proportions. Jeremy Ben- in ~ the old system collapsed in 89. tham and Samuel Romilly struck at the But the Revolution is continuing still, abuses of law; Clarkson and Wilberforce violent in France, deep and quiet in and the anti-slavery reformers at slavery England. No one of its problems is corn- and the trade in men. Methodism, or pletely solved; no one of them is re- rather religious earnestness, lies at the moved from solution; no one of its crea- heart of the eighteenth century; and the tions has complete possession of the ~vork of Wesley and Whitefield is as field. The reconstruction begun more much a part of its life, as the work of than a hundred years ago is doing still. Johnson or Hume or Watt. That great For they see history ul)side down who revival of spiritual energy in the midst of look at the Revolution as a conflagration a sceptical and jovial society was no acci- instead of a reconstruction; or who find dent, nor was it merely the impulse of two in the eighteenth century a suicide, in- great souls. It is the same humanity stead of finding a birth. which breathes through the scepticism of FREDERIC FIARRISON. Hume, and the humor of Fielding; and it runs like a silver thread through the _______________ whole fabric of that epoch. Cowper is its poet, Wilberforce was its orator, From Macmillans Magazine. Whitefield was its preacher, Wesley was UNDER THE SNOW. its legislator, and Priestley himself the philosopher whom it cast forth. The abolition of slavery, a religious respect BESIDE a lovely little lake in Switzer- for the most miserable of human beings land there is a small village of scattered as a human soul, is its great work in the vine-clad chalets, and just beyond these world. This was the central result of the the land curves round from & projecting eighteenth century; nor can any century point and forms a bay. On the side of in history show a nobler. The new gos- the point nearest the chalets is a shallow pel of duty to our neighbor, was of the creek, and from this goes up a long flight very essence of that age. The French of steps; these are plainly not much used, Revolution itself is but the social form of grass grows between the stones, and on the same spirit. He who misses this will each side, among the dusky silver of the never understand the eighteenth century. thistle-down, are blackberry bushes laden UNDER THE SNOW. 79 with fruit. No one has been there to take this. And, indeed, when the end of the steps is reached, one only gets a view of the opposite shore about two miles away, and of the grand mountain range that ends the view on the left. The outlook on the right is blocked by the garden wall which ends the point; on the left are some tumble-down sheds filled with fag- gots, and what may possibly be the rub- bish of generations. An artist would stand wrapt in admira- tion of the light and shade concentrated on the strange medley within the sheds bits of the roof have been blown away, and although the gloom is too great to distinguish anything, there is sombre color within, and a mysterious suggestive- ness in the fortiis that here and there stand out of the chaos. There is the tiniest strip of ground be- tween the sheds and the lake, and from this gourds and vines have climbed up over the ruin. On this strip of ground, shading her eyes with her lean, brown hand, Andr6s mother has been standing this half-hour, watching the opposite shore. There is nothing special about her at first sight; she is like a score or so of the women of her canton. She wears a black, full skirt, more than half covered by a grey woollen apron over this is a short, loose, black jacket, no cap or collar, only some white linen shows round her brown neck. Her grey hair is smoothly gathered into a knot behind, and is almost covered by a tanned straw hat bent 4down over her square face; her nose is long and thin. The rest of her face looks like ash rivelled leaf, but the eyes are strangely young and bright, with a look in them that at once arrests attention. .Andr6s mother may be in other re- spects like her neighbors, but no such ~voman in the little village has such a weird story written in her eyes. As a rule eyes that are expressive can tell many stories, sometimes revealing quite an unexpected chapter of events, but it rarely happens to one person in a lifetime to read the shocked horror that is fixed in the eyes of Andr6s mother, or to see in one face so strange a mingling of age and youth. Strangely, too, this weird expres- sion is out of place in the sweet, pathetic face; the loving lips seem ready to pro- test against the terror which has got, as it were, embroidered on what may have once been a face of beaming joy. There are times when this terror lurks out of sight, but any sudden emotion re- calls it; and now voices sounding close beside her make the woman look up, with the weird horror fully shown. Two gentlemen are standing smoking in the terraced garden at the top of the ~vall. One of them, the elder, nods, in a friendly way, and says, Good-evening, Madame Engemann. His friend stands half hidden under a long, vine-covered pergola, that reaches from the charming house yonder to this point. He is a stranger, and he is ab- sorbed in admiring the hills on the oppo- site side of the lake, and the grand snow mountains rising above them ; but at the sound of a strange voice he turns and starts back as he meets the ghost-haunted eyes of Andr~s mother. You are expecting Andr~, says Mon- sieur Weissembourg. I suppose this is the last outing he gets before he comes down for the winter, eh? Yes, sir, it is the last, till he comes in October. The joy in her voice spreads over her face, andfor a moment even her eyes smile. Then she turns away again and looks across the lake. The two men walk under the pergola, where the leaves glint gold and green in the sunshine, and the grapes hang in pur- ple clusters; the wind is rising, and the long vine-sprays are blown out towards the stately blue lilies that border the ter- race. Whoever is that woman? says the young man, when they have passed out of hearing. Is she old or young? She looks spirit-haunted. Monsieur XVeissembourg smiles. Well, then, the spirits are good ones. She is usually called Andr6s mother, but her name is Elisa Engemann. But why does she look so scared? Ah well, poor soul she has cause. She ~vas married fourteen years ago to a good husband, and they were very happy. She was a pretty young girl, and he was a fine handsome fellow, and had the reputa- tion of being one of the best guides at Grindelwald; and he had saved money enough to buy a chalet here and to fur- nish it; and then, before Andr6 was born, he took his last journey he was buried in a snowfall. And the shock of his death gave her that look? It was more than that. He had left her, promising to be home before the baby ~vas born. Three days after, between night and morning, she roused from sleep and heard her husbands voice outside calling to her. She said the voice was 8o UNDER THE SNOW. loud at first, but it grew feebler, and at gentlemen see the steamer shoot swiftly last died away. She rose up and opened to the landing-place on the other side of the door, but she could not see any one; the lake. she came on to my house, and begged to The boy Andr~ tak~s the boat over see me. I believe I was rough to her, for there, Monsieur Weissembourg explains, I felt provoked to be roused out of my and he will be here soon. He has had sleep for what seemed to me an idle to make a long journ dream; but next day came the news that the boat. ey before reaching Engemann and the traveller lie was with The ragged-looking chalet over the way, were missing. Of course my first thought just now aflame with those huge flowers was for Elisa, and then I learned that she that try to stare the sun out of counte- had started the day before, when she left nance, is not Elisas own dwelling-place. me, far the place where her husband was She has spied her friend the carpenter, to make the ascent. You may be sure I ~vho is also the godfather of Andr~, smok- followed her at once; when I found her ing his pipe in the ~vooden balcony that she lay in bed in a little mountain chalet goes round his house, and she pauses a with her baby beside herher hair had moment outside the sunflower plot, to call changed to grey, and that awful look of out, horror was in her eyes. There is the boat, Hans Christen There was a pause. Monsieur XVeis- Andrd is comino- sembourgs young visitor had come to the Then, with her head bent forward, she Oberland to make the most difficult as- hurries do~vn the road. cent lie could find. Elisas story seemed Hans Christen, a big-headed fellow, to hini a troublesome episode he wished and much too broad for his height, takes he had not heard it. - . . his pipe out of his mouth and looks down When the two men pass out of sight the road after her. the stillness comes back to the lake Poor soul! he says. Poor, loving the grand silence that is in harmony with soul the giant mountains beyond the clear, blue-green water. In this evening light H. their snowy tops are shadowed by delicate SOME little way beyond the village and greys, and the lower hills are a rich pur- the landing-place, a chalet stands beside pIe; the long range on the other side that the road, screened from the lake by a row follows the course of the lake to the right of trees. In itself it is not very different and goes on behind the river that flows from the other cottages. It is large, how- into it, and the little town of Dort, grows ever, has two rows of green-shuttered darker and darker, and so does the great windows, and has balconies with slender pvraiiiid of rock Just opposite to the place carved rails on each story, made of the where Ehisa staiids gazing. High up on same brown wood as the rest of the house the side of thus huge pyramid are chahets, the roof of course has very deep, project- tiny specks from this distance; a village ing eaves, and in front these would make lies beneath at its foot, hidden by a low a high-pitched gable if the top had not ridge of green hills, and this is the point been flattened; along the edge of this which seems to magnetize the womans gable are carved bargeboards; a flight of gaze. She is as still as the mountains; wooden steps leads up to the lowest bal- her head turned slightly over one shioul- cony. der so that her ear may receive the first There is more than one such chalet sound of the expected steamer. The beside the lake, but not over every one sound has reached her. She turns with does the grape-vine and American creeper a look of sudden happiness that fills fling such luxuriant shoots. These climb- even her eyes to the exclusion of the ers reach the ridge of the roof, they cling dread that hives in thin; and then she lovingly to the topmost balcony, and then comes briskly up the steps. At the top fling themselves down in cascades of she waves one hand to the two gentle- green and gold, flame-color and crimson, men, whio are coming this way again, as that would seem enough of themselves to they smoke their cigars under the vine- satisfy a lover of color, without the orange wreathed pergola. and scarlet of gladiolus and nasturtiums Andm~ is coming, she calls out; there that gleam through them from the win- is the boat. dow-ledges. One side of the roof stretches And as Andr~s mother crosses the out and forms an open shied; here are dusty road to a bit of garden ablaze with stacked freshly chopped logs for burning, a group of gorgeous sunflowers, the two and brush wood crusted with lichens and UNDER THE SNOW. glowing with shrivelled brown leaves, gathered in the skirts of the lofty pine forest that clothes the steep hill behind the chalet. Near is a bundle of chopped broom, on which a handsome black goat is browsing, while a few chickens are picking about, with an anxious mother hen that emblem of domestic worry at their heels. In front of the house a cock and a few brown hens are keenly watched from the balcony by a small grey cat with a bushy tail. The tinkle of the goats bell chimes in merrily with the dock-crowing and the cluck cluck of the hens. This is the chalet which Andr~s fa- ther, Joseph Engemann, built with his perilously earned gains. So much sym- pathy had been felt in the little town of Dort and at Grindelwald when he per- ished on the mountain, that the widow had been able to keep possession of the chalet, and by the sale of her eggs and fruit she had managed to supply her wants. When Andr6 left school, at the end of last winter, he wanted to live at home to help his mother; he said he felt sure he could make the garden yield twice as much as she did, and he could save her all hard work. Elisas heart yearned to have her boy ~vith her, but he was delicate~ and every one told her that if she sent him up to the mountain he would grow strong and hearty; and when the lad found that he could earn wages there he ~vas eager to go. He had come home once for a couple of days, so brown and healthy-looking that his mother had cried for joy when she saw his rosy cheeks and how much he had grown and strengthened. In October he would come home for the winter, for when once snow covered the mountain- top it was no longer a safe abiding-place for either sheep or shepherds. During the winter there would be plenty for Andr6 to do, and in the evenings she thouTht he ~vould have time to read his fathers books, for Joseph Engemann had been very fond of reading. She was not afraid that Andrd would take up with idle ways. One fear she had, but of this she had never spoken. What if he grew to love the mountains as his fatherhadloved them, and became a guide to travellers? When this thought came to her, Elisas heart seemed to stand still as if an icy hand pressed on it, and the strange look of horror filled her eyes. Then she would tell herself this was an idle dream and a selfish one, and sh~ tried to chase it by giving her house an extra LiVING AGE. VOL. XLII 2138 cleaning, though no one else could see that any cleaning ~vas needed; or she would make a little extra soup for some poorer neighbors, by ~vay of sending the phantom to the right-about. The lower balcony went round the house, and on one side a gourd kept fast hold of the carved rails with its tendrils; on the ground below, showing among the light and shade of the huge leaves, were globes of golden, rosy fruit, and one of these had been cut for soup in honor of Andr6s arrival. From the open door on this side the house came a murmur of happy voices, then a peal of merry laugh- ter, in perfect harmony with the soft even- ing sunshine and the bright beauty of the flowers. If the grand tranquillity of the lake and the giant mountains had wanted a gem to brighten them, this chalet would assuredly have fulfilled the part. Inside the bare, spotless room Andr6 and his mother sat side by side on a bench. The boys arm was round her neck and his face was hidden on her shoulder, while he pointed to a heap of stockings in his mothers lap. It was plainly the sight of the stockings that had caused his burst of laughter; he lay nestling his face in her black stuff jacket while his shoulders still shook with merriment. She too was smiling. Fie, then, saucy boy she patted his smooth, fair head with her brown veined hand why does he laugh so at his poor old mother? She is not old; she is, on the contrary, quite young. He got up, and While he kissed her, he tenderly stroked the grey hair which matched so ill with her eyes; then he took up the stockings one by one and examined them. He was only thir- teen, and though he was well grown he had still the charming oval face, clear skin, and limpid dark eyes which one sees in Swiss children, and which so com- pletely deserts them as they grow older. -rhe only fault that could have been found with Andr6 was that his neck ~vas short, so that his head came a little too near his broad shoulders; but he was so active and light in his movements that this was scarcely noticed. Dear little mother! he stood looking at the stockings; did she make you all, and had she the conscience to think that Andr6 could wear you all? You would do for six Andr~s. Naughty little mother to sit knitting all day long, when a walk in the pine wood would do you good. All day long! Bless him, does he really think I spend so much time on 82 UNDER THE SNOW. him? Go along then; the goat and the I had better go back to the moun- chicks would not let me, even if it were in tains, Andr~ said; the air down here me to sit still all day. feels close and heavy. It is nice to be You have not then time to feel lonely, with you, mother, but I could not work so mother? well down here. He spoke carelessly, but the look in He avoided meeting her eyes, but when his sweet, dark eyes made his mothers she spoke the strange hoarseness in her heart throb. She had never talked to voice drew his attention, and he started him about his fathers death. Up, on the when he saw the wild terror in her face. mountains he had learned the sad story Mother, he cried, are you