LITTELLS LIVING AGE. No, 2466. October 8,1891. From Beginning, Vol. CXCI. CONTENTS. I. MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND, II. LETTY COR, III. PRIVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOUR- TEENTH CENTURY,. IV. A REAL TARTARIN, V. THE AMERICAN TRAMP VI. SOME RECENT STUDIES ON THE SOLAR SPECTRUM VII. THE DUTCHMAN AT HOME, VIII. SIR JOHN MACDONALD, SPARROWS, DOWN THE STREAM, MISCELLANY, Edinburgh Review, Temple Bar, . Forinighily Review, . Macmillans Magazine,. Contemporary Review, Month, Macmillans Magazine,. Blackwoods Magazine,. P0 E T R V. 2jALONE. .2 .3 9 25 34 40 45 53 59 2 64 PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LIT TELL & 00., BOSTONO TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DoLLARs, re,pdUed diredily to ike Publiskers, the LsvxsG AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year,Iree of~5oszage 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 money should be sent in a regiatered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made a able to the order~ LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, aS cents. Fifth Series, Volume LXXVI. 2 SPARROWS, ETC. SPARROWS. Speak from the heart! all else is incomplete; Now in the country-side from hawthorn snows Speak to the heart! for that alone is sweet; Hedging lush-grass the thrushs rapture goes Weak words are mighty that with heart-blood Full of long-garnered bliss his heart oerflows. beat. Sing out thy meagre lifes obscurest cares; Sing out the burden that thy dumb soul hears. Perhaps some heart may bless thee unawares! Cornhill. All that he sees, he sings. Wove in his trill, The purple hollows of the windy hill, Green valley-spaces very warm and still; The poplars gold-edged leaflets trembling nigh; The little pied-faced pansy mid the rye; The sweet encompassing of azure sky; Thin through translucent leaves, the sun- shines rifts; The low brooks mossy gurgle where there lifts Pale rose - stemmed primrose through the bronz~d drifts. But the poor dingy sparrow of the town! He babbles as he flies a garrulous clown, A sorry piper in his threadbare brown. Yet all he feels he, too, full-hearted gives; His little twitter speaks the joy he lives There as he sits upon the sunlit eaves. Tis a poor vain conceit lacks all but will A vague reiterate chirrup, small and shrill; Still he pours forth his heart for good or ill. Though tis scant measure, yet his beings brim Is with Springs nectar foaming to the rim, Holds he no more, tis running oer for him. He sings the budding bushes of the square, The opaque blue unveiling dully fair, The inexplicable wonder of the air; And, as he sings, each common sordid thing Wears for a space occult transfiguring The sparrow the interpreter of Spring! Ah, heart! content thee with thy little song; Content thee, be its compass weak or strQng; Stammer thy spirits message, right or wrong. The meanest thing in natures plan is dear If it but work its purpose out sincere: A little cup may yet hold water clear. Not thine the lordly utterances of fate, The invincible pealing clarion of the great; Yet there are thoughts thou wouldst articu- late. High souls have hymned high themes, yet not voiced thee; In narrowest lives there is a mystery Deep and unplumbed, whose singer s yet to be. Something within no other soul has known An individual secret of their own That God has whispered unto them alone. DOWN THE STREAM. LOVE! It began with a glance, Grew with the growing of flowers, Smiled in a dreamful trance, Recked not the passage of hours: Our passions flood rose ever, Flowing for her and me, Till the brook became a river, And the river became a sea. Grief! It began with a word, Grew with the winds that raved; A prayer for pardon unheard, Pardon in turn uncraved; The bridge so easy to sever, The stream so swift to be free I Till the brook became a river, And the river became a sea. Life! It began with a sigh, Grew with the leaves that are dead; Its pleasures with wings to fly, Its sorrows with limbs of lead: And rest remaineth never For the wearier years to be, Till the brook shall become a river, And the river become a sea. Lord Houghton. ALONE. ALONE we tread lifes devious pathways, sent We know not whence, across our toilsome way, Folded around in mists, uncertain, gray, Shadows of hope and fear together blent. Anon, the dull thick clouds apart are rent, Love wakens, and makes glad the passing hours; The way leads onward oer upspringing flowers, And past brooks murmring of a sweet con- tent. Yet, as we clasp and think this joy our own, It fades again in solitude we stand, Watching the light wane oer a darkening land; The winds sob round us with a wailing moan; When, all unlooked for, with a grim, firm hand, Death opes the gate, and we pass out alone. Chambers JournaL MARY NIEL. MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. 3 From The Edinburgh Review. MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND.* No one, we believe, who opens the vol- umes which stand foremost at the head of this article xviii find in them what was expected. A false importance had been given to them by the long and eminent career of the writer, and by the singular and wholly unnecessary precautions taken to defer for half a century the publication of the work. When the veil of mystery in which they were enshrouded was with- drawn, it turned out that, by the express declaration of the author, the book is not a literary work at all, and can scarcely be called memoirs, since his own life and adventures are mentioned in it as seldom as he could help. It contains no narra- tive; it is enlivened by no flashes of wit, and few anecdotes; it throws no original light on the historical events in which Talleyrand played so important a part. It is more remarkable for what it omits than for what it relates. The work might more fitly be entitled My opinions on some passages of contemporary history. M. de Talleyrand had no literary experience; he makes no attempt to give a connected interest to his work. It is totally deficient even in chronological arrangement. It was well known that he wrote with diffi- culty, and even repugnance, and that most of his despatches and letters were dic- tated to his secretaries. These papers bear marks of the same process. They give us the impression of an old man re- calling in conversation some of the inci- dents of his life, and dwelling less on his * a. M~rnoires du Prince de Talleyrand. Publids avec une Pr6face et des Notes par le Duc de Brogue, de lAcad~mie Fran~aise. Deux tomes. Paris: 1891. 2. Memoirs of ilse Prince de Talleyrand. Edited with a Preface and Notes by the Duc de Brogue, of the French Academy. Translated by Raphael Ledos de Beaufort, with an Introduction by the Honble. White- law Reid, American Minister in Paris. Two volumes. London: 1891. 3. La Mission de Talleyrand le Londres en 1792. Ses Lelires dA meriqoe e~ Lord Lansdowne. Avec Introduction et Notes par G. Pallain. 8vo. Paris: s888. 4. Le Minisare de Talleyrand sons le Direcloire. Avec Introduction et Notes par G. Pallain. 8vo. Paris: 1891. ~. Le Prince de Talleyrand ez~ lee Maison dOrllans. Letires do Roi Louis-Phiiij5pe, de Madame A d~laide e/ do Prince de Talleyraud. Publi~s par la Comtesse de Mirabeso. Paris: 1890. conduct than on his opinions, which he discusses at length sometimes as an economist, sometimes as a moralist. But we do not find in tl~em any attempt to ex- plain, or even to notice, the most serious charges which have been brought against his own personal and political conduct. On the one hand, they contain no apology; on the other hand, they by no means jus- tify the intemperate and abusive introduc- duction which Mr. Whitelaw Reid has thought fit to prefix to the English trans- lation. The result of these facts is that the pub- lic finds little or nothing in these volumes to excite a lively interest or to gratify curi- osity. The world is disappointed and the work is condemned as dull, before the reader has had time to master or appre- ciate its contents. It is curious that the two statesmen who had the longest expe- rience and the widest knowledge of Euro- pean affairs Prince Metternich and Prince Talleyrand should both have left us a record of their times which will hold no prominent place in literature or history. Nevertheless, it may be shown that this adverse judgment is in some re- spects hasty and exaggerated. Even these fragmentary memoirs of Talleyrand throw more light on his own character. They show that he was not only a man of action, but a statesman who thought with rare sagacity on political questions, not only of diplomacy, but of finance, political economy, and legislation; and that, al- though he bent to every gust of the revo- lutionary period in which he lived, his own opinions never materially varied from those he inherited or had formed in early life; and that in all his disguises he re- mained a born aristocrat, despising in his heart not only those below him, but those above him, and mortally distrusting dem- ocratic government, of which he had seen too much; a staunch believer in monarchy, whoever might be the monarch, but on constitutional principles; and even a well- wisher to the Church, although he had been a most reluctant priest and became a secularized bishop. Madame de Sta~l called Talleyrand an undecipherable man. He presents the phenomenon, which some works of fiction 4 MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. have attempted to describe, of a dual na- ture. He had a mind to conceive large and enlightened views of liberal govern- ment. He was a friend to moderation and to peace. He knew the danger and the worthlessness of the revolutionary propa- ganda which made Europe the enemy of France, and of the territorial conquests which made Europe her slave. But from a singular absence of moral energy and dignity he placed his rare intelligence at the service of men whom he despised and of actions which he condemned. Hence he shared, at least indirectly, in the polit- ical crimes of the Directory and the Em- pire, with a full knowledge of their true nature; and when the day of reckoning came, and their consequences became ap- parent, he silently abandoned the powers he had served, and transferred his influ- ence, like a condolliere in politics, to the opposite faction. The more the records of his life are made known, not in these Memoirs only, but still more in his ofli- cial correspondence, which has been re- cently published by M. Pallain, the higher does our estimate of his intelligence and sagacity rise, and the lower is the standard of his moral faculties. Innumerable de- tails may be found, in the memors of the time, of the wit, the artifices, the intrigues, and the cupidity of M. de Talleyrand. But these tricks do not make a statesmen, capable of guiding the affairs of Europe; and we prefer to direct the attention of our readers to the more solid qualities which marked a great career. This then is, in our opinion, the sub- stantial value of the work before us. Tal- leyrand was one of the few survivors of the great catastrophe.* He alone had to take an active part in all the memorable events of an age. He witnessed the august ceremony of the coronation of Louis XVI. at Reims, being then in * It deserves to be noted that three men of light and leading, who were pre-emineut in the National Assem- bly, Talleyrand, Siey~s, and Rcederer, were all born in the middle of the eighteenth century (17481754), and all lived to pass their eightieth. year. Two of them were priests. Rcsderer was a lawyer. They witnessed the events of s83o, which appeared to be the realization of their hopes of constitutional government, and they deemed the Revolution to be finally closed, not fore- seeing that in another generation it was destined to re- sume its fatal course. priests orders; and he exclaims in his old age, with pathetic eloquence Quelle ~poque brillante! Un jeune rol dune morale scrupuleuse, dune modestie rare; des ministres, connus par leurs lumi& es et leur probit~ une reine dont 1affabilit~, les gr& ces, Ia bontd temp~raient 1aust& it~ des vertus de son ~poux; tout ~tait respect! tout ~tait amour! tout ~tait fetes, - - - Jamais printemps Si brillant na pr~c~d~ un automne si orageux, un hiver si funeste! (P. 23.) The first ten years of the kings reign were the most animated period of French society. The young Abbd de Pdrigord revelled in the luxuries and the license of the times ; he belonged to the clerg~ un peu dissip~, on whom the rule of their order sate very lightly. His memory car- ries him back to the mornings when Lau- zun, Delille, Mirabeau, Chamfort, Choi- seul-Gouffier, and Louis de Narbonne were wont to meet at his breakfast-table in his small rooms, Rue Bellechasse. What conversation! What a company of friends! On y parlait un peu de tout, et avec la plus grande libert~. C~taient des matindes excellentes pour lesquelles je me sentirais encore du goat. If you wish to know more of the freaks and follies of the abbd, and even bishop, you will find them recorded in Gouverneur Morriss in- imitable diaries, where Monseigneur is seen to warm Madame de Flahuts bed with a warming pan. If you wish to learn what feelings of tenderness and friendship lay beneath the crust of an am- bitious, worldly, and even profligate life, you may turn to the picture Madame de R~musat has left us of one of the more genial and honorable intimacies of his later years. But of these things this book says nothing, and we shall say no more. It is mainly a record of opinions and judg- ments on political events and public af- fairs, designed to show that an extreme mobility and even inconsistency of con- duct may be compatible with some definite principles of action. In revolutionary times M. de Talleyrand held that no government, as such, could claim an in- dissoluble allegiance, the governments themselves being transitory and epheme- ral, all perishing in succession by their own faults. He therefore attached to his MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. 5 last will a profession of political opinion, which may be taken as a general defence of his conduct in life, and which forms an appropriate introduction to these remarks. Having been secularized by the pope, he adds: I considered myself free, and my situation required that I should find my way. I did so alone, for I did not wish my future to be linked to any political party, for they none of them tallied with my views. I carefully con- sidered the matter and decided on serving France for her sake alone, in whatever situa- tion she might be placed: some good was to be done in each. Therefore I do not blame myself for having served all the political par. ties which ruled France, from the Directory to the government existing at the time of my writing this. After the horrors of the Revo- lution, all that was calculated to lead, one way or the other, to order and security was useful; and, at that time, sensible men could wish for nothing more. To restore monarchical institutions was a matter of impossibility in the state in which France then was. To do so, intermediate forms of government several of them were needed. One could not expect even the shadow of royalty in the Directory; the spirit of the Convention must predominate there, and so it did, in reality, though in a milder form; but, by reason of this spirit, that gov- ernment was not to last long. It paved the way for the Consulate, which already con- tained the principle of royalty, though as yet in disguise. Some good was to be done there; that form of government possessed a remote, it is true, but real resemblance to monarchy. The imperial rule which followed was more like an autocracy than a regular monarchy. This is true, but at the time when Bonaparte put the crown on his head, war with England was raging again; other wars were imminent; the spirit of faction was rampant, and the safety of the country might have been jeop- ardixed if its ruler had confined himself to the exercise of the sole prerogatives of a simple king. I therefore served the Emperor Napo- leon, as I had done the Consul Bonaparte: I served him with loyalty, so long as I could believe him exclusively devoted to France. But, as soon as I saw him enter on the revo- lutionary path which led him to ruin, I left the Cabinet, and for that he never forgave me. In 1814, the Bourbons, with whom, since 1791, I had had no relations, were recalled. They were so, for the only reason that their reign was deemed more favorable than any other to the rest so much needed by France and by Europe. I have related, in my Me- moirs, the chief part I played in that great event, and the rather bold steps I took in those memorable days. The recall of the princes of the House of Bourbon was not the acknowledgment of pre-existing rights. If they so construed it, it was neither on my advice, nor with my assent; for here is my opinion on the matter. Monarchs are such only by virtue of public instruments which constitute them the heads of civil society. These instrumeuts are, it is true, irrevocable for each monarch and for his posterity so long as the reigning monarch keeps within the limits of his own province; but if he attempts to go beyond it, he loses all right to a title which his own acts either have belied or would soon belie. Such being my opinion, I have never found it necessary to disclaim it in order to accept the functions which I have discharged under various gov- ernments. As I now, in my eighty-second year, call to mind the numerous events of my political life, which has itself been long, and weigh them, on the eve of entering into eternity, I find as the result: That of all the governments I have served, there is not one to which I have not given more than I have received. That I have never abandoned any, till it had, first of all, abandoned itself. That I nave never considered the interest of any party, my own, or those of my friends, before the true interests of France, which besides are never, in my opinion, contrary to the true interests of Europe. (Vol. i., pp. viiix.) This profession of political faith or faith- lessness (for it may have either sense) is followed by the very precise directions given by the prince to M. de Bacourt and the Duchesse de Sagan, with reference to the ultimate publication of the Memoirs, after an interval fixed by the writer at thirty years. Both these literary legatees died, as was not improbable, before that term expired, and the manuscripts passed into the hands of a notary and an avocat (M. Andral), named by them, and subse- quently to the present Duc de Broglie. But M. de Bacourt had employed the years which elapsed between the death of M. de Talleyrand and his own in sedulously col 6 MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRANDJ lecting, arranging, annotating, and even copying with his own hand these so-called Memoirs. He also extended the term of publication to fifty years. The result of his Iabor~ is contained in four folio volumes, described in M. de Bacourt s will as Q uatre volumes, reli6s en peau, qui sont la seule copie authentique Ct complete des M~moires du Prince de Talleyrand, faite par M. de Bacourt dapr~s les manuscrits, les dict6es et les copies dont M. de Talleyrand lui avait indiqu~ 1emploi. The Duchesse de Sagan annexed to each volume a similar voucher. These, then, are the papers transmitted to the Duc de Broglie, the first part of which he has now givento the world with, we doubt not, the most complete and scrupulous fidelity. But it must strike every reader that what we have before us is M. de Ba- courts copy. Madame de Sagan calls it la seule copie originale, compl~te et fiddle of the memoirs; and the word copiein French means strictly a thing copied, and not, as it might in English, a duplicate of the work. From what, then, was this copy made? And where are the original manuscripts, whether written or dictated by the prince? It is not credible that M. de Bacourt should have destroyed the materials which he had collected and on which he worked. We have no doubt that he discharged with conscientious fidel- ity his duty as editor of the papers, which were probably left in a confused state, some in France and some, we believe, in England. But the work of an editor is a mere superstructure on the work of the author; and it would be satisfactory to know that the words co~ie orzginale, compl~te et fid~le apply not only to M. de Bacourts four volumes bound in leather, but to the documents of the prince which his literary executors must have had before them, and that these documents are still in existence, as it is possible that they may contain matter which M. de Bacourt did not copy or reserve for publication. The responsibility of the Duc de Broglie is, of course, strictly limited to the reuro- duction of the copy placed in his hands. No one doubts the authenticity of what is now published. But some further evidence is required to establish the integrity and completeness of the copy made by M. de Bacourt; and we should be glad to know how far the writings of the prince were arranged by his executors. M. de Talleyrand had a miserable child- hood. At four years old the clumsiness of a nurse lamed him for life, and sent him halting into the world. Neglected by his parents, whom he scarcely ever saw, the only member of his family who showed him any marks of affection was his great- grandmother, Madame de Chalais, with whom he spent at Chalais his early boy- hood, where he learnt to read and write, and speak the palois of the Charente. At eight he was transferred for some years to the Collage dHarcourt, where he was to learn as little as became a high-born noble- man of that day; and thence eventually to St. Sulpice to prepare for the priesthood, into which he was thrust without the slightest inclination of his own. I spent three years at Saint-Sulpice College, and hardly spoke at all during the whole time; people thought I was supercilious and often reproached me with being so. This seemed to me so to point out how little they knew me, that I deigned no reply; they then said that my arrogance was beyond all endurance. Good Heavens! I was neither arrogant nor proud: I was merely a harmless young man, extremely miserable and inwardly irritated. Pe~1z5Ze say, I often thought to myself, that Z am fit for nothing. . . . Fit for nothing. After giving way to despondency, for a few moments, a strong and comforting feeling cheered me, and I discovered that I was fit for something, even for good and noble deeds. What forebodings, a thousand times dispelled, did not then cross my mind, always placing me under a spell which I was unable to ex- plain! The library of Saint-Sulpice College had been enriched by gifts from Cardinal de Fleury; its works were numerous and care- fully selected. I spent my days there reading the productions of great historians, the private lives of statesmen and moralists, and a few poets. I was particularly fond of books of travels. A new land, the dangers of a storm, the picture of a wreck, the description of a country bearing traces of great changes, sometimes of upheavals, all this had deep interest for me. Sometimes, when I consid- ered these voyages to distant lands, these dreadful scenes described so vividly in the writings of modern explorers, it seemed to me that my lot was not so hopeless as I had thought. A good library affords true comfort to all the dispositions of the soul. My third and really useful education dates from this time, it was self-taught in lonely silence; as I was always face to face with the author whose work I was reading, and could only use my own judgment, it nearly always happened that, when my opinions differed from those of another, I thought mine the right one. My ideas thus remained person- ally my own: the books I read enlightened my mind, but never enslaved it. I do not pretend to say that in so acting I was right MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. 7 or ~vrong, I merely state what I was. Such lonely self-tuition must have some value. If injustice, whilst developing our faculties, has not embittered our hearts too much, we derive greater comfort from lofty thoughts and noble impulses, we feel stronger in confronting lifes trials. A feeling of hope, vague and inde- scribable, like all youthful passions, excited my mind: I never allowed it to rest. (Vol. i., pp. i~, i6.) These years at St.-Sulpice were years of self-education to the young aspirant, and he must have made an uncommon use of them, not indeed with a view to his sacred profession, but to the business of life, for he seems to have emerged from the cloister a financier, an economist, and a politician. The Church, he soon discovered, had also its politics and its temporal affairs, and to these subjects he without reluctance de- voted himself. In 1775, at the age of twenty-one, he was elected a member of the assembly of the clergy for the province of Reims, and made by his uncle, Cardinal de Ia Roche- Aymon, the promoter of that assembly. This led to his becoming agent-general of the clergy, an office which consisted in representing the interests of that body in all that related to the revenues and privi- leges of the Church. The details of these transactions have lost their interest, but they show that Talleyrand entered upon his duties at once in the spirit of a re- former and an economist. He proposed the suppression of lotteries. He advo- cated an increase of the stipend of the lower clergy, and he watched over the interests of his colleagues at the Bank of Discount, and even drew up the report on that institution for the shareholders. This was the first time that I was, strictly speaking, connected with public affairs. I prefaced my report by a speech in which I had applied myself to set forth all the advantages of public credit; I laid stress on its impor- tance; I established the fact that all was pos- sible to one who l)ossessed a large credit; that credit alone suffices for all the needs of commerce, of large trading establishments, of manufactures, and so on. After having set forth all the advantages of credit, I spoke of the means of obtaining and of preserving it. I remember that, in this paper, I was so pleased to make known all the various uses of which credit is susceptible, that I macic use of a host of expressions which are only em- ployed to depict the most timid and delicate sentiments. An old hanker, named Rilliet, a regular Genevese, who listened to me with attention, learned with extreme pleasure, which he expressed by the roughest gestures, that, in paying exactly his bills of exchange, he did something so very fine that it could only be expressed in the language of imagina- tion. He came to me, and begged me as he pressed my hands to allow him to copy that part of my speech. His enthusiasm became useful, for he repeated so badly what I had just said, that I deemed it quite out of place, and left it out in the Vrinted text. From the advantages of credit, and the means of obtaining it, I turned at last to the special institutions which facilitate, accelerate, and simplify all its transactions while hasten- ing and ensuring its progress. (Vol. i. p. 43.) After this exordium the reader will not be surprised, though he may be disap- pointed, to find that the first part of this work is mainly devoted to questions of political economy, and that he must begin his acquaintance with the future diploma- tist and statesman in the guise of a finan- cier. But it is eminently characteristic of the practical intelligence of Talleyrand that he discusses all these questions with a freedom and originality far ahead of the times preceding the Revolution. This semi-clerical priest, on whom Pius VI. would have bestowed a cardinals hat but for the interposition of Marie Antoinette, who was always his enemy, had mastered the intricacies of banking, credit, cur~ rency, trade, and taxation. He was a de- clared free - trader; he anticipated the extension of French commercial interests in the Mediterranean; and he desired to maintain a sort of level between the indus- tries of all civilized countries. On the eve of the meeting of the Assembly of Notables M. de Calonne had, with his usual negligence and presumption, neg- lected to prepare the reports he was called upon to make to that body. Nothing ex- isted but a few memoranda. Talleyrand and his friends, at the request of the min- ister, set to work. Talleyrand wrote the report and bill on the corn law, and con- tributed to those on the payment of the debts of the clergy and on statute labor. In a week they accomplished with toler- able success a task which M. de Calonne had neglected for five months. Such was the foundation of the high repute which Talleyrand had at an early age acquired as a man of business. He entered the Constituent Assembly as an economist rather than a politician, and the numerous measures of reform which he proposed there were all of a practical char- acter. These details are not amusing, but they are of value to history, and they justify the influence Talleyrand acquired in the Assembly, although he has said less of his career there than might be desired. In that body there were four men on wbom 8 MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. the destinies of France might be said to depend: Necker, still in pQwer, Lafayette, Mirabeau, and Talleyrand; two of them men of good character, but weak abilities; two of them men of great ability, but in- different private character. To these names we ought in justice to add those of Siey~s and Rcederer, who were superior to Talleyrand and Mirabeau as men of letters, but inferior as men of action and of influence. In October, 1789, an at- tempt was made to form an administration which should include several of them. In that administration Talleyrand was to have been the minister of finance, or of foreign affairs. The project failed from the mutual distrust of these eminent per. sons, all of whom were equally detested by the court. No government could be formed. Louis XVI. remained virtually without a minister, and the Revolution ran its course. It had, Talleyrand says, no authors, no leaders, and no guides. It is not a little singular that Talley- rand retained the bishopric of Autun till 1791, and in that capacity, as consecratincr prelate, he transmitted the apostolical suc- cession to the first two constitutional bishops. He shortly afterwards resigned his bishopric, and was eventually released by the pope from his orders. I placed myself at the disposition of events, and, provided I remained a Frenchman, all else contented me. The Revolution prom- ised new destinies to the nation; I fol- lowed its course, and I ran my chance. In the Constituent Assembly M. de Talley- rand belonged to no political party. He was too liberal a reformer for the monarch- ists; he condemned the emigration; and he foresaw that the cause of monarchy was already lost. But he abhorred the violence of the revolutionary party, and dreaded the fate impending over the royal family. He seems to have thought that the best chance of saving the king lay in the possibility of obtaining from foreign powers a promise of disarmament and a policy of neutrality, and for this purpose he went to London. It is much to be regretted that in these papers M. de Talleyrand has left no record of that important and interesting journey, but fortunately this omission is amply compensated by the publication of his own official correspondence from London, which we owe to the researches of M. Pal- lain in the French archives. These documents, which are bonafide contemporary history, are far more valua- ble than any part of the Memoirs them- selves. Talleyrand arrived in London on January 21, 1792. His mission bore a pri- vate character, because, as a member of the National Assembly, he could not hold any public office or appointment, and his only credential was a note of introduction from M. de Lessart to Lord Grenville in these words: Comme ii a ~te ~ portee d~tudier nos rap- ports politiques, surtout ceux que nous avons avec lAngleterre, je desire que Votre Excel- lence veulile hien sen entretenir avec lui, et je suis assure davance quil la convaincra de notre d6sir de maintenir et de fortifier la bonne intelligence qui subsiste entre les deux royaumes. There is some confusion in the very cur- sory notice of this important mission in the Memoirs and in the note affixed to it by the translator. Talleyrand came twice to London. In January he arrived, accompanied by the Duc de Biron, in a private capacity. He returned to Paris on March 9, and arrived in the midst of a ministerial crisis. M. de Lessart had been removed, and was succeeded by Dumou- riez. On April 20 a second mission was despatched. Chauvelin was then duly ap- pointed minister to the court of London with a letter from Louis XVI. to George III., in which it was expressly stated that M. de Talleyrand was associated with the minister. It was perfectly understood that Chauvelin, who was young, was to be the mere figure-head of the mission, and that Talleyrand was to conduct the nego- tiation. The instructions to the two di- plomatists were in all probability drawn up by Talleyrand himself. They are now published by M. Pallain, and are a very masterly State paper. Talleyrand re- turned to Paris in July, just before the events which frustrated all his hopes of peace. Chauvelin remained in London, but with no diplomatic character, after the dethronement of the king. In the spring of 1792 the French Rev- olution had not acquired the intense vio- lence and brutality which marked the close of that year. Louis XVI. was still on the throne; the Constitution of 1791 was in force; war had not yet broken out, though it was evidently impending on the Conti- nent. M. de Talleyrand was courteously received on his first arrival by Lord Gren- ville and Mr. Pitt. He was presented at court, where the king was cold and the queen uncivil. The intimacies he con- tracted were chiefly with the leading mem- bers of the Whig party, who sympathized with the Revolution in France, and per- haps this circumstance told against his influence with the government. But he MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. 