ill? from his brother shepherds, and it often She put out her hand. came back to him when he was alone. Tell me, she said, I had best know He thought the remembrance of it must it, Andr6, what kind of life can you have be very terrible to his mother and she up on the mountains that is not quiet and had so many lonely hours. lonely? But a new idea had been growing in The boy hesitated; he was vexed with Andr~s mind; probably it had been latent himself and with his mother; it had been there, and had only needed the solitude easy to keep thoughts to himself up there and silence of his mountain life to de. among his fellows. At the mountain velop. chalet where he slept he was considered For although the shepherds called to only a merry, light-hearted boy; he kept one another in their pleasant Swiss fash. his confidences for the snow mountains, ion, and travellers sometimes talked to and though these were so far above him, Andr~ as they climbed the mountain, lie used to talk to them, and tell them his there were many solitary hours to be longings to approach them more nearly. lived through on the green pasture. The Andr~ had not counted that the ~varrn p3ramid-shaped mountain was not more glow of homecoming would have the than eight thousand feet high, and did not same effect on the reserve lie habitually therefore offer great attractions to climb- maintained as the sunsliijie had on moun- ers; only a few travellers passed across tam snow, and yet that look in his moth- it during the summer, It was, as Andr6s ers eyes made the secret hopes seem a mother often reminded herself, a safe, crime. He stood hanging his head; all out-of-the-way sheep-pasture. the light had gone out of his face. And yet the fear born with her child You are tired of being on the same never deserted her, and now something in pasture, she said, trying to catch at a his ~vords gave it new power. fragment of hope, as one seeks for a She returned his earnest gaze, and an- glimpse of blue in a threatening sky; swered the thought she shrank from, rather well, then, you must exchange on to the than the question lie had put to her. other side of the Simmenthial; you will Brooding over her sorrow had increased there find an altogether different coun- her natural quickness of perception, for it try. had alienated the outward distractions No, no, he said, it is not the same- which might have confused this percep- ness I feel; sheep are not like cows, little tion by giving her less time for thought. mother; sheep do not stay in one spot till You are lonely, then, my child; you they have eaten up the grass; they stray want a more stirringwhat do I say? here and there, and sometimes they lead a more active life. Well, she went on me up to the very top. Ahi, mother, it is quickly, as she saw that he was trying to a grand look-out I have then; it makes speak, at the cli~teau up yonder, they me long to know what more I could see are wanting a good shepherd to manage from those high snow peaks above. Sure- the beasts they keep down here. Old ly, if one climbed the white mountain Michael is dying, and, besides, he is much herself, one would see to the end of the too old for ~vork. If they would not think world! you too young, the place might suit you His mothers yearning gaze noted the eli, my boy? glow in his face, and her lips moved as if Andr6 got up from the bench; then lie she were echoing his words. She got stood some minutes at the open door, up and turned away, pressing tier hard- looking out, seemingly, at the gourd-vine. worked hands together nervously. His mother ~vaited till he turned round; I must call in the goats, she said; a sickening fear clung about her heart, and she went out. but she ~vould not yield to it, thobgh it In truth, to her also the air had become had made her very pale. choked and heavy; the look on her boys UNDER THE SNOW. 83 face had been a reflection she so ~vell x ecognized. Just so had Joseph her husband looked before he started on one of his perilous journeys, even while his eyes glistened with the sorrow of bidding her farewell. She felt hopeless; to her the life of an Alpine guide me ant only certain death. It seemed to her that Andre must share his fathers fate. It was so ordained, and ~vho was she to set herself up against it? Andre had not followed her. He was so glad to have preserved his secret, that his heart grew light again; and when, after a severe wrestle with herself, his mother came back, she found him as bright and gay as he had been when he reached the chalet by the lake. III. IT was August when Andr~ came down from the mountain to see his mother. It is now the middle of September, about a month before the cattle need come from the hills. But the trees look more like November; incessant rain has swept away the leaves, and the rich red beauty of the creepers is marred by gaps in the foliage. The brown-petalled, sodden- looking sunflowers and dahlia blossoms, that a while ago made a glory of the car- penters little garden, are now only sug- gesti ye of damp and decay, sticking to- getlier in blurred masses. The weather has been strangely cold too, and to-day a heavy mist has hung over the lake, blotting out the mountains. All day long masses of vapor have been rolling over the steep, pine-covered ridge behind the village in huge clouds like the smoke of a battle-field, sweeping more than half-way down the hillside with soft, blurred edges, seeming as if they had let loose the torrents of rain which-have been falling for hours. Hans Christen is a schoolmaster as well as a carpenter. All day long he hammers and saws and works into shape the wood that lies heaped behind his house, and in the evening he goes through much the same process mentally with the dull scholars who come to his class. He considers himself a scholar, and he is weatherwise, but this weather puzzles him, and he is in a mood to prove his wis- dom on some one or other. As he turns from his study of the clouds, lie sees An. dr6s mother walking quickly past his garden; her eyes are half closed, and her head is bent forward; certainly the cold is bitter enough to account for the pace at which she walks; but Hans is always ready to teach, and just now, as has been said, lie feels specially commissioned in this direction. Elisa, he calls otit; Elisa Enge- nian n. Yes, neighbor; but though she stops she does not turn round or hold her head erect, it is bent forward ready for the next step. What ails you? he says severely. Since Andr~ went back you have been keeping yourself away from us all. You have scarcely said a dozen words to me. Let me tell you, neighbor, that such con- duct is unneighborly and unchristian, un- less, indeed, you are hiding soniethiing from us; but even then, he brings down his dirty hand heavily on the low wall that borders his garden, why even then, widow Engemann, you ought to have come to me. I am consulted by every one, and also I am Andr6s godfather. He is confirmed, I grant you, but I have the right to know his errors and misdeeds. The woman turned and faced him; she was smiling. Misdeeds will never be reckoned up against my Andr~, neighbor; if I do not talk as much as I did, put it down to my fault, not to Andr6s. Christen shook his head. You do not deceive me, Ehisa. Trou- ble is written in your face, and you keep aloof because you are trying to keep it to yourself. Ah, well, you may turn your face away. I know, what I know you will have to come to me for counsel by-and. by. She shook her head, and then as he remained silent, she passed on towards her cottage. The woman looks all eyes, said Christen crossly; shes but then its natural, all women are fools, mothers more than any. The boy has got into trouble, and shes trying to hush it up. Ahi, well, he grunted, shell have to come to me in the end. This remark appeased him, and he fell on his pipe ~vitli added vigor, but lie soon found his way indoors, for every moment the air grew colder. Ehisa had thought herself of so little consequence, it had not occurred to her that her silent brooding might give her neighbors offence. Somehow she had grown to feel that if she betrayed it in words, her fear would become a reality, and so she had avoided the chance of revealing it, and had lived alone with the spectre face to face. 84 UNDER THE SNOW. There were times when she almost conquered it. She told herself that she had always known what she dreaded must come to pass. She had been sure from the first that a child born like the edel- weiss at the glaciers edge, cradled so to speak in snow, must feel drawn to the mountain-top as to his native atmosphere; and then she asked herself why she did not yield? Was there not in all this an undercurrent that meant something stronger than her mere will? Was she not selfish in ~vishing to keep her boy from the dangerous life he craved? Af- ter that she had recoiled from this whis- per as from the voice of a tempter. No, it must be her solemn duty to shelter An- dr6 from the terrible fate which had made him fatherless. Now having reached her home, she sat down exhausted, for the icy wind had fastened on her breath as she hurried down the road. Once more this question was importunate. Had she a right to plan Andr6s life to suit hers? ought not her life rather to be sacrificed to him? Her heart felt tortured with keen pain as if indeed a weapon pierced it. 1 cannot yield him. I cannot, she cried; he is all I have to love. That was a night never to be forgotten in the villages beside the lake, or even in Dort, the busy little town on the blue- green river. Old people shivered in their sleep and dreamed they had ague; while those who possessed them, old and young too, drew their thistle-down stuffed coverlets up to their chins, and shrank deep down in bed, wondering why they slept so poorly. To- wards morning, however, there was a general stir in the village; every one had roused at daybreak. Spite of the cold, half-clad men and women l)eeped out at doors and windows, so awful a sound had boomed across the lake. What was it? Elisa asked herself as she looked out. The atmosphere was clearer. The lake looked peaceful and gray, but the moun- tains and even the lowest ridge of the hills were white with snow. As she watched, the huge pyramid opposite, on which Andr~ kept his sheep, began to gleam with silver brightness as the sun sent up light from behind the cloud-veil in which he was rising. A heavy snowfall in September! For a moment, Elisa could not believe her eyes; but there was no use in doubting them The Jungfrau and her giant com rades were now only marked out from the rest by their superior height. Lower Alps which till now had blended in the distant view, showed out separately, the silvery coating defining and giving gran- deur to their peaks. Ehisas eyes were fixed on the huge white pyramid across the lake. Where was Andr6? She went out and hastened to the point, for the view in front of her chalet was somewhat obscured by trees. Presently she heard voices in the garden above. Monsieur Weissembourg was taiking to Hans Chris- ten. I do not say it was an avalanche, he said; but it was a fall of some kind above Schonegg. I am going into town to learn what has happened. Christen said something, but she could not make out the words. Yes, Monsieur Weissembourg an- swered, that is what 1 fear. It seemed to me that the sound came from below the chalets; and in that case he hesi- tated well, she need not be told till we are certain, lie said. No, no, Christen spoke in a hushed, awed voice. Ehisa knew that they were speaking of her, but she also knew that they could not see her. A fear came lest they might prevent the purpose she had so quickly formed. She crept stealthily along the strip of ground between the outhouses and the lake, and then her face blanched, and with tottering knees she leaned against the broken timbers and tried to steady her thoughts. Long ago she had learned to ask God for help but now, when she tried to pray, her words froze on her lips. It had come, thenthe fate she so dreaded for her boy; he lay buried under the snow. She had gone through all this already in thought. Oh, yes, she knew what she had to do. It never occurred to her to bemoan herself or to break down in tears. She sped back to her house, and wrapped herself more ~varmly; then she put some milk and some brandy into a basket with a warm wrap over them, and then she left the chalet and walked on swiftly in the opposite direction from the point. Half a mile of rapid walking brought her to just such another little creek as that at the foot of the grass-grown steps; but here, instead of the broken sheds, there was a bathing-hut with two boats moored beside it. The sun had almost reached the mountain-tops, and the gray of the lake was mottled with exquisite reflec UNDER THE SNOW. 85 tions of the rosy sky. Elisa bent over one of the boats and tried to launch it. At first this was beyond her strength ; but at last it yielded, and she was afloat. The oars were large and very heavy, and her hands were numbed with the intense cold. She was some time in crossing the lake. She secured her boat at the landing- place, and then, panting, yet without any feeling of fatigue, she went up to a group of women who stood talking eagerly to an old man in front of the hotel. There was such a babel of sound that she could not distinguish words. She pushed in be- tween the women and grasped the old mans arm. Tell me, she cried abruptly, what has happened? Did the avalanche fall on this side the mountain? The man opened his mouth and stared in wonder. He was one of the head farmers of the district; his dignity was affronted. By what right did this wild- eyed stranger snatch at his arm and ques- tion him so fiercely? He had never seen her. But Elisa could not wait while he arranged his ideas. She placed herself in front of a woman who stood near. What has happened on the moun- tain? she asked; is it known? The woman was an eager talker; her broad face and black, slit-like eyes kin- dled. Yes, yes, it is known. There has been a snowfall some say a slip of part of the rock on this side, and the chalets up yonder at Oberstalden are buried, and no one kno~vs where the sheep ~vill have strayed to. Do you not hear the cow- bells? They are already bringing down the cows by hundreds. What a winter we shall have! All this fell on Elisas strained hearing as rain falls on a window-pane she heard it, but it did not penetrate to her feelings. She had learned the truth of what she dreaded. There ~vas only one question still to be asked; but as she looked at her eager-tongued neighbor she felt that she would not get an answer from her. Farther on, nearer the chateau, which stands beyond the houses, she saw the diligence; it was ready to start, but its rough-looking driver had not yet mounted to his seat. He was stamping his boots heavily as if his feet were cold, cracking his whip now and then. Elisa knew that this man travelled each day some way up the mountain. He must surely know the truth about what had happened, and she hurried towards him. He left off cracking his ~vhip: her eyes told him that she was in some sore need. At your service, neighbor, he said. What do you want of me? You have been up there to the chalets ? No, but I have heard. He was full of sympathy, for in his youth he, too, had herded cattle on the mountain-side. The Unterstalden chalets are safe, my good woman; the lads only stay to collect the strayed sheep He broke off; the agonized look in her eyes held him fascinated. It was plain that his words had no comfort for her. He was afraid to end his tidings. Go on, she said in a voice that sounded far off. Is it true that the Oberstalden chalets are under the snow? The man bent his head: he was awed by her solemn tone. Then, remembering what he had heard, he took courage. But it was best so, mother. More than two of the Oberstalden lads had come down to a wedding at Wimmis and they were to stay all night. There were but two of the young ones left above, whereas the chalets of Unterstalden were full. And those two are left under the snow at Oberstalden. Again her voice made him start. His blood seemed to chill as he heard it. Nay, he said, I heard but now that a couple of diggers are presently going up the mountain with shovels and ice- axes; but what can they do if Indeed the rock has fallen? Monsieur le Comte has settled how it is to be. Two diggers, did you say? She looked so white that the man thought she must be ill. It is all they can spare, he said; every soul is wanted to seek for the missing sheep. They will perish, else, in the snow Monsieur le Comte has said so. Under the snow, she said mechani. cally, and then turned and walked quickly in the direction of the chateau. Monsieur le Comte, she was saying half aloud to herself, in a strange, impe. rious voice, Monsieur le Comte! What is it to him? He has not a child perish. ing in the snow. She soon reached the old chateau, with its quaint, red-roofed tower and while she waited for an answer to her clamor- ous ringing she