9 found in the English ministers a sincere desire to maintain peace. The military estimates had just been reduced; and they listened with favor to his eloquent plea for the neutrality of this country, which was, in fact, their own policy. The hope of establishing a close union between France and England on the basis of liberal con- stitutional principles and common com- mercial interests had been emphatically proclaimed by Mirabeau, and, after his death, M. de Talleyrand inherited that policy. In spite of all that occurred in subsequent years, when Talleyrand was the unscrupulous adviser of our worst enemies, we trace throughout his career the fixed opinion that the alliance of France and England is essential to their security and to the peace of the world. This was the cause he pleaded with con- summate ability and eloquence in the long conversation with Lord Grenville which he reports, literally, to M. de Lessart in his despatch of February 17, 1792. We wish it were possible, ~vithin our limits, to quote that masterly paper.* It gives a higher impression of his ability than any- thing to be found in his later reminis- cences. He pleaded for the neutrality of England in the approaching contest, but the neutral proclamation of May 25 would probably have been issued in any case on the breaking out of war on the Continent; and it is a mistake to suppose (with M. Sybel) that it was extorted from the British government by Talleyrand, or that it af- fected the independence of the Low Coun- tries, or that, as has been stated, any treaty of neutrality was signed. He strenuously urged upon Lord Grenville the abolition of the practice of privateering, which he had previously attacked in the National Assembly with some success. On July 5, however, he returned to Paris, only to witness the overthrow of whatever hopes of a peaceful settlement remained. August io dethroned the king, destroyed the Constitution, and let loose the revolutionary torrent. There was nothing left to defend, and within a few days his own life would have been in im- minent danger. Talleyrand succeeded with some difficulty in obtaining from Danton a passport for England, under pretext of treating a question of weights and measures, and he left his country, not as an dmzgr6, but as a patriot in exile, ~ for the time, had lost the last chance of saving the monarchy and maintaining * See Pailains Mission de Talleyrand ~ Londres, p. 98. peace. M. de Lessart, with whom he had corresponded from London during his first mission, perished in the massacres of September 2, a few days afterwards. I solicited a temporary mission to London from the provisory e~cecutive. As the object of my mission, I chose a scientific question with which I was somewhat entitled to deal, seeing that it related to a motion previously made by me in the Constituent Assembly. My aim was to establish for the whole king- dom a uniform system of weights and meas- ures. After the exactitude of this system had been vouched for by the most competent men of Europe, it might have been adopted by the different nations. It was therefore advisable to confer with England on the subject. My real object was, however, to leave France, where it seemed to me useless, and even dangerous, to stay any longer, but I wished to leave the country, with a regular passport, in order that it should not be closed to me forever. As in France, the tide of political passions ran high in the various Cabinets of Europe. It was thought that if she were attacked on all sides, France could not resist. Only dreaming of success, they decided to wage war against her. The advantages they ex- pected to reap by their victory were such as to cause them to lose sight of the dangers of the royal family. It was then that the Repub- licans, seeing war inevitable, took the initia- tive in declaring it, in order to show that they were not afraid of it. I resided in England during the whole of the dreadful year 1793 and a portion of 794. There I was welcomed with the utmost kind- ness by the Marquis of Lansdowne, whom I had known in Paris; he was a nobleman of lofty views, gifted with abundant and lively powers of elocution. He was still free from the infirmities of old age. Some people brought against him the commonplace accusa- tion of being too clever; an accusation by means of which, in England, as well as in France, people keep at a distance all the men whose superiority gives them umbrage, and this is really the only reason why he never was in office again. I saw him often, and he kindly sent me word every time he received the visit of some distinguished person whose acquaintance he thought I should be pleased to make. It was at his house that I met Mr. Hastings, and the doctors Price and Priestley; there, I also formed an intimacy with Mr. Canning, Mr. Romilly, Mr. Robert Smith, M. Dumont, M. Bentham, and Lord Henry Petty, the son of Lord Lansdowne, who at this time was already looked upon as one of the hopes of England. All the friends of Mr. Fox, with which gentleman I had, on several occasions, been on intimate terms, did their best to render my stay in London as pleasant as possible. (Vol. i., pp. 169i71.) He was therefore a remote spectator of I0 the horrors of 179394, and he alleges that these excesses of popular fury leave, and deserve to leave, no impression on the mind. To so frigid and methodical a politician a revolutionary eruption had no meaning. It was a temporary phenom- enon. His duty was to stand aside till it had passed away. I confess that it would not cause me the slightest concern if the details of this awful calamity were to leave no trace in mens minds, for they are of no historical impor- tance. Indeed, what teachings could men derive from deeds performed without aim or plan, and which were merely the outcome of ruthless and unruly passions? Teachings of all kinds are rather to be sought in the knowledge of the facts preced- ing the catastrophe, and for the investigation of which every material exists; this knowl- edge will disclose the numerous and weighty causes of the revolution; this is the truly profitable way of unfolding mens actions, for it hears with itself lessons equally useful to sovereigns, to the upper and to the lower classes. (Vol. i., p. 172.) But he expressed very decidedly in a let- ter to Lord Lansdowne, dated from Ken- sington Square, October 3, 1792, what he thought of the recent events in Paris. The passage is worth quoting in the orig- inal:. Quand on a passd les deux derniers mois a Paris, on a bien besoin de venir se retremper dans la conversation des hommes sup6rieurs. Dans un moment oii lon a tout d~natur~, tout perverti, les hommes qoi restent fiddles ~ la libert~ malgrd le masque de sang et de boue dont datroces polissons ont voile les traits, sont en nombre excessivement petit. Comprim~s depuis deux ans entre la terreur et la defiances, les Fran9ais ont pris ihabi- tude des esclaves, qui est de ne dire que ce quon peut dire sans danger. Les clubs et les piques tuent l~nergie, hahituent k la dis- simulation, fi la bassesse, et si on laisse con- tracter au peuple cette inf~me habitude il ne verra dautre bonheur que de changer de tyran. (Pallain, Mission de Talleyrand, p. 419~) It has never been explained why the British government ordered Talleyrand to leave the country, which sheltered so many d;nigrds, and where he had so many friendsall, indeed, of the Whig party. He certainly was not an agent of the Rev- olution, and his life would not have been worth a days purchase if he had been cast upon the shore of France. Leaving England, he embarked for the United States, the more willingly as he was pas- sionately fond of the sea. The wide hon. zon of the ocean, the steady progress of the vessel, were congenial to his silent but somewhat melancholy meditations. When M. de Talleyrand left England for Amer. ica, in March, 1794, the Marquis of Lans- downe gave him a letter of introduction to President Washington, in which the following ~xpressions occur : M. de Talleyrand is the eldest son of one of the first families in France. He was bred to the Church on account of an accidental lameness at his birth, and must have suc- ceeded to the highest honors and emoluments it he had not sacrificed his ambition to public principle, in which, however, he preserves so much moderation as never to pass the line of a constitutionalist, which exposes him to the hatred of the violent party now predominat- ing. He has resided in England near three years, during which time he has conducted himself, to my intimate knowledge, with the strictest public and private propriety, so as to give not the slightest cause of jealousy. The letter is published in the Life of Lord Shelburne, by Lord Edmond Fitz- maurice, vol. iii .,p. 515. It did not, however, produce the desired effect; Washington did not receive M. de Talley- rand; probably because he was at that very time engaged in embarrassing nego- tiations with the French minister in the United States. No pages in these volumes are so grace- fully written in the original, or are to us so interesting, as M. de Talleyra nds per- sonal recollections of the United States as he saw them nearly a hundred years ago, and within five years of the establish- ment of the Federal Union. They com- bine a vivid picture of that forest-clad, unexplored land with a most sagacious forecast of the future character of the American people. On leaving Philadel- phia to travel inland, I was struck with astonishment; at less than a hundred and fifty miles distance from the capital, all trace of mens presence disap- peared; nature in all her primeval vigor con- fronted us. Forests old as the world itself; decayed plants and trees covering the very ground where they once grew in luxuriance others shooting forth from under the deliris of the former, and like them destined to decay and rot; thick and intricate hushes that often barred our progress; green and luxuriant grass decking the banks of rivers; large nat oral meadows; strange and delicate flowers quite new to me; and here and there the traces of former tornadoes that had carried everything before them. Enormous trees, all mowed down in the same direction, extending for a considerable distance, bear witness to the wonderful force of these terrible phenom- ena. On reaching higher ground, our eyes wandered, as far as the sight could range. N MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND, MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. II over a most varied and pleasant picture. The tops of trees and the undulations of the ground which alone interfere with the uniform aspect of large extents of country, produce a peculiar effect. In the face of these immense solitudes, we gave free vent to our imagina- tion; our minds built cities, villages, and hamlets; the mountain forests were to remain untouched, the slopes of the hills to be cov- ered with luxuriant crops, and we could al- most fancy we saw numerous herds of cattle grazing in the valley under our eyes. There is an inexpressible charm in thinking of the future when travelling in such countries. Such, said I to myself, was the place where, not very many years ago, Penn and two thou- sand emigrants laid the foundations of Phila- delphia, and where a population of eighty thousand people is now enjoying all the luxu- ries of Europe. Such was also the site now occupied by the pretty little town of Bethle- hem, whose neat houses and wonderfully fertile environs, due to the energy of the Mo- ravian brothers, excite the admiration of all visitors. After the peace of 1783, the city of Baltimore was but a fishing village; now spa- cious and elegant dwellings have there been built everywhere, and dispute the ground with trees whose stumps have not yet been re- moved. It is impossible to move a step with. out feeling convinced that the irresistible progressive march of nature requires an im- mense population to cultivate some day this large extent of ground lying idle now indeed, but which only wants the hand of man to produce everything in abundance. I leave to others the satisfaction of foretelling the pros- pects of those countries. I confine myself to noticing that it is impossible to walk a few miles away from seaside towns without learn- ing that the lovely and fertile fields we now admire were, but ten, but five, but a couple of years ago, mere wildernesses of forest. Similar causes must produce similar effects, especially when acting with ever-increasing power. The population of the States will therefore daily reclaim some fresh portion of these fallow spaces, the area of which far surpasses that of the ground at present culti- vated. (Vol. i., pp. 176178.) After remarking that agriculture is the chief ~vealth of society, and the surest barrier against revolutions, because it furnishes constant proofs of the grand re- sults of simple, regular work, which neither hurries nor delays in anything, he adds In times of revolutions, rashness is regarded as skill, and exaggeration as greatness. To put a stop to them, circumspection must re- place audacity, and greatness will then lie in moderation, and skill in prudence. A govern- ment, which is the friend of liberty and averse to disturbing the tranquillity of the world, must strive to act with moderation. An agri- cultural nation settles down, it does not wish for conquests. Commerce, on the other hand, always longs for increase of territory~ (Vol. L, p. 179.) He therefore laments the tendency of the American people, which he already re- marked, to the spirit of commercial enter- prise and specuiat~n, and to the sordid and debasing pursuit of money, whilst nine-tenths of the five hundred millions of acres, comprising the territory of North America, are still untilled; and he adds that too much activity is devoted to busi- ness and not enough to farming, and this first impulse given to all the ideas of the country unsettles its social establish- ment. In the course of the two winters Talley- rand spent in Philadelphia and New York, he made the acquaintance of Alexander Hamilton, whose mind and character placed him, he thought, on a par with the most distinguished statesmen of Europe, not even excepting Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox; and he records a remarkable conversation in which the French visitor defended the principles of free trade, and hoped that a time would come to introduce liberal equality into the intercourse of nations. He pointed out the manifest advantage of an exchange between the crops of Amer- ica and the manufactures of Europe. But Hamilton was a strong protectionist. He contended that the United States only needed two markets, one for the Northern and one for the Southern States, and that these must be created within their own boundaries. In fact, he anticipated the MKinley tariff by almost a century. Tal- leyrand remarks I do not know whether they will ever be realized, but if they do, it will only be when the intrusive and invading spirit of America will have ceased to alter the general relations of the American people with other nations, and when, by a judicious regard for its own interests, it will endeavor to conquer its own country by turning to every possible advan- tage the vast extent of territory belonging to it. (Vol. I., p. r8~.) We are indebted to M. Pallain(or rather to the present Marquis of Lansdowne) for an elaborate letter to the first marquis, dated from Philadelphia in February, 1795, in which he argues that in spite of the services rendered by France to the Amer- icans, and in spite of the lingering resent- ment caused by the War of Independence, it was not to France, but to England, that the true inclinations of the American peo- ple must point. His conclusion is that America is English, and that England, not France, may derive from the United 12 MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. States all the benefit which one nation can derive from the existence of another. There is, he says, in the representative Constitution of England a good deal of, republic, and a good deal of monarchy in the executive power of the Union. The Anglo-Saxon nations are drawn together by their common language, by their laws, and above all by their interest. France has nothingof the kind tooffer; and the French ministers, M. Ternan and M. Genet, had intrigued against the Union and endeavored to introduce Jacobinism into the United States. These are re- markable opinions coming from a French statesman in Philadelphia, and we are tempted to quote them because the Me- moirs now published contain but little of equal interest. In 1796 a decree of the Convention au. thorized M. de Talleyrand to return to France, and he reached Paris in Septem- ber of that year. He still stood aloof from politics, and it deserves to be noted that his first occupation was the reorganization of the Institute (which had been sup- pressed in 1792), and especially of the Acaddmie des Sciences Morales et Poli- tiques, of which he was an original mem- ber. He read to that learned body two papers on the colonial interests of France. Forty years afterwards his last literary effort was the admirable Eloge of M. Reinhard, which is published in the sec- ond volume of the Transactions of that Academy a very remarkable, and in some respects an autobiographical, paper. Madame de Sta~1 was anxious that he should make the acquaintance of Barras, then a leading member of the Directory. After some hesitation a meeting was brought about, under singular circum- stances, and Talleyrand says: From that day I never had any reason to regret mak- ing his acquaintance. We think other- wise, for his connection with Bairas changed the course, if not of his opinions, at least of his life. Down to that moment the public career of Talleyrand had been open to no reproach. In the National Assembly he had been the consistent ad- vocate of practical reforms and constitu- tional monarchy. He had opposed the Girondins in their desire for war, and the Jacobins in their revolutionary extrava- gance. He had invariably denounced the criminal passion for intervention with other nations and foreign conquests as the greatest calamity for France. He had labored for peace under the monarchy, and when that was impossible he withdrew into exile. The Directory, which he found estab. lished on his return, consisted of five members, two of whom, Carnot and Bar- thdiemy, were advocates of peace and moderation ; the three others, Barras, Rewbell, ~nd Lareveilli~re, were Jacobi ns. On principle Talleyrand belonged to the moderate party; as a matter of fact he joined the latter. By a singular turn of fortune this Directory, which was the most incapable and corrupt government ever imposed on France, was represented in the field by the greatest soldier of mod- ern times, Napoleon Bonaparte; and in the Cabinet by the most subtle and saga- cious of diplomatists, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. Both these great personages, who afterwards held in their hands the fate of Europe, owed their respective offices as general and as minister to Barras. Talleyrand was appointed minister of for- eign affairs on July 24, 1797. It was a moment of supreme importance to Europe. France had entered upon her career of conquests and spoliation. Italy was occupied by her armies. Prelimina- ries of peace had been signed at Leoben, but the negotiations for the definite treaty of Campo Formio were going on, and in fact that agreement was dictated by the sword of Bonaparte more than by the pen of Talleyrand. Lord Malmesbury was at Lille engaged in a negotiation, in which he was aided by some of the French com- missioners, and defeated by others. At the very same time the Directory was pre- paring General Humberts expedition to invade Ireland. And above all the Direc- tory itself was on the verge of another revolution. To give a clear conception of what I have termed the ways of the Directory, I think it will be sufficient to relate the incidents that marked the first council at which I was pres- ent. A quarrel took place between Carnot and Barras; the latter charged his colleague with having destroyed a letter which ought to have been submitted to the Directory. They were both standing. Carnot, putting up his hand, said: I give you my word of honor that that is not so I Do not raise your hand, replied Barras; blood would drip from it. Such were our rulers, and my task was to try to obtain the readmission of France to the councils of Europe, whilst such men were in power. Difficult though this great undertaking was, I did not hesitate to con- front it. (Vol. i., p. 192.) Within a few days these dissensions broke out into open violence. The elec- tions to the Council of Five Hundred had been in favor of the anti-revolutionary party. The Jacobin minority arrested MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. 3 their colleagues and transported them to Cayenne without a trial, by virtue of what was then termed a law, on the i8th Fructidor. From the highest author- ities to those of the lowest rank there was scarcely one that was not arbitrary in its formation, its composition, and mode of action. All this was done with vio- lence, and as a natural consequence noth- ing could last. Such was the government under which Talleyrand took office. The demon of power must have entered into him, for he broke at that one blow from all the principles of his former life. The circular addressed to the foreign agents of the republic in defence of that atro- cious revolution, which it ascribed to a non-existent royalist conspiracy, is a pro- digious specimen of republican mendacity. Once in office, he accepted with apparent enthusiasm the policy of the Jacobins, his masters. But here again we have to de- pend much more on his own despatches, published by M. Pallain, than on any rev- elations contained in the Memoirs. His own apology is in the following words The foreign minister of the Dii ectory af- fected to dispose of territories in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland with supreme authority; and it is characteristic that on the very day of his accession to office Tal- leyrand addressed ~ complimentary letter to Bonaparte. In fact, for the next ten years they became confederates. Talley. rand despised and detested the Directory or, as he called it, the polyarchy which he served; and he early discovered in the ambition and the genius of Bona- parte qualities which tended to the resto- ration of monarchy in his person. Their first meeting took place when the young general came to Paris to propose the con- quest of Egypt to the Directory, and is thus described I had never seen him. At the time of my nomination to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs he had written to me, as I have already men- tioned, a long letter, carefully compiled, in which he wished to appear under a different character from that which he had hitherto played on the stage of public life. This let- ter is sufficiently interesting to make one wish it to be inserted at the end of these Me- lt has come to my knowledge that some moirs. [This letter is unfortunately lost.] people, not in the days I speak of, but since The evening of the day on which he arrived in the Restoration, considered that it was wrong Paris, he sent me an aide-de-camp to ask at to accept office in times of crisis and revolu- what hour he could see me. I replied that I tion, when it is impossible to work absolute awaited his leisure; he fixed the next day at good. Such judgment always appears to me eleven A.M. I informed Madame de Sta~l of most superficial. In the affairs of this world, this; she was in my drawing-room at ten we must not simply consider the present. oclock. There were also some other persons That which is-, in the majority of cases, has whom curiosity had attracted thither. I re- but a very small importance, whenever we member that Bougainville was there. The lose sight of the fact that that which is- pro- general was announced, and I went to meet duces that which shall be; thus indeed, as him. While crossing the room, I introduced we frame the present, so will the future be Madame de Sta~l to him, but he bestowed shaped. If we consider matters, without very little attention upon her. Bougainville prejudice and, above all, without envy, we was the only one whom he condescended to plainly see that men do not always accept notice, and to whom he paid a few compli- office so as to gratify their personal interests, ments. and I might add that it is no mean sacrifice At first sight. he seemed to me have a on the part of a political man to consent to charming face; so much do the halo of vic- being the responsible editor of other peoples tory, fine eyes, a pale and almost consumptive lucubrations. Selfish and timorous people look, become a young hero. We entered my are incapable of so much abnegation; but, I study. Our first conversation was full of repeat it, it must be borne in mind that, by confidence on his part. He dwelt in kind declining official posts, in times of upheaval, terms on my appointment as Foreign Secre- one simply affords greater facilities to the tary, and insisted on the pleasure it afforded enemies of public order. He who accepts him to correspond with a person of a different does so, not to second the advocates of a stamp from that of the directors. Almost state of affairs to which he is opposed, but in abruptly he said to me, You are the nephew order to so modify their action that it may be of the Archbishop of Rheims, who is with profitable to the future. En toute chose ii Louis XVIII~ (I noticed that he did not faut considcfrer la fin, said good old La Fon- then say with the Comte de Lille); and he tame, and that is not a mere apologue. Vol. L, added, I also have an uncle who is an pp. 191, 192.) archdeacon in Corsica; it was he who brought This reflection did not prevent Rewbell me up. In Corsica, you know, an archdea- con is like a bishop in France. We soon from altering his draft despatches. The returned to the drawing-room, which had tone assumed at Lille became more over- become filled with visitors, and he said in a bearing, and the revolution of Fructidor loud voice: Citizens, I apprectate th6 at- defeated Lord Malmesburys negotiation. tentions paid to me; I waged war as well as I 4 MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. could, and as well as I could made peace. It now rests with the Directory to turn the latter to the happiness and prosperity of the Re- pubiic. (Vol. i, PP- 195197.) On July 18, 1798, Talleyrand presented to the Directory a memorial on the rela- tions of France to all the other powers of Europe, which attests his entire mastery of the subject. Our limits forbid us to dwell upon it, but there is one passage which bears remarkably on more recent events Russia without trade and without colonies is hardly assailable by any Power not cotermi- nous with her empire. In the~best days of our navy we should not have dreamed of pen- etrating into the Baltic and the Gulf of Fin- land. An expedition to Archangel would be easier, if the North Sea were not occupied by our enemies. I see, therefore, but one point on which we can touch Russia, but that point is the most sensitive. If Bonaparte estab- lishes himself in Egypt, when he has de- spatched a portion of his forces against the English in India, what should prevent the French fleet entering the Black Sea in union with that of Turkey, from indemnifying that Power for the occupation of Egypt, by aiding her to reconquer the Crimea, a country much more valuable to Turkey than a province which has been abandoned for ages to the revolts of the Beys? There will not always be a strong British fleet in the Mediterranean. Attacked in india, threatened on their own coasts, struck to the heart by the progress of the insurrection in Ireland, which may disor- ganize their naval armaments, they will have to abandon their station at the end of the Mediterranean, and then we can march on Constantinople, where everything should be done to secure a favorable reception. The destruction of Cherson and of Sebastopol would be the just punishment of the insane hostility of Russia, and the best means of obtaining from the Turks the consolidation of ocr establishment in Africa. (Minist~re sous ir Directoire, p. 247.) Whatever may have been the intuitive spirit of conquest and adventure in the young conqueror of Italy at the age of eight-and-twenty, it is apparent from these papers that he derived from Talleyrand hi~ knowledge of the political affairs of Europe, and even some of the schemes which fired his ambition. Perhaps the expedition to Egypt originated with the statesman more than with the general; and as the ignominious defeat of that ad- venture was a severe blow to their hopes, Talleyrand took advantage of a series of reverses in Italy and of the unpopularity of the Directory to resign his office exactly two years after he had accepted it. It is significant that within three months (Oc tober 9, 1799) Bonaparte returned from Egypt. He was received with enthusiasm due to his victories, and with a presentiment of his political services. Siey~s had said, 11 me faut une ~p~e, and that sword was Bonaparte. But on his arrival he was personally unknown to all the politicians of the day except Barras, and Barras was his enemy. He first met R~derer at a dinner given by Talleyrand, and it was by the combined efforts of Talleyrand and Rcederer that he was brought into confi- dential relations with Siey~s, then a mem- ber of the Directory. These were the real authors of the i8th Brumaire, who placed Bonaparte on what may be termed the consular throne. In that revolution Talleyrand took an active, though an oc- cult part. He relates that one evening General Bonaparte called upon me to discuss the preliminaries of his couft d/ta/. The conversation lasted till one in the morning, and at that hour the con- spirators, for such they were, were alarmed by a noise of horses and carriages in front of the house. Bonaparte turned pale, and I quite believe I did the same. We at once thought that people had come to arrest us by order of the Directory. I blew out the candles, and went on tiptoe to look out. It turned out to be a mere patrol of the police. If the Directory had known what was passing in that drawing- room, it would have changed the history of Europe. But the Directory was doomed to perish, and the i8th Brumaire raised Bonaparte to the consulate, with Siey~s and Roger-Ducos. Talleyrand suggested, on the very first day, that as all matters connected with foreign affairs are essen- tially secret, they should be transacted exclusively between the first consul and himself, as minister of foreign affairs. These men thenceforward held continental Europe in their grasp, and the battle of Marengo, in June, i8oo, gave all power and glory to the new government. Siey~s and Talleyrand both took office under the first consul, though S iey~s soon retired into private life. Thiers, who had an aversion to Talleyrand, ascribes the more important rt~/e to Siey~s, and even asserts that the outcry against Talleyrand amongst the Republicans was so loud that Bonaparte suspended his nomination for a fortnight. This statement is contra- dicted by the passage from the Me- moirs we have just cited. To Siey~ was alloted the task of framing the new Constitution, and he evolved from his in- ner consciousness the strange fabric of MEMOIRS OF PRiNCE TALLEYRAND. the An VIII., which, under complicated Republican forms, paved the way to des- potism. But Siey~s was a political 1db- logue an abstract theorician, the very class of men most repugnant to Bonaparte. He was too powerful to be set aside, and his Constitution was adopted with some important changes, after which he scorn- fully withdrew from public affairs. Tal- leyrand was the exact opposite of his metaphysical contemporary. Lie was es- sentially a practical politician, and he brought to the service of the first consul and of France precisely the qualities and the knowledge which were most requisite in the conduct of their foreign relations. Writers like M. Thiers, who ascribe every- thing to their idol, suppose that Bonaparte had mastered in three weeks the whole system of European politics. But it is evident from the works before us that the foreign policy of the early consulate was impregnated and inspired throughout with the views of Talleyrand, and to him alone we are taught to attribute the result the more so as a time came when the impetu- ous will of the master broke through the precautionary measures of his sagacious minister. We are tempted to quote a remarkable passage from the Eloge of M. Rein- hard, in which Talleyrand gives us his own view of the duties of a foreign minister Ii faut quun ministre des affaires ~tran- g~res soit - dou6 dune sorte dinstinct qui lavertissant promptement, lempeche avant toute discussion de jamais se compromettre. Il lui faut la facult~ de se montrer ouvert en restant imp6n~trable; -detre r~serv6 avec les formes de 1abandon, detre habile jusque dans le choix de ses distractions; ii faut que sa conversation soit simple, vari6e, in atten- due, toujours naturelle, et parfois naive; et un mot ii ne doit pas cesser, un moment, dans les vingt-quatre heures, d& re ministre des affaires ~trang& es. Cependant toutes ces qualiti~s, quelque rares quelles soient, pourraient n~tre pas suffisantes, si la bonne foi ne leur donnait une garantie, dont elles out presque toujours besoin. Non, la diplo- matie nest point une science de ruse et de duplicit~. Si la bonne foi est n~cessaire quelque part, cest surtout dans les trans- actions politiques, car cest die qui les rend solides Ct durables. On a voulu confondre Ia reserve avec la ruse. La bonne foi nauto- rise jamais la ruse, mais elle admet la r& serve; et la r6serve a cela de particulier, cest quelle ajoute ~ la confiance. Such was M. de Talleyrands legacy of advice, delivered in 1838, to the profession he loved. It deserves not to be forgotten, for it comes from the hand of a master. The first years of the consulate restored internal order and external peace to France. The Peace of Lun~ville with Austria was followed by the Peace of Amiens with Enoland, with reference to which Talleyrand said to Bonaparte (who could not bear to hear him say it) that he would willingly have left Malta to the En- glish, provided the treaty had been signed by Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox, instead of by Mr. Addington. One of his first measures was the attempt to draw Prussia into alli- ance with France by the mission of I)uroc, a combination to which Talleyrand had always attached great importance. He powerfully contributed to the reconcilia- tion of the French Republic with the Papal Court, and to the Concordat which restored the Church of France, a duty which the ex-Bishop of Autun had much at heart. The secularized territories in Germany were distributed under the medi- ation of France and Russia. The dmz~r6s were allowed to return. Not a few of the J acobins forgot their aversion to personal rule.. The spirit of the consulate was for a time one of tolerance and moderation. If acts of violence and injustice were committed, M. de Talleyrand glides smoothly over them in this part of his work, and we may hear more about them hereafter. But as to the annexation of Piedmont and the Swiss Act of Mediation, which were especially resented by En- gland, they were opposed by him, and he is not altogether silent on the murder of the Duc dEnghien. Until the Peace of Amiens, Bonaparte may have committed many faults, for what man is free from them? But none of the plans he had conceived were such that any true and patriotic Frenchman could have felt any re- luctance to contribute to their execution. One may not always have abreed as to the excel- lence of the means resorted to by Bonaparte, but the utility of the aim could not be con- tested, being simply, on the one hand, to bring foreign wars to an end, and, on the other hand, to close the revolutionary era by re-establishing monarchy, which, in my candid opinion, it was then impossible to do in favor of the legitimate heirs of the last king. The Peace of Amiens was scarcely con- cluded, when Bonaparte began to give up moderation; the provisions of that peace had not yet been carried out, when he already sowed the seeds of new wars which, after overwhelming Europe and France, were to lead him to his ruin. Piedmont ought to have been given back to the King of Sardinia immediately after the Peace of Lun6ville; it was merely in trust in the hands of France. To give it up would have been both an act of strict justice and a 5 MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. very wise policy. Bonaparte, on the contrary, aunexed it to France. I made vain efforts to dissuade him from such a measure. He be- lieved his personal interest reqiiired him to do so, his pride seemed to him to claim that arbitrary step, and all the counsels of pru- dence failed to alter his mind in that respect. (Vol. i., p. 219.) But events quickened Bonapartes resolu- tion to transform the consulate for life into an hereditary monarchy. The English had landed on the coasts of Brittany a few devoted and most enterprising Imtgris. Bonaparte took advantage of this new royalist plot, in which he flattered himself to implicate, at the same time, Dumouriex, Pichegru, and Mo. reau, his three rivals in glory, to wrench from the senate the title of Emperor. But that title, which, with moderation and wisdom, he would just as well have obtained, though per. haps not quite so soon, became the meed of violence and crime. He ascended the throne, but a throne besmeared with innocent blood blood which former and glorious recollec. lections made dear to France. The violent and unexplained death of Piche- gru, the means used to obtain the conviction of Moreau, might be put to the account of policy; but the assassination of the. Duc dEnghien, committed solely in order, by placing himself in their ranks, to make sure of those whom the death of Louis XVI. caused to fear all manner of power not coming from them, this assassination, I say, could be neither excused nor forgiven, nor has it ever been so; Bonaparte has therefore been re- duced to boast of it. (Vol. i., pp. 220, 22!.) In the third part of this work, the author passes rapidly over the events which changed the face of Europe; but in all of them he had a considerable share. He followed Napoleon to Austerlitz, and ne- gotiated the Treaty of Presburg with the house of Austria, and the humiliating convention with Haugwitz, which settled the degradation of Prussia and prepared her ruin in the following year. He was present at Tilsit and at Erfurt. These pages add little to the well known history of these transactions; but the intimate correspondence of the minister and the emperor, recently published, is more ex- plicit. It shows with what degrading ser- vility and sycophancy Talleyrand clung to the imperial rigime, until he discovered that the uncontrollable ambition of the emperor was driving the empire to ruin. He had long known that Napoleon was fond of deceiving, and would do so for the mere love of it; apart from his policy his instinct would have made it a neces- sity for him. To how many of these ruses had Talleyrand been a party? The decisive blow which led to the resignation, or rather dismissal, of the minister, was the attack on Spain. The emperor had spoken to me several times of his project of seizing Spain. I op. posed this plan with all my might, showing the immol~ality and the dangers of such an undertaking. He always alleged, as an ex- cuse, the danger which a diversion of the Spanish government would cause him, if he should meet with any reverse on the banks of the Rhine or in Italy, and he quoted to me the unfortunate proclamation of the Prince of the Peace on the occasion of the battle of Jena. I had often refuted that objection, re- minding him that it would be very unjust to hold the Spanish nation responsible for the fault of a man whom it detested and despised, and that it would be easier for him to over. throw the Prince of the Peace than to seize Spain. But he replied to me that the idea of the Prince of the Peace might be adopted by others, and that he would never be safe on the Pyrenean frontier. It was then that, driven into a corner by the artful arguments of his ambition, I proposed to him a plan which presented the guarantees of security which he was pretending to look for in Spain. I advised him to occupy Catalonia until he should obtain maritime peace with England. You will declare, said I to him, that you will keep that pledge until the peace, and by so doing you will hold the Spanish govern- ment in check. If peace should be deferred, it is possible that Catalonia, which is the least Spanish of all the provinces of Spain, might become attached to France; there are histor- ical traditions for that; and perhaps it might become definitely united with France. But anything further that you may do will one day cause you bitter regrets. I did not convince him, and he mistrusted me in this matter. As I have just said, he tempted the cupid- ity and ambition of the Prince of the Peace by a treaty relative to a dismemberment of Portugal. That treaty was negotiated secretly and signed on the 27th of October, 1807, at Fon- tainebleau, by General Duroc, and Councillor Izquierdo (confidential agent of the Prince of the Peace), unknown to M. de Champagny, Foreign Minister, and also unknown to me, although at that time I was Chief Councillor of State, and was residing at Fontainebleau. (Vol. i., pp. 246, 247.) By a curious turn of events, Valen- gay, the residence of Talleyrand, became the abode of the entrapped Spanish princes. They were received there with the most punctilious deference, and under the courtly hospitality of the owner they enjoyed a kind of liberty they had never known near their fathers throne. At Madrid, the two elder princes were not allowed to walk out without a written per- mission from the king. Hunting, riding, and dancing were forbidden them in MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. 7 Spain; they found these amusements at Valen~ay. The emperor heard those things with displeasure. On one occasion among others, taking a bantering tone with me, rubbing his hands, and walking up and down the room, while looking at me with a mocking air, he said to me, Well, you see what all your predic- tions as to the difficulties I should encounter in regulating the affairs of Spain according to my views have amounted to; I have, how- ever, overcome these people here; they have all been caught in the nets I spread for them, and I am master of the situation in Spain, as in the rest of Europe. Provoked by this boasting, so little justified in my eyes, and above all by the shameful means he had em- ployed to arrive at his ends, I replied to him, calmly, that I did not see things under the same aspect as he, and that I believed he had lost more than he had gained by the events at Bayonne. What do you mean by that? he replied. Mon Dieu, I said, it is very simple, and I will show you by an example. If a man in the world commits follies, has mistresses, conducts himself badly towards his wife, does even grave wrongs to his friends, he will doubtless be blamed; but if he is rich, powerful, and clever, he may still expect to be treated with indulgence in so- ciety. If he cheats at gaming, he is imme- diately banished from good company, which will never pardon him. The emperor turned pale, remained confused, and spoke to me no more on that day; but I can say that from this moment dated the rupture which, more or less marked, took place between him and me. Never after did he pronounce the name of Spain, of Valen9ay, or mine, without add- ing to it some injurious epithet which his tem- per furnished. The princes had not been three months at Valen9ay before he already believed that he saw all the vengeances of Europe proceeding therefrom. The persons who surrounded him have often said to me that he spoke of Valen~ay with uneasiness, whenever his conversation or questions bore upon that place. (Vol. i., pp. 288, 289.) The Spanish princes remained at Valen- ~ay five years, but in i8o8 Talleyrand ceased to be minister of Napoleon, though he retained the titular office of vice-grand elector of the empire. He retired without resentment, but not without regret, and the following passage is probably a gen- uine expression of his feelings: Placed for so many years in the very midst of his projects, and so to say in the very crater of his policy, a witness to all that he did or that was done against him, there was not much credit in foreseeing that all the countries recently placed under his rule, and all the kingdoms newly created for the benefit of his family, would be the first to deal a blow at his power. Not without bitter grief, I con- LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXVI. 3898 fess, did I witness such a sight. I was fond of Napoleon; I was attached to his person, notwithstanding his faults when he first ap- peared on the scene of the world, I felt attracted towards him by the irresistible spell peculiar to great genius. I was sincerely grateful to him for tM favors he had bestowed on me. Besides, why should I fear to say it? I had shared in his glory, which reflected ppon alt those who assisted him in his noble work. Thus I can boast of having served him with devotion and, as far as I was able, with enlightened devotion. In the days when he still listened to the truth, I loyally told it to him; I told it to him even later, when it was necessary to be cautious in letting him know it; and the disfavor that my candor caused me, justified me, in my conscience, in first leaving his policy, then his person, when he had reached the point of imperilling the des- tinies of my country. When Napoleon, casting aside every rea- sonable transaction, threw himself, in i8i 2, into the fatal Russian expedition, any ~vell- balanced mind could almost fix the date when, followed up by those powers he had humil- iated, and forced to cross the Rhine again, he would lose the prestige with which fortune had hitherto surrounded him. Napoleon van- quished, was doomed to disappear from the worlds stage; that is the destiny of van- quished usurpers. But France once invaded, what odds there would be against her! What means could thwart the evils which threatened her? What form of government should she adopt, if she resisted such a catastrophe? Those were serious subjects of meditation for all good Frenchmen. To consider them was a duty for those whom circumstances, or, if one prefers, their ambition, had already called, at other times, to exercise an influence on the future of their country. It is what for several years I believed I had the right to do; and according as I saw the dreadful issue ap- proaching, I examined and combined with more care and attention the resources that would remain to us. This was neither to be- tray nor to conspire against Napoleon, though he had more than once charged me with doing so. I have never conspired in my life, except at those times when I had the majority of France for an accomplice, and when I sought with her the salvation of the country. Napo- leons mistrust of and insults to me cannot change the truth of the facts, and I proclaim it loudly, he never had a dangerous conspira- tor against him but himself. (Vol. ii., pp ioo, ioi.) The second volume of the Memoirs now published relates, therefore, exclu- sively to transactions subsequent to the princes retirement. It might have been foreseen that the delay of half a century and more (for these Memoirs are believed to have been written in i8i6) would inevitably cause them to be anticipated by other and more i8 MEMOIRS OF PRINCE TALLEYRAND. elaborate publications. This has been the case. One of the first important contests in which Napoleon engaged in 1809 was his struggle with the pope. M. de Talley- rand has devoted to it one portion of his work, for he never entirely lost his inter- est in the affairs of the Church to which he had belonged, and the Concordat of x8oi was in great part his own creation. But the excellent history of Lthe relations of the pope and the empire by the late Count dHaussonville has long since sup- plied a far more authentic and complete account of the nefarious persecution of Pius VII. More recently the volumes of M. Vandal and M. Tatischeff on the interviews of Tilsit and Erfurt have ex- hausted that subject. In 1814 M. de Talleyrand undoubtedly played a very considerable part in the restoration of the Bourbons; he presided over the Senate when all the other institutions of the em- pire had crumbled into dust, and was him- self, for some days, at the head of the temporary government that preceded the return of the Comte dArtois to Paris. He naturally declined to follow the em- press to Blois; but his conduct was hesitating and pusillanimous. He was watching the course of events. Mean- while, M. de Vitrolles was laboring with enthusiastic energy, and not without suc- cess, to direct them; and, although he was a man of far less importance than Talley- rand, we do not hesitate to say that the Vitrolles Memoirs contain a much fuller and more vivid, account of the res- toration than the volumes now before us. It fell to the lot of M. de Talleyrand to assist in the establishment of a constitu- tional monarchy in France, which had been the object of his earliest efforts in the Constituent Assembly. Louis XVIII. received him and treated him as a great French nobleman, whose rank was second only to his own. In that capacity Talley. rand appeared at the Congress of Vienna, not in the character of a defeated suppli- ant, but as the representative of the legit- imate monarch of a re-established throne. France in his person resumed her place in Europe, and that, we take it, was the proudest moment of the princes life. But his masterly correspondence with the king of France, from Vienna, has long been made public; and we see no reason that it should now be suffered to occupy nearly half of one of these volumes. The same may be said of the several treaties and in- structions which are now republished at length. When these Memoirs were written by Talleyrand, or compiled by M. de Bacourt, these official documents might be regarded as confidential papers; but they have long since entirely lost that character. Fin~liy, the last great achieve- ment of Talleyratids life was the estab- lishment ef a close alliance with England. in 1831, and the position assumed by the government of King Louis Philippe in the affairs of Europe. The successful oppo- sition of the Western to the Northern powers gave independence to Belgium and liberty to Spain. After an interval of nearly forty years the policy of Mirabeau,. the policy for which Talleyrand had con~ tended in 1792, was realized. In 1831 the time for writing memoirs had long been~ passed; but here again the publication of the official correspondence of the prince~ from London, and of his private letters to~ Madame Ad~lafde, supplies all the infor- mation we require. These facts demon-- strate that these Memoirs add but little to the history of public events. But, as we said at starting, they do en- able us to take a more enlarged and just view of the character of the man. It is. not a little significant that at this distance of time, nearly a hundred and forty years.. after his birth, his flo-ure seen through the troubled atmosphere of a century of revolutions, rises to the first rank amongst all his contemporaries, and excites a more lively interest as we recede from the pe- riod in which he lived. Self-contained, self-reliant, self-sufficient, M. de Talley- rand owed the position he created and occupied to the lofty conception he enter- tained of his rank, of his talents, and of his duties. lie owed but little to any one ~ he gave more than he received. He as- sumed a certain hauteur which marked his originality and independence, whilst it rendered him absolutely indifferent to mis- representation and even to insult. The love of power and the exercise of power were, no doubt, the leading passions of his life, but not the display of it. On the contrary, he preferred to work through others and by unseen means. His singular penetration and knowledge of character gave him an ascendency over his contem-- poraries and subordinates which led them unconsciously in the direction he designed for them. The ordinary prizes of ambi- tion were indifferent to him, because they could add nothing to the rank he already possessed; and his vanity was never touched or flattered by popular applause. No man ever lived less likely to wear his heart upon his sleeve for daws to peck at. His strength lay in his silence, till at the right moment he uttered a worck LETTY OQE. 9 that acted like a spell. His witticisms are will and testament, from his old master remembered not so much for their humor into the hands of Coe ,gen eral dealer, or, as for their truth. Entrenched in his own in commoner style, costerm~nger. Mike strong, aristocratical personality, and re- had fallen into the habit of calling the don- taming under all circumstances the fault- key Pat, in affectionate remembrance o~ less manners of the old court of France, the bequeather, Patrick Roon, his bosom of which he was the last representative, friend of many a long year. There had he passed unchanged through all the been for some time unmistakable signsof changes of an age of revolution. But the failing strength in the patient beast, and same causes which so strongly marked his the past fortnight of hard winter weath~r character made him a solitary man, with- had told disastrously. Mike knew it, and out friends, without affections. His school- spared Pat all he could; but the results of fellow M. Choiseul-Gouffier is the only a break-down would have been so serious man of whom he speaks with tenderness that he could not bring himself to ac the man, he says, whom he most loved, knowledge the worst symptoms. Now it An irregular youth and a discreditable had come. Going into the shed early in marriage cut him off from domestic life, the morning to summon Pat for his run and he sank into habits of selfishness, lux- to Covent Garden, Coe found the animal ury, and cupidity. That he received large stretched on the ground, willing enough to sums of money from foreign powers on rise, as its glistening eye showed whei~ the the occasion of several of the great trans- candle was held low, but, alas I unable. actions under the empire is undoubted, Strokings, kindly tugs, even a rough word, but the integrity of statesmen in that age proved vain. Mike ivent out into the yard of plunder was low, and, although he con- ~vith a curse on his lips and a leaden trived to be largely paid for his services, weight at his heart. it is not true that he ever sold the interests Old Mrs. Jarmey had been right. Only of his country. But these transactions two nights before, as they were all having are repugnant to the nobility of character supper together in the room behind.the which he professed, and, in ourjudgment, shop, Mike had had the misfortune to over- tell largely against his fame, and accredit turn the salt-cellar, and Mrs. Jarmey knew the belief that he was unscrupulous when well enough what that meant. Though .his interests were concerned. His ene- one would have thought that the omen mies, who were numerous, have not spared had been exhausted by what happened on his reputation, and have exaggerated his the following morning. With the idea that defects and his offences, when they ac- he might perhaps break his run of bad cuse him of treachery and cruelty, though luck by a change of investment, Coe had he may have been an accomplice in the laid out his money that day at Billings- treacherous and cruel actions of others gate. On getting the fish home, he dis- by consenting to serve them, and thus he covered that all under the top rows were has been made to bear the burden of their bad, quite unfit to offer for sale. There crimes. But it must be admitted, from the was no remedy. Once before the same perusal of these papers, many of which thing had happened to him, and now, in a bear the stamp of contemporary evidence, mood of resolute indignation, he went that he endeavored, even in the worst and told his story to the magistrate. It times, to counteract the spirit of violence was the wrong court. If he liked, he and aggression which afflicted Europe, could take action elsewhere, but it had and sought to place the liberties of France several times been decided that the deal- upon a secure basis under a constitutional ers bought at their own risk. I might sovereign; and he will go down to p05- a knowd it, muttered Coe to himself, as terity as one of the most striking, if not he went away. Only a fool had a wasted the greatest, figures of a memorable age. arf a day in tryin to get his rights. During the other half of the day he sat at home, brooding. Then it was that, towards evening, Ned Jarmey had come in, and, after shuffling about for a littler From Temple B~i. as his manner was, had squatted down on LETTY cOE. a heap of matting and began to speak in~ WHEN the donkey fell ill, that was the an unusually confidential tone. climax of Michael Coes misfortunes. No- Times is agin you, Mike, he ob- body knew Pats age, but the good and served, chewing the edge of his cap faithful servant must have been already thoughtfully, and regarding the coster ripe in years when he passed, by verbal monger out of the corners of his eyes. LET~Y COE. Coe uttered an inarticulate sound, and with advantages to be borne in mind when kept his look fixed on the fire underneath one felt disposed to grumble. the copper. But I must explain where it Times is agin you, Mike, Ned Jarmey was that they were sitting. Formerly, that observed, but failed to get more than a is to say when Coes wife had been living, muttered assent in reply. Coe was sunk Michael and she and their child Letty had in one of tkiose fits of passive revolt which inhabited a room above Mr. Jarmeys from time to time possessed him. Igno- shop. Ned Jarmey was a rag, bone, and rant, uncouth, and, at ordinary times, bottle dealer, and, together with his old phlegmatic as his kind are wont to be, ~mother, rented this house and shop just unusual stress of illfortune wrought on behind Commercial Road, letting the him in a peculiar way; instead of instinc- rooms they did not require for their own tively making his way to the public-house, use. But when Mrs. Coe tripped at the in search of the consolation supplied by hole in the rotten staircase, and hurt her- liquor and that proverbial philosophy so self so badly that she very soon died in current in the conversation of those who the London Hospital, the income of the live from hand to mouth, he withdrew him- family was seriously reduced, and Michael self from his companions, and brooded for had to find cheaper lodgings. Ned Jar. hours over the mysterious suggestions of mey could not see his way to lower the something within him which he could not rent, but there was a friendship between understand, a restless element which could himself and Coe, and to keep the latter in never become a factor of consciousness, his house, he made a proposal which was a mere vague turbulence of heart, making with little hesitation accepted. At the him strange to himself and at variance back, behind the kitchen, was a wash- with all about him. Had nature gifted house, only used for a few hours on two Mike with a trifle more of brain power, days in the week, and hither it was pro- he would have argued and become a posed that Coe should transport the few Radical. As it was, he could only feel indispensable articles of furniture which that the world was not his friend, nor the renjained to him and Letty after the costs worlds laws. Against that law he had of the mothers illness and funeral had never yet openly offended, for, strange as been, as best they might, discharged. The the assertion may seem, Coe was one of comfort offered was not extraordinary, but those natures which, by dint of an innate then it was difficult to discover an abode sense of moral cleanliness, struggle out so advantageous from many points of view the depths, quite unconsciously to them- as here in Jarmeys house. There was a selves, and as far as fate allows. Had he shed for PatJarmey allowed the use of pursued the traditions of his bringing-up, it rent-freeand there was room in the he would have now been a more or less yard for the cart. So Coe and his child successful member of the criminal class. went to live in the wash-house, and here Instead of that, he was a costermonger, it was that the present conversation took with a clean record, but living in a wash- place. The floor was of brick, but pieces house and with times agin him. No of matting had been thrown about, a com- wonder Michael had his dark hours. fort in these February days; and, as I have I parssd that ouse again this mornin, mentioned, there was a fire in the grate Mike, Mr. Jarmey continued, speaking beneath the copper. The plaster walls in a tentative sort of way, still chewing and timber roof at all events gave shelter his cap when he paused. from the weather. It would have been What ouse? growled Mike, without well, for admission of light, had the win- looking up. dows been a little larger, but one of the That ouse where the familys gorn panes was broken, and the imperfect away for the winter. stoppage of the hole with a piece of rag Coe made no motion. sometimes made the occupants wish It wont be standin empty much especially at night-time that there had longer, pursued Jarmey, even more sug- been no windows at all. Ivlichaels bed- gestively. Selp me! he muttered, as stead had been sold, but then it would if to himself. I couldnt elp a-thinkin only have taken up too much room. A o that little back door wi the loose bolt mattress, laid down in the most sheltered on, an the hold woman a-sleepin all by corner, served for Letty to sleep upon, herself at the top o the ouse, an these and Coe-himself made shift with such ma- dark nights an all. An me knowin my terials as he could scrape together in way about as well amost as in this ere another corner. Not an ideal home, but ouse o my own, all o doin those jobs LETTY COE. 2! there. An then you come into my ead all at wunst, Mike, selp me, you did! A few pounds wouldnt do you no urt, eh, pal? Coe turned his head slowly, till he could catch a furtive glimpse of the tempters face. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was something savage about his set mouth. To-morrows Saturday night, Jarmey remarked, meeting the others look stead- ily. Theres Bill Walkers trap as I can ave for the arstin _____ The door of the wash-house all at once opened, and a rushing sound told that heavy rain was falling without. It had grown dusk whilst they sat together, and the glow from the grate shone ruddily upon the face which appeared in the open door- way. It was that of a very little girl, rag- gedly dressed, and with a portion of what was once a straw hat upon her head. Such clothes as she had were quite soaked with the rain; the water trickled from her frock on to the floor. At her entrance the men became silent. She, without speaking, went to a dark corner, laid by her hat and something she carried in her hands, and then began to wring her dress. Her father occupied the only chair, but there was a little three-legged s tool, which Letty had used ever since she was a baby, and upon this she presently sat down. For a minute or two no one stirred. Coes head had fallen again; Jarmey sat with his hands clasped over his knees, looking at the fire. It grew darker. Father a soft little voice from the corner broke the silence shall I light the candle? Coe grunted compliance, without mov- ing. Letty rose, lit a tallow dip, which was stuck in the neck of a bottle, and de- positing it on the floor, reseated herself. Ned Jarmey, turning to discover why the light was put on the floor, saw something which made him nudge Coe, to turn his attention to the child. Whats wrong? Michael asked, with harshness ~vhich was more the outcome of his mood, than expressive of his feeling when Letty was concerned. Letty made no reply in words, but, cross- ing one foot over her knee, held up in her hand what had hitherto been the sole of a shoe. The piece of leather had come off in her run home through the rain, and as she wore no stockings, her bare little foot had stepped through the puddles unpro- tected. Aint you got a old pair i the shop? asked Michael in a hoarse voice, when he had slowly turned his head to Jarmey. Maybe mother can find one, was the reply. J armey rose, stretched himself, and moved towards the door. With his hand on the latch he stopped. If theres any pertickler matter as youd like to talk over with me to-night Mike, he said, you know where to fin me. Coe said nothing, and he and the child were left alone. By the light of the candle Letty still kept wringing her dress; then she arranged with both hands her disor dered hair. Her eyes dwelt constantly upon her father, with an expression of in telligent sympathy beyond her years she was barely ninebut she did not speak. After spending a few minutes in the ordering of such objects as the room contained, Letty went quietly forth into the rain, speedily returning with a tea-pot, wherein, as the custom held, Mrs. Jarmey had prepared tea for the two. Two cups without saucers, some bread on a tin plate, some dripping in a little basin,these things completed the arrangements for the meal. For table the top of the boiler served. Michael drank a cup of tea, but ate nothing. Whilst Letty was clearing away, he kept jerking his head towards her, and at length asked a question, So you want a new pair o shoes, my girl? These are very bad, father, replied Letty, looking down at her feet ruefully. How cold the brick floor must have felt! Presently he turned again, and again asked a question Youre wet through wi the rain, aint you? It did rain very hard, father. Lets look at your at. Letty showed it. So you want a new at, eh? The child looked pained, as if he had been accusing her. She could not reply. And yaint got no stockins on, neither, Coe continued, examining her closely. They told me at school to-day as I mustnt come no more without, Letty said, afraid to look up. They did, eh? Coe fell back into brooding, and spoke no more for a couple of hours. Then he went and sought Ned Jarmey. It was, then, on the morning after this that poor Pat fell ill, or at all events that. his illness was discovered. It was the climax of Coes misfortunes. It left him 22 LETTY COE. without his ordinary mornings work, and with leisure to brood once more. But Lettys distress was extreme. Playthings she had never known, any more than other children of like parents, yet her shy and silent nature led her to seek some kind of solitary amusement, and in the donkey she had found a never-failing resource. Pat had become her fathers property when Letty was five years old, and since then scarcely a day had passed without an ex- change of confidences between her and her four-footed friend, confidences which, to Lettys mind, suffered no lack of reci- procity from the mere fact that Pat could not audibly converse. However late the hour of Pats return to his shed, the little girl managed to say good-night to him (children like Letty know not regularity of bed-time; you see babies playing on the doorsteps at midnight); and, on those happy Sundays when no occasional em- ployment offered itself, there were long hours of strange happiness, whilst she sat on her three-legged stool, talking in a childs undertone, and gathering answer and comment from Pats much-meaning eyes. To go this morning out into the yard and see the donkey lying helpless and suffering on his straw, was an expe- rience so new and sad that Letty stood motionless, and tears begun to trickle down her cheeks. It was a wretched sleety day, and Letty saw with commiseration how the cold rain dripped through the roofing of the shed a mere pent-house and soaked into Pats coat. The wind, too, swept so bitterly about the little yard; as she watched she saw the poor beast shiver. Could not something be done to make him more comfortable? That was her first thought, as soon as she had realized the miserable state of things. Why should not Pat be brought into the wash-house, where there was at all events a dry floor and shelter from the wind, and where at night a fire would be lit? As soon as she saw her father, Letty put the question to him, and Coe, partly because he liked to do what the child wished, partly in the hope that shelter might really be of help to the ani- mal, after a little muttering accepted the idea. With the help of Ned Jarmey, a shutter was thrust under the donkeys body, and Pat with considerable difficulty was transferred to the wash-house. More- over permission was given to Letty to light a lire at once. To-day being SJur- day, the child had no school to at nd. She desired nothing better than to sit by Pats side and talk to him, at times trying to tempt his appetite with choce bits of carrot or other similar dainty. But the donkey was past eating. In the course of the day Coe and Jarmey had a lon,~ conversation together in the latters sitting-room, the door which led into the shop, where Mrs. Jarmey sat, being closed the while. The result of this conference appeared to be satisfac- tory, for Jarmey shortly after went off whistling, having, as he passed through the shop, bidden his mother look up a pair of shoes to fit Letty. Generosity was not Mr. Jarmeys weakness, and he had only just made up his mind to fulfil his prom. ise of the evening before. Michael wandered about aimlessly. He seemed to shun the wash.house. Once or twice in the course of the afternoon he looked through the window from the yard, but did not enter. The coarse outlines of his face at all times gave him a forbidding expression, which belied his real nature; to-day he seemed in silent anger, and through the grime you could discern on his face an unwholesome pallor. He had no meals, but was several times in the public-house hard by. About nine oclock at night he again resorted thither, and sat in a coi~ner, eyeing comers and goers darkly. He drank several glasses of spir- its, after each payment turning the coppers out of his pocket, and counting them anx- iously, as if to make sure how much in- dulgence he could still allow himseif. At half past ten, Ned Jarmey came into the bar, nodded to Coe, and ordered drink for himself. For half an hour he stood talking to chance acquaintances and smok- ing his pipe. Then he looked at the clock, winked at Michael, and went forth. Coe followed. It was customary for Letty to go out at nine oclock each night to fetch Mrs. Jar- meys supper beer. To-night she took the jug as usual and set out for the public- house. Between this latter and Mr. Jar. meys shop was a small undertakers, and, strange to say, Letty never failed unless the weather was very bad indeed to stop for a minute or two before the undertakers windows, gazing at certain remarkable works of art which they presented to pub- lic view. The glass front was divided into some half-dozen partitions, on each of which was painted a representation of a funeral, from the humblest and cheapest kind up to a display of lugubrious gran- deur which could serve only as an ideal impossible of attainment to the clients of this particular undertaker. First of all, a very plain hearse, drawn by a dispirited LETTY COE. 23 and weak-kneed horse, and followed by one mourning coach of corresponding sim- plicity, the attendant officials presenting a disreputable and beery aspect; above was written : This style, 2, 2s~. The next compartment displayed the undeni- able advantages consequent upon the out- lay of an additional guinea; and so on, till the climax was reached in a magnifi- cent procession, prancing, jet-black steeds, monumental hearse, coachmen and mutes of imposing severity and finish, cambric handkerchiefs visible at the eyes of mourners in the coaches, waving plumes, in short, every appurtenance sanctioned by custom as belonging to the trappings and the suits of woe, and, in the back- ground, a landscape leading up to a very gorgeous cemetery, whither the train was tending. This style, 52, lOS. In the daytime it was possible to pass by these designs ~vithout greatly marking them, but at night the gas within the shop was so arranged as to throw out the pictures in bold relief, and the window never lacked its group of admiring gazers. For Letty Coe it had an irresistible attraction. It held her attention as a work of art (the boldest example of which she had any knowledge), and then again the sight of these so various funerals filled her with a sadness which was even a sort of pleasure. She speculated about the occupants of the hearses and the mourning coaches, and had constructed for herself tales about each picture her imagination working in that unconscious way peculiar to chil- dren. Various families of her acquaint- ance grew associated in her thought with the several processions, with all save that which cost fifty guineas. No family that she knew could attain to that splendor, and indeed she had only heard of one person at whose interment such magnificence would be appropriate or possible. Letty was convinced that the last picture repre- sented the funeral of the queen. And the first, the humblest of all, the two guinea burial? About that she was equally sure: the poor hearse contained the coffin of a child, and that childherself. As she stood gazing to-night, holding the empty jug, a hand was laid on her shoulder, and a rough voice spoke to her, What call ave you to ang about the street when youre sent for something? Get the beer, an orff ome with you ! It was her father, and she had scarcely ever known him speak so harshly to her. She hurried to the public-house and back to the shop. It was only when he had watched Lettys return that Coe himself went iUtQ the bar. Mrs. Jarmeys appetite seemed to have little need of anything save liquid suste- nance; at supper she occasionally nibbled a bit of bread and cheese with the two teeth which alone were left to her, but more often, as to-night, she preferred to puff at a dirty little pipe whilst consuming her beer. The old woman must have been greatly on the wrong side of three score and ten, and her age was neither cheerful nor venerable. Every day and all day long she sat in the shop, busying herself in a variety of ways. Though very deaf, she managed, by dint of life-long experience, to transact business with customers, and the only occasion of her smiling was when she had cheated some one out of a copper. In the shop, as usual, she took her supper to-night, and Letty, in return for the gift of shoes, felt it a sort of duty to leave Pat for a few minutes and eat her own piece of bread and butter in Mrs. Jarmeys com- pany. The two sat amid strange sur- roundings. A single gas-jet hanging from the ceiling dimly illuminated the inde- scribable collection of rubbish always found in such shops; scarcely a conceiv- able article of personal wear or household furniture which did not lie in one or other of the foul, rusty, rotting heaps. The filthy window was pasted over with notices to the outside public; from these you learned that fifty tons of rags and fifty tons of bones were wanted immediately by Mr. J armey, who was prepared to pay the very highest price for these articles, as also for kitchen stuff, medicine bottles, cast-off clothing, waste paper, even books. The air within was damp and heavy with every possible unhealthy odor. Mrs. Jarmey sat on a back-less chair, and incessantly mut- tered to herself, even with the pipe be- tween her lips. Only once did Letty endeavor to communicate with her. Full in the gas-light there hung an old framed portrait of the queen, very highly colored. It was a recent acquisition, and Letty kept her eyes fixed upon it in eating her supper, thinking of the fifty guinea funeral, and other things. Association of ideas at last induced her to rise and ask Mrs. Jarmey a question in the only feasible way, namely, by shouting into her ear. What does the queen have for supper, Mrs. Jarmey? How shd I know! ~vas the only reply, given rather bad-temperedly. When Mrs. Jarmey had finished her beer, she had a habit of rising and stamp- 24 LETTY COE. ing about the floor, in pursuit of quite the wind about the house. The donkeys visionary blackbeetles and cockroaches, panting was becoming audible. When she began to do so this evening, The room grew warmer, and Lettys eyes Letty, who at all times rather feared the grew heavy. She found it hard to-night old woman, called out a loud good-night, to fix her attention upon the lines she had and went off to her friend in the wash- to learn by heart. house. I dont feel very well myself, Pat, The pieces of matting which usually she said presently, pressing her hands lay about the brick floor had been heaped against her forehead. Ive got a bit of together, and, with some loose straw, a eadaclie, I think, like you, and Ive got made a bed for Pat very near to the grate a cold, too. Have you got a cold, Pat? for the sake of warmth. Here the donkey Praps thats whats the matter with you? had lain all day, scarcely stirring. Now, It is so sloppy; and then, you know, the when Letty entered, she saw that his tail sole of my shoe come off. Shoes are very just moved, and, as she knelt down beside dear, Pat; what a crood thincr him, Pat seemed to make an effort to raise need none! you dont his head. Letty was eager to observe Her eyes grew more and more heavy. these as good signs, but she had only to Gradually she slipped from the stool,and look into his face to see how far Pat was first sat on the floor, stroking the donkeys from being better. His eyes were half long, bare ears, then sunk to a reclining closed, and as much of them as could be attitude, her head upon the animals side. seen conveyed an impression of patient Even yet the little girl had no intention but hopeless misery. The mouth was a of dozing upon .her watch. The candle 1ittle open, and the nostrils every now and was burning low down to the neck of the then rose and fell with a low panting. bottle, but the fire was bright and cheer- The carrot which Letty had put just under ful. Her head ached worse; she would his nose remained untouched, close her eyes and see if that made it bet- In spite of the fire, it was cold here; ter. So Letty fell asleep. keen draughts swept in underneath the A sound, sound sleep; so sound that door and through the broken pane. Letty she did not even awake when convulsive devised plans for protecting Pat still shudders thrilled the poor beasts body, more. Standing on her stool, she worked and its legs struggled. Pats back legs diligently with wisps of straw to make the were very near to the grate, and their stoppage of the broken window more ef- kicking, which in reality meant the ap- fectual, and smiled when the test of hold- proach of the end, disturbed the loose ing her hand before it showed that she pieces of straw, pushing some of them into had been tolerably successful. Then she the ash-pit. Upon these pieces there fell, went to work in the same manner to check in a moment or two, live coals. The the current through the doorway, straw was so thoroughly dried by its long Now hell be warmer, poor Pat! she proximity to the fire that the ends upon said, lowering her voice as one does in a which the gledes fell ignited, flaming up. sick chamber. Oh, its such a cold The sparks spread. It was no conflagra- night! I shouldnt wonder if it dont tion, but a treacherous on-creeping of dull snow. What a good thing to-morrows smoulder. Still, it spread. And now the Sunday! I shant have no call to go out smouldering evidences itself in thin col- all day, and I can sit here and talk to you, umns of smoke, which curl up to the roof. Pat. Only you dont answer. Oh no, The glow has caught the edge of a piece youre too poorly ! She sighed deeply. of matting, also thoroughly dried and Never mind; youll hear what I say, heated. The smoke-columns get darker, only I mustnt talk too much, and make denser; they break at the ceiling, and find- yofir poor head ache, must I, deary? ing no ext, hang in droopng clouds, lower, There now, Ill get my lesson book, and lower. The dying beast struggles again, do my lesson for Monday. Dont think and yet more straw catches fire; the mat- as Im forgetting you, cause I can see ting is burning quickly, no flame, but you all the time. Father said as hed be glow and volumes of smoke. If now the late home, so I shall sit up with you while broken pane in the window had not been so he comes, securely stopped, that some of this smother All this, and much more, said with a might find a way out? Apparently none childs complete seriousness. Letty got of it does; it is filling the wash-house; it the book and opened it on her lap, sitting falls wreathingly upon the face of the sleep- very close to her. sick friend. There was ing child. Why does not Letty awake? perfect quietness, save for the moaning of Her sleep seems to become sounder; is it PRIVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 25 her headache that has made her thin little face so pale? She moves an arm; her breathing is troubled. The candle has burnt itself out; now the smoke-wreaths almost conceal the fire; it is growing dark, dark, and Letty Coe does not wake. It was nearly two oclock when Coe came through the back door, and stepped cautiously across the yard to the wash- house. There was no reason, here, why he should try to muffle the sound of his footfall, but he could not walk in his natu- ral way. Though the night was so cold, he took off his cap and wiped the perspi- ration from his face before laying a hand on the latch. He was trembling in all his limbs; it was as though he feared to enter his dwelling, as if he were about to steal in where he had no right. And, with his fingers on the door, he suddenly stopped. Surely there was a strange smell about, of which he was only just becoming aware? What was burning? Did it not come from the wash-house? A new kind of nervousness fell upon him. He flung back the door, and at once a burst of smoke, stifling smoke, came full in his face. Yet there was no light; nothing was blazino~ the fire beneath the boiler even was all but dead, or did it only seem so through the smother? He called in a loud, hoarse voice, Letty! Letty!, But there came no reply. He flung himself into the, dark- ness, shouting incoherently, and groped about for the child. He found the don- keys head, it felt cold. Then his hand touched Lettys frock. Seizing her from the ground, he rushed with her into the open air, and thence into the house. Ned Jarmey was standing by the table in the l)arlor, examining certain articles closely. At Coes hurried entry he turned in pale alarm. Whats up? Whats the Michael could not make his tongue utter a word. He stood, hideous with an- guish, pointing to the childs face. It was deathly pale, and the eyes were too wide open, but otherwise it showed no trace of pain. There was no sign of burning ab6ut th~ frock, but the little body was stiff and cold. Give us some water l gasped Coe at length. My Godshes smothered! Jarmey fetched a jug of water, and they sprinkled it over the pale face. Presently Michael staggered back against the wall, and leaned there, looking on in impo- tence, whilst the other man did his best. In a minute or two Jarmey placed the child in a low chair, and turned slowly round. It aint no use, Mike, he muttered shes gone. The men stood and looked at each other. Three days later there were prepara tions for a funerat in front of the under- takers up the streeta very humble funeral, the plainest of hearses and one mourning coach. All being ready, the two vehicles moved slowly on as far as Mr. Jarmeys shop. A couple of attendants dressed in very shabby black, disappeared through the shop door, and almost imme- diately came forth again, bearing a little coffin. This they pushed into the hearse, slamming the door upon it. In the mean- while three persons had entered the car- riage Michael Coe, Ned Jarmey, and Mrs. Jarmey. This door also was slammed, and the scraggy black horses went off at a stumbling trot. Some children, who had watched these proceedings, going on their way, passed by the undertakers window. See, said one of them, a little girl, pointing to the first of the pictures, thats what it was ! The others assented, and at once all began to shout and play. As for poor Pat, why, nobody ever saw a dead donkey, and what became of his body I have no idea. But Michael Coe has found no successor to him, nor seems indeed to need one, for, since that night, Mikes affairs have gone from bad to worse. GEORGE GISSING. From The Fortnightly Review. PRIVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. lv. IF the burgher disliked and distrusted the noble, neither did he love the Templar nor the Jew~ We have already suggested that in this case his sentiment was some- what of a cupboard-hate. It was all the stronger for this practical motive. The Templars, by their mixture of capitalism with feudality, were in fact specially ob- noxious to him. Reason has ruined them, cries the author of Renard Ic Con- trefait. Cest merveille que terre les soutint! And we perceive, with aston- ishment, that the course of action which condemns Philippe le Bel to the lasting obloquy of history was popular among the most respectable of his contemporaries, and continued popular among their chil- dren. In the whole long poem of Renard le Contrefait it is evident that all who de 26 PRIVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. plore the martyrdom of the Templars or the exile of the Jews are hypocrites in the eyes of the worthy grocer. Anti-semitism has ever been of two orders. There is the hatred of pure souls for the deicide; there is the merely mun- dane hatred and envy of the unprosperous native for the alien plutocrat. However much we may deplore the fanaticism of a Guillaume de Coinsi, still this seamy side -of his exquisite piety remains one form of idealism, disastrous, implacable, but lofty. Let us frankly state that our burgess be- longs to the majority of anti-semites; he bates and triumphs over the Jew for the same reason that he hates and triumphs over the Lombards and Knights Templar; between them they used to hold the mo- nopoly of finance. There is little religion in his detestation. Thus, in the Appa- ricion de Maistre Jehan de Meung the prior is made to talk with more than civil- ity, with deference even, to the Saracen, far more than to the Jew, the arch-enemy f Christ, and true detentor of the Holy Sepulchre. The Saracen at his ease points out all the errors and defects of Christian civilization ; and the prior listens with unction, as to the voice of conscience. Then the Jew comes on the scene. Truan paillrat! says he (Pardon, gentle ieader 1) what dost thou here? Thou art forbid the kingdom! We seem to hear the modern peasant of the Volga lis- tening with a superstitious respect to the Moslem Tartar, calling him prince, however ragged, but turning with loathing from his Jewish fellow-citizen. Brilliantly as the native merchants made their profits, they could not complete with the squalid Semite, living off nothing in his corner of the Ghetto, without wants, without display, and devoting to the ma- nipulation of finance that extraordinary brain power, that exact and scientific fac- ulty of combination that mad~ him unri- valled as physician or astronomer. The Jew, when he lent money, lent it at a lower interest than a Bonis or a Regnault could afford, with their sumptuous household to keep up out of the difference. Let us come back to France, says the Jew. in LApparicion de Maistre Jehan de Meung; these usurers are having far too good a time with you. We will lend you money at much less interest and still do well. Scant wonder that our friend the grocer cries: Reason expelled the Jews, and Renard [Hypocrisy].called them back again. Raison les Juifs fit envojer Vendre leur bien et leur maisons. This world, that God made for man to en- joy his property, was certainly not meant for such as they. Our burgess, -liberal in politics, anti. semitic in opinion, was religious without prudery or~xaltation. A reasonable piety was one of his prejudices. He was much more bien~ensant than pietistic, and cul- tivated the religious sentiment especially in the women of his household. He was a firm friend of the minor orders and pre- ferred above all the Church the Jacobins (Dominicans) and Cordeliers (Reformed Franciscans). The Dominican, says the author of the Apparicion, is moult bonne personne et tr~s-grand clerc en sci- ences. The Jacobins and the Corde- hers, says the grocer of Troyes, by their humnmhty escape the empire of Re- nart who stands for the evil that per- verts the scheme of thingsthey were instituted by reason to defeat him. The Jacobins especially, by their union of pop- ular simplicity with a certain erudition, were naturally near to the ideal of our burgess. For he was nothing if not learned. Our friend the grocer cites on almost every page, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Lucan, Sallust, Pliny, Juvenal, Virgil, Q ui fit maint nouvelle par astronomie Homer (or rather a popular abstract of the Trojan War ), Bceotius, Macrobius, Phi- lostratus, the poems of Ogier the Dane, Amis and Amile, the Romaunt of the Rose, of course; Boccaccio, Mahomet, the Talmud, the Code and Digest, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, the Old Testa- ment, and, naturally, the New all this pell-mell, anyhow flung, like a handful of grain from a sack, over any wise saw or modern instance. Meanwhile, in addition to the foregoing authors, the M~nagier de Paris quotes at every turn, Solomon, Cicero, Ovid, Livy, Cato, Cassioclorus, Pamphilus (the author of Liber de Amore), Pedro Alfonso, Jesus-Sirac, the Golden Legend, St. Jerome, the Sa- cred History of Pierre he Mangeur, the Cathohicon, St. Paul, the Decretus of Gratian, Paul Diaconus, Petrarch, the Game of Chess Moralized, and many other learned works, nearly all of which he possessed in his own library, the which he quotes for the benefit of a girl of fif- teen! Erudition was the fashion of the day; the trail of the Romaunt of the Rose is over all our burgher-authors. Of any book the dearest to the burgesss heart ~vas the compendium, the anthology, the digest, the thing that packed much PRiVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 27 information in little space. Hence the mmense popularity of the Game of Chess Moralized, by Jacques de Cessoles, with its innumerable little anecdotes about the persons of antiquity, of the Sacred His- tory, and other similar works. The good man did not desire to see very far, nor even very clearly, in any one direction; but he liked to leave little windows open in all the wails of his house. Oh, if one could pack a book-box at Mudies and send it to him in Paradise! We would put in a big Larousse, Smiths Classical Dictionary, an encyclop~dia, a dictionary of quotations, and the Epic of Hades, And our good grocer or banker would fall to reading on his golden throne, twice blest, through all eternity. If his immense desultory reading, his preference for compilers and second-rate authors, failed in his earthly stage to point our burghers taste, nevertheless it is probable that they did much to form and furnish his robust intelligence. The mer- chant or lawyer of the fourteenth century platitudinous, sarcastic, matter-of-fact, and undeniably something of a bore was none the less a man of wide views and frequently in advance of the customs and even of the justice of his age. Men and women were still burned for witchcraft in the fourteenth century; over and over again we find the burgess protesting in the name of reason (his favorite virtue) against the execution of a judicial sen- tence. Honorat Bonnet, the author of the Apparicion, dedicates his poem to Val- entine Visconti, accused of bewitching the poor mad king in order to obtain the throne for her own husband. Really, says the good Bonnet, one scarcely dares pass through the streets of Paris, one hears such extravagant non- sense in the mouths of ignorant people. Si un prince naye maladie, Ne prenne deffroi par folie, Si Ce ne vient par trayson, Par sorcerie ou par poison, Et voici folle opinion, Simple imaginacion! Car un prince est aussi patible Comme autres hommes corruptibles. If a prince falls ill, the people, half mad with fright, will have it treason, sorcery, or poison. What folly, what pure moonshine! As if a prince were not as subject to trial- ady as other mortal men ? * Honorat Bonnet is no isolated case; we might multiply examples. Who that has * Aree centuries later Saint Simon might well have pondered the wisdom of these lines. read Monstrelet can forget the admirable discourse of Master Guillaume Cousinot, advocate, pleading for the memory of the murdered husband of Duchess Valentine? So clear, so lucid, so full of reason is that argument, we feel In reading it that the Renaissance has already flowered. Cou- sinot denies the existence of the crime of sorcery: 0 thou, University of Paris, correct this belief and show that the Evil Science is not merely an impossible effort against the honor of God, but, moreover, vain of effect, impotent, fallacious. * Meanwhile the M6nagier in a pas- sage, probably also intended as a covert defence of Valentine, writes : It is certain that when the natural kindred of a child neglect him, scold, annoy, keep him at a distance and some kind woman comes and warms the poor, despised one at her hearth, keeps him clean, mends his clothes, loves and amuses him then that child will turn its hearts desire to that good woman, following at her skirt, climbing on her knees to lay its head between her breasts; and so will utterly forget his kindred, who now, perhaps, seeing him so pretty with an- other, would fain have him back. And then there is a great fuss and crying out, and they will hear nothing but that the woman has be- witched the child. Bewitched him! Why, I tell you it is not sorcery but love and kindness that have worked this marvel; and by my soul, I believe there is no other enchantment. Nay, by my soul, I repeat, I will never be- lieve there is any other sorcery than well- doing; and one can only enchant a tnan by making him happy and treating him with kindness. t Probably few people in the fourteenth century, says the Baron Pichon in a note, were so enlightened as our M~nagier. We think, on the contrary, that he repre- sents the opinion of the educated middle class. Save the special pleading of Jean Petit, we can think of scarce an instance in the bourgeois literature of the later fourteenth century in ~vhich sorcery is cited as a real crime. The monk of St. Denis calls the accusation of Valentine a ridiculous proposition, and adds: For my part I put no manner of faith in witch- craft; a vain belief spread by superstitious people, fools, and necromancers. 4 Yet all this while sorcery was a judicial crime, frequently punished; all this while ~ Monstrelets Chronicles for July, 1408. t M6nagier de Paris, ~ 170. The rumors against Valentine of Milan began in 5393, the year in which the M~nagier wrote his book. Remark the abrupt change from ckild (the poor mad itt-used king was but a child, in truth) to ~nan in the last sentence. 4 Chro nicles of the Monk of St. Denis, for January, 5396 (new style). 