had quieted her temper. In a few minutes a man appeared. He 86 UNDER THE SNOW. said in answer to her eager request, that Monsieur le Comte could not see any one. Some important business was about to take him from home, and he could not spare a moment before he went. \Vill he come out thrs way? She stood waiting: she felt as if she were wasting precious moments, and yet, how little she could do alone! Presently she heard wheels grating on the slaty drive, and then Monsieur von Erlach came out ready to step into the carriage which had drawn up in front of the door. He looked round and saw Elisa. XVhat do you want with me, my good woman? and as he met her eyes he seemed to know her errand. Sir, are you going up the mountain? As soon as I can. I must first drive to Dort to get some help; there are sol- diers there who can be spared, our people are so busy with the herds. Elisa flushed and her eyes brightened. But, sir, the boys are perishing in the snow. She spoke roughly, almost fiercely the count thought. Yes, yes, he said. Two men have gone up already. Two men! Listen, sir. One of those boys is my boy, Andr~ the other is an orphan. He has no mother, only you, sir, to care for him. Will you lose so many precious hours before you go to see what can be done on the mountain? I am going there; but, sir, I am weak and ig- norant, the men above ~vill not listen to me. Only such as you, sir, can order what is best to do in such a strait. You will go there; you will come with me now. She spoke ~vith a fire and energy that would have greatly surprised Christen the carpenter, and her eyes told her that she had kindled the zeal of her listener. He was indeed greatly moved. I will go with you, he said. He went into the house and came back with a note, which he gave to his grey- headed servant. You will bid Louis saddle a horse and carry this as fast as he can to Dort. Now, my good friend, he said to Elisa, I will drive you as far as ~ve can go and we will climb together to the chalets. Iv. THE two men had been digging for an hour, yet it seemed as if they made no impression on the enormous mass of snow at which they labored. When it became known that the count had gone up to the chalets some lads who had come do~vn with the cattle followed him, and there were soon almost a dozen at xvork with picks and shovels, but the snow was so hard and deep that it seemed as if they might go on for hours. They had pushed Andr6s mother aside when she asked to help them, but Monsieur von Erlach took a spade and worked with a will. Now and then Elisa walked up and down below them, but the chalets had stood on the exposed side of the mountain, and the snowfall, after overwhelming them, had drifted down on one side, so that only a small space of path ~vas left thinly cov- ered. Lately she had stood still muffled in her shawl watching the dio~ers All at once she moved to the left where the snow lay thickly heaped, and ~vhen Monsieur von Erlach looked up she had passed out of sight. He thought she had gone do~vn to the lower chalets, to which he had already sent a lad to make all ready to receive those they hoped to rescue. The sun was gaining power over the snow on this side, and as Elisa plunged reso- lutely into it she sank to her knees. She tried to go on but this seemed impossi- ble. She felt rooted in the snow. At last, with much effort and long pauses between each step, she struggled forward. As she advanced her footino- became firmer, for she had circled round the vast mound, and on this side the snow had not melted. She had quite lost sight of the diggers, and crouching down she listened. Then a wailing cry sounded over the snow, Andr6, Andr6, I am here. The terrible cry startled the diggers; they looked round them in alarm; the count with some help climbed up to the top of the mound. He saw Andr& s mother lying crouched on the top of the sno~v. What is it? he cried, too much as- tonished to realize the courage and dar- ing which had enabled her to reach the spot where she lay. They are here, monsieur, she said, her eyes glistening with hope. The men waste their labor on that side; the chalet is here, and some one still lives there under the snow. Monsieur von Erlach climbed down till he reached her. You must not stay here, he said. You will perish in the snow, and you can do no good. She gave him a look which puzzled UNDER THE SNOW. 87 him. She was wondering how it could be possible that Andr6 yet lived, if mere contact with the snow was so harmful. Listen! she held up her hand and bent her head. Truly it seemed as if there was a far- off, muffled cry. Monsieur von Erlach still held the shovel ~vith ~vhich he had been working, and with a loud shout he tried to thrust it down in the direction of the sound. Presently he raised his head with a look of relief. The snow is hard below, he said, but I believe it is only snow, the rock has not fallen. No, sir; Elisa rose up and pointed overhead; you can see that from here. Except for the snow the mountain has not changed. And as he followed the direction of her finger he saw that she was riTht. The place where they stood was so altered in aspect that no one would have recognized it. The winding path which had curved outside the flank of the mountain had dis- appeared ~vith the chalets of the herds. men; a new projecting spur in the shape of an enormous snow-hill had taken their place, barring all upward progress, and on one side it spread downward, but above, except that it was whitewith snow, the mountain was unchanged. You must come with me, the count said imperatively. I will bring the men here, but you must come away come, do you hear me? She was stooping down. Now she cried out again, in a wail that sounded strangely sad, Andr~ Andr~, I am here. XVhile she bent down listening for an answer, she was firmly drawn away, car- ried off her feet, and set down again, where the snow lay only a few inches deep on the ground. Then as the count told his news to the men, there rose a hearty shout; they were soon digging rapidly on the spot where Elisa had crouched. She stood ~vaitina she had done what she could, but it seemed terrible that while her darling lay, perhaps dying, she could do nothing. Since that day, when she had fallen insensible at the foot of the snow mountain, where her husband had perished, she had rarely shed tears; some- thing had congealed them. Now she could only stand praying that her boy might yet live her loving Andr6. No one but she knew how good and tender, how self-denying he had been. Clouds had risen, and now they reached the sun and obscured his light, and an icy wind swept round Elisa, but she did not even shiver; she could only think of her boy. The digging went on silently ; it seemed to her the men were digging a grave. How far off it was since her boy had come down to her, and she had seen his hopes, and how he strove against them for fear of grieving her! Oh, how good and loving her Andr~ had ever been to her! He had never wil- fully given her an hour of sorrow, and she what had she done? Because she had yielded to her fear, she had given him a constant secret grief, she had checked the flow of his confidence in her, and she had taught him that his mother exacted the sacrifice of his dearest wish, while in words she lived only for his happiness. And now perhaps the end had come. She could not be sure that the cry she had heard ~vas AndrCs, and presently the men might bring out from under the snow The thought shaped itself with terrible reality; the hard pain at her heart tightened, and then a burst of tears came. How blind she had been, she was able to see it now. What was the use of faith and trust, if she did not think his Father in heaven could better care for Andr6 than she could. She stood silent after this; she gave up even her long- ing to help; she tried to accept that she must yield up her own will, and when the count called out to her to move about or go down to the chalets, or she would get frozen by the wind, she began to hurry backwards and forwards along the narrow ledge on which she stood. Time was slipping by quickly, yet it seemed to her slow-footed. The snow had made all below look monotonous, but as Elisa turned she saw on the white ex- panse dark objects in movement. Soon she made them out to be a body of men climbing up the road by which she had come. Monsieur, Monsieur le Comte, she cried loudly, there is help coming to you.~~ It was, in truth, the party of soldiers for whose help Monsieur von Erlach had sent tocask, and behind them caine Hans Christen. He had evidently been school- ing them as to the manner in which they were to proceed; but when Monsieur von Erlach came forward, Hans stopped short. I am glad to see you, Christen, the count said. You must take care of this 88 UNDER THE SNOW. poor woman, she is cold and weary with watching. Her old friend had not seen her. No~v he pulled off his spectacles, and blew his nose; and then he frowned at her se- verelv. You have given us all a nice fright, Elisa Engemann, he said sternly. Who would have thought a woman ar- rived at your years would run away from home? You made me feel like a fool when I found your cottage empty. A wan smile came over her face. I could not help it, neighbor, I was wanted here, she said quietly, and then she turned back to the snow. Christen caught her by the shoulder. You must come away with me, he said. Did you not hear the count say so just now? What will you be fit for by the time Andr6 is found? Her eyes brimmed over at his words. God bless you, old friend, she sobbed. I will go with you by-and-by. Christen turned away his head; secretly he was as unwilling to leave the place as she was. He tried to get round behind the diggers; but he found the snow too deep, and on this side it seemed to him not hard enough to climb over unaided, although since the sun had disappeared it had been freezing. It grew colder and colder. After half-an-hours ~vaiting, Christen went up to Andr6s mother. Come, neighbor, he said, let us go clown and see that all is ready against he is found. She followed him in silence; turning her head as she xvent she felt that part of her lay under the snow. Elisa turned away from the blazing fire, beside which Christen sat lecturing the lad who had been sent to kindle it. She had seen that all was ready, and now she sat down near the window; her body felt heavy and inert, but she was not sleepy; her faculties were awake and strained in the effort of listening. More than once she had gone outside the hut, but now she had come in again waiting waiting. Yes, it was true what Christen had said to her; when Andrd came his mother must be there to meet him. What was that sound? This time surely it was not as Christen had said just now the wind murmuring in the chimney. The sound came again, a dull, soft tread, and a murmur of voices nearer now nearer still. Elisa looked round; her companions did not hear; the boy stood listening to Christens talk. She could not move; the terrible dread kept her still. Now the dull tread grew more distinct, but. still Christen went on talking. XVhich was real, the woman asked her- self, the man talking there by the fire, or the soft, dull sound on the snow path? Was it, after all, her fancy that had heard it? All at once the sound ceased, and then the spell that kept Elisa still broke. She rose up and opened the door. Outside ~vas Monsieur von Erlach. They are bringing them, he said, in a hushed voice. Then he stood aside, and the soldiers passed him, carrying their burdens into the hut. The snow still lies on the lower moun- tains, but it will be there till spring sun- shine comes to melt it, for winter is everywhere; the trees are leafless, except on the pin e~clothed ridge behind the vil- lage, and though the water of the lake is not frozen over, the river beyond it is a long stretch of ice. It is evening now, and red light gleams here and there from a chalet; but gen- erally the heavy outside shutters are closed, and these keep in the firelight glow. Elis a has just shut the door that leads into the balcony, and she goes back into the room where Andr6 is lying on a sheepskin in front of the fire. The room looks warm in the dim, ruddy light, and the soup-pot over the fire sends out an appetizing smell. Shall I light the lamp? his mother says to And~-~. You will spoil your sight, my boy, if you read by firelight. Andr6 catches at her skirt as she goes to get the lamp. Not yet, little mother, he says; sit down and be idle a while; it is good for you to have a change and help me to be idle. I am to begin work to-morrow. Hans Christen says so. She sits down, and then he rises and kneeling beside her leans his head on her bosom. Mother dear, he says softly, I want to tell you something. She smiles fondly at him. Ever since the day when she was allowed to bring Andrd home exhausted, but alive, it has seemed to Elisa as if life were too full of blessing. She does not talk much to her boy, but her eyes rest on him with loving, contented glances. He has been some weeks in recovering MISS BURNEY S OWN STORY. 89 from his burial under the snow; his poor little comrade was dead, but now Andr~ is as strong as ever; his godfather, Hans Christen, has offered to teach him his trade. Mother, says Andr~, did you guess that I was keeping a secret from you? Elisas heart gives a big throb, and the lad feels it as he leans against her; fora moment the struggle goes on in her heart, for she knows that she has long ago guessed Andr6s secret; and then there comes vividly before her the huge snow hill across the lake, and the lesson she learned as she walked to and fro on the ledge below. You will tell me your secret now, she says timidly; for as she looks at him she feels puzzled, there is such a gleam of mirth in his eves. Andr6 puts both arms round her. Darling mother, he says, you must not be hard on me, I was very childish then, I thought only of myself. I know it was not kind. I used to want to grow up so fast to be. a strong man like father, that I might guide travellers across the glaciers. He felt her tremble, but she kept her face still. He clasped her still closer, and kissed her. Mother, dear, he went on, that is all over now. I told you that while I was lying there under the snow it seemed like years. I went on thinking and thinking more than I ever thought before, and then all at once I left off thinking about myself and poor little Heinrich, and I thought of you instead. This grief will kill her, I said. Precious little mother I she has suffered so sadly; she cannot stand this. And then~ presently I began to see how the mountain life I wanted would have been just as bad a trial to her as this one what do I say? it would have been worse! for it would have given her the anguish again and again. Moth- er, he rose up and took both her hands in his, I knew then for a certainty I could not be happy while you were sad, and I wondered how it was I had been so dull; it all came so clear he paused an instant; then he broke into a merry laugh. You will have me to plague you always now. I mean to be a better car- penter than there is even in Dort before Im as old as neighbor Hans. Andr6s mother strained her boy to her heart as though she would make him grow there, and he felt her hot tears on his neck. From The Contemporary Review. MISS BURNEYS OWN STORY.* AFTER reading Camilla, and liking it less than he cared to say, Horace Wal- pole wrote: This author knew the world and penetrated character before she had stepped over the threshold, and now she has seen so much of it she has little or no insight at all : perhaps she apl)re- hended having seen too much, and kept the bags of foul air that she brought from the Cave of Tempests too closely tied. The criticism was just, however it may have been with the explanation. Time added nothing to Miss Burneys talent; as she felt more, her style only became more and more involved; as the interests of her life thickened, the interest of her books evaporated. During the four years that elapsed between the publication of Cecilia and her appointment at court, she wrote nothing; and, when asked the reason of her silence, she could only an- swer that she supposed she was exhausted. So it was. She had invested her whole stock of original fancy in Evelina and Cecilia, and by the time she had gained experience of real life, she had nothing left to ~vork it up ~vith. It is tempting to go a little in detail into the story 6f this rapid spending of such unusually rich and promising gifts, and to consider whether it might have been avoided by a different course of circumstances. It might, perhaps, have been better for Miss Burneys later work if her first book had received more mod- erate admiration; if it had been read with indifference at Streatham, and Fanny had remained unknown to Johnson save as the second daughter of Dr. Burney, who rarely said more than Yes and No when there was company in St. Martins Street. She might then have written a second novel in the same desultory way in which she wrote Evelina, and, feel- ing less bound to produce something marvellous, she would perhaps have been content with a simpler construction and fewer characters, and material would thus have been saved for the next venture. Or, again, had she written nothing for several years after Evelina, but con- tented herself with seeing the world and reading, then perhaps, when the marriage * Memoirs of Dr. Burney. By his Daughter, Ma- dame DArblay. Three volumes. London: Moxon. Diary and Le/fers of Madame DArbiay- Edited by her Niece- New edition, four volumes. London: Chatto and Windus See Miss Burneys Novels: Lsvmsu Ann, No. KATHARINE S. MACQUOID. 