23 PRIVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. the populace believed with all its imagina- tion in spells and sorcery; and the circle of the court, more frivolous and little less ignorant, put its idle faith in anything that helped to pass the time or favored a political rancor. The burgess was there- fore some centuries in advance of the upper and the lower class. But in all ages superstition has chosen these two strata for her hotbeds and if to-day we were to draw up a brief against the worshippers of turning-tables, Thibetan Mages, astral ghosts, etc., who knows into what dis- tinguished circles our accusation might not lead us? Let us return to our mid- dle class. The very faults of our burgess his materialism, his literal way of tak- ing life, his pedantic and desultory infor- mation on all possible subjects formed the completest armor against the attacks of superstition. Sometimes we almost wish he were not so desperately respectable. For he is as uninspired, as little imaginative, as he is enlightened. His art is a salutaryoh, a most salutaryexample of the theories of Mr. Matthew Arnold pushed to their extreme. The one thing that interests him in poetry is the criticism of life ; his muse only sings to enforce the rules of conduct; even his satires and his attacks on women, however shocking to a modern taste, are certainly ethical in their inten- tion. The one really beautiful book that he has left us is a cookery-book the Mrs. Beeton of an earlier day. Our burgess with his mouth fullof theribaidryof the Romaunt de la Rose; sceptic, sarcas- tic, pedantic though he be our burgess, like every other man, has in secret an ideal. As he looks across the table laden with money-bags, he sees through the bank-parlor window some slim daughter of his walking among her lilies, or hears her step-mother, perchance still younger, singing to her linnets overhead. When we think of the really beautiful things in the literature of this fourteenth century, so intolerant of women, we see, well in front, the child-wife of the M~nagier, listening with parted lips to the wisdom of her scholar-husband; behind her, less pure and broken-hearted, flits the unhappy Lady of Fayel; and last of all, on a lower plane of interest, we watch the daughters of ~he garrulous Knight of La Tour Lan- dry. Only the first of these figures belongs to the class which we review to-day. We shall therefore have time to study it in detail. lmaaine a oirl of a country fifteen, girl, the orphan daughter of a knight, brought up severely in some distant province ( no/re lays, says the M~nagier), then suddenly taken to Paris and married to an old scholar, a man of birth inferior to her own, and probably sPrung from the serfs of her grandfathers, but infinitely her superior in wealth, experience of the world, and social station. The M~nagier of Paris remains anonymous; yet from the internal evidence of his book we see him clearly; a man nearing sixty, with a passion for learning, probably a magistrate or a high official in the War Office, having, in his long career, mixed intimately with almost all that was great, illustrious, or merely entertaining in his country, and with the predilection of the old for re- counting their past adventures. Our little country lass is much too young a fledge- ling to understand the justice of her hus- bands spirit, the elevation of his tone and style, or the wisdom of his matter; but with the happy instinct of a child she di- vines the sweet indulgence of his nature. It is to her old burgher husband that the little provincial lady goes to confess her bewilderments, her little blunders and ig- norances on this surprising introduction to Parisian society. He bids her be of good cheer; he bids her be herself. And never fear to vex me, for it is to me a source of pleasure to see you dig your rose-tree roots and tend your violets; by all means pluck your flowers and twine your garlands; go on with your singing and your dancing, and continue in the same before our friends and fello~vs, for it is but good and natural that thus should pass the time of girlhood. Yet, since this poor child is, of herself, so incapable togui de herself, or even to distinguish between her greater and her lesser duties, the old scholar, who has passed so many hours in reading books, sets to writing one himself; a book that may live longer than himself, and teach his little girl, in all the circumstances of her future life, the per- fect behavior of a lady Not that, my dear, all that you do for me is not in my eyes well done; but I would that you should know abundantly and richly all the duties and weal and honor of a good woman. For after me you may have another husband, and I would you should stand well in his eyes. Or you may have daughters, or friends, or others. And you may be glad to teach them good doctrine if they need it, and it be your pleasure to bestow it. And then from your perfections your laud and honor will & re- flected on your parents and myL;elf. Thus PRIVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 29 for pure love and honor, and not for my own profit (who pretend to but the commonest ser- vice at your hands), having piteous and char- itable compassion upon you, who lost your mother and father in your babyhood and who are come so far from your old home that you have none of whom to ask a counsel save your husband considering all these things and your own request, I hereby begin for you a General Lesson. The charm of this book (which sets forth at length the whole duty of a woman) re- sides in its union of the most elevated and exquisite idealism with the most practical details of daily life. Nothing is too high and nothing is too humble to be included in the sphere of this Parisian housekeeper; his dread is lest his innocent Mary should become a busy Martha; he dictates her a receipt, and ends with leave it alone and go to say your prayers! Certainly in no later cookery book the fumes of the kitchen are swept away by such a breath of paradisal air. God first, he keeps saying to her. Your first duty is to your own soul. Let your first thought be your prayer, Par m & me il est n~cessaire I And no one else can do it for you. Secondly, keep your hus- bands love, keep his secrets and preserve him from ill-doing. After these essential duties there remains the guardianship of yourself, your children, your house, your fortune, your position; but if no time remains to you to accomplish these things, others can help you, and your servants can give you assistance in them.* The Chevalier de la Tour Landry has left us the portrait of a perfect lady, A.D. 13724 Every day she rose early, heard matins, and low mass at church; then returned, dressed herself for the day, and went to walk awhile in her gardens and her or- chards, telling her beads. After this she returned to church, heard aucunes petites messes et la grande messe, and then sat down to the midday meal, at which she broke her fast. After dinner this lady visited the sick and poor women in travail, bringing .with her all that is necessary for their needs, and sending by a varlet bread and meat to such as dwelt too far afield for her to visit them. Later on she went again to church for vespers. Between four and five she returned to supper on the days she does not fast, but on Wednes- day and Friday she partook of nothing * Le M6oa~ier de Paris: Trait6 de Morale et deco- nomie domesuque compose vers 1393, par un bourgeois parisien. Publi~ par le Baron J6rome Pichon pour la Soci6t~ des Bibliophiles Frau~ais. s846, t. II., p. 2. t chevalier de la Tour Landry, p. 275. that has died, while on Saturday she ab- stained in honor of the Virgin. After supper it was her custom to send for her major-donio, and order the morrows din- ner. At this hour she settled her accounts, and saw that ample~rovision of everything was made before the existing stock was much diminished. She was a good house- keeper. Yet this, as you see, came the last of her days duties. Three days a week Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday she bruised her tender flesh with the shirt of discipline. The M~nagiers injunctions to his little wife fall short of this elegant austerity. Instead of this emaciated woman with the pure eyes and sad smile walking at sunrise among her flowers with crossed hands and thoughts in heaven, we see, at the same hour, our girlish M~nagiere, half-awake, on her lips a sleepy prayer to Beau Sire Dieu, and a wonder in her heart that it is morning already. The sound of the church bell rouses her more completely, and hav- ing dressed herself neatly and trimly, at her husbands especial desire, she is off to mass. Mind and look, he says, that your chemise and your vest do not show above the opening of your bodice, and do not look like those dreadful women, who, with no thought of the honor of their husbands, flaunt about untidily with staring eyes, their head horribly tangled as the mane of a lion, their underlinen showing all round the tucker of their low bodice, striding along man-fashion and holding themselves uncouthly, devoid of decent shame. But you go modestly, accom- panied by honorable women of your own condition, n9r ever approach a tarnished woman: and walk with your head erect, your eyelids down, and look straight ahead of you at the road itself a few feet in front. Nor ever exchange glances with man or woman in the street, nor laugh, nor talk, nor pause in your going. But when you arrive at the church, choose a secret and solitary corner before some fair image or lovely altar, and stay there with downcast head and moving lips, addresi~ing in humility your prayers to heaven, nor move about hither and thither changing places, as some other women use.* Such were the injunctions of the Md- nagier; but in several of his most ex- emplary stories we see how far the reality, as a rule, fell short of his ideal. It needs no malice to imagine the result when, every day of their lives, all the women of a given society meet at a given time and place; probably no five oclock in mod- ern London or Paris hears half the idle chatter patiently endured by the porch of a parish church in a fourteenth-century * M~nagier, I., i6. 30 PRIVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. fashionable quarter. This mass, which all the assistants heard every day of their lives, and sometimes twice a day, was shorn by vain repetition of half its tragic sacredness. These women were all inti- mate, all rich, all idle, and nearly all but little educated. It is probable that even the most respectable of these ladies were terrible gossips. As for the less respect- able, the M6nagier himself gives us a picture of a young wife who every morn- ing at mass makes her own mother the confidant of a stratagem for providing her- self with a lover. Probably she was not alone. The church was a natural meet- ing-place; and the Paris of the fourteenth century was not conspicuous for the strictness with which it kept the mar- riage bond. This austere beginning of the day was therefore, in practice, not without its ques- tionable relaxations. On her return home the fourteenth-century lady found her hall well swept and garnished, the morning broth ready if required, and Dame Agnes the J3eguine setting the maids to their daily task up-stairs and down-stairs and in my ladys chamber. The ante-chamber with its long cushioned benches and footstools, its chests and chairs, was turned out reg- ularly every morning. Then, one by one, each of the other chambers of the house was thoroughly cleaned and dusted, day by day, ainsi comme il appartient ~ nos- tre estat The housekeeper looked after all this, but it ~vas the ladys duty to see herself every morning on her return from church, that her little spaniels were well brushed and fed, that her taijie birds had a cleanly sanded cage with herb and seeds and water car ils ne poevent parler et, pour ce, vous devez parler et penser pour eulx. * Save this care of her dumb ani- mals, the sole domestic duty which the M~nagier imposes absolutely onthe mis- tress of a house is the personal tending of her manservants and maidservants in their sickness, the duty of allowing every evening after supper, temps et espace de repos ~ vos gens, and the still more imperative duty of setting her young serv- ing-maids to sleep in a room communicat- ing with her own, safe under her wing and well out of harms way. Dinner was at midday, a complicated meal served elegantly in worked pewter dishes on beautiful linen cloths with long knotted fringes. Both burgesses and no- The burghers of the fourteenth century had a pas- sion for birds; witness the aviary of ilugues Aubriot, larger than the kings. As much as 2 was given for a singing linnet. bles took great pride in the beauty of their table-linen, and when, after Nicopolis, Mgr. de la Tr~moille was a prisoner in Turkey, his wife sent a present of three fine table-cloths and four dozen napkins,* costing 8o, to the sultan, thinking n~ gift more fit to soften Bajazet towards his unhappy captive! Of the dishes of the dinner we will speak anon. After this meal was finished, the lady had a long afternoon to fill in at her discretion. Some- times on rainy days she read, for she could read, and the M~nagier recommends his wife the Bible, the Golden Legend, the Apocalypse, the Lives of St. Jerome~ and sundry other good books which I possess in French, and of all which you: are mistress at your good pleasure. It is probable that the severity of this choice was sometimes tempered by one of those novels the Chatelain de Coucy, or The Husband with Two Wives for which Paris was as celebrated in those days as in these. Then, as we know, there were the rose-roots to be digged, the sing- ing and the dancing to be practised. Often there was some party, wedding, or joust to ~vhich the burgher and his wife were bidden. The magnificence of bourgeois wed- dings was often extreme. Jehan Du- chesne, a lawyer of the Ch~telet, paid 6o for the flowers and the minstrels for his wdding, 9 for the hire of the Bishop of Beauvais palace. Maistre H~lye, an- other great Parisian burgess, paid 40 for his wedding breakfast, Thus a really fine wedding cost the bridegroom at least ioo (shall we say 400 sterling?), with- out the hire of the assembly rooms. It was usual in the fourteenth century, and indeed until much later, for the concierges of Paris to let their masters houses in their absence, by the day or by the month, and this is how Maistre Jehan Duchesne caine to be married in the Beauvais pal- ace. After the wedding supperwhich was long, elaborate, and beautiful, the ta- bles, the dishes, and the foreheads of the guests being wreathed abundantly with flowers certain of the guests accompa- nied the bride and bridegroom to their home. Here they were met by the clergy convoked for the ceremony of blessing the bed. On this occasion, when the whole company penetrated the nuptial chamber, it was usual to prepare a scene of rare adornment The walls were hung with clear silk to match the bed-curtains, the counterpane was of miniver, or rid * Accounts of G. de is Tr6moille, p ~ anti 1397. PRIVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 31 embroidery; cushions of down covered in priceless stuffs filled the seats and settles; flowers and Eastern rugs lay thick upon the floor. Well in view stood the brides gilt and painted wedding-chest, open so as to show the girdles of gold and amber, the silken gowns, the veils of Oriental tissue, heaped inside. Carelessly flung on the table, some painted Book of Hours, or Roy Modus, worth eight livres; a nicessaire with ivory combs and silver- bordered mirrors, or a jet rosary hanging from a cup of onyx, would arrest the at- tention of connoisseurs. Bed mantles of crimson silk would be waiting for their wearers. Every detail would denote an apparently exhaustless wealth; and, as in the East to-day, the reckless expense of a wedding-feast would often hamper the givers for several years to come. It was certainly very amusing for the spectators. Nor were weddings the only entertainments. Jousts and tourneys, more magnificent still, were abundantly frequented by the burgher ladies. Then there were dances; decent Cinderella par- ties of the citizens, or those extravagant aristocratic balls which lasted all night long, and which wise husbands feared, not only for their high play, but for the scenes of mirth sometimes indecent which fol- lowed on the sudden snuffing out of torch and candle. A wholesomer relaxation was found in hunting; the ladies of the fourteenth century were good riders; all round Paris they would go coursing and flying their falcons. And, lastly, on all the great holidays of the Church or anni- versaries sacred to the family, the burgess would gather his friends and his depen- dents round his hearth, and the lady would dispense abundant hospitality. But, after all, these hours of festival came not every day. The life of a good housekeeper ran, as a rule, more quietly. In the afternoon she would look through her linen cupboards with Dame Agnes, and shake out the moths from her fur- bordered gowns. At the sound of the vesper bell she would go to church again, come home, sup sparely, and then proceed to the morrows housekeeping. Too often when the fourteenth-century housewife be she Na Sessilia Bonis of Montauban or our pretty young preude-femme of Paris set about ordering some wonderful spiced aspic of fresh-water fish, colored blue with sun-flower seeds, some gilded peacock decorated with its full-spread train,* she would pause, and sigh, and We dedicate the following humbler receipts, from think: Is it worth while, since the mas- ter is from home? And she would order no more that evening, but bid her gouver- nante come and take down in writing a letter to her husband. And while the worthy woman fetobed her ink-horn, she would read again, all alone (according t~ the M~nagiers directions) the good mans. last epistle. Fourteenth-century etiquette was very strict; a lady must always read her husbands letters alone, and never read another mans save in company. It is. possible, however, that she could not herself reply in writing. Female educa- tion in those days comprised much pray- ing, some music, some dancing, and a certain solid instruction in matters theo logical or literary. But writing was con- sidered an accomplishment rather than a necessary part of a womans education, much like painting in water-color to-day ~ an ill-educated person may paint very nicely in water-color, a well-educated per- son may scarce know how to hold a brush. Thus M. Yriarte assures us that the learned Isotta of Rimini could not write.. She who lived near a century later! And w~ know that the Lady of Fayel employed a companion, who happened to know how to write a good hand, to indite her letters to her lover. Write to your hus- band, ~f you can, says the M~nagier,. and if not, dictate your letter to some one sure and secret. In truth the fourteenth-century burgher was often far from home. Travel is less the ~6M~n5gier~~ chosen among the simplest and~ least characteristic, we avow to our lady readers. The first is excellent: none are difficult. I. Stew your young goose in water and a little wine. When half cooked, carve and fry. Then take a pinch of cinnamon, some cloves, a good handful of minced sage and parsley, and boil with a large cupful of brown stock. Pour in a deep dish, add the goose, grate a lit- tle parmesan cheese over every joint, and serve very hot. II. Gramose. Take six or seven thick slices of underdone cold beef Take half as many fresh eggs and beat comme h ennuy you cannot beat too much. Add drop by drop a glass of thin light wine in which you have mixed a little lemon juice (this is to take the place of verluice), continuing all the while to beat your eggs. Add to the mixture a cup of good stock, and set the whole to boil. Great care must be taken lest the eggs should turn. Meanwhile warm through your beef without cooking it, set in a hot dish, pour the boiling sauce over it, and serve. III. Hashed Muilon, AD. 1393.Take slices of a. leg of mutton, the marrow of a beef bone, and some spring onions finely minced; put in an earthenware jar, and cover with a little good strong stock. Seal your jar and simmer in a pot of water till the meat has ab- sorbed the gravy; then open, throw in a pinch of cin- namon, a spoonful of lemon mice, and a few cloves. Simmer again a few seconds, then serve, without. gravy. IV. Houssebarre. Take any kind of meat, cot k very thin, fry in lard. Meanwhile beat the yolks of several eggs with a little white wine and a cupful of clear stock. Boil, serve in a sauce boat, and the fried; meat on a dish garnished with lemon and parsley. 32 PRIVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. a privilege of modern times than we im- agine; merchant or functionary had to leave his home, in those days as in these, and despite the unsafeness of the roads. Thus the M~nagier visits Beauce, Pi- cardy, Gascony, Flanders; while Bonis, with a company of the bourgeois of Mon- tauban, pushes a pilgrimage as far as Rome, a journey of three-and-twenty days. The merchants were especially obliged to travel to all the large fairs (the local Bourse of those days), while in almost every town one of the well-to-do local shopkeepers went to Paris once a year at the moment of the Lendit. Nearer jour- neys were frequent. Bonis is frequently on the road to and from Montpellier and Montauban, Montauban and Avignon. Moreover medii~val customers often sent for their tradesmen and expected them to accomplish long and dangerous distances. Thus the tailor of Mgr. de la Tr~moille went to fit him with new clothes in Tur- keyspending i8o and seven months on the journey. Let us substitute a pil- grimage for a Cooks tour, a journey to the local centre for a journey to the capi- tal; and, taking into account the time spent on a journey rather than the territory cov- ered, we think we may say that the pro- vincial shopkeeper travelled in those days little less than now. Yet travel was in those days not only infinitely less convenient, but, moreover, infinitely dangerous. A journey, whether on horse or on foot, could seldom be rated at less than five leagues per diem, or more than ten; the travellers were therefore long on the road, and the roads were infested with highwaymen. Criminals, deserters, outlaws for some political offence, or merely peasants weary of paying contin- ual ransoms first to this company and then to that the number increased of those disgusted with life, who went to the green- wood to dwell with Robin Hood. There were so many houses, nay, whole hamlets, emptied by the terror of the companies that the robbers were in no distress for ample lodging. Generally they took pos- session of some roadside house, and lived there at their ease until some wealthy traveller went by. With what delight they welcomed the heavy tramp of our mer- chants solid nag. His purse was soon slit; sometimes his person was secured and kept captive in the hope of ransom. And if by some good chance the bur- gess escaped unmolested by the highway- men, there remained the danger of~e troops, little better than the brigands. In 1359 the regents Bretons robbed and stripped Simon Jehan, a merchant of Paris, travelling with safe-conduct from the re- gent.* The king himself, on his return from London, was menaced by the com- panies, dazzled by the millions of his En- glish ransom. And the worst of it was that thes& unscrupulous men ~vere of all nations Dutch, Walloon, Spanish, Bre- ton, German, Ligurian, Welsh, Navarrese anything rather than French. Often victim and captor could barely understand each other. They wrote French worse than they spoke it, and were sore in need of secretaries. Woe betide the merchant, the lawyer, the priest, if they guess him to be a scholar. He may tarry long for his ransom while he employs his time as clerk to the company in their brigand fortress4 These fortresses, half camp, half rob- bers den, were full of cruelty and luxury. Children, kidnapped from many leagues around, waited on the brigands as their pages. Horses, unyoked from the ploughs of the peasants, whinnied in their ample stables. Every company had its surgeon, its blacksmiths, tanners, saddlers, butch- ers, tailors, etc., voluntary or involuntary denizens of the castle. There were women in plenty wives or widows of defeated squires kept captive against their will. The luxury of the place reconciled many to the shame of their situation, for the troopers were men of means. Their dress, cut out of the richest silk or cloth-of-gold in the travelling merchants bale, was not only splendid, but extravagant, studded with womens jewellery and clasped with girdles set with pearls. They heaped a like profusion, lightly come by, on their mistresses. In many parts of France the troopers wenches set the fashion even to ladies of quality; the wife of the Black Prince and her maids of honor copied the trimming of their bodices. Tis they who teach our women how to dress, cries the -Sire de Beaumanoir. Let the En- glish copy these fashions if they will. English society has never been strict, and, among their ladies, en a moult de blamies; but I will not have my wife dress like a camp-follower. * Thus we see that the wealth of the companies, however ill-got- ten, accorded them a certain prestige in the popular imagination. They kept up this wealth and this pres- tige by extorting fabulous ransoms. A burgess of Clermont, taken in November, 1363, was ransomed at 3,248 shall we * Sim~on Luce, Bertrand du Guescijo, 320. ibid., 320 to 331. * Le Livre du Chevalier de La Tour Landry, 47. PRIVATE LIFE IN FRANCE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 33 say thirteen thousand pounds sterling? And one Richard dEnnerfet has to pay i,ooo, eighteen ells of cloth, six barrels of wine, and two cloaks of miniver in order to obtain his liberty.* The troopers had no regard for their wealthy prisoners; rather, according to the immutable custom of brigands, they aggravated their misery in order to open the purse of their heart- wrung families. On holidays their captors set them up as targets, and broke their teeth by aiming pebbles at them. When irritated by a long delay in the ransom they would mutilate and maim their host- ages, flog them, press them nigh to death. Another amusement was to make the pon- derous respectable burgesses run in a leash like hounds, while a crisp whip pun- ished any slackening of the pace. In fact, the company neglected no means to make its weathier hosts desire their liberty. We have said enough to show that the companies were little less redoubtable than the common highway robbers. But though there was no parrying the assaults of the Gue/teurs de chemin, there was a certain precaution to be taken against the com- panies. Every garrison sold its safe-con- duct, and, at a certain expense, the merchant might travel in comparative safety, handed on by band to band of brig- ands, even as, until lately, the Oriental caravans travelled through the Khyber Pass. Unfortunately the expense was considerable; each safe-conduct cost much money; and, owing to the unsettled state of the country during the Hundred Years War, there were many authorities to con- ciliate. Take the two towns of Coutances and Valognes, a dozen leagues apart; to travel from one to the other, between 1357 and 1363, it was necessary to have a French safe-conduct delivered by the gar- rison of Coutances, an English safe-guard from the garrison of Saint-Sauveur, and a Navarrese safe-conduct from the garrison of Valognes. There remained the risk, diminished, it is true, by the protection of the companies, of an attack by highway- men. Before such expenses the profits of the merchants disappeared. Gradually the long duration of the danger accustomed men to disregard it, as we know the swal- low flies afield to bring back food to his young ones, even when the hawk poises motionless above him. So the poorer and the bolder of the merchants travelled reck- lessly without safe-conducts. We owe them many thanks, for to their misfortunes are t Luce, oj$ cit., p. 33!. LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXVI. 3899 we indebted for invaluable documents con- cerning the iniquities of their captors. But if many fell victims to the dangers of the road, others, luckier or more wily, escaped all perils and arrived safely with their goods at their~destination. Ah, with ~vhat an Ouf! more heartfelt even than that legendary Ouf! with which all Europe hailed the disappearance of Napoleon must they have saluted the welcome opening of the city gates before them! What bliss, to meet a human face without suspicion, to jog forwards without alarm, to alight at the well-known hostelry of the Tin Pot, to unstrap sword and buckler, and, having fed and rested, to loiter pleasantly to the public baths ! * For the country burgess, freshly come to Paris, there was at every visit some new marvel to delight him. New palaces, new mansions in nearly every street, and some of the finest of them witness the H6tel Montaigu those surrounded with the largest gardens, were inhabited by the burghers! He would see this or that bur- gess of his acquaintance go bya new- made knight with golden spurs. The country merchant would hold his head high, and feel proud of his order. For who tn Paris, save the kings grace himself, had half the influence of Messire Bureau de la Rivi~re, a simple burgess? And Messires Hugues Aubriot, Jean Le Mercier, Le B~gue de Vilaines, Montagu Guy Chres- tien, and all the others; lawyers, like the great Jean des Mar~s; doctors, like Har- selli, are they not all simple men of the middle class, although the friends of princes? From 1357 to 1392 there were few more enviable lots than that of a loyal burgher of Paris. * A popular prejudice credits the Middle Ages with a hatred of water, cold or warm. Mule ans sans un bain, cries Michelet. Few accusations are more unfounded. The Registers of the Chatelet furnish constant allusions to the public baths of Paris; there was at least one establishment in every quarter of the city, and warm baths were cried, daily through the streets of Paris by the water-carriers. At Montauban in 345 there were two public baths, each of which, in addition to its fixed accommodation, sent hot baths ~ domicile, in the fashion still frequent in France. Many houses had their own cuve t~ baigner, and every rich bedroom was furnished with a roofed screen, similar to those noticed by M. Labarte in his list of the furniture of Charles V., which protected the bather from cold and draught. Every country town had its public bath, and many mere hamlets followed the fashion. M. Luce tells us of aucanes jietites estuves in the village of Warcy-sous-Clermont, in Beauvoisis. It appears likely that the keepers of country limekilns often leaned a bath-house against their kilna and let their fires burn for two purposes. All through France a resort to the public baths was a favorite way of spend- ing a mediteval holiday. The prolonged warm baths in favor at the court of Charles VI. are denounced in the famous sermon of Jaques Legrand. A REAL TARTARIN. 34 Their prosperity was too sudden, and outlived its chief protector. The death of Charles V. was a great blow to the bourgeoisie, and in consequence of the re- volt that followed, Jean des Mar~s, with many other cloth merchants, advocates, and magistrates, perished on the scaffold. Yet, after the panic of 1582, the fortunes of the middle class appeared more pros- perous than ever; the Marmosets contin- ued to wield their unexampled sway They wielded it too prosperously, they be- came too aristocratic. Married to women of the noblest houses, La Rivi~re became Seigneur dAnvaux; Le Mercier, Seigneur de Novion; Le B~gue, Comte de la Ri- bed~e in Spain; they were no longer bur- gesses, but parvenus among the nobles. Their wealth, their puissance, excited a bitter envy among those who could no longer vaunt against the material riches of the Marmosets, their own exclusive priv- ileges of rank. They had many friends, especially the Sire de la Rivi~re, always so gentle, gracious, debonnaire, and pa- tient to the poor. But there were many, though not all, who declaimed against them and said they had usurped to their own profit much riches of the realm of France. And they had great estates, fair castles, and fine edifices, while the poor knights and squires who exposed life and limb for the welfare of the kingdom, and who had let or sold their inheritance to raise their equipment, get never a penny of their pay from any of them.* Thus the pendulum swings from side to side. At the beginning of the century the bur- gesses protest against the tyranny of the knights; now the knights protest against the tyranny of the middle-class ministers. An end came to the splendor of the Mar- mosets. In 1392, during the madness of the king, Montagu was banished, La Ri- vi~re, Le Mercier, and Le B~gue were cast into prison. They remained there nigh upon two years, long enough for Le Mer- cier to weep away his eyesight. Then they were set free and permitted to regain and retain their castles in the provinces. But they were never more allowed to cross the river Seine. Thus the great burgesses perished to their order. Henceforth they were mere provincial nobles, without power, without influence. The growing generation wit- nessed a mad king, a tyrannous aristoc- racy, and an unhappy nation. During thes~ times the bourgeoisie was forced into temporary insignificance and silence. * Froissart, iv., xxx. But half a century of prosperity had left it strong enough to bide its time. Seventy years later, under Louis XI., its true and enduring strength should again be made apparent. A. MARY F. ROBINSON. (MADAME JAMES DARMESTETER. From Macmillans Magazine- A REAL TARTARIN. THE ingenious Monsieur Alphonse Daudet, we may suppose, has taken a large hint for his last romance from the doings of a certain scheming nobleman which ended in a notorious criminal triaL But such a careful student of human documents must also have had his eye on another contemporary adventurer, that singular personage who bestowed upon himself the high-sounding title of king of Araucania and Patagonia, but who, want- ing any sacred bard to celebrate his deeds, will soon prove hard to rescue from obliv- ion. What we can gather as to this ob- scure sovereigns career has to be taken from unsatisfactory chronicles of his own, dealing with the early part of it, and, for the rest, from scattered allusions by writ- ers less respectful of his pretensions; but if ever his Majestys memory found a properly equipped historian, the result might well rival in interest some of Don Quixotes boldest exploits, not to say those of M. Tartarin de Tarascon. Our future monarch, Aurelius Antony de Tounens by name, was, like M. Dau- dets hero, a scion of the imaginative midi. He began life as a lawyer at P~ri- geux, in the early days of the Second Empire, which may have helped to turn his head by its example of how easily for- tune favors the bold with crowns. For a time impatiently submitting to that com- monplace drudgery, he seems to have been exercised in mind as to the power France had lost in America; then, fired by patri- otic desire to spread the influence of his country as well as to gain for himself a more congenial sphere of action, he con- ceived the project of setting up a brand- new kingdom somewhere or other in the wilds of the New World. To this enter prise be committed himself single-handed, with a sanguine confidence that did not sufficiently consider the two ludicrous failures made by his imperial model before the great stroke which at length set Louis Napoleon on the throne. The field for M. de Tounens couA dItat was chosen on the borders of Chili, where the Araucanian Indians had never been subdued by their Spanish neighbors. A hardy, warlike race, the Iroquois of South America, tens of thousands strong, and so trained in riding from childhood that man and horse were like a centaur, there is little doubt that if united under a capable leader they might have given a great deal of trouble to the Chilians, who had to content themselves with a vague claim of sovereignty over the Araucanian tribes, their mutual relations being coin- prised in continual grudges, occasional aifrays, and a border trade carried on by armed merchants through the help of half- breed interpreters. The hero of P& igeux thus showed discrimination in fixing on this region as the site of his kingdom. In- deed, an enterprise of much the same kind as he undertook, had long before been suggested by our shrewd countryman De- foe, in one of those fictions of his that read so much like sober histories. The would-be sovereign of Araucania left France in r8~8, but did not appear before his subjects, as yet unconscious of his existence, for a couple or so of years, during which he remained at or about Coquimbo, wisely employed in learning Spanish and picking up information as to the country he proposed to rule. By-and- by he made the acquaintance of an Arau- canian chief named Magnil, who, he de- clares, welcomed and encouraged him in his designs. This m ay be the chief of whom there is a story that, to secure his allegiance, M. de Tounens presented him with a grand piano, which the Indian forth- with gutted of such useless lumber as keys, strings, and so forth, to turn it into a bed for himself and his wife. At all events one partisan was made; but when, in i86o, the aspirant to royalty crossed the Araucanian frontier on his first visit to his castles in the air, he was met by the news of Magnils death. Not dismayed by this misfortune, he went on so far as to open his project, by means of an inter- preter, to certain other chiefs, who we have it on his own authoritygave their adherence as readily as the defunct Magnil. Matters seeming thus ripe for such a step, our pretender commenced business by issuing the following decree, as regal in its tone as if he had verily been to the manner born. We, Prince Orllie-Antoine de Tounens, con- sidering that Araucania is independent of any other state, that it is divided into tribes, and that a Central Government is demanded in both the public and private interest, 35 Decree as follows: Art. I. A constitutional and hereditary monarchy is founded in Araucania; Prince Orilie-Antoine de Tounens is named king. Art. II. In case of ,the king leaving no de- scendants, his heirs shall be taken from the other lines of his family, according to the order which shall be ultimately established by a royal ordinance. Art. III. Until the great bodies of State b~ constituted, the royal ordinances shall have the force of law. Art. IV. Our Minister Secretary of State is charged with the presents. Done in Araucana, 17th November, i86o. (Signed) ORLLIE-ANTOINE Jer. By the King. The Minister Secretary of State for the Department of Justice. (Signed) F. DESFONTAINE. At the same time, and in the same man- ner, Orilie-Antoine the First hastened to decree a constitution, drawn up in nine chapters and sixty articles, duly granting universal suffrage, guaranteeing natural and civil rights, such as individual liberty, legal equality, and liability to taxation in proportion to each subjects fortune, while providing for the machinery of govern- ment, the administration of justice, the succession to the throne, a Council of State, and a Legislative Body, all defined and codified with ridiculous gravity, ac- cording .to the most correct French pat- tern. The crack-brained character of our law-giver becomes very evident in the arti- cles where he solemnly treats the questions of the Civil List, the proclamation of mar- tial law, and the right of reporting parlia- mentary debates in Araucania! At home M. de Tounens had not been a lawyer for nothing, or a politician in revolutionary times; and now we find him going into such minute arrangements as that no prince of the blood-royal should sit in the Council of State without the royal permis- sion. But the Araucanians themselves, if their kings professional bias did not de- ceive him, were not without some notion of legal subtleties, and even of judicia abuses. Either now, or on his next visit, he represents himself as having assisted at a trial where the procedure greatly edi- fied him. The judges heard the cause on horseback. There were advocates who pleaded on either side for a fee of a sheep, an ox, or a horse; the witnesses too were paid forgiving evidence, but did not come forward in open court, since if the ad- verse party knew them, he would take away from them the means of bearing wit- ness another time. In this case an o~c A REAL TARTARIN. 36 A REAL TARTARIN. had been stolen, and for the value of fifty francs the owner had secured a witness to prove the prisoners having killed and eaten the corpus delicti, yet because he could not produce further testimony as to what had become of the hide, the proof was held incomplete according to Arauca- nian law, and the court pronounced a de- cree ot non lieu. But should the theft of a horse, for instance, be fully established, the thief would be sentenced to bring it back with another horse on each side of it by way of costs and damages. Naturally the ex-lawyer of P6rigeux saw most promising material for his codi- fying talents in a people with such sound, if somewhat rudimentary, notions of jus- tice. At the outset, however, he was more concerned with the diplomatic relations of his State. It does not appear how those proclamations of his were brought to the notice of his people, but he lost no time in communicating them to the newspapers of Valparaiso and Santiago, for which the Araucanians would not be much the wiser. Furthermore he sent off a truly loyal despatch to the president of the Chilian Republic, whose recognition would cer- tainly be of the first importance for this infant kingdom. EXCELLENCY, We, Orlije-Antoine the First, by the grace of God King of Araucania, Have the honor to inform you of our acces- sion to the throne which we have just founded in Araucania. We pray heaven, Excellency, to have you in its holy and worthy keeping. Done in Araucania, 17th November, i8bo. (Signed) ORLLIE-ANTOINE ler. No sooner were these acts of sover- eignty accomplished, than we find the ready-made king sighing like a second Alexander for new realms to annex. Three days after his accession on paper to the Araucanian throne, he announced himself with similar formalities as the chosen monarch of the Patagonians ,that race having expressed a wish, so he says, t9 enjoy the benefits of his constitutional government. The execution of this de- cree also was committed to M. Desfon- tame, who appears to have been the Poo-Bah of the kingdom, countersigning Orllie-Antoines ordinances as a general- utility minister, now figuring as head of the office for foreign affairs, and now as keeper of the portfolio of justice in fact, we suspect him of being at this period the only faithful subject of his Araucanian Majesty, and naturally, therefore, the per- son best qualified for office. There is, indeed, some hint of another secretary of state, a M. Lachise, minister of the inte- rior, but no documents bearing his signa- ture are to hand, and we must fear that he never fo4nd an opportunity of entering upon his functions. It would indeed be strange if our quixotic founder of king. doms had come across two Sancho Panzas knavish or foolish enough to follow his fortunes for long. After thus breaking ground, S. M. OrIlie- Antoine saw fit not to proceed in present- ing himself to his subjects, but returned to Valparaiso, while yet his fire-new stamp of honor was scarce current. During the greater part of next year he here awaited answers to letters to friends in France, announcing what had just taken place, and asking for aid in establishing his power. The time was passed in drawing up laws for the united kingdoms of Araucania and Patagonia, which he proposed to christen New France, and to divide into depart.. ments and communes. Moreover, he sup- plied himself with a blue, white, and green flag, that was henceforth to be the tricolor of his States. The Chilian government as yet took no notice of these doings, proba- bly regarding him as a harmless lunatic, while he interpreted its forbearance as an acknowledgment of Araucanian indepen- dence. For, he argues: Is there a sin- gle king or emperor in the world who would not hasten to throw into prison an individual daring enough to come in a manner defying him, after having carved a kingdom out of his territory ? To his disappointment, the French gov- ernment also withheld its recognition, and his friends at home sent no money for the Araucanian treasury. His appeal had been received with indifference or deri- sion. Such French newspapers as did notice it, with one or two exceptions took it only as a welcome text for raillery and unworthy jests, giving OrIlie-Antoine oc- casion to remark sorrowfully and saga- ciously that his countrymen care for nothing so much as amusement, to which they will often sacrifice the gravest inter- ests and the most momentous hopes. And yet he was offering the fatherland a realm having a coast of more than four hundred leagues on the Atlantic Ocean, and hardly less on the Pacific, with an average breadth of six hundred miles, a country twice as large as France, of rare fertility, watered by numerous streams, rich in pastures and minerals, favored by an excellent climate, and not troubled by either fierce beasts or venomous reptiles, all which he took pos- session of with the intention of making it A REAL TARTARIN. 31 a French colony, and his ungrateful coun- trymen saw here nothing but a joke! It is truly the lot of great men to be misun- derstood. No help coming from France, and none of his compatriots in Chili having the heart to share his enterprise even the minister of foreign and other affairs has by this time disappeared from the scene towards the end of i86i his Araucanian Majesty resolved to go where glory waited him. With a letter of introduction for a French trader residing there he arrived at Nacimiento on the frontier, from which place he set out into Araucania, attended by a single hired servant. So on Christ- mas day we find him actually in the midst of one of the native tribes engaged in ratifying his election, as he calls it. The reports of this ceremony are scant and contradictory. The king himself de- clares that he spoke to the Indians of nothing but the blessings of peace and civilization, and treaties with Chili, where- upon they hailed him as their chief with enthusiastic acclamation. More credible seems the story of two Chilian interpreters whom he was fain to employ in delivering his message from the throne. They de- scribe him as telling the electors that he had come to aid them in the vindica- tion of their independence against Chili, and promising succor from his own coun- try. We need not then be surprised to hear that the dusky patriots, moved by wonder and warlike joy, galloped wheeling and whooping round the offered deliverer, and willingly received his gaudy standard as a sign of taking up the hatchet against their ancient enemy. Some of them, it appears, looked on him as having come from the skies; but their barbarous exhi- bitions of faith and loyalty were not enough for Orilie-Antoine, whose first lesson in constitutional government was to instruct them not to address his sacred person without uncovering their heads, or salut- ing with the right hand if, as well might be, a dutiful subject had no hat to take off. There seems no doubt that they received and treated him as an extraordinary being, worthy of all confidence, his avatar having already been announced by the deceased chief, Magnil - This outburst of adhesion was hardly needed to turn poor M. de Tounens head altogether. In the course of the next few days, the same farce was enacted among two or three other tribes of the neighborhood, mustering a few hundred warriors, and in each case his election was duly carried, as testified in a series of formal docdments drawn up by the monarch himself, for want of any secretary of state. One spec- imen of these ~roceV-verbaux will suffice here To-day, a7th December, i86~, The electors of the tribe of Quicheregua united in general assembly at their ordinary place of meeting, two kilom& res from the house of the Cacique Millavil, under the presi- dency of this chief. After deliberation, the said electors have elected and proclaimed me King of Araucania and Patagonia in the terms indicated. Done in Araucania, the above day, month, and year. (Signed) ORLLIE-ANTOINE Jer. The pkbiscite having been so far satis- factory, the kings next step was to fix upon a place of residence chosen for con- venience of communicating his orders to the tribes and corresponding with foreign governments, especially that of Chili, which had as much interest as myself in concluding treaties of peace. A place named Angol was selected as the capital, and thither he set out on January 5th, 1862, a date that was to be fatal to me. By this time, through certain traders present at those elections, the Chilian authorities had information of what was going on, and woke up to the necessity of putting an end to a comedy which might end in the tragic scenes of an Indian war. The kings hireling servant, Rosales, must to all future ages be held in like execration with the traitor, Gan. This man, though he had just obtained a large rise of wages, ungratefully arranged with the command- ant at Nacimiento to deliver his master into the hands of the police. As Orllie- Antoine, having come so far on his jour- ney, was unsuspiciously resting under the shade of some pear-trees, he fell into an ambuscade. In fact some half-a-dozen armed men stole up, suddenly rushed in upon him, seized his sword, packed him on a horse, and galloped off with him as fast as they could for fear of a rescue by the Indians. Seeing all lost but honor, the king yielded himself with becoming dignity. Had it not been for the inter- ference of some traders who happened to be on the spot, he says, his captors would have cut off his head forthwith and carried it to their employers as proof of his death, according to historic precedent in such affairs. Thus, after a reign hardly longer than Lady Jane Greys, the king of Araucania and Patagonia found himself torn away from his territories, against the law of nations, and consigned to the royal fate of captivity. From Nacimiento he was 38 A REAL TARTARIN. sent under escort to Anjeles, the chief town of the province, his departure wit- nessed by a curious crowd who, according to his own account, showed due sympathy with fallen greatness, while the other way of putting it is that they stared at him as a madman. The height of indignity was that his treacherous servant made one of the party, and forcibly changed horses with him, the king having to ride a sorry, broken-down hack while crafty Rosales bestrode his masters gallant steed. He was consoled in this reverse of fortune by hearing some women exclaim, as he be- lieved, Is it possible to give such a bad horse to so brave a lord I Such insults have ever been the lot of ruined royalty; Orllie-Antoine must have thought of Louis XVI. in the Temple, of Buonaparte at St. Helena, and strengthened himself to meet the malice of his enemies with princely fortitude. Arrived at Anjeles, he was received with the same gaping curiosity, and forth- with led to his dungeon, a large, damp room paved with bricks, into which the light of day never penetrated. His ene- mies, we are to know, hoped that this prison would be his tomb, and, if we may believe his statements, he was indeed treated with unnecessary severity. A light was kept constantly burning by him, and a sentinel had orders to look in upon him from time to time. He soon fell seri- ously ill, attacked by fever and dysentery, but was not allowed to be removed to the hospital, nor even to have a doctor. In such miserable plight, he saw phantoms hovering round his prison mattress, which yet were unable to strike terror into that lofty soul, enfeebled as the body might be by disease. For weeks, he says, he lay without consciousness, and it was five months before he could use his feet again, more like a skeleton than a living being. He had to get his head shaved after this illness, but none the less did he cher- ish those ideas of royalty which had brought him to such a pass. From the first he had not ceased indignantly to pro- test against the violation done to his legal rights. Denied the privilege of commu- nicating with the outer world, he neverthe- less found means of sending a note to the French chat-gd daffaires at Santiago, whose protection he had already claimed through the consul at Con~eption. This secret missive was despatched quite en r?gle; the story reads like a chapter in Dumas. A Frenchman was permitted to send him in his meals from outside, the dishes coming through the hands of a sol dier. Under their empty tin covers he stowed away a small packet of letters with a line requesting that they might be for- warded. Either now or later, he also ad- dressed protests to the agents of all the foreign powers in Chili, and letters to the newspapers, calling on the whole civilized world to judge his cause. Nothing came of these steps, however, and for nine months the illustrious captive pined in his dungeon, while Spanish- American justice dragged out its slow course. The authorities seem to have been puzzled to know what to do with such a criminal; and it was, luckily for him, decided not to let his case be dealt with by martial law. Fully expecting from day to day to be led out to execution, he felt the necessity of making his political testament, which he did at some length, taking the utmost care to regulate the or- der of succession in his dynasty. Being a bachelor, he bequeathed the kingdom to his father, then to his eldest brother, then to this brothers son, failing all of whom or their male posterity, to our well-be- loved niece, Lida Jeanne de Tounens and her descendants in perpetuity. But in case of her line also failing, he was mindful to provide for the successive devolution of the crown on his second, third, fourth, and fifth brothers, or after them on his three sisters, male heirs always taking precedence over female ones, though the Salic law was rejected. Clearly there is little likelihood of the royal family of Araucania becoming extinct for some time. He did not cease to besiege the Chilian authorities with complaints, appeals, and protestations, which for a long time seemed thrown away. Standing proudly on his defence, he declared himself and the Araucanians within their right in all they had done; he freely admitted his de- sign of founding a kingdom, raising a loan in Europe, bringing from France offi- cers to discipline a native army, but denied any hostile intentions against Chili. He demanded his release, or at least an open and immediate trial. After a few months imprisonment we find him going so far as to promise that if set free he will return to France, but this is the only mark of weakness on his part In addressing his judges and jailers he takes the high tone of injured innocence, always signing him- self OrIlie-Antoine Jer, and maintaining the grandeur of soul which still inspired him to affirm his rights to the Araucanian and Patagonian throne, consecrated by the free suifrages of these two cotntries I A REAL TARTARIN. 39 What matters the prison which I have suffered so he ends his narrative. If I did not fear to be mistaken in the im- port of my words and that the greatness )f the names might compromise the jus- tice of the comparison, I would say in conclusion, Louis XI. after P~ronne, and Francis 1. after Pavia, were they less kings of France than before? Hitherto this unrecognized monarch has been his own historian, but now his nar- rative ceases as abruptly as the first part of Faust, leaving him, like Gretchen, in imminent danger of execution. Why he broke off here seems no less a puzzle than a disappointment, for there is a long continuation to his career of royalty; and if all stories are true, he was at this point about to enter upon a most romantic ad- venture quite in keeping with his character as a State prisoner. It is said that he sawed through the bars of his dungeon and escaped by swimming only to be again recaptured. No details of this episode, however, are forthcoming; and henceforth his annals become somewhat legendary, obscured by conflicting and not very care- ful authorities, even in the full light of contemporary criticism. What proves certain is that the Chilian government finally released him, glad no doubt to be rid of such a troublesome case, and that he returned to France, not a whit abating his pretensions to the Arau- canian throne. lie reached his native place to find himself famous after a fashion. He was the sensation of the day; but to his disgust all but a very few, even among his friends, refused to take him seriously. It was in vain that he addressed all the European governments in lofty protest against the high-handed proceedings of Chili, and that he sought to arouse his own countrymen to a sense of the advantages to be gained from the establishment of his constitutional kingdom as practically a new French colony. The jeering public would recognize him only as a kincr un- attached, ~vho occasionally indeed figured in the newspapers, but seldom with proper respect. A national subscription failed to bring in the ten thousand francs which was all he demanded as the sinews of the war he again proposed to carry on in the heart of South America. Even when he re- duced his demand to a subsidy of five hundred francs, th~ sum was not forth- coming. Alas! tfr~ next time our hero emerges into the clear light of history it is as summoned to a police court for pay- ment of his hotel bill. But genius, we understand, implies an infinite capacity for taking pains ; and the fallen monarch was not wanting to himself in this low ebb of his fortunes. By dint of pertinacious efforts he succeeded in making some converts to his chim~ra, and in the course of ~i few years managed somehow to raise means of again attempt- ing to grasp the Araucanian sceptre. It was a bad time for such enterprises, the Mexican war having opened the eyes.of France to the folly of interfering in trans- atlantic affairs. But in 1869 it appears that Orllie-Antoine did set sail on a fresh expedition, which turned out a complete fiasco. He came back unhurt, having ex- cited no enthusiasm among the Indians this time nor even any active hostility on the part of the Chilians, yet as much a king as ever in his own eyes, and trusting in his star, hopefully as any Napoleon. Then followed a stirring year in which Frenchmen had no leisure to listen to the projects of one who passed for an amus- ing monomaniac. Orllie-Antoines im- agination took another turn to fit the time. He became an inventor, and announced his discovery of a means for neutralizing the hurtful effects of firearms, which in- deed would have been of no little use at that period. When the Franco-German war was over, he stooped to journalism, setting up two papers in succession with the view of advocating his neglected claims to royalty. He appealed to his brother journalists to recognize him not only as a colleague, but as a king; and went so far as to found an order of chivalry which he offered to bestow on any editor who would oblige him with a favorable article. We hear of one further act of sover- eignty in these days. There was another Frenchman of lofty and various projects, M. Pertuiset,, the inventor of explosive bullets who in 1872 had his eye upon Pat- agonia as scene for a wild-goose chase as absurd as that of its soi-disanz ruler. By the agency of a clairvoyant he believed himself to have discovered that the Incas had buried a vast treasure at a certain spot in Tierra del Fuego, and was organizing an expedition to exploit this source of wealth, when one day a polite and distin- guished-looking person called upon him, announcing himself as first minister of Orilie-Antoine ler., King of Araucania and Patagonia, in whose name he forbade the new adventurer to undertake any enter- prise in his dominions without due author- ization from their sovereign lord. With equal politeness, M. Pertuiset replied that he had serious affairs to occupy him; and 40 THE AMERICAN TRAMP. the Araucanian emissary let himself be bowed out, content with having lodged a formal protest. It is fine to note the con- tempt of one dreamer for the delusion of the other. But though his kingship so long stuck fast at protests, unheeded or derided, On- lie-Antoines faith in himself still rose superior to all the insults of fortune. And this determined confidence had its effect in winning new partisans among the mil- lions of mockers, choice spirits who rec- ognized his uncrowned royalty with the same devotion as followed a famous En- glish pretender of the period even to his Dartmoor dungeon. XV hen we might ex- pect to find his cause wholly played out, we hear of the Araucanian monarch sur- rounded, like our Tichborne claimant, by a small court who treated him with marked deference ; the same witness testifies to his air of dignity and intelligence in this long eclipse. Henri V. did not more nobly bear up against the adversity of an unbe- lieving age. This force of purpose and power of attracting support should avail to bespeak OrIlie-Antoine a true ruler of men, had we not those fantastic proclama- tions and institutions set in print by him- self to show his ideas of ruling. Like Galba, he might be judged worthy to reign, unless he had reigned on paper. Louis Napoleon, now an exile in En- gland, no longer supplied such an encour- aging example for ambitious adventurers but our king in~artibus, having survived his Strasbourg and his Boulogne, was resolute to make yet a third attempt upon the throne to which he had invited him- self. In 1874 he once more took passage for South America, travelling incogni/o as Jean Prat, attended by no less than four followers. Such a force, in spite of its gallant devotion, seeming unfit to cope with the Chllian police, this time he pro- posed to invade his states from the other side, by way of the Argentine Republic. He got safe as far as Buenos Ayres; but embarking there for another point of the coast, he fell in with an Argentine, or, as some say, a Brazilian cruiser, sent out to intercept his progress on demand of the Chilian government; and thus, in defiance of the laws of neutrality, was he again arrested and ignominiously turned back to France. Well for his fame if he had now fallen in battle according to the fitness of things, or perished with dramatic effect on the scaffold at the hands of those un- worthy foes! The prosaic fates, dragging down his whole career, had otherwise de- creed. Next year poor OrIlie-Antoine died penniless and miserable in a hospital at Bordeaux. Thus ended a life which gained a cer- tain notoriety, and perhaps missed more solid fame only for want of a little com- mon-sense, or of the wholesome sense of humor, to ballast its soaring ambition. If M. de Tounens were mad, there seems a good deal of method in his madness; and his amazing vanity must have had a cer- tain fibre at the core to keep him so tenacious of his purpose through every ridiculous failure. In the English papers of the day there were wild stories repre- senting him as having reigned for several years in Araucania and gallantly waged unsuccessful war against Chili ; but his own narrative reduces this bubble to its proper dimensions. Even before his speedy dethronement we have some hint that the wondering Indians had already begun to disbelieve in him, since he wasted ti me in promulgating constitutions, and did not come at once to the business of cutting Chilian throats. A few weeks experience of government by proclamation would probably have been enough to dis- enchant them. Little good his brief reign brought that bold race. Within a few years they were pushed still further back from the frontier at which he found them ripe for making a stand against their en- croaching neighbors. Yet it may be that these sullen tribes will long cherish a tradition of the great white man who came among them as a demi-god with his mar- vellous rainbow-hued banner, only to be snatched away by their common foes, but still lives, slumbering in some far-off, mys- tic cave, like Arthur, like Barbarossa, like Sebastian of Portugal, in the ho urofneed to appear and deliver oppressed Arauca- nia; while we who see the seamy side of the myth, with all its shabby shreds and patches, have nothing but a pitying smile for OrIlie-Antoine, the first and last mon- arch of his race. A. R. HOPE MONCRIEFF. From The Contemporary Review. THE AMERICAN TRAMP. DURiNG the past few months, in com- menting on current events, the contempo- rary press has discovered to the public some very striking eccentricities of Amer- ican society. Sometimes with good, and sometimes with evil, or at least unfriendly intent, the social surprises, in a country not yet old enough to be properly aghast THE AMERICAN TRAMP. 