2011, p.3. 90 MISS BURNEYS OWN STORY. of Mrs. Thrale and the death of Johnson account for this singular arrangement, brought the Streatham episode to a nat- which, however, seems sufficiently ac- ural conclusion; when society was begin- counted for by the fact that Charles re- fling to pall upon her, and the importance ceived his first musical instruction from a of providing for future independence to half-brother, ~vho was organist of St. Mar- make itself felt, she might (instead of garets Church, Shrewsbury. Charless going to court) have settled down quietly taste for music showed itself early, and in her fathers house, and made herself there can be little doubt that his father an income by ~vriting one good novelafter left him at Condover with a view to its another out of her mingled intuition and cultivation it ran in the Burney blood to experience. But such speculations are look to the arts rather than to trade or necessarily vain, and it is more profitable business for the means of living. Except to seek the explanation of what puzzled the music he got from his brother, the her contemporaries quite as much as the boy had no regular teaching till he went, inferiority of her later works the ex- at sixteen or seventeen, to the Chester traordinary knowledge of life shown in Free School. But he saw a great deal of the early ones. Her o~vn fear, when she life and character, and stored his memory heard that Mrs. Thrale was reading with odd anecdotes and adventures, which Evelina, ~vas lest that lady should he delighted in after years to relate to his think she had kept very queer company. children. From the terms in which Fanny And,. though nobody put the point quite speaks of these often-told tales of her in that way, the general wonder was how fathers childhood, it is clear that to them a modest and carefully brought up girl she owed much of her power of painting could have written so boisterous a circumstances of which she could have no book. The explanation is found in her personal experience. And here is a be- memoirs of her father: she kne~v the ginning of an autobiography, never com- world by inheritance. For at least three pleted, which, had it appeared as a preface generations before Fanny, the Burney to Evelina, would have ans~vered to family had been making itself at home in everybodys conception of the anonymous a variety of social grades. Her great- author : grandfather, James MacBurney, managed nobody knows how, to get rid of a con Perhaps few have been better enabled to describe, from an actual survey, the manners siderable patrimony, and to sink from and customs of the age in which he lived than the position of a country gentleman of myself; ascending from those of the most property to that of land-steward to the humhle cottagers, and lowest mechanics, to Earl of Ashburnham. His son (Fannys the first nohility, and most elevated person- grandfather) married an actress, and was ages, with whom circumstances, situation, and punished for his indiscretion by being dis- accident, at different periods of my life, have inherited of whatever remained of the rendered me familiar. Oppressed and labori- family fortune. He dropped the Mac, ous husbandmen; insolent and iltiheral yeo- called himself James Burney. By- manry; overgrown farmers; generous and and hospitable merchants; men of business and and-by the father married a maidservant, men of pleasure; men of letters; men of sci- and had a son, who became a dancing- ence; artists; sportsmen and country squires; master. James Burneys first wife dying-, dissipated and extravagant voluptuaries; game- he, too, married again, and this time made sters; amhassadors; statesmen; and even soy- an entirely discreet choice. Mistress ereign princes, I have had opportunities of Anne Cooper was virtuous, clever, beauti- examining in almost every point of view: all ful, and rich ; she enjoyed, moreover, the these it is my intention to display in their re- fame of having been courted by Wycher- spective situations; and to delineate their vir- ley in the last years of his life. Several tues, vices, and apparent degrees of happiness and misery. children, of whom the youngest was Charles (afterwards Dr. Burney), were This fragment, it need hardly be said, born of this marriage; and James Burney is not by Fanny Burney, but by Fannys settled down to the profession of portrait- father. Miss Ellis, in her preface to painting in the tow-n of Chester. Madame Cecilia, hazards an opinion, in opposi- DArblay mentions with astonishment tion to the authorities, that it was not that when the family removed to Chester, from Johnson but from Dr. Burney that they left Charles behind them at Condo- the elaborate pomposities of Madame ver, a village near Shrewsbury, where he DArblays later style came. To me it spent all his childhood and boyhood un- seems that she got them from Dr. John- der the care of an ignorant but kindly son through her father. Charles Burney nurse. She declares herself unable to was an enthusiastic admirer of the Rez,n MISS BURNEYS OWN STORY. 9 bier papers, which were ap~)earing at the time of Fannys birth. Evelina, writ- ten at a time when she was constantly in requisition as her fathers amanuensis, has its share of Johnsonianisms; and that its share is not larger is simply due to the epistolary form in which the book is cast At the time Cecilia was written, when Fanny was under Johnsons direct influ- ence, he had left the Johnsonian style be- hind, and ~vas writing the Lives of the Poets, and reading the proof-sheets aloud at Mrs. Thrales breakfast-table. But if, as I think, it was to her father that Fanny owed the material of her best novels (and assuredly there was no source to which she would more gladly have confessed herself indebted for everything), we may the more readily forgive Dr. Burney for having given a false direction to her ef- forts to iynprove her style. She certainly inherited from him the extraordinary per- sonal charm that made Johnson say, It is natural to love Burney. His friendships descended to her. She adopted his politi- cal convictions and his code of social proprieties. It is difficult to lay ones finger on anything in her whole composi- tion that did not come from him, except, perhaps, the excessive sensitiveness that made the identification of herself and her work a constant puzzle to her friends, and the self-consciousness that resulted from her own sense of the contradiction they involved. While Charles Burney was attending the free school at Chester, Dr. Arne, the popular composer of the day, paid a visit to the town, and, struck by the boys mu- sical talent, persuaded his father to let him accompany him to London on the footing of an apprentice. Dr. Arne was brother to Mrs. Cibber, the actress; and at her house young Burney found himself in a constellation of wits, poets, actors, authors, and men of letters. It was there that some of the friendships began of which we read in the diary of Madame DArblay the brotherly relation with Garrick, the less affectionate, but hardly less close, intimacy with Christopher Smart, the acquaintance with William Mason. Burney was kindly noticed by the poet Thomson, then within a few years of death, and he attached himself admiringly to Dr. Hawkesworth, editor, a little later, of the Adventurer, who had just published a didactic poem on the Art of Preserving Health, of ~vhich I3urney approved both the verse and the sense. At the same time, that magnifi- cent fine gentleman and dilettante, Fulke Greville, was inquiring of his harpsichord- maker whether there ~vas to be found in London a young musician capable of giv- ing instruction in his art, and fit to asso- ciate with a gentleman. The harpsichord- maker replied that he knew many who answered to the description, and one in particular, Charles Burney, who was as fit company for a pFince as for an orchestra. An introduction was arranged, and Gre- ville invited Burney to live with him. Burney hesitated on the ground that the term of his apprenticeship to Arne was not expired; and Greville cancelled the articles by paying down a sum of 300; but Charles Burney began a new life, with Greville for his mentor. It is plain that Greville cared more for Burneys company than for his music. He associated him with all his pleasures, and introduced him to every haunt of fashionable amusement Whites, Brookss, Newmarket, Bath. But through all Burney preserved a re- markable independence; he kept clear of gan~blii~g, and continued to cultivate mu sic with professional devotion. At Wil- bury, Grevilles house in Wiltshire, he first met Samuel Crisp, and began the most sacred friendship of his life, and that in ~vhich his daughter most coin- pletely shared. When Mr. Greville made a runaway marriage with the beautiful Miss Fanny Macartney, Charles Burney gave away the bride, and a year later he stood proxy for the Duke of Beaufort at the baptism of their first child a daughter, who after- ~vards, as Mrs. Crewe, was one of the most active friends of Madame DAr- blays middle life. The Grevilles next planned a tour on the Continent, and wanted Charles to accompany them. But he had fallen in love with Miss Esther Sleepe, a young lady he had met at the house of his half-brother in Hatton Gar- den, and could not bear the thought of leaving her. There was a time of un- comfortable constraint and uncertainty. Miss Sleepe insisted that her lover should not break with his patrons Qn her account, and Burney resigned himself to the separa- tion. But his reluctance was too evident to escape notice and inquiry on the part of the Grevilles; and on their pressing him to explain it, he confessed his attach- ment, and showed them a miniature of Miss Sleepe. Greville, seeing the por- trait of an exceedingly pretty girl, ex- claimed, But why dont you marry her? Burney cried, May I ? and all difficulty vanished. The Grevilles ~vent abroad, and Burney married Esther 92 MISS BURNEY S OWN STORY. Sleepe, and began housekeeping some- where in the City. Madame DArblay describes her moth- er as small and delicate, though not di- minutive in figure, with a face of fine oval outline, light blue eyes, and a rosy hue. Charles Burney met her in a ball-room, and fell in love with her at first sight. But she had other qualities besides those which shine in ball-rooms With no advantage save the simple one of early learning, or rather imbibing, the French language, from her maternal grandfather who was a native of France, but had been forced from his country by the Edict of Nantes, this gifted young creature was one of the most pleasing, well-mannered, well-read, elegant, and even cultivated of her sex. Madame DArblay does not tell us what was the calling of her mothers father, but she mentions that the lovely Esther ~vas born in the city, and not in those dwellings of the hospitable English mer- chants of early days who rix~alled the no- bles in the accomplishments of their progeny, till by mingling in acquirements they mingled in blood. In plain En- glish, Esthers parents were plebeian and poor; and, moreover, her father was a bad character. Her mother, on the other hand, was a good woman, for whom Fan- fly, when her time came, had a peculiar affection and reverence. About a year after his marriage, Charles Burneys health broke down, and he was ordered by his physician to re- move into the country. By the interest of friends, the post of organist to the Royal Borough of Lynn was obtained for him on flatteriig and advantageous terms. And at Lynn, on the 13th of June, 1752, his second daughter, Frances, was born. Madame DAmblays account of the so- ciety of Lynn reminds us that everything does not change in a hundred and twenty years. After speaking of the dulness of the place and her fathers sense of its un- congeniality, she tells how by degrees some interesting and pleasant people sought him out. And then she adds But while amongst the male inhabitants of the town Mr. Bumney associated x\rith many whose understandings, and some few whose tastes, met his own; his wife, amongst the females, was less happy, though not more fas- tidious. She found them occupied almost exclusively in seeking who should be earliest in importing from London what was newest and most fashionable in attire, or in vying with each other in giving and receiving splen- did repasts, and in struggling to make their every rotation become more and more luxu rious. - - - Such almost universally is the in- heritance bequeathed from mother to daughter in small towns at a distance from the metrop- olis, where there are few suspensive (sic) sub- jects or pursuits of interest, ambition, or lit- erature, that can enlist either imagination or instruction into conversation. There were, however, two ladies who made agreeable exceptions to the rule of dulness Mrs. Stephen Allen and Miss Dorothy Young. Mrs. Stephen Allen was the wife of a wine- merchant of considerable fortune, and of very worthy character. She was the most cele- brated beauty of Lynn, and might have been so of a much larger district, for her beauty was high, commanding, and truly uncommon; and her understanding bore the same descrip- tion. She had wit at will; spirits the most vivacious and entertaining; and from a pas- sionate fondness for reading she had collected stores of knowledge which she was always able and nothing loath to display. Miss Young was no less virtuous and cultivated, but she was plain and de- formed. The closest friendship subsisted between these two ladies, and Esther Burney soon made a third in the alliance. Mrs. Allen used to say that it was upon her pattern that she endeavored to form her own character, and Dorothy Young devoted herself to Esthers children, act- ing the part of volunteer nurse whenever there was occasion. Madame DArblay dwells ~vith grateful tenderness on the recollection of her rare unselfishness, and mentions that when her mother came to die, she named Dolly Young to her husband as the best second mother he could give their children. Dr. Burney, however, preferred a pretty wife, and after waiting six years, during which time Mrs. Allen became a widow, he married her instead. But Dolly remained a loved and valued friend. After a residence of nine or ten years in Lynn, during which Mr. Burneys health re-established itself, it became the opinion of his friends that he should re- turn to London. The new start was made in Poland Street. Madame DArblay dwells with especial pride and tenderness on the details of the work, and the pleas- ures and the friendships of the first 3-ear after the return to London. Her fathers reputation as a teacher of music was now at its height, and his time was crowded ~vith profitable engagements. In the sec- ond year her mother died of inflammation of the lungs, and Mr. Burney ~vas left~ with a family of four girls and, two boys. He made up his ijiind to send his girls, MISS BURNEYS OWN STORY. 