4 concerning them, have been commented upon and generalized about till a popular writer is heard to wonder whether, after all, and greatest surprise of all, America may not be the last of all countries to ac- cept a true democracy. The rapid growth of class distinctions in America during the past fifty years, and the natural con- servatism of wealth, furnish substantial ground for such a query. And the haste to reach wealth on the part of those not yet admitted to its aristocracy makes them indifferent, even to the point of ut- ter ignorance, to the rapidly increasing c!asses which furnish most of the surprises referred to. One of the eccentricities in American society is the American tramp. Not much is known of his class, for he is peculiarly let alone by the student of sociology and the Bureau of Statistics. The newspaper refers to him only in its local columns, and the public regard him as a sort of jack-in-the-box member of society an insignificant planet in the social orbit, having no calculable value or periodicity. Yet on almost any of these summer nights it may be safely stated that, with about fifty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine of his co-idlers, he is sleeping in box-cars, railway shanties, engine- houses, barns, strawstacks, and on the open prairies of the States, with as defi- nite notions of his vocation, or lack of it, as the laborers who, morning by morning, pass him by on their way to factory, field, and shop. Their life is spent in seeking labor, his in avoiding it. For it is the voluntary vagrant that is under considera- tion ; of the laro~er class, the pauper class that wanders perforce and only to find chance to work, much more is known and written and tabulated. Bnt what the pub- lic knows, and apparently cares, about the tramj5, is confined to his encounters with law. He is, however, a most interesting fellow, much more so than the enforced vagrant. One must live with him to know him; and this the writer has done for the period of. eight months. What he learned during this time may, perhaps, prove in- teresting to the general reader as well as to the sociologist. I. WHO THE TRAMP IS. PROBABLY five-eighths of the tramp class are native Americans. The Irish. man native and foreign born makes a good second in the list. The foreign-born Irishman is not so often found on the road as the one born in the States. The German is someti ines a voluntary vagrant, but never a gregarious one, and cannot be reckoned on as a brother in the order. The native Englishman is hardly ever met, but there are a few well-known Anglo- American roadster?. The Frenchman and Italian have never been seen or heard of by the writer. There are a few Scandi- navians, but very poor ones. Negroes are numerous enough as vagrants, but not as tramps. The roving bands of Hunga- rians and Bohemians cannot be consid- ered in trampdom, because they are will- ing to work. There are a few female tramps more women than girls. Boys from fourteen to twenty-one years of age are a popular ad- dition to the fraternity. These youths usually accompany the older men, and are compelled to beg for them. What these youngsters get in exchange for their ser- vices is called protection. This means that the tramps with whom they are trav- elling will shield them from abuse by others. Unfortunately, these boys suffer the worst and most immoral abuse from their own protectors. The antecedents of these children are usually unknown; they have been brought up in reform schools and orphan asylums, and drift into tramp- dom by inclination. Generally speaking, all tramps have spent some part of their lives in reformatory institutions. This accounts for the fact that so many of them are fairly well educated. Almost every tramp can read and write. In the Western States, there is a class of rovers called blanket tramps fellows who travel between Salt Lake City and San Francisco. They are called blanket tramps because they invariably carry blankets with them, sleeping where night overtakes them. Properly, these men do not come under our class, for they will work at certain times. They make it their practice to be in California during the fruit-picking season, and by doing even this they shut themselves out of the brotherhood. There are also young fellows, between eighteen and t~venty-three years of age (usually the rougher elements of towns), who have heard fancy stories of tramping and conceive themselves as born travel- lers. They go on the road in spring with great hopes; but usually are back at their homes before autumn. All this is foreign to the genuine roadster, for unless re- formed, he remains a tramp until he dies. Still, voluntary vagrancy is sometimes re- cruited from these prospecting youths. for some will prove tenacious. 42 THE AMERICAN TRAMP. WHAT HE DOES. As a rule, a man becomes a tramp slang is a very popular feature of tramp. through drink. Of course a lazy disposi- dom, and is generously used by all adepts, tion is also answerable for many a young while it is a youthful rovers great ambi- fellows propensity in this direction. One tion to excel in it. tenth of the fraternity may be termed dis- Peculiar and significant names are also couraged criminals, men who have tried very popular. A fellow who is slender, their hand at crime, but found they lacked and hails from some well-known com mu- criminal wit. These have become tramps, nity, as for instance Chicago, is known as because a roving life comes the nearest to Chicago Slim. Had the same person their desires and expectations. It is this been stout and from Denver, he would have class which is the most successful, A been Denver Fatty. Names are usually genuine tramp will never work, except given or assumed on account of some when compelled to in prisons. He jeal- physical peculiarity. Scores of tramps ously guards the organization from the in. have such names as these: Lengthy trusion of half-way beggars, who might Tom, St. Louis Shorty, Tattooed work at a pinch. His life, however, is Bill, Red-haired Jack, etc~ etc. such a turmoil and strife, that it can well Boys are also allowed PiomS de /rarn~ be called a more laborious one than the but these must be coupled with the word day laborers. To describe it, it is neces- kid, signifying youth. Women, once sary to tell in a while, take unto themselves sugges- tive names, but it is rare to see a well. II. christened female. The fair sex makes a poor shift of tramping, especially when travelling on the railroads is so popular as at present. It is well nigh impossible for a woman to undergo the same hardships on a train as a man can. In the States, almost all proficient road. sters beat their way on the railways. This is done by different methods. The one most popular is riding on freight trains, because these so often carry empty cars, which are comparatively easy to board and occupy unmolested. On the other hand, when a fellow is very desirous of making a quick journey he will risk the top of a passenger train at night. And once in a while, he will even venture his safety on the trucks of an express. This truck-riding is a difficult feat to per- form, and one almost impossible for a womans endurance. As the reader prob- ably knows, the trucks of a car are, gener- ally speaking, the framework around the wheels. In this framework, especially under Pullman cars, skilful riders can very easily make a journey of a hundred miles undetected. But, under any circum- stances, it is a dangerous way to travel, and many a tramp loses his life in attempt- ing it. Another dangerous procedure is riding the buffers. This means riding between the cars of a freight train, by standing on the buffers of each car. To do this, a fellow must also hang on very tightly to the runos of the ladder of either car. The most pleasant travelling expe- rience is sitting on the top of a freight train of a summer nightthe joy of a tramps existence. The English reader, accustomed to the European railway laws, will probably won- A TRAMPS conduct depends somewhat upon his nationality. The German tramp, who, as I have before said, is never in- clined to herding with the promicuous crowd, but holds on strenuously to his in- dividuality, and, as far as circumstances will admit, his GerniithZichkezt; the Irish tramp, with his exactly opposite tenden- cies, his jovial companionship, and his ready reference to the Catholic priest in all cases of difficulty; the native Amer- ican, enterprising in so far as trampdom allows enterprise, ingenious in getting out of a scrape and triumphing over emer- gencies around these three types may be drawn certain definite division lines, within which conduct and habits vary in the proportion in which national character prevails. But not to ~o into minute details of this kind, a general outline includes them all, and certain action is common to all. For instance, and despite nationality, a tramp vernacular is their common prop- erty and open sesame. In reality, this peculiar lingo is mutilated English ,but so fantastically applied that one not ini- tiated would find it very difficult to under- stand. The tramps name for himself and his fellows is hobo, plural hoboes. Bread is called punk ; the Catholic priest is nick- named the Galway; policemen and other officers of the law are known as screw-s ; begging is called batteringfor chewing; rail~vay brakemen, brakies; poorhouses, pogies; prisons, pens; liquor drinking, rushing the growler; insanity, bug-house, etc., etc. This THE AMERICAN TRAMP. 43 der that a tramp is allowed such privileges in America. His surprise will be greater when he learns that the brakemen of the freight trains at least very often help a tramp on his travels. The reason of this is that in many instances freight-train brakemen and even conductors have been tramps themselves. And it is only natural that they should be willing to help their old comrades. Even when the brakemen are not particularly in sympathy with these fellows, they will very often let them travel a good distance for a sixpence. (A case is well known to the writer, when one of them made the entire distance, and on the most unfriendly railroads, between New York city and San Francisco for the sum of five shillings.) The railway coin- panies are unable to hinder this free use of their property, for their employ~s are usually not a match for the tramps, who have more than once made away with brakemen interfering with their travels. The Southern railways are perhaps the most hostile to these dead beats In that part of the country no great number of brakemen have been on the road; be- sides, in the South, the negroes are al- lowed positions as freight brakemen, and when they are in power, one can expect the color line to be sharply drawn and tightly held. It is in the Western and Middle States that the tramp makes the most use of railways. In New England this is becoming less prevalent as begging is growing less profitable there. The tramp also finds it convenient to use the highways, but this is not common as in England, for it is on the railroads that trampdom thrives as an institution. In consequence, robberies committed upon railway property are almost invaria- bly laid at the door of the tramp. Often these charges are correct, but it is also true that employ~s commit thefts upon freight cars with the expectation that the roving trespasser will receive the punish- ment. Too often it is the beggar who suffers for crimes perpetrated by others. A roadster is well aware of the precarious tenure of his railway rights, and is anx- ious to molest railway property as little as possible. In connection with this railway life, the tramp carries on a system of registration and communication, both interesting and suggestive. A fellow stops at a certain place on his journey and writes (registers) his name, the date, where he came from, and whither bound, upon the nearest rail- way Natering-tank or shanty. Those who follow do the same, and thus a system is established of all importance to the fra- ternity the tank becomes the tramps post-office and bureau ofinformation. An example to illustrate. By begging or stealing a fellow has ac- cumulated enough t~oney to make himself and a few others thoroughly drunk. But just at the time he has acquired this gold, he is separated from those particular cro- nies with whom he would like to share it. Under such circumstances, what does he do? He goes to the nearest large tramp- register in his vicinity (although it may be fifty miles away) and looks for the names of some of his acquaintances. He care- fully scans the list to discover the latest dates, and if he finds that his friends have left the town the day before, bound South, he can tell almost exactly where they are, so well does he know the ease or the diffi- culty in beating ones way on that particu- lar road. Depend upon it he will find his men, and when they meet, they will con- gregate near some brewery anddrink beer until the little hoard has been gathered in by the brewer. When the money is gone there will very likely be trouble, for a row generally follows a drinking bout. As communication is the strongest point in trampdom, another illustration may not be out of place. Let it be supposed that a tramp and his kid are begging in a town. Just as the older beggar is on his way through some back-yard to a back-~ door, a policeman discovers him. If this eye of the law is given to winking, he will simply order the fellow out of town. Nat- urally he leaves, but he first registers near some railway directory just where he has gone. This is for the benefit of the boy, who eventually brings up at the rail- road also. He finds the news, and before many hours are passed the two have met in another town. The amount of statistics which tramps collect by means of registra- tion and by intercourse is astounding. A tramp knows almost as well as any sheriff what comrades are in gaols, or what un- fortunate fellow has gone to the poorhouse on account of sickness, or to the asylum through lunacy. He can tell whether a certain railroad is good for his purposes, although he may never have seen a rod of its track, and judges correctly of the availa- bility of towns thousands of miles out of his beat. Newspapers picked up in odd places also add to his stock of worldly wisdom. It was particularly amusing, just after the catastrophe at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to notice with what anxiety and interest the tramps kept themselves conversant with life at that place. In the rebuilding 44 THE AMERICAN TRAMP. of the devastated town there was a great demand for labor, and fancy prices were offered to workmen. It was this advance in wages which so pleased the roadsters, not because they desired to work, but be- cause they well knew that they could much more easily beg and steal money when wages were extraordinarily high. They flocked to Johnstown from far and near, until the authorities, seeing the riff-raff addition to the population, stopped the immigration by the application of martial law. Government works are also great boons to the fraternity. As soon as a public job is commenced, the tramps will be on the ground almost as soon as the workmen, and for the same reason as in the Johns- town case high prices for labor and consequently fair chances for begging. Voluntary vagrants very often confine themselves to a circuit and beg only within its limits. The people of this district will feed a fellow periodically just as they would throw pennies to the organ-grinder making his weekly or fortnightly rounds. Tramps seldom expect money from houses; this is asked for in the streets of cities and large towns. To succeed they often follow the example of other beggars, and injure their bodies to excite sympathy making a large sore on the leg or arm by a blister is the favorite deception. Clothes are best obtained in what are termed college towns, and are as often stolen from clothes-lines as begged. Some tramps get all their apparel in this way. Public institutions are also very popu. lar with beggars. Insane asylums, peni- tentiaries, and State schools are appealed to for alms. Asylums will seldom give anything but food, while prisons are good for nothing but clothes. Catholic institu- tions are proverbial for their unstinted generosity, and priests usually favor a fellow professing Catholicism. The man who comes nighest criminal success is called among tramps the fawny man. This mans business is to sell bogus jewellery. For instance, he buys a dozen of gilded rings for or~e dollar and will usually sell them for ten. As a rule, this fellow will so word his offers that the law cannot touch him. In a jovial way he tells the intending buyer that the rings are worth comparatively nothing, and the green one usually takes the bait and considers them worth a great deal. If the tramp can combine this busi- ness with petty stealing and beo-o~n does very well. ~ g he Many make a good living at tattooing. They stop for a short time in some tc)wfl near the railway track, and the rough ele- ment of the place soon learns of their presence. Almost invariably these town fellows are anxious to be tattooed, and tramps hAve on many occasions (especially Sundays) made their ten dollars a day. Those who tattoo are either ex-sailors, or men who have spent some part of their lives in prisons. Abuses of women and criminal assaults, of which so much is said, are hardly ever committed by these vagrants. It is the uninitiated vagrant who offends the law on these lines. Often professional criminals assume the garb of vagrants to shield their cog- nizances. This has been proved more than once, and ~vas especially illustrated in the case of the well-known criminal, Blinkey Morgan, who suffered the death penalty a few years ago. The evidence in his trial often centred in railway cars, and sometimes amongst tramps. However, it cannot be pleaded for the tramp that he is free from criminal practices, for American law makes voluntary vagrancy a crime, and a man by being a tramp creates a g5rirnd fade case against himself. It is only necessary to note further how he comes in contact with law. WHAT IS DONE WITH THE TRAMP. THE punishment at present for volun- tary vagrancy and mendicity is entirely inadequate. It is only when a fellow has committed some grave offence such as resisting an officer or robbery that he receives any just correction. The usual imprisonments vary from ten to ninety days in county gaols What are these gaols? Certainly not the most miserable of places, for in October and November it is the most comfortable thing that can hap- pen to a tramp to be housed in one for the winter. Very often there is no work to be done, and in many gaols a prisoner is only locked in his cell at night; dun ngthe day he roams at will in the large and common hall. When this freedom is permitted, and his three meals and tobacco are fur- nished him, he will desire nothing better. Of course gaol discipline differs in differ- ent States. In large cities prisoners arc compelled to work, but a tramp makes it his business to keep away from such in- stitutions; and seldom will he get into them unless caught when intoxicated. In fact, he always looks out for the easiest prisons when hunting for a winters nest, and he usually finds them if ho is at all clever. SOME RECENT STUDIES ON THE SOLAR SPECTRUM. 45 Sometimes vagrants commit petty crimes which bring them to the work- houses. (vVorkhouses are in reality pris- ons, and must not be confounded with the English institutions of the same name.) When a fellow gets in here he does some hard work, probably as much as in a pen- itentiary. But it must be remembered that for every man who goes to this place twenty go tq the gaols, so that it is not the workhouse which deals extensively with trampdom. Almost every good-sized town in the United States has what is called a station-house. Here a tramp can always get a nights lodging for nothing. Besides these places, almost every county has a poor farm. Tramps can very often find here not only lodgings but sometimes supper and breakfast. This is given without any demand for work as payment. All these arrangements are really only aids to vagrancy, for they have a tendency to keep it floating, tiding it over the places where beggary finds its low-water mark. Laxity in the enforcement of law is an- other pernicious feature in the treatment of vagrancy. Policemen, and even jus- tices, very often simply order the tramps out of a town, from which naturally they wander to another. For instance, six tramps were washing their faces one morn- ing on the outskirts of a good-sized town in Iowa. Two constables appeared on the scene, and told the fellows that they must go with them to the gaol. The men made no resistance, and were soon com- fortably seated before a good breakfast. Not long after their meal was finished they were taken before the squire and charged truly with vagrancy. The squire told them to leave town inside of two hours, and they left. The tramps got out of this affair a good meal, the sheriff a dollar for each tramp, the two constables fifty cents apiece for each arrested, and the squire a dollar apiece. Who paid the bill? The taxpayer. And this is not a solitary in- stance by any means. Because of this an~mic.state of government, and also be- cause justice is so often defeated, the peo- ple frequently take the tramp question into their own hands. There are many places where a tramp dare not show his face. If he should do so he would run the risk of losing his life. The tramps call these muscular attentions to their cases tim- ber lessons, because in the towns hostile to trampdom the people drive the beg- gars away with clubs, stout sticks, etc. In many instances men have had to go to hospitals after these encounters. There is law enough to take the l)lace of this rowdyism if it were enforced, and nothing but the enforcement of it will cure voluntary tramping. As yet the number of tramps is not so large as to affect seriously the labor mar- ket if they were forced into that class which seeks work. There are hardly over sixty thousand tramps. Of course this cannot be substantiated by any scientific data, but it is not far from correct. But even this is appalling enough to demand earnest study, and practical measures of relief. So far Americans have simply petted and fattened the tramps. They have tried the improved lodging-house system in cities, and many other superfi- cial methods. Just now, in one of the, largest cities, Chicago, they are trying the ticket system distributing labor tickets amongst citizens, who are to give them to all seeking aid. These tickets are good for a meal at the labor shelter, after the applicant has earned it. This has been tried in England and failed signally. It will doubtless prove ineffective in Chicago. Wherever law has been strictly applied it has secured its ends. In the South, for instance, tramps know scores of towns in which they can- not beg a living, and in the East law has also achieved much success. When it is thoroughly and universally enforced, trampdom as an organization will be an- nihilated. An idle, homeless class, though number- ing only a thousand in the million of pop- ulation, is a rotting sore on the body politic. It drains the system dangerously in that it does it insensibly, and outward applications have no remedial effect upon it. It exists because of bad order within, and there must the cure begin. JOSIAH FLYNT. From The Month. SOME RECENT STUDIES ON THE SOLAR SPECTRUM. UNTIL the middle of this century the term physical astronomy, as distinguished from observational astronomy, was usually applied to those investigations by the mathematicians of the mechanics of the celestial sphere, by which they trium- phantly vindicated the truth of Newtons theory of gravitation, as giving the only sufficient explanation of the motions of the heavenly bodies. It then came to be used of all such observations and deduc 46 SOME RECENT STUDIES ON THE SOLAR SPECTRUM. tions therefrom, as depend upon or are explainable by the principles of chemistry and physics. And now this latter branch of astronomy, sometimes called the new astronomy, which has made gigantic strides since the invention of the spectro- scope and our greater knowledge of the action of light, has almost entirely usurped to itself the title of physical astronomy, leaving to the older science the name of mathematical astronomy. In the follow- ing pages it will be our endeavor to give a brief sketch of the recent progress which has been made in but one line of research in this newer science, and to record the successes of the last few years. We have prefaced and interspersed our review with such remarks as are deemed necessary for the clearer understanding of a technical subject by those whose reading has mostly lain in other directions. The first map of the solar spectrum which could pretend to give a picture of the chief dark lines, or images of the slit of the spectroscope caused by the absorp- tion of the solar atmosphere, was drawn in the year 181415 by the celebrated Fraunhofer. He also proved, by observ- ing the spectra of the brighter stars and noting their discrepancies from the solar spectrum, that these dark lines, whatever might be their true explanation, were not solely due to the action on the rays of the sun of the earths atmosphere. But he went no further. In 1849, Foucault, while experimenting with the spectrum formed by the carbon points of the voltaic arc, observed the coincidence of two bright yellow lines due to the metal sodium, with the black double of the solar spectrum called D by Fraunhofer. And not only this; for he was struck by the appearance of the D lines when the spectrum of the glowing vapors was superposed upon them, which, instead of becoming less dark, as would have been naturally ex- pected, were seen to be darker than usual. The observation of this seeming anomaly was a second great step in advance. The theoretical explanation of this appearance was first enunciated, though not published, in 1852 by Professor, now Sir George, Stokes, arguing from the analogy of the absorption of sound waves by a suitable medium. If the explanation was correct, it followed that the spectroscope had, de- spite the oft-quoted dictum of Comte uttered barely a decade before, proved beyond doubt the existence of sodium in the sun. In 1859 a German physicist, Kirchhoff by name, performed in his lab- oratory the classical experiment of re versing the sodium or D lines; reversing, that is, by passing the continuous spec- trum formed by the carbon points through hot sodium vapors, he caused the D lines to be alone selected in the process of fil- tration fot absorption, and to appear dark instead of bright on the screen. The arc bein~ taken to represent the sun, and its continuous spectrum the background of the solar spectrum, the sodium vapors would stand in place of a burning atmo- sphere around our luminary, and hence the lines of sodium, or indeed of any other metal, being found as dark in the solar spectrum, would indicate the presence of the vapors of that metal in the suns at- mosphere. This one experiment may truly be said to have created a new branch of astronomical physics, a branch which has already been prolific of most marvel- lous results, and which is full of promise of greater marvels yet to come. For it is wonderful that stars or suns so immeasur- ably distant, that the light travelling from them at the rate of one hundred and eighty.six thousand miles a second, con- sumes in some cases half a century or more to reach our planet, are by means of the spectroscope analyzed, and the mate- rials out of which they are built up, cata- logued with almost as great an ease as the chemist tests the terrestrial matters in his laboratory. Confining our attention, however, to the solar spectrum, it is evident that the first requisite, before we can hope to unravel any of its hidden teachings, is that we should pO55~55 as perfect a map as pos- sible of all its multitude of lines. Kirch- hoff was not slow to perceive this necessity, and in conjunction with Bunsen he com- menced and nearly finished a beautiful map of the solar spectrum. It was pub- lished in i86i, having been completed by the labors of Hofmann. The spectro- scope employed consisted of four prisms of flint glass, and the patient toil required for the drawing of such a map must have been enormous, especially when we re- member that since the instrument was without the modern refinement of an auto- matic action, it was necessary to place each prism in the best position for view- ing the spectrum for each portion of its length by hand alone. Kirchhoff affixed a scale to his map giving the distance of the lines one from another as measured by his micrometer, and he also subjoined the approximate positions of a great number of the bright lines observed in the spectra of the terrestrial elements. Many re- markaLle lines are still known by Kirch SOME RECENT STUDIES ON THE SOLAR SPECTRUM~ 47 hoffs numbers, among them being the ray 1,474 in the green, the chief bright line given by the solar corona during a total eclipse. But there is one great draw- back common to every map of the spec- trum constructed by means of a prismatic spectroscope, and that is, that it only per- fectly represents the spectrum as pro- duced by an identical set of prisms. The colors always succeed one another in the same order, but the spaces they occupy in the total length of the spectrum, as also the dispersion itself, alters with the re- fractive angle of the prism, with the sub- stance of which it is made, and, unless the prisms be placed in the standard position of minimum deviation of the rays, with the angle made by the incident ray with the first face of the prism. Again, since the resolving power of a spectroscope of prisms varies inversely as the third power of the wave-length of the light, and the wave-length of a violet ray is about one half of that of a red ray, it follows that with such instruments the extent given to the violet ~vill be about eight times greater than that given to the red. It would obviously be of great advan- tage if spectroscopes could be so con- structed that this irrationality of disper- sion, as it is termed, could be avoided, and that the same or a proportional scale could be always applied to measure the dis- tances between the lines, whatever be the dispersion produced. This end is attained by the use of a diffraction grating to form the solar spectrum, and by employing a scale of wave-lengths. It may not be out of place, and will serve to the elucidation of what is to follow, if a few words be here devoted to the instrument and to the scale. As is well known, light is propagated by waves set up by the molecular vibrations of the luminous source in the all.pervading ether. There are also two kinds of bend- ing of the rays or lines of propagation of the wave-motion. The one termed ref rac- tion takes place when the wave-front passes from one medium to another, and this is made use of in the production of the spectrum by means of prisms. The other bending, termed diffraction, ensues when the main wave-front meets with an obstacle, such as a screen. In this case some of the rays bend round the obstacle, forming what it has been proposed to call a derived wave-front, and without entering into the reasons why a spectrum should be formed, it will be sufficient to state, that if the source of light be white, a series of spectra will under ordinary circumstances be seen. Our readers may, if they be so minded, very easily verify this fact for themselves by a simple experiment. Tak- ing a sheet of thick note-paper, cut in it a slit about two inches in length and one thirty-second part .f an inch in breadth In a second piece of paper one clean stroke of a penknife will cut a second slit requisite for our purpose. This latter we shall refer to as the eye-slit, and to the former as the light-slit. Placing the light- slit in front of a gas flame, and looking at it through the eye-slit, after adjusting the distance between them so as to suit ones vision, a bright line of light will be seen and on each side of it, to right and left, a series of thin colored spectra separated by dark spaces. It will also be noted that the violet ends of these spectra are turned towards the light-slit. If the eye.slit or diffraction slit be extremely fine, the spec- tra are too feeble to be seen. Two very fine slits, however, equal and parallel to one another, provided they be sufficiently close, will double the brightness of the spectral bands. If now a piece of glass be taken, and by means of a dividing en- gine that is furnished with a very accurate micrometer screw, a number of fine par- allel lines be ruled upon it extremely close together, the result will be a diffraction grating giving the colored bands of a beautiful bright color, the brilliancy de- pending on the number of lines ruled to the inch, and the dispersion on the prod- uct formed by multiplying the order of the spectrum observed and the total number of lines ruled, and divided by the width of the diffracted beam. The earliest gratings of this sort were thus ruled by Norbert and Rutherfurd~ Professor Rowland of Baltimore has by means of a magnificently even screw pro- duced wonderfully fine gratings, some with 28,876 lines to the inch. They are ruled not on glass, but on polished specu- lum metal, and the spectra are produced by reflection from the minutely thin bright spaces between the lines, which correspond therefore to the eye-slit in our experiment with the two sheets of note-paper. The light is in this case diffracted as if