93 two at a time, to a school at Paris, and, for various reasons, Hester, the eldest, and Susannab, the third daughter, were chosen to go first. Fanny was kept at home, partly on account of a delicate chest, which made her father always fear- ful that she should be carried off, like her mother, by consumption. It was intended that she should go later. But circum- stances changed, and she remained at home altogether, and got, it has always been said, less regular education than any of the sisters. The Garricks were the most intimate friends of the Burneys at this time. Their villa at Hampton was the fathers frequent resort from Saturday to Monday; Mrs. Garricks box at Drury Lane was con- stantly occupied by the Burney children, who watched every new performance of their friend with a sense of personal re- sponsibility; and every part of the house in Poland Street was familiar with the presence of Garrick himself, who was as glad to romp. with the children as to talk with the father, and always ready to act for the entertainment of all or any of the household. During the years spent at Lynn, Burney had lost sight of Mr. Crisp, but a chance meeting now brought them toaether again. Mr. Crisp had passed in the interval through the changes of for- tune and temper that Macaulay has de- scribed in the essay on Madame DAr- blay. After the failure of his play in 1754, he had left London, and fitted him- self up a villa at Hampton, where he purposed to spend the remainder of his life. But finding his income overtaxed by the constant demands his friends made upon his hospitality, he sold the villa, and buried himself in a corner of an old house called Chesington Hall, of which the mas- ter, Christopher Hamilton, was impover- ished like himself. He carefully concealed his hiding-place from all the world, and determined to be a recluse for the rest of his days. The secret was, however, told to Burney, and as there was still one thing music for which Mr. Crisp thought it worth while to stay in London du.rin~ several weeks of every year, the friends were in no danger of losing one another again. Whenever Mr. Crisp ~vas in town, he almost lived at the Burneys house, where the children called him Daddy, and loved him almost as much as their real father. Later on, Mr. Hamilton died, and his sister turned Chesington into a boarding-house, of which Mr. Crisp was a constant inmate. His sister, I\Jrs. Gast, also came to live there; and a certain Miss Kitty Cooke, who was niece to Miss Hamilton, took a practical part in the housekeeping. A closet in Mr. Crisps apartment was set aside for Dr. Burney, who used it as a country retreat, and Fan- ny, who was always Mr. Crisps favorite, was a frequent guest at the house. Miss Kitty Cooke was the kindest of hostesses to her. She was a lady of much home- lier type than most of Fannys friends, and when Evelina was astonishing the literary world, her simple criticisms amused the author considerably, and sometimes proved more helpful than those of the learned. When Burney married Mrs. Allen, which he did secretly in order to avoid gossip, Mr. Crisp found a snug farmhouse on Chesington Common, with- in a mile and a half of the Hall, for the pair to pass their honeymoon in. It is pleasant to be explicitly told by Madame DArblay that this marriage was entirely agreeable to the youn~er members of both families, and to find Burneys old friends gathering in unbroken circle round the new mistress of his house. Burneys second marriage took place in 1767. In 1769 lie took his degree as doctor of music at Oxford. A little later lie began to think seriously of ~vriting a history of music; and, in order to collect material, lie started in June, 1770, for a tour through France and Italy. From the month of June, 1770, to that of Jan- uary, 1771, says his dau~liter, the life of Dr. I3urney is narrated by himself in his Tour to Franqe and Italy It was during these months of her fathers ab- sence that Fanny began to put into shape the story of Evelina. She had long indulged a habit pf desultory and secret writing, and, as everybody knows, a cher ishied MS., called the History of Caro- line Evelyn, was burnt in her fifteenth year, when a resolution was taken to write no iiiore. But the ~vriting iml)ulse was strong, and, by-and-by, she could not re- frain from jotting down the adventures of Caroline Evelyns daughter. While her father was abroad, she wrot.e much of this new history in a scrappy and disconnected way. But on his return she had to put away her own work and help in his. For several months she was almost continually engaged in writing, from his dictation and notes, the record of his tour. This done, Dr. I3urney started on a second tour through Germany and the Netherlands, and Fanny was once more mistress of her time and pen. Some changes of resi- dence were taking place at this time. First the house in Poland Street was 94 MISS BURNEYS OWN STORY. given up for a larger and pleasanter one sang the praises of Mrs. Thrale very in Queen Square. But there were diffi- heartily in St. Martins Street. With culties about the titles of the new house, Johnson he had long had a slight ac- and a second move became necessary. quaintance, which now quickly ripened It was then that the house in St. Martins into warni friendship. Street was purchased. The situation, Out of many pages tempting to tran- judging by Madame DArblays account, scribe, I choose Fannys accotint of the was not pleasanter then than it is now, first visit of Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale But it had its compensations. It was de- to her fathers house. In all the diary I lightful to Dr. Burney to know that it had do not think there is anything quite so been lived in by Sir Isaac Newton, and it good as the clear cutting of this first im- was a recommendation to all the family pression of the group of which she was that it was near to Sir Joshua Reynoldss soon to be a distinguished member: house in Leicester Square. The change from Queen Square to St. Martins Street was made while Dr. Burney was in Ger- many, and there was an interval during which Mrs. Burney and the daughters lived at Lynn and at Chesington. At Chesington, Fanny finished the rouTh writing of Evelina. Dr. Burneys sec- ond return from the Continent was fol- lowed by a severe rheumatic illness, which made him more than ever dependent on his daughters. And until the end of the year 1774, when the first volume of the History of Music was completed, Fan- ny had no time to herself. But while she worked for her father and saw her hand- the writino- turnii into print, idea gvw upon her that her story would look well in print also, and as soon as she ~vas free she determined to copy it in feigned hand, so as to escape recognition by the printers, and offer it to Dodsley. Dods- ley declined even to look at the anony- mous MS., and it was offered to Mr. Lowndes, of Fleet Street, who purchased it for the sum of 20. Some excellent letters from Fanny to Mr. Crisp, written at this time, and printed in the memoirs of Dr. Burney, give a vivid picture of the animated family and social life in the midst of which the publication of Evelina was secretly arranged. Her great themes are the visits of Garrick, the concerts at her fathers house, the beginnings of the Streatham acquaintance. She knew Streatham well by report before she was introduced there as the author of the best novel since Smollett. Her father had been invited in the course of x~~6 to teach harmony to Miss Thrale. The les- sons, as lessons, were a failure, for music ~vas not very much cared for in the house, and Mrs. Thrale, who found Dr. Burney excellent company, used to interrupt her dauThters studies to discuss literature and politics with the tutor; and Dr. Bur- ney, after a brief resistance, resigned himself to the pleasant irregularity, and We were all by we I mean Suzette, Char- lotte, and Ifor my mother had seen him before, as had my sister Burney; but we three were all in a twitter, from violent expectation and curiosity for the sight of this monarch of books and authors. Mrs. and Miss Thrale came long before Lexiphanes. Mrs. Thrale is a pretty woman still, though she has some defect in the mouth that looks like a cut or scar; but her nose is very handsome, her complexion very fair; she has the enl~onpoint c/uzrrnanz, and her eves are blue and lustrous. She is extremely lively and chatty, and showed none of the supercilious or l)edantic airs so freely, or, rather, so scoffingly, attributed by you envious lords of the creation to women of learning or celebrity; on the contrary, she is full of spirit, remarkably gay, and extremely agreeable. I liked her in every- thing except her entrance into the room, which was rather florid and flourishing, as who should say, Its I !no less a person than Mrs. Thrale! However, all that ostentation wore out in the course of the visit, which lasted the whole morning; and you could not help liking her, she is so very entertaining though not simple enough, I believe, for quite winning your heart. Miss Thrale seems just verging on her teens. She is certainly handsome, and her beauty is of a peculiar sort; fair, round, firm, and chern- bimical, with its chief charm exactly where lies the mothers failure, namely, in the mouth. She is reckoned cold and proud; but I believe her to be merely shy and reserved; you, how- ever, would have liked her, and called her a girl of fashion, for she was very silent, but very observant, and never looked tired, though she never uttered a syllable. The sisters, Hester and Susan, play a duet, very nervously at first, but with gathering courage as they realize that the visitors are not critical. Fanny is in a t~vitter, twitter, twitter, to see Dr. John- son, who arrives in good time: Dr. Johnson was announced! Every- body rose to do him honor, and he returned the attention with the most formal courtesy. My father then, having welcomed him with fhe warmest respect, whispered to him that music was going forward, which he would not, my MISS BURNEYS OWN STORY. 95 father thinks, have found out; and placing him on the best seat vacant, told his daughters to go on with the duet, while Dr. Johnson, in- tently rolling towards him one eyefor they say he cannot see with the othermade a grave nod, and gave a dignified motion with one hand, in silent approvance of the pro- ceeding. But now, my dear Mr. Crisp, I am mortified to own, what you, ~vho always smile at my en- thusiasm, will hear without caring a straw for, that he is, indeed, very ill-favored! Yet he has naturally a noble figure: tall, stout, grand, and authoritative; but he stoops horribly; his back is quite round; his mouth is continually opening and shutting, as if he were chewing something; he has a singular method of twirl- ing his fingers and twisting his hands; his vast body is in constant agitation, see-sawing back- wards and forwards; his feet are never a mo- ment quiet, and his whole great person looked often as if it were going to roll itself, quite voluntarily, from his chair to the floor. His dress, considering the times, and that he had meant to l)ut on all his best becomes for he was engaged to dine with a very fine party at Mrs. Montagues was as much out of the comn~on road as his figure. He had a large, full, bushy wig, a snuff-color coat, with gold buttons (or, peradventure, brass) but no ruffles to his doughty fists, and, not, I sup- pose, to be taken for a Blue, though going to the Blue Queen, he had on very coarse black worsted stockings. He is shockingly near-sighted; a thousand times more so than either my Padre or myself. He did not even know Mrs. Thrale till she held out her hand to him, which she did very engagingly. After the first few minutes he drew his chair close to the pianoforte, and then bent down his nose quite over the keys to examine them, and the four hands at work upon them, till poor Hetty and Susan hardly knew how to play on for fear of touching his 1)hiZ; or, which was harder still, how to keep their countenances. When the duet was finished, my father in- troduced your Hettina to him, as an old ac- quaintance, to whom, when she was a little girl, he had presented his Idler. His answer to this was imprinted on her pretty face not a half touch or a courtly salute, but a good, real, substantial, and very loud kiss. Everybody was obliged to stroke their chins that they might hide their mouths. Beyond this chaste embrace, his attention was not to be drawn off two minutes longer from the books, to which he now strided his way, for we had left the drawing-room for the library on account of the pianoforte. He Pored over them, shelf by shelf, almost brush- ing them with his eyelashes from near exam- ination. At last, fixing upon something that happened to hit his fancy, he took it down, and, standing aloof from the company, which he seemed clean and clear to forget, he began, without further ceremony, and very compos- edlv, to read to himself, and as intently as if he had been alone in his own study. In January, 1778, Evelina appeared. One morning Mrs. Burney read aloud at breakfast the newspaper announcement of the publication, and passed straight on to other topics ~vithout observing the blushes of Fanny, or the smiles of Susan and Charlotte. Dr. I3urney, though he knew that his daughter had written a book and thought of publishing it, had never heard the name of the work, and, as Fanny herself conjectured, had very likely forgotten the whole affair. For five months, during which she nursed her father through an illness, and then fell ill herself, she heard nothing of the fate of her book. But in the sixth month, when she was away at Chesington, news the most delightful came to her. First, Char- lotte wrote that Dr. Burney had come home one day, and asked eagerly for a certain copy of the Mon/lily Review, which contained an eulogistic notice of Evelina. Then Susan sent a letter, which might be Fannys own, so like is it in form and style, telling all the details of a conversation at Streatham, in which, in Dr. Burneys hearing, Johnson had uro-ed Mrs. Thrale to get Evelina at once, because Mrs. Cholmondeley was recom- mending it all over the town, and had actually made Burke and Sir Joshua read it. And before long Dr. B urney found time to run down to Chesington, and make his daughter quite happy by saying, I have read your book, Fanny! but you need not blush at it, it is full of merit, it is really extraordinary! Next the secret was told to Mrs. Thrale, and her charm- ing letter of congratulation made part of the next packet from home. Mr. Crisp had read the book through before he was told who the author was; but when he knew, his praises were as cordial as any. As soon as Fanny went home, she paid her first visit to Streathain, and wrote her Daddy Crisp such a minutely detailed history of it as lie loved to receive from her. Everything is described, beginning with the fidgets she suffered as they drove along the dusty road and she tried to realize what her reception would be. In time the white house came in sight, standing in its fine paddock. Mrs. Thrale, strolling in the garden, saw her visitors, and came to them as they got down from the chaise. Ab she cried, I hear Dr. Burneys voice. And you have brought your daughter? Well, now, you are good. She then received me, taking both my hands, and, with mixed politeness and cordiality, wel- coming me to Streatham. She led me into 96 MISS BURNEY S OWN STORY. the house, and addressed herself almost wholly for a few minutes to my father, as if to give me an assurance she did not mean to regard me as a show, or to distress or frighten me by drawing me out. Afterwards she took me up- stairs, and showed me the house, and said she had very much wished to see me at Streatham, and should always think herself much obliged to Dr. Burney for his goodness in bringing me, which she looked upon as a very great favor. But though we were some time together, and though she was so very civil, she did not hint at my book, and I love her much more than ever for her delicacy in avoiding a subject which she could not but see would have greatly embarrassed me. By-and-by, Mrs. Thrale went to dress, and left her in the library ~vhere the books were that Johnson ~vas given a hundred pounds to buy, and the portraits that Sir Joshua had painted all familiar to Fanny in advance. But the great event of the day was the clinnera noble dinner, and an excellent dessert. Soon after they were seated, Johnson came in. She was formally presented to him, and he took the chair beside her. Almost at once the battery of playful gallantry opened upon her. Johnson asked ~~hat was in some pies that Mrs. Thrale did not offer him: Mutton, answered she: I dont ask you to eat any, because I know you despise it. No, madam, no, I despise nothing that is good of its sort; but I am too proud now to eat of it. Sitting by Miss Burney makes me very proud to-day. He drinks her health and Miss Thrales, and laments that we cannot wish young ladies well, without wishing them to be- come old women. It is suggested that some people are old and young at the same time, for they wear so well that they never look old. Johnson contra- dicts laughingly, No, no, that never ~vas you might as ~vell say they were at once tall and short. He quotes an epitaph to the point; Mrs. Thrale caps his quotation ~vith French verses ; he ex- tinguishes her French with Latin. They remember an epilogue of Garrick, and pass on to discussion of the actor, and how he ~vears. And so from one thing to another, till Johnson tells, as an instance of gross manners, how a lady~vith whom he once travelled called for a pint of ale at an inn and quarrelled with the ~vaiter for not giving full measure: Now, Ma- dame Duval could not have done a grosser thing! Oh! [says Fanny] how everybody laughed! and to be sore I did not glow at all nor munch fast, nor look at my plate, nor lose any part of my usual composure. After dinner, when Mrs. Thrale and I left the gentlemen, we had a con- versation, that to me could not but be delight- ful, as she was all good humor, spirits, and amiability. However, I shall not attempt to write more particulars of this day, than which I have never known a happier, because the chief subject that was started and kept 01) was an invitation for me to Streatham, and a desire that I might accompany my father thither next week, and stay with them some time. II. FANNYS second visit to Streatham fol. lowed very soon upon the first, and from this time (August) to the end of the 3-ear she was pretty constantly with the Thrales. Every page of the diary of this period teems with the names of distinguished people to whom she was introduced, and ~vith the compliments they paid her. One is tempted to linger over one anecdote after another, to quote from every con ver- sation, to repeat once more every scrap of the brilliant gossip. But that is impossi- ble, and by no means necessary. Those who do not know these things already, and who want to know them, must read them for themselves in the Diary. My extracts hitherto have been almost all from the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, of which book Macaulay has said that its style is the worst known among men, and that to read it must ever be a painful task. Under these circumstances, its chances of getting read at the present day are small, and there is therefore an excuse of quot- ing freely from it, which does not avail in the case of the Diary and Letters. Moreover, it is Miss Burneys own story that I wish to follow, and the thread of this is best kept by avoiding the pages that record her triumphs in society; and attending to the progress of her work and to her relations with her intimate friends. Mr. Crisp, who always watched over her paternally, wrote to her in November to remind her of the importance of turning her talent as quickly as possible to solid account : When you know the world half so well as I do, you will then be convinced that a state of independence is the only basis on which ta rest yotir future ease and comfort. You are now young, lively, gay. You please, and the world smiles upon youthis is your time. Years and wrinkles in their due season (perhaps at- tended with want of health and spirits) will succeed. You will then be no longer the same Fanny of 1778, feasted, caressed, admired, with all the soothing circumstances of your pre~ent situation. The Thrales, the Johosons, th~ Sewards, Cholmondeleys, etc., etc., who are MISS ]3URNEYS OWN STORY. 97 now so high in position, and might be such powerful protectors as almost to insure success to anything that is tolerable, may then them- selves be moved off the stage. I will no longer dwell on so disagreeable a change of the scene; let me only earnestly urge you to act vigorously (what I really believe is in your power) a dis- tinguished I)art in the present one now while it is yet day, and before the night cometh, when no man can work. Fannys answer was that she was al- ready at work upon a play, that being the kind of composition her new friends thought she had most talent for. In the beginning of 1779 she was at home for some time; and we find her unhappy about an allusion to her as the dear little Burney in a satirical poem entitled Warley. No harm was said of Fanny, but the pamphlet ~vas extremely coarse in tone, and it was naturally painful to her to have her name connected with it, and the phrase that expressed Dr. Johnsons affection for her dragged through the mud. The chief, lasting interest of the affair lies, however, in the characteristic letter of consolation it drew from Mrs. Thrale, one passage of which I must quote here as an act of justice. After a great deal of excellent sense and kind- ness, and some friendly remonstrance with Fanny on her sensitiveness and self- consciousness, Mrs. Thrale pulls herself up in this way: But I see you saying, Why, this is Mrs. Selwyn without her wit. Very well, madam, dont you be Lady Louisa ~vithout her quality. Now, Miss Ellis has lately cited, as evidence of Mrs. Thrales insincerity, a satirical pas- sage from that ladys journal, in which Fanny is called the Lady Louisa of Leicester Square, and the dignity of the music-masters daughter is made fun of. It seems to me to make a difference that the comparison had already been used, and the satire hinted, in a most affection- ate and most frank letter to Fanny herself. No one can dispute that the extraordinary candor of Mrs. Thrales note-book often offends against good taste, but unless ~ve are to assume that Madame DArblay was perfect, I cannot see that there is any. thing said of her in Thraliana that jus- tifies the charge of insincerity. Quite in the begirrriing of their acquaintance Mrs. Thrale had remonstrated with Eanny in conversation upon her over-sensitiveness. And, apart from this business of the l)ampl)let, ~vhich was really disagreeable, it is easy to read, through Fannys own lines, that into this sensitiveness there entered elements of social exclusiveness LIViNG AGE. VOL. XLII. 2139 and personal consequence which might fairly amuse Mrs. Thrale, whose own fault was to care too little for the dignity of her position. She had as good a right to laugh at Fannys excess of dignity, as Fanny had to mourn over her want of dignity. Neitherabstained from criticism of the other, but Mrs. Thrale, quite as much as Fanny, invariably wrote her warmest praises of her friend in the next line of the same private page on which she found fault. They were women of very unlike types. That Mrs. Thrale had great faults nobody has ever doubted, for first among these was a total want of dis- cretion, which laid her whole character bare. That Miss Burney had faults is not so readily believed, or so easily proved, because foremost among her virtues was a great discretion that kept a guard upon all her words and ~vays. Still, when Mrs. Thrales candid journal has once set us on their track, it is not very difficult to discover what were the little weaknesses that kept Miss Burney human. And it seems to me far less to her discredit to accept both sides of Mrs. Thrales ac- count of her, than to turn all that is not praise against Mrs. Thrale, and so reduce ourselves to the necessity of supposing that Fanny was throughout the dupe of her friends flattery. For if Mrs. Thrales praises ~vere not sincere, that is what it come to. She must have been so very insincere that it was discreditable alike to Fannys head and heart to have ever loved her, and monstrous to talk, as Madame DArblay did, even long years after their intimacy ceased, of her extraordinary virtues.~~ Soon after the Warley trouble, Fan- ny was again at Streatham, writing to Mr. Crisp: The kindness and honors I meet with from this charming family are greater than I can mention; sweet Mrs. Thrale hardly leaves me for a moment, and Dr. Johnson is another Daddy Crisp to me. A little later she tells him that her play is progressing, but that she is keeping it very secret, because she can- not confide in one friend without offend- ng many, and she cannot confide in all without having the thing read by the whole town before it is acted. Mrs. Mon- tague, Mrs. Greville, Mrs. Crewe, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mrs. Cholmondeley, and many inferior etc.s, all think they have an equal claim to be counsellors. After this she went with the Thrales to Brighton, ~vhere they passed their time most delectably, and she began to at- tach herself to Mr. and Miss Thrale, who 98 MISS BURNEY S OWN STORY. at first did not altogether charm her. On their return to Streatham, Mr. Thrale had a paralytic seizure, and a gloom fell upon the house where everything had hitherto looked so bright. Fannys play was fin- ished by August of this year, and sub- mitted to the judgment of her father and Mr. Crisp. They could not advise her to publish it, and she took her disappoint- ment in excellent part, writing to her father What my Daddy Crisp says, that it would be the best policy, but for pecuniary advan- tages, for me to write no more, is exactly what I have always thought since Evelina was published. But I will not now talk of putting it in practice, for the best way I can take of showing that I have a true and just sense of the spirit of your condemnation, is not to sink sulky and dejected under it, but to exert myself to produce something less repre- hensible. In the autumn she was again with the Thrales at Brighton and Tunbridge Wells; and in the spring of 1770 she sl)ent three months with them at Bath, from which place she wrote to Mr. Crisp You make a comique kind of inquiry about my incessant and uncommon engagements. Now, my dear daddy, this is an inquiry I feel rather small in answering, for I am sure you expect to hear something respectable in that sort of way, whereas I have nothing to enumer- ate that commands attention, or that will make a favorable report. For the truth is, my un- common engagements have only been of the visiting system, and my incessant ones only of the working party; for perpetual dress re- quires perpetual replenishment, and that replen- ishment actually occupies almost every mo- ment I spend out of company. Fact! fact ! I assure you, however paltry, ridiculous, or inconceivable it may sound. Caps, hats, and ribbons make, indeed, no venerable appearance upon paper, no more do eating and drinking; yet the one can no more be worn.without being made, than the other can be swallowed without being cooked; and those who can neither pay milliners nor keep scullions, must either toil for themselves or go capless and dinnerless. So if you are for a high-polished comparison, Im your man! Now, instead of furhelows and gewgaws of this sort, my dear daddy probably expected to hear of duodecimos, octavos, or quartos! HJias! I am sorry that is not the case, but not one word, no, not one syllable, did I write to any purpose, from the time you left me at Streatham till Christmas, when I came home. A l)anic, occasioned by the Lord George Gordon riots, brought the Bath visit to a sudden conclusion in the beginning of June. The Thrales returned to Brighton, and Fanny went home. The correspond- ence between Mrs. Thrale and Miss Bur- ney, during this separation, is affectionate and full; but there are indications, in the journals of both, that their intercourse while at Bath had had its petty jars. Mrs. Thrale was anxious about her hus- bands health, and generally harassed and irritable. She was critical about Fanny while Fanny was with her, but eager for her return as soon as she ~vent away from her. Fanny knew some of her troubles, and administered what consolation she could by letter; of other troubles she may not have known any way they were of a nature not to admit of open sympa- thy. But before long they were together again at Streatham, to the satisfaction of both; and Mr. Crisp, who considered that Fanny had had enough of flatter- ing idleness, could only get her away by coming himself to fetch her. She re- mained at Chesington, working steadily at Cecilia, till the beginning of 1781, when she was called home to assist in the preparations for the ~vedding of her sister Susan; and immediately Mrs. Thrales invitations began again. But Dr. Burney made a stand against them, and did what he could to keep Fanny at work. Upon which she wrote to Mrs. Thrale I think I shall always hate this book, which has kept me so long away from you, as much as I shall always love Evelina, who first comfortably introduced me to you. And Mrs. Thrale wrote in her diary What a blockhead Dr. Burney is to be always sending for his daughter home so! What a monkey! Is she not better and h~tppier with me than she can be anywhere else? Johnson is enraged at the silliness of their family con- duct. I confess myself provoked excessively, but I love the girl so dearly, and the Doctor too for that matter, only that he has such odd notions of superiority in his own house, and will have his children under his feet forsooth, rather than let em live in peace, plenty, and comfort anywhere from home. If I did not provide Fanny with every wearable every wishable, indeedit would vex me to be served so; but to see the impossibility of com- pensating for the pleasures of St. Martins Street makes me at once merry and mortified. It was in the spring of this year that Mr. Thrale died. Though Mrs. Thrale had never pretended to love heuhusband in any romantic sense, or to fancy herself so loved by him, she felt keenly the loss of her oldest friend, and Fanny never doubted the sincerity of her grief. She replied very tenderly to the little note that bade her write to me, pray for me,~ and held herself ready to go to her as MISS BURNEY~S OWN STORY. soon as her company should be desired. Through the summer she was constantly with Mrs. Thrale; but in October Mr. Crisp interfered once more, and got her to Chesington, where she settled down to Cecilia again. From this time she appears to have worked industriously, refusing invitations, so that she might live almost alone with Cecilia, until the book ~vas finished in June, 1782. Her first festivity, after finishing her task, was the dinner, at Sir Joshuas house on Rich- mond Hill, where she met Burke. She has described the occasion at length, both in the Diary and the ivlemoirs. Of Burke himself she wrote to her sister Susan, now Mrs. Philips Captain Philips knows Mr. Burke. Has he or has he not told you how delightful a creature he is? If he has not, pray, in my name, abuse him without mercy; if he has, pray ask him if he will subscribe to my account of him which herewith shall follow: He is tall, his figure is noble, his air commanding, his address grace- ful; his voice is clear, penetrating, sonorous, and powerful; his language is copious, various, and eloquent; his manners are attractive; his conversation is delightful. Since we lost Gar- rick, I have seen nobody so enchanting. Burke had already paid her the compli- ment of sitting up all night to read Eve- lina; before long he was devoting three whole days to Cecilia, and writing the letter of fine praise that now makes part of the introduction to the novel. Gibbon ~vas also of the Richmond party, but he was so completely eclipsed by Burke that Miss Burney could remember nothing to record of him. The success of Cecilia left nothing to desire. Those who had admired Ev- elina admired its successor more. Those who had feared a second venture, after a first hit of such rare effect, were satisfied that Fannys talent was ~vell rooted. Her publisher paid her a handsome sum, and the measure of her own and her friends content ~vas full. But the close of this year was clouded over by the uncomfort- able feelings to which Mrs. Thrales at- tachment for Piozzi gave rise. Fanny stayed with her at Brighton in the au- tumn, and received her confidences, but could not give sympathy or approval. Johnson ~vas at Brighton also, and she found him extremely irritable and over- bearing; so much so, that people were pointedly excluding him from parties to which Mrs. Thrale and her other guests were bidden. To me only is he now kind, wrote Fanny; poor Mrs. Thrale fares worst of all. The spring brought 99 a ne~v trouble in the death of Mr. Crisp. Then Johnson had a paralytic stroke, and anxiety on his account cast a gloom over the ~vhole circle of her acquaintance. She still went to the usual houses, and met distinguished people, but she had no spirit to enjoy herself. In the beginning of 1778 she wrote I have lately spent a great deal of time at home4 for I have now a little broke my father into permitting my sending excuses; and, in- deed, I was most heartily tired of visiting, though the people visited have been among the first for talents in the kingdom. I can bo no- where with pleasure or spirit, if I meet not somebody who interests my heart as well as my head, and I miss Mrs. Thrale most woe- fully in both particulars. - . - The heart- fascination of Mrs. Thrale, indeed, few know; but those few must confess, and must feel, her sweetness to them is as captivating as her wit is brilliant to all. In May, Mrs. Thrale came to London, and Fanny devoted almost the whole of a week to her, whose society was truly the most delightful of cordials to me, however at times mixed ~vith bitters the least palatable. So things went on till August, when the long-debated marriage became an accomplished fact, and Mrs. Piozzi wrote to ask for congratulations from Fanny and her father. Dr. Burney, like a w-ise man, seeing the thinct was done, pocketed his objections, and cor- dially wished her joy. Fanny felt that her plain-spoken opposition before the event made this course impossible to her; and wrote what she felt. Mrs. Piozzi was hurt, and Fanny wrote again in ore sympa- thetically; and with this second letter the friendship of the two women practically ended. For several years they neither met nor ~vrote; then accident brought them together again, and from that time to 1821, when Mrs. Piozzi died, they held an intermittent intercourse, dependent upon chance circumstances.. Each con- sidered the other answerable for the breach, which both regretted; but neither saw her way to returning to the old rela- tions, and it is easy to see that such a return ~vas iml)ossible. If Mrs. Piozzis marriage had been in truth the criminal act one might 5U~~O5~ from the tone her friends took about it, she might have re- pented and been reconciled to her judges. But as it was only an inexpedient step, of which the inexpediency arose from the fact that it involved a loss of respect in the world to which her judges belonged, she could not accept their forgiveness without suffering a much more serious 100 MISS BURNEY S OWN STORY. loss of dignity than she incurred by mar- rying the singer. Through this marriage, the Burneys lost, not only Mrs. Thrales society, but much of Dr. Johnsons. His irritability on the subject was so great that Fanny and her father kept out of his way in order to avoid hearing his bitter condemnations of their old friend. But Johnson could not do long without his little Burney, and he wrote to rebuke her for her neg- lect. She came at once to see him, and was ~velcomed as the dearest of all dear ladies. And for the few remaining months of his life she was with him fre- quently. III. WITH the winter of 1784, closed the most brilliant period of Fanny Burneys life. The death of Johnson was the last of a series of losses and changes that had been gradually breaking up the circle of congenial friendships under whose protec- tion she had enjoyed her first honors. It is with an uncomfortable sense of having passed into a strange wor Id that one opens the volume of the Diary that begins the new life, without Mr. Crisp, without Dr. Johnson, without Mrs. Thrale. Burke, too, though his friendship to Fan- ny and her father ~vas constant and active to the end of his life, was for a time prac- tically lost to their society, through his absorption in the labors of the Warren Hastings prosecution. But as the old circle melted away, a new one formed itself. Fanny was becoming intimate with the Locks, of Norbury Park, and spending much time in the company of Id rs. Delany. She made the acquaint- ance also of Warren Hastings and his wife, and was fascinated by both. Other friends of this time were Mr. and Mrs. Smelt,* through whom, as well as through Mrs. Delany, the way was qui- etly preparing for her court appointment. It was through Mrs. Delanys praises that she first became known to Queen Charlotte, who conceived the desire to have her about her, from seeing how much she possessed the gift of making her friends love her. There are very lively and elaborate descriptions in the Diary of some interviews with the king and queen that took place in the course of Fannys first visit to Mrs. Delany, after that ladys establishment at Windsor. Fanny was much flattered by the conde- Mr. Smelt had been sub-governor to the Prince of Wales. scension of the royal personages and en- tertained by their conversation ; and she amused herself afterwards with ~vriting to her sister some burlesque rules of court etiquette Directions for cougAing, sneezing, or moving before the King and Queen. In the first place you mu St not cough. If you find a cough tickling in your throat, you must avert it from making any sound; if you find yourself chok- ing with the forbearance, you must choke but notcough. In the second place, you must not sneeze. If you have a vehement cold you must take no notice of it; if your nose-mem- hranes feel a great irritation, you must hold your breath if a sneeze still insists upon making its way, you must oppose it by keeping your teeth grinding together; if the violence of the repulse breaks some blood-vessel, you must break the blood-vessel but not sneeze. In the third place, you must not, upon any ac- count, stir either hand or foot. If, by chance, a black pin runs into your head, you must not take it out. If the pain is very great, you must be sure to bear it without wincing ; if it brings the tears into your eyes, you must not wipe them off; if they give you a tingling by running down your cheeks, you must look as if nothing was the matter. If the blood should gush from your head by means of the black pin, you must say nothing about it, etc. In the spring of 1786 she paid a second visit to Windsor with her father, ~vho was soliciting the place of masterof the kings band. They were advised to waylay the king and queen upon the terrace, and they did so; but the result was not quite satfsfactory: My dear father was not spoken to, though he had a bow every time the King passed him and a courtesy from the Queen. But it hurt him, and he thought it a very bad prognostic; and all there was at all to build upon was the graciousness shown to me, which, indeed, in the manner I was accosted, was very flattering, and, except to high rank, I am told, very rare. On their return home they learned that the place had been given to another man, upon which Miss Barney remark~, This was not very exhilarating. Within a month of this fruitless visit of solicitation, the office of keeper of the queens robes was offered to Miss Bur- ney. Writing to a friend while the ques- tion of accel)tlng or refusing was still ol)en, she states the situation and her own feelings about it fully: You cannot easily picture to yourself the consternation with which I received this inti- mation. . . . I frankly told Mr. Smelt that no situation of that sort was suited to my otvn taste or promisin0 to my own happiness. He seemed equally sorry and surprised; be expa I0I MISS BURNEYS OWN STORY. tiated warmly upon the sweetness of character of all the Royal Family, and then begged me to consider the very peculiar distinction shown me, that, unsolicited, unsought, I had been marked out with such l)ersonal favor by the queen herself as a person with whom she had been so singularly pleased, as to wish to settle me with one of the princesses, in preference to the thousands of offered candidates, of high birth and rank, hut small fortunes, who were waiting and supplicating for places in the new- forming establishment. Her Majesty proposed giving me apartments in the palace, making me belong to the table of Mrs. Schwellenberg, with whom all her own visitors bishops, lords, or commonsalways dine; keeping me a footman, and settling on me 200 a year. And in such a situation, he added, so re- spectably offered, not solicited, you may have op1)ortunities of seeing your particular friends, especially your father, such as scarce any other could afford you. - - - This was a plea not to be answered, yet the attendance upon this princess was to be incessant, the confinement to the Court continual. I was scarce ever to be spared for a single visit from the palaces, nor to receive anybody but with permission. What a life for me, who have friends so dear to me, and to whom friendship is the balm, the comfort, the very support of existence! The advantages of the post were too solid to allow of serious hesitation ; the place was accepted, and the appointment was shortly announced in the newspapers. Congratulations poured in from all sides, and none were more appreciated than those of Burke, who, calling one day when father and daughter were both out, wrote on a card, Mr. Burke to congratulate upon the honor done by the queen to Miss Burney and to herself. Fanny took up her appointment on the 20th of june, 1786, and on the same day, after her formal reception by the queen, she ~vrote to her father straints and constraints that are insepa- rable from life at court, even under the most favorable auspices. But the uniform kindness of every member of the royal family, the friendship of Mrs. Delany and of one or two other persons about the court, in whose company and conversa- tion she took real pleasure, would proba- bly have comforted her in a little time; and though she must have always pre- ferred the freer conditions of het former life, it cannot be doubted that she would have found the means of reasonable hap- piness in her new circumstances, but for the persecutions of Mrs. Schwellenberg, whose insane jealousy prevented her from enjoying such society as ~vas still open to her, and whose selfishness robbed her of the hours of leisure during which she should have rested from the fatigues of her attendance upon the queen. She was hardly her own mistress for a single hour of the day, and her official day began at six oclock in the morning and did not end before midnight. The strain was too much for her health and spirits, and she very soon began to break down under it. It is impossible to read without sympa- thy her sad account of herself, written within a month of beginning residence at court. But it is equally impossible not to see that the one circumstance that made her lot so miserable was of a kind that could not reasonably have been antici- pated by her friends when they advised her to accept the post. Oh, my beloved Susan [she writes] tis a refractory heart I have to deal with! It strug- gles so hard to be sad and silent and fly from you entirely, since it cannot fly entirely to you. I do all I can to conquer it, to con- tent it, to give it a taste and enjoyment for what is still attainable; but at times I cannot manage it, and it seems absolutely indispensable What my difficulties are to be I know not, to my peace to occupy myself in anything nor what my dangers; but everybody speaks rather than in writing to the person most dear of this as a situation abounding in both, and to me upon earth! Tis strange, but such requiring the most indefatigable prudence and is the fact, and I now do best when I get foresight. At present, however, I see none~ ~ with those who never heara of you, and who am happy, indeed, to tell my dearest father that care not about me. If to you alone I show my road has grown smoother and smoother, myself in these dark colors, can you blame the and that whatever precipices and troubles ~ plan that I have intentionally been forming may have to encounter, they have not appeared namely, to wean myself from myself to leave to terrify me on the outset. all my affections to curb all my wishes to A very little time, however, revealed deaden all my sensations? This design, my troubles and precipices enough for her Susan, I formed so long ago as the first day she my dear father accepted my offered appoint- danger and discomfort. In August~ ment. I thought that what demanded a com- was writing to her sister of the misery plete new system of life, required, if attainable, she suffered through the jealous and ex- a new set of feelings for all enjoyment of new acting temper of Mrs. Schwellenberg. - It prospects, and for lessening regrets at what had cost her a hard struggle to resign were quitted, or lost. Such being my primi- herself to separation from her family and tive idea, merely from my grief of separation, friends, and to submit to the many re~ imagine but how it was strengthened and im 102 MISS BURNEY S OWN STORY. proved when the interior of my position be- came known to me! when I saw myself ex- pected by Mrs. Schwellenberg, not to be her colleague, but her dependent deputy! not to be her visitor at my own option, but her com- panion, her humble companion, at her own command! This has given so new a character to the place I had accepted under such differ- ent auspices, that nothing but my horror of disappointing, perhaps displeasing, my dearest father, has deterred me from the moment that I made this mortifying discovery from soliciting his leave to resign. She adhered bravely to her resolution not to disappoint her father by throwing up her appointment. And, indeed, though this is a point on which Madame DAr- blay never gives very distinct information, it is evident that there were strong rea- sons for such endurance in the pecuniary circumstances of her father. At different times of his life Dr Burney had made a good income, but he had invested little, and that little not happily. In 1783 he had thankfully accepted at the hands of Burke the place of organist at Chelsea College with a salary of so a year; and though Madame DArblay, in relating the incident, throws all her emphasis on the satisfaction it ~vas to her father to o~ve anything to so good and great a friend, she betrays by the way that the money was exceedingly acceptable. Under these circu instances, however much we may honor his daughter for having concealed her troubles from him, we must have blamed her had she done otherwise. With the beo-innino- of every new year she made heroic resolutions to be happy, but to keep them was beyond her strength, and through the ~vhole record of her five years residence at court there rings a note of increasing pain and despondency. It was through her appearances in Westminster Hall, during the trial of Warren Hastings, that her friends first became aware of the degree in ~vhich she was suffering from her life at court. Both Burke and Windham noticed her altered looks, and, without her knowledge, used their influence to persuade her father thst she ought to come away. Their rep- resen tations prevailed, and a resignation was drawn up and presented to Queen Charlotte. The queen was not easy to convince of the necessity of the step. But the resolution once taken, was firmly stood by, and on July 7, 1791, Fanny took leave of the court. In enumerating the friends who wel- coined her return to the world, she men- tions sadly that Burke was at Beacons- field, and therefore his cor~gratul~tions were wanting. She had a suspicion that he was angry with her for taking part with Warren Hastings, and the suspicion seems to have been in a measure shared by her father. Howeyer, the publication of the Reflections on the French Rev- olution a subject on ~vhich the Bur- neys sympathized ~vith Burke as warmly as they differed about the prosecution made an opportunity for coming together again. Mrs. Crewe, who was the con- fidential friend of both families, arranged a little dinner at Hampstead, at which Dr. Burney and his daughter were invited to meet the whole Burke family. Owing to his shortsightedness, Burke did not see Fanny at first, and she made herself mis- erable by fancying that he had cut her. But at a chance mention of her name, he recognized her, and the misunderstanding ~vas cleared up. He made her ample amends at dinner for her momentary mor- tification. In the course of some lively political conversation, Mr. Richard Burke narrated, very comically, various censures that had reached his ears upon his brother, concerning his last and most popular work; accusing him of being the Abet/or of Despots, because he had been shocked at the imprisonInent of the King of France! and the Friend of Slavery, because he was anxious to preserve our own limited monarchy in the same state in which it so long had flour- ished! Mr. Burke looked half alarmed at his brothers opening, not knowing, I presume, whither his odd fancy might lead him; but, when he had finished, and so inoffensively, and a general laugh that was excited was over, he The Burke good-humoredly turning to me, and pouring out a glass of wine, said, Come, then, Miss Burney, heres slavery for- ever! This was well-understood, and echoed round the table. This would do for you completely, Mr. Burke, cried Mrs. Crewe laughing, if it could but get into a news- paper! Mr. Burke they would say has now spoken out! The truth has come to light over a bottle of wine! and his real defection from the cause of true liberty is acknowledged! I should like, added she, laughing quite heart- ily to draw up the paragraph myself! Pray, then, said Mr. Burke, complete it by putting in that the toast was addressed to Miss Burney in order to pay my court to the Queen. Towards the end of 1792, she paid a visit to the Locks at Norbury Park, and, while with them, made the acquaintance of a set of French refugees who had set- tled in the neighborhood. Among this society were Talleyrand and Madame de Stael, Monsieur de Narbonne, and his friend the Chevalier DArblay. Fanny found their conversation delightful, and MISS BURT~4EYS OWN STORY. 