the light.slit were at its virtual image behind the grating. Gratings of 14,438 lines to the inch are not uncommon, such a one of very perfect make forming part of the large spectrometer at Stonyhurst, the last instrument which the late Father Perry acquired for the observatory. In passing it is worthy of notice that Professor Row- land has accomplished the feat of ruling as many as forty-three thousand lines to 48 SOME RECENT STUDIES ON THE SOLAR SPECTRUM. the inch. In all the spectra produced by the gratings, any two lines are distant from one another by an interval which is always proportional to the difference of the wave-lengths of the light correspond- ing to the lines. On this account the same standard scale of wave-lengths can always be used with maps constructed by the aid of these instruments. Practically, then, all that is required is to determine the ab- solute wave-length of any one line, and the absolute wave-lengths of all the others can be obtained relatively to this line. Of the extreme red there are 36,920 wave- lengths in one inch, and 64,630 of the ex- treme violet, so that we cannot quite see an octave. But for the sake of uniformity the wavelengths of light are expressed in terms of a unit called a tenth-metre, one tenth-metre being the one ten-thousand- millionth part of a metre, and one metre being a little over thirty-nine inches. With good spectroscopes it is possible to recognize lines differing by as small an amount as the one-tenth of a tenth-metre. Taking the line D2 as a standard, M. Louis Bell has by a most thorough investigation determined its wave-length as 5,89o~I88 of our units. Basing his observations on this value of D2, Professor Rowland has published a list of four hundred and fifty standard wave-lengths of lines. The celebrated Angstr6m was the first to draw a map of the solar spectrum as produced by a grating spectroscope, and with a scale of wave-lengths, his stand- ard being the mean of the pair of lines at Fraunhofers E line. It appeared in i868. A catalogue of wave-lengths was drawn up in the memoir which accompa- nied the plates, and this map and catalogue have been used as the standards by spec- troscopists up to the present day. They are, however, surpassed in accuracy by the recent determination of wave-lengths at Baltimore and at Potsdam, so that they will without doubt be supplanted in the near future. With these preliminary remarks on map. ping the solar spectrum in general, we may now turn to the review of some recent work in this direction. The name of the late M. Thollon is one that occupies a prominent place among those of modern solar observers. About ten years ago this eminent astronomer commenced a map of the solar spectrum, which, as we are told in the introduction to the accompanying catalogue which gives the places and in- tensities of the lines, was intended by its author to be nothing less than a standard work, furnishing to the spectroscopist similar data for his researches, as are pro. vided for the celestial cartographer by such charts as those of Argelander. Un. fortunately for the cause of science the hand of death removed him before the completictn of his self-imposed task. Yet not before he had by the labors of seven years succeeded in mapping the lines, from A in the extreme red through the orange to b in the green. The reproduc- tion of the charts by steel engraving by M. Legros, aided by M. Perrotin, the director of the Nice Observatory, ~vhich it would be difficult to extol too highly, has occupied another three years. They finally appeared last year in the third vol- ume of the Annals of the Nice Observa- tory. M. Bischoffseim most generously, as is his wont, furnished the necessary funds for their engraving and publication~ and copies have been gratuitously distrib- uted among observatories and private astronomers. M. Thollons spectroscope consisted of prisms filled with bisulphide of carbon, giving a brilliant spectrum, the finest definition, and a great dispersion, equal in these latter respects, by the tes- timony of Mr. Rutherfurd himself, to any of the spectra given by his gratings. In order to secure an even temperature in the spectroscope, so as to avoid a change in the refractive index of the prisms, and hence want of uniformity in the scale read- ings, a circulation of water was maintained within the table on which the instrument rested, and also in the hollow sides of a metal case which was let down from the roof to cover it. A heliostat threw a beam of sunlight on to the slit of the collimator which passed through one side of the box, the telescope being similarly fitted into another side. The atlas he drew is divided into thirty- three maps, each about a foot in length, and shows about thirty-two hundred lines. Each map is divided into four strips, so as practically to quadruple the atlas. These show the solar spectrum under four different conditions; first, as obtained from the sun at an altitude of to0, the air being fairly dry, secondly, with the sun 3O~ above the horizon, the aqueous vapor being in abundance, thirdly, with the sun at the same altitude, but the air being very dry, and lastly with our atmosphere hypothet- ically removed, and therefore only lines of purely solar origin remaining. The lines in each strip are drawn most accu- rately, with their proper shading and thick- ness. Any one who has ever even casually studied the solar spectrum, can form some csti mation of the painstaking and contin uous toil necessary for such a task. Those only who have tried to delineate a small portion of the spectrum can fully realize what a demand the drawing of such maps makes on the care and patience of the observer. It is only necessary to compare the picture with the original to see how perfectly M. Thollon has succeeded. The great utility of the map consists in its bringing together in parallel strips the solar spectrum as seen under various at- mospheric conditions. It is thus possible by a comparison of the intensity of the same lines in the different strips to elimi- nate those caused by our atmosphere. For a true solar line will remain always of the same intensity, the atmospheric line mean- while varying with the hygrometric state of the air. It would appear that of the thirty-two hundred lines mapped by Thol. lon, 2,090 are purely solar, 866 are telluric or air lines, and 246 are traceable to the combined action of both the terrestrial and solar atmospheres. But as a standard the map has already been superseded by re- cent photographic studies, for it labors under the defect already noticed as inher. ent in all maps constructed by means of prismatic spectroscopes, of not furnishing a normal scale. It is none the less an ad- mirable piece of work, and beyond all praise. Indeed, it seems difficult to im- agine that more perfect or more delicate lrawings could be produced, and it marks the highest level yet reached by means of the pencil. It only remains to add that M. Trdpied, the colleague of M. Thollon, has undertaken to complete the remaining two-thirds of the work. As early as 1843, 1. W. Draper, apply- ing the but recent invention of Daguerre, obtained a plate by this process of nearly the whole length of the spectrum. In 1874 again, Rutherfurd, working with a prismatic spectroscope, was able to pub. lish a fine photograph of the blue and violet ends of the spectrum. Nor must we omit to mention the standard map of the ultra- violet unseen region of the spectrum, the fruit of the labors of Cornu. But the re- cent progress in photographic science, and more especially the invention of the dry- plate process, which is both cleanly and easy to manipulate, while capable of al- most any extent of sensitiveness, has placed in the hands of the astronomical physicist a most potent instrument of re- search when brought to the aid of either telescope or spectroscope. The photo- graph of the nebula in Orion obtained on a dry plate in i88o by H. Draper was the ~first of a series of triumphs in this kind LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXVI. 3900 49 of work, and already celestial photography has advanced our knowledge of the heav. ens to an extent which could not have been dreamed of by the astronomers of the middle of the century.. Nor has the solar spectroscopist been backward in availing himself of this powerful aid to unravelling the secrets of the solar spectrum. The same year that Draper photographed the nebula in Orion, Professor Rowland, of the Johns Hopkins University, invented a plan, by which it became possible to vastly increase the accuracy attainable in the cutting of micrometer screws. Pos- sessing a perfect screw, he commenced to rule correspondingly perfect gratings, without any periodic error in the ruling above the hundred-thousandth part of an inch. The spectra produced by Rowlands gratings are therefore particularly free from the obnoxious false images of the principal lines of the solar spectrum termed ghosts. These are caused by a periodic inequality in the spaces contained between the parallel scratches of the diamond point on the speculum metal. For instance, let us suppose one turn of the micrometer head to be equivalent to the ruling of one thousand lines, should any unequal spaces occur in the course of a revolution, they would occur relatively in the same places in every revolution. These periodic, un- equal spaces gave their own fainter spec- tra, which naturally were more evident in the principal lines, and so caused the ghosts already mentioned. Good grat- ings, as now ruled, such as the one pos- sessed by the Stonyhurst Observatory, are quite free from this fault. This advance in the perfecting of the ruling of gratings Rowland followed up the next year by conceiving the brilliant idea of ruling the gratings on a spherical surface of specu- lum metal, instead of on flats as had hith- erto. been done. By this means it is possible to dispense with all the adjuncts of an ordinary spectroscope except the slit, the grating, and the eye-piece, in the place of which last a camera may be sub- stituted. Such a spectroscope is sim- plicity itself, there being no need of a collimating lens to render the divergent pencil of light from the slit parallel before reaching the grating, nor yet of any tele- scope to focus the rays. With a grating perfectly ruled on a spherical surface 6 feet in diameter and 2I~ feet radius, the professor undertook to photograph the solar spectrum. His map was published in i886, followed in 1889 by a second more perfect edition. This second edition extends from wave- SOME RECENT STUDIES ON THE SOLAR SPECTRUM. so SOME RECENT STUDIES ON THE SOLAR SPECTRUM. length 3,600 far down in the violet, to steel-jawed slit which he has made for his wave-length 6,950 beyond B in the red. spectroscope. The grating is mounted at Kirchhoffs coronal line 1,474, which was one end of the diameter of a circular table, once supposed to be coincident with an equal to the radius of curvature of the iron line, was clearly separated into two grating, and the eye-piece or camera is lines, as was also b8, which used to be placed at.the other extremity of this di- attributed to both magnesium and iron. ameter. The slit also slides along the The E line was also first resolved, circumference of the table, and is placed But the most successful photographer in different positions with regard to the of the solar spectrum who has yet ap- grating and camera, according to the order peared is undoubtedly Mr. George Higgs, of the spectrum which is to be photo- of Liverpool. It has been our privilege graphed. The circumference is divided to examine this gentlemans apparatus, into parts by means of a scale encircling processes, and original plates under his it, which is also supplied with movable own guidance, and we propose to briefly verniers. These scales again are Mr. describe some few of his methods and re- Higgs handiwork, and the perfection of suIts. And first of all we must call atten- adjustment attainable by their aid in his tion to the fact that, except the concave instrument is another source of its fine grating and the screw of the engine for performance. The light is conducted to ruling scales, every piece of apparatus the slit by a heliostat, this too made, with used by this astronomer has been made its silvered mirror, by the observer. In by himself, and is remarkable alike for photographing the solar spectrum, the simplicity and the ingenuity displayed. actinic action at the two ends of the plate Even the Rhumkorff coil for use in pro- varies immensely, being in some cases as ducing the spectra of terrestrial substances much as fifty times greater at one end than for comparison with the solar lines is of at the other. The plate must therefore his own construdting. This instrument, be exposed at different portions of its which was exhibited before the British length for different times, otherwise while Association at its Manchester meetince is one end of the plate would be over-ex- of such perfect insulation, and such tim- posed, the other would have failed to have plete economy of insulation and just pro- registered any line at all. This difficulty portion of parts, that with one quart is overcome by Mr. Higgs by means of a bichromate of potash cell it gives a spark set of shutters placed inside the camera, of ten and a quarter inches. And yet only and worked by clockwork, and so arranged fifteen miles of wire have been wound that the proper relative exposure is se upon it.* cured for every portion of the sensitive Mr. Higgs first began work on the solar film. spectrum with a prismatic spectroscope, It might perhaps be imagined by such with which he produced a very beautiful as are unacquainted with the action of photographic map. He then acquired a light upon photographic films, that after grating, one of Rowlands spherical in- all this care in adjustment, nothing further struments ruled with 14,438 lines to the was required but the exposure of the inch, having a diameter of four inches plate for the proper time in order to oh- and a radius of curvature of ten feet two tam a picture. But not so; for first the inches Now the purity of a spectrum is actinic action of light is chiefly confined inversely proportional to the width of the to the blue and violet regions of the spec- slit. From this it is evident that if the trum, and secondly, although in spectra jaws of the slit, the light-slit of our simple produced by means of gratings, the first experiment, are perfectly sharply cut and spectrum on each side of the white imab e exactly parallel, it becomes possible to of the slit, called the spectra of the first make it excessively narrow, provided al- order, are separated from those of the sec- ~vays that the illumination be sufficient ond order, yet the second, third, and higher It would appear that a great deal of Mr. orders overlap. Hence, should it be re- Higgs success is attributable to the fine quired, for instance, to use the greater * At the time of our visit she instrument had not dispersion of the red of the second order, been employed for a considerable period, and the bat- it becomes necessary to block out the vio- tery bad so deteriorated that it would ordinarily have let of the third order. The suppression been rejected as unfit for use. Yet it gave a spark of the obnoxious rays is effected by the which leapt across the terminals at a dittanee of seven inches, and when the zinc and carbon were lifted out of absorbing action on light of suitable solti- the solution and put into clean water, it gave a con- tions, which are contained in glass cells tinuous spark of one inch and a quarter. Eitctrtctans before will appreciate be accuracy of workmanship required and placed the slit. But the prob to attain suds a result. lem of rendering the plates themselves SOME RECENT STUDIES ON THE SOLAR SPECTRUM. sensitive to the lower wave-lengths of light is by no means an easy one. It has engaged the attention of several eminent photographers. One method devised by Captain Abney was the preparation of the bromide of silver plates, with the salt in a different molecular condition from that in which it is ordinarily found, so that it looked blue by transmitted light. By this means he was enabled to directly photo- graph the dark heat rays of the solar spectrum. Others, again, as Vogel and McClean, have proceeded in a different manner, and have sensitized the plates for radiations above the blue by staining them with various dyes. Higgs, too, has been most successful in this field, and has but recently communicated to the Royal So- ciety a paper in which he announces the discovery, that plates stained with the bisulphite compounds of alizari n-blue or of c~rulin, while sensitive to the red and ultra-red rays between the wave-lengths 6,200 and 8,ooo, do not, like cyanin plates, lose the power of retaining the impression of the rays at the opposite end of the spectrum. With such plates he has been enabled to extend the range of his photo- graphs to Z in the ultra-red, while his photograph of A exhibited at the British Association Meeting at Leeds, and to the Royal Astronomical Society, shows the lines of this beautiful group as they have never been seen before. When the negative has been secured, it is enlarged four times, evenness of back- ground and sharpness of detail being ob- tained by the use of a cylindrical lens, and by other ingenious arrangements which need not be described here. The prints which are the finished results, have the fineness of steel engravings. Moreover, by a very clever device, Mr. Higgs photo- graphs a scale of wave-lengths on his map, a boon which will be appreciated by every working spectroscopist. More than this, by photographing the unknown coinci- dentlv with the known regions on the same plate, and placing the scale between them, provided only the two slips are of different orders, a vdry simple relation enables the wave-lengths of the unknown lines to be determined, He has even an original method for securing a certain knowledge that the temperature of the scale has not altered during the time of its being ruled by the dividing-engine. Finally, it is his intention to publish in the near future a map of the whole spectrum from wave- length 2,990 in the ultra-violet to wave- length 8 ,5oo in the ultra-red, with special studies on interesting regions. 5 When we look at some of the best maps of the solar spectrum, so crowded with lines that it would be impossible in parts to place a needle-point on the pictures without alighting on a line, the questions naturally arise as to what substances these innumerable lines belong to, and what progress has been made in identifying the relations between the solar spectrum and the laboratory spectra of the elements. We intend briefly to record some few of the more recent investigations. A most necessary preliminary step in solar spec- troscopy is the discrimination of the lines of purely solar origin from those which are due to the absorbent action of the earths atmosphere. We have already called attention to the value of Ihollons map for this research, as by a comparison of the intensity and thickness of the lines in the four strips, it is possible to detect those which vary concomitantly with the altitude of the sun above the horizon, and with the hygrometric condition of the at- mosphere. One of the finest groups of lines in the solar spectrum occurs in the red at Fraunhofers B. Some of Mr. Higgs photographs bring out the rythmi- cal arrangement of the lines in this group most beautifully. But it had by Egoroff and Jaussen been identified as most prob- ably not due to the sun, but to thedry oxygen contained in our atmosphere. The latter astronomer, who bears a distin- guished name in solar physics, has lately completed a series of observations re- markable alike for their intrinsic value, as also for the circumstances under which they were carried out. Arguing that if these lines are really due to our atmo- sphere, their intensity should diminish in direct proportion to the height from which~ they are viewed, and in the impossibility of getting rid of our atmosphere alto gether, this intrepid observer, whom noth- ing daunts for had he not already es caped the vigilance of the Prussi~ us who were besieging Paris, and passed out in a balloon to observe the eclipse of 1870 would now have himself carried to the tops of the highest mountains to note the effect on the suspected oxygen lines. In accordance with his plan he ascended td the Grands Mulets in t888, and last yea& was borne in a litter by a small army of guides to the very summit of Mount BlaucK The result was a complete verification of his earlier observations, so that we ma~ conclude that most probably oxygen, at least in the state in which we know it here, does not exist in the solar envelopes. He has likewise experimented from his oL 52 SOME RECENT STUDIES ON THE SOLAR SPECTRUM. servatory at Meudon on an oxygenless nium; while Lockyer, later still, by an light set on the highest point of the Eiffel ingenious method of laboratory work, Tower, the atmospheric strata traversed brought the total up 10 twenty-three. He by the rays being nearly equivalent to the I detected aluminium, strontium, lead, cad. height of the atmosphere supposed homo- mium, cerium, uranium, potassium, vena- geneous. The oxygen lines in this case dium, pailadium, and molybdenum. Of appeared exactly as they are seen in the these coincidences with the dark solar solar spectrum, thus adding another link lines, about six hundred were attributed to the chain of proof of their terrestrial to iron alone. And now the latest list, origin, quite recently issued by Professor Row- With regard to other lines due to the land from photographs taken between the earths atmosphere, Dr. L. Becker, of the ultra-violet and the D lines, gives the total Edinburgh Royal Observatory, has quite number of terrestrial elements certainly recently published the results of long and present in the sun as thirty-six, while laborious observations of the solar spec- eight. more are doubtful. In this latter trum at low and medium altitudes. The category is uranium formerly admitted as spectrum drawn extends from wavelength present by Lockyer. Rowlands most im- 6,024 to F. in the blue-green. In this range portant addition is carbon, the others being of the spectrum, 3,637 lines are identified silicon, scandium, yttrium, zirconium, lan- as due to the sun, and 928 as air lines thanum, niobium, neodymium, glucinum, For the purposes of such an investigation, germanium, rhodium, silver, tin, and er- the photographs of Mr. Higgs will, when bium. But the solar photosphere contains published, be extremely valuable. For no gold, nor antimony, arsenic, bismuth, they have been taken with the sun at van- boron, nitrogen, c~sium, indium, mercury, ous altitudes, and under different condi- phosphorous, rubidium, selenium, sulphur, tions of saturation of the atmosphere. thallium, nor praseodymium; while irid- One plate in particular showing D and ium, osmium, platinum, ruthenium, tanta- the lines constituting the rain-bands, when lum, thorium, and tungsten, are, together the sun was only just its own diameter with uranium referred to before, recorded above the horizon, is a superb production. as doubtful. These lists have been ar- Again, in several cases the enlarged pho- ranged both according to the intensity of tographs show metallic lines and air lines the metallic lines in the sun, and according so close together that no spectroscope ex- to their number. In the latter series iron cept those of the very greatest resolving occupies the first place with two thou- power could separate them. Such results sand and nine lines, nickel comes next, may not improbably have an effect upon and two hundred coincidences are due to theories which are founded upon the be- carbon. havior of lines in the spectra of sun-spots. In concluding this necessarily brief In passing too we may remark that of summary ot some recent spectroscopic some other lines, which it is considered a studies in but one branch of modern as- feat to have split, the photographs of this tronomical physics, we may be allowed observer divide not only the coronal line, to again direct attention to the fact of the but also the E line and one twice as close importance of the aid to research which at 5,2644. The head of the B group too the observer has acquired in the spectro- is seen to be composed of three lines, scope and the photographic camera. Al- while from twenty-five to thirty lines are ready we know that the materials of which registered between the Ds, and no less our sun is constituted are the same as we than one hundred and fifty between H find here upon earth. But our sun is but and K. one out of millions which glitter as stars Nor in the mean time have Professor in the heavenly firmament. It is a truly Rowland and his assistants been idle, but wonderful thing that a piece of glass cut they have brought the powerful apparatus into the form of a prism, and a plate of of the Johns Hopkins University to bear glass covered with a gelatine film, should upon the photographing of the l~ines in the be so arranged in position behind another metallic spectra coincidently with the solar piece of glass fashioned into the shape of spectrum. Kirchhoffs list of metals in the a lens that these immeasurably distant sun, deduced from his observations taken stars should be compelled to tell us of about twenty-five years ago, consisted of what they are made. But wonderful as it sodium, iron, calcium magnesium, nickel, seems, the mind of man has been able to barium, copper, and zinc. To these effect so much, and has thus obtained a Angstrdm and Thal~n added chromium, deeper insight into the marvellous har- cobalt, hydrogen, manganese, and tita- mony and unity which reigns in the starry THE DUTCHMAN AT HOME. 53 skies. With this insight ought to come deeper reverence, and our spirit should be that of the pious Kepler, who was wont to cry out as he contemplated the heavens: 0 God, I think thy thoughts after thee. A. L. CORTIE. From Macmillans Magazine. THE DUTCHMAN AT HOME. ALFIERI once said: I have uniformly wished to fix my residence only in En- gland or Italy, because in the former art has everywhere subjugated and changed nature, and because in the latter nature always appears predominant and in its pristine force and vigor. As a matter of fact, we are by no means really so com- pletely under the sway of. art here in England; but Alfieris opinion may be quoted because of its kindred application to Holland. Even the Dutch have not wholly succeeded in getting the whip-hand over nature in that hard, bleak land of theirs; yet they deserve whatever of com- pliment may lie in Alfieris words far more than we do. One day while skating in the province of Drenthe, between Groningen and As~en, the flat, heathy landscape which had stretched for miles on either side of the canal began to change. Instead of the sterile and uninteresting waste, there were plantations of fir, hearty young birch-trees, and signs of garden vegetation. I skated on, and then in a few minutes more I dis- covered a delightful country-house embed- ded in these dark-green little woods. A gate led to the house, and on the gate- posts were the two words Werk and Lust, Work and Play. The former word was on the gate-post to the left. Had it been otherwise, I should have felt myself li- censed to enlarge on the virtues of the members of this industrious nation, who, though willing enough to enjoy such of the pleasures of life as come in their way, are yet more eager to confess that they are sent into the world primarily to labor. I believe, however, that in truth the Dutch- man loves his pipe and his dinner, and his wife and children, and the comforts of his home infinitely more than the count- ing-house or the butter-store in which his hours of toil are passed, and whence his pleasures may be said to proceed. Where- in, of course, he differs not at all from the rest of us. Some of us fancy that in Holland, at least in the country parts, bad manners and discourtesy are the rule. I was pre- pared for both when I screwed on, my skates and, without more than a distract. ingly vague idea of the accent and pronun. ciation of the Dutch language, glided over the canals into th~ heart of the northern and least sophisticated provinces of the Netherlands. I was putting the natives to a strong test. In England, even in the gentlest of our counties (though I know not which these be) the foreigner with strange speech may not expect to be received by our rustics with unbounded amiability and politeness. But here in Friesland and Drenthe, where the peasants as often as not have to support life on a wage of but fivepence or sixpence a day in the midst of a land whose chief graces are its wind- mills, and whose most conspicuous quality is ingratitude, my halting enquiries ~vere always received with respect, and an- swered even at the cost of much effort. In the little country town of Sneek, for example, where I entered a humble tavern for a glass of gin, the tavern-keeper volun- teered to be my guide and companion through the town. He led me to the bookseller of Sneek, who straightway gave me something to marvel at. This was a Dutch edition of Robert Elsmere, trans- lated and published here in Sneek, and already in its second edition. Nor was this all. The bookseller, who was also the translator and therefore spoke English very well, told me without demur that though the writers opinions about society and human relationships were new and acceptable to Sneek on the ground of their novelty, Sneek was by no means struck with the religious element in her story. This last seemed to it insipid, obsolete, and quite behind the times. Upon the whole, however, Sneek pronounced the book to be beautiful, though a trifle long. From the book-shop my gin-seller guided me to other interesting parts of his native townlet, including the picturesque seven- teenth-century water-port, with its medi~- val turrets, which have so often wooed and won the notice of artists and photogra- phers. He showed me the town-hall, and the old, red-brick church. The latter, like other Dutch churches of distinction, is en- dowed with sweet bells which chime about four times an houra charming talent in the abstract, but one provocative of infinite disquiet to the stranger anxious to sleep within a hundred yards of its belfry. Fur- ther, it contains the tomb of Lange Pier, a valorous giant who died in Sneek in 1520, after spending an eventful life as a warrior under the more orthodox name of 54 THE DUTCHMAN AT HOME. Peter Van Heemstra. It is besides very ugly, thanks to the red brick outside and the whitewash within. And when the good fellow had filled the time at my dis- posal to the most profitable and entertain- ing advantage, he bid me God-speed in a cordial manner, and directed me on my way, without overcharging me for my gin, or even trying to persuade me to pass a night in his house at a guilder or two for the bed. To be sure, I may account for some of the civility that was proffered to me .by the simple fact that I carried my skates with me wherever I went. In Friesland at any rate you may skate to the heart of a man, though you could not in any other way take it by storm. This applies also to a woman, which makes it the more de- lightful. I have, for instance, entered a canal-side inn, and found myself in a com- mon room among six or eight heavy-fea- tured, sour-faced countrymen, all engaged in discussing strong drinks and local af- fairs. Truly I have felt in a semi-apolo- getic mood on such occasions, especially when my bow of general greeting has falien quite fiat upon the seal-skin caps the men wore on their heads. But wait a minute. At first there was nothing but boorish surprise in the stare with which they met me. Anon, however, their eyes descended from my face to the buttons of my coat and so to the very skates upon my feet, with their nice bright curves of Brit- ish steel and perky air of superiority over the more ordinary Friesland skates. As like as not an exclamation breaks from two or three mouths at the same time. Their cigars (at four to the penny) are laid aside, and the gin is held at a distance instead of being brought to their eager lips. And with this prelude they draw near and examine the feet which, nothing so very loath, I lift on high for the satis- faction of their inquisitive souls. I tell them the history of the things, their cost, and the contempt I feel for them in com- parison with the beautiful, old-fashioned articles they wear to their own feet. Thus we get into a warm five minutes intimacy, and the