103 before long she was engaged to marry DArblay. Her father questioned the prudence of the marriage on economical grounds. General DArblay had lost all his fortune in the Revolution, and Fanny had little to depend on except a pension of a hundred a year granted her by the queen on her retirement. But she and her general were both content to do with little, and they were married on the 31st of July, 1793. They settled themselves in a cottage in Mr. Locks park, and there Madame DArblay occupied herself, during 1794 and the greater part of 1795, in writing a novel, of which she had sketched the out- line while still at court. Camilla was published by subscription in 1796, and it brought its author a sum of 3,000, be- sides a present of a hundred guineas~from the king and queen. But other success it had not. The reviews were severe, and private criticism was not all that could be wished. Dr. Burney called on Horace Walpole to learn his opinion, and got cold comfort, according to Walpoles account written to Miss Berry:-. He asked me about deplorable Camilla. Alas! I had not recovered of it enough to be loud in its praise. I am glad, however, to hear that she has reatized about 2,000, and the worth, no doubt, of as much in honors at Windsor, where she was detained three days, and where even Mons. DArblay was allowed to dine. A copy lay at Beaconsfield, beside the bed on which Burke was slowly dying; and when Mrs. Crewe went to see him, he pointed to it and said, I-low ill I am you will easily believe, when a new work of Madame DArblays lies on my table un- read! It was by Burkes suggestion that the plan of publishing by subscription had been adopted, and his cordial reply to Mrs. Crewe, when she invited him to do his part, makes a fit conclusion to the story of Fanny Burneys literary career: As to Miss Burney the subscription ought to be for certain persons five guineas, and to take but a singte copy each. I am sure that it is a disgrace to the age and nation if this be not a great thing for her. If every person in England who has received pleasure and in- struction from Cecilia were to rate its value at a hundredth part of their satisfaction, Ma- dame DArbtay would be one of the richest women in the kingdom. Her scheme was known before she lost two of her most respect- ful admirers from this house; and this, with Mrs. Burkes subscription and mine, make the paper I send you. One book is as good as a thousand; one of hers is certa thousand others. inly as good as a The paper was a 20 note; the allu- sion to the two who were gone speaks for itself. From this point the principal interests of Madame DArblays life are of a do. mestic nature, her story is that of the happy which does not require to be writ- ten. She had brought a son~ into the world in the year before the publication of Camilla, and the pleasures of mater- nity compensated her for the pain in- flicted by unfriendly reviewers. Mrs. Crewe wanted her to undertake the editor- ship of a weekly paper to be called the Breakfast Table, which should aim at laughing the world out of Jacobinism, and give her an opening for a series of studies of life and manners. But she de- clined the enterprise on the grotind that her husbands position obliged her to live out of the world, and society could only be painted effectively by one who lived in its midst. With the new century, new novelists of her own sex and of the school she had created caine into fame and fash- ion. Maria Edgeworth, who had sighed hopelessly in 1783 for the honor of Miss Burneys correspondence, published Castle Rackrent and Belinda in x8oi; in t8ti, Jane Austen brought out Sense and Sensibility. Each in her different way, and very different degree, was a greater artist than Miss Burney. Miss Edgeworth excelled in grasp of moral principles; Miss Austen was su- preme in literary form. But when the next place to Shakespeare is claimed for Jane Austen as a painter of human na- ture, I cannot help asking whether in one quality Frances Burney does not come nearer to deserving this high honor. She painted human nature with a more genial touch than Jane Austen. She certainly wants the quiet and terrible power with which her successor lays bare and ~vith- ers the follies and the meannesses of mankind. But on the other hand she does what Miss Austen fails to do she warms our hearts towards our fello~v- creatures in their folly even more than in their wisdom. Her fools and they are manyare as ridiculous and tiresome persons as it is possible to conceive, and yet the result of jogging along with them through her voluminous novels is that, as we turn the last page, we realize that, after all, we have a kindly feeling and a sense of kin towards each and all of them. She had a pure artistic delight in charac 104 THE THREE STRANGERS. ter, which enabled her to enjoy, and make others enjoy, every genuine manifestation of it. As her husband wrote under her picture La Raison, si souvent tranchante, atrabiliaire Toujours dans ses ecrits plait autant quelle ~claire, Lindulgence, lamour, allument son flambeau, Cest la Sagesse enfin, non lEnnui peint en beau. All her good work belongs to the eigh- teenth century; all her inspiration came from the day when society still had ani- mal spirits to fortify it against boredom; ~vhen people laughed merrily because they were amused, not satirically to show themselves cleverer than the rest. But with the deeper tendencies of her age she was not in sympathy, and she had neither courage nor power to deal ade- quately with its serious problems. In her last novel, The Wanderer, which ap- peared in 1814, she was led by the influ- ence of the new time to attempt more profound things than she had ventured npon before, and the result was a gro- tesque sensationalism, even more de- plorable than the flatness of Camilla. Madame DArblay died on the 6th of January, 1840, at the age of eighty-eight, having outlived her son three years and her husband two-and-twenty. Her father had died in 1814, and from i8r8 to 1832 she was occupied in writing his memoirs from the papers he left behind him. MARY ELIZABETH CHRISTIE. From Loogmans Magazine. THE THREE STRANGERS. AMONG the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, grassy, and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human occupation is met with hereon it usually takes the form of the solitary cottage of some shepherd. Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a county town. Yet, what of that? Five miles of irregular upland, during the long, inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, af ford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less repel- lent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who conceive and meditate of l)leasant things. Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, at least some starved fragment of ancient hedge, is usually taken advantage of in the erection of these forlorn dwellings. But, in the pres- ent case, such a kind of shelter had been disregarded - Higher Crowstairs, as the house was called, stood quite detached and undefended. The only reason for its precise situation seemed to be the cross- ing of two footpaths at right angles hard by, which may have crossed there and thus for a good five hundred years. The house was thus exposed to the elements on all sides. But, though the wind up here blew unmistakably when it did blow, and the rain hit hard whenever it fell, the various weathers of the ~vinter season were not quite so formidable on the coomb as they were imagined to he by dwellers on low ground. The raw nines were not so pernicious as in the hollows, and the frosts ~vere scarcely so severe. XVhen the shepherd and his family who tenanted the house were pitied for their sufferings from the exposure, they said that upon the whole they were less inconvenienced by wuzzes and flames (hoarses and phlegms) than when they had lived by the stream of a snug neighboring valley. The night of March 28, 182, was pre- cisely one of the nights that were wont to call forth these expressions of com- miseration. The level rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the cloth- yard shafts of Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood with their buttocks to the wind; while the tails of little birds trying to roost on some scraggy thorn were blown inside-out like umbrellas. The gable-end of the cottage was stained with wet, and the eaves-droppings flapped against the wall. Yet never was commis- eration for the shepherd more misplaced. For that cheerful rustic was entertaining a large party in glorification of the chris- tening of his second girl. The guests had arrived before the rain began to fell, and they were all now as- sembled in the chief or living room of the dwelling. A glance into the apartment at eight oclock on this eventful evening would have resulted in the opinion that it was as cozy and comfortable a nook as could be wished for in boisterous weather. THE THREE STRANGERS. The calling of its inhabitant was pro- claimed by a number of highly polished sheep-crooks without stems that vere hung ornamen tally over the fireplace, the curl of each shining crook varying from the antiquated type engraved in the patri- archal pictures of old family Bibles to the most approved fashion of the last local sheep-fair. The room ~vas lighted by half-a-dozen candles, having wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease which en- veloped them, in candlesticks that ~vere never used but at high-days, holy-days, and family feasts. The lights were scattered about the room, two of them standing on the chimney-piece. This position of can- dles ~vas in itself significant. Candles on the chimney-piece alvays meant a party. On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled like the laughter of the fool. Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherds father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid who were blushing over tentative pozir4z5ariers on a life-companion- ship, sat beneath the corner cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment ~vas pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional re- strictions. Absolute confidence in each others good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale. Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairymans daughter from the valley below, who brought fifty guineas in her pocketand kept them there, till they should be required for ministering to the needs of a coming family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exer- cised as to the chara~ter that should be given to the gathering. A sit-still party had its advantages; but an undisturbed position of ease in chairs and settles was apt to lead on the men to such an uncon- scionable deal of toping that they would sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A dancing party was the alternative; but this, while avoiding the foregoing objec- tion on the score of good drink, had a counterbalancing disadvantage in the mat- ter of good victuals, the ravenous appe- tites engendered by the exercise causing immense havoc in the buttery. Shep. herdess Fennel fell back upon the inter- mediate plan of mingling short dances ~vith short periods of talk and singin g,so as to hinder any ungovernable rage ~n either. But this scheme was entirely con- fined to her own gentle mind: the shep- herd himself ~vas in the mood to exhibit the most reckless phases of hospitality. The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who had a won- derful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were so small and short as to necessitate a constant shifting for the high notes, from which he scrambled back to the first position with sounds not of unmixed purity of tone. At seven the shrill tweedle-dee of this youngster had begun, acco mpanied byabooming ground- bass from Elijah New, the parish clerk, who had thoughtfully brought with him his favorite musical instrument, the ser- pent. Dancing was instantaneous, Mrs. Fennel privately enjoining the players on no account to let the dance exceed the length of a quarter of an hour. But Elijah and the boy, in the excite- ment of their position, quite forgot the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen, one of the dancers, who was enamored of his partner, a fair girl of thirty-three rolling years, had recklessly handed a new crown-piece to the musi- cians, as a bribe to keep going as long as they had muscle and wind. Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on the countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched the fiddlers elbow and put her hand on the serpents mouth. But they took no notice, and fearing she might lose her character of genial hostess if she were to interfere too markedly, she re- tired and sat do~vn helpless. And so the dance whizzed on with cumulative fury, the performers moving in their planet-like courses, direct and retrograde, from apo- gee to perigee, till the hand of the well- kicked clock at the bottom of the room had travelled over the circumference of an hour. While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within Fennels pas. toral dwelling, an incident having consid. io6 THE THREE STRANGERS. erable bearing on the party had occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. Fen- nels concern about the growing fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time with the ascent of a human figure to the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs from the direction of the distant town. This personage strode on through the rain with- out a pause, following the little-worn path which, further on in its course, skirted the shepherds cottage. It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, though the sky was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out of doors were readily visible. The sad, wan light revealed the lonely pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, though not so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion required. In point of fact he might have been about forty years of age. He appeared tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other person accustomed to the judging of mens heights by the eye, would have discerned that this ~vas chiefly owing to his gauntness, and that he was not more than five feet eight or nine. Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in it, as in that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the fact that it was not a black coat nor a dark garment of any sort that he wore, there was something about him which suggested that he naturally be- longed to the black-coated tribes of men. His clothes were of fustian, and his boots hobnailed, yet in his progress he showed not the mud-accustomed bearing of hob- nailed and fustianed peasantry. By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shepherds premises the rain came down, or rather came along, with yet more determined violence. The outskirts of the little homestead partially broke the force of ~vind and rain, and this induced him to stand still. The most salient of the shepherds domestic erections was an empty sty at the forward corner of his hedgeless garden, for in these latitudes the principle of masking the homelier features of your establishment by a con- ventional frontage was unknown. The travellers eye was attracted to this small building by the pallid shine of the wet slates that covered it. He turned aside, and, finding it empty, stood under the pent- roof for shelter. While he stood, the boom of the ser- pent ~vithin, and the lesser strains of the fiddler, reached the spot as an accompani ment to the surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod, its louder beating on the cab. bage-leaves of the garden, on the eight or ten beehives just discernible by the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of buckets and pans that had been placed under the walls of the cottage. For at Higher Crowstairs, as at all such elevated domiciles, the grand difficulty of house- keeping was an insufficiency of water; and a casual rainfall was utilized by turn- ing out, as catchers, every utensil that the house contained. Some queer stories might be told of the contrivances for econ- omy in suds and dish-waters that are ab- solutely necessitated in upland habitations during the droughts of summer. But at this season there were no such exigen- cies: a mere acceptance of what the skies bestowed was sufficient for an abundant store. At last the notes of the serpent ceased and the house was silent. This cessation of activity aroused the solitary pedestrian from the reverie into which he had lapsed, and, emerging from the shed, with an ap- parently new intention, he walked up the path to the house-door. Arrived here, his first act was to kneel down on a large stone beside the row of vessels, and to drink a copious draucrht from one of them. Having quenched his thirst, he rose and lifted his hand to knock, but paused with - his eye upon the panel. Since the dark surface of the wood revealed absolutely nothing, it was evident that he must be mentally looking through the door, as if he wished to measure thereby all the pos- sibilities that a house of this sort might include, and how they might bear upon the question of his entry. In his indecision he turned and sur- veyed the scene around. Not a soul was anywhere visible. The garden - path stretched down~vard from his feet, gleam- ing like the track of a snail; the roof of the little well (mostly dry), the ~vell-cover, the top rail of the garden-gate, were var- nished with the same dull liquid glaze; while, far a~vay in the vale, a faint white- ness of more than usual extent showed that the rivers were high in the meads. Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the beating drops, lights that denoted the situation of the county town from which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he knocked at the door. \Vithin, a desultory chat had taken the place of movement and musical sound. The hedge-carpenter was suggesting a THE THREE STRANGERS. song to the company, which nobody just then was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a not unwelcome di- version. Walk in! said the shepherd prompt ly. The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian appeared upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest candles, and turned to look at him. Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in complexion, and not unpre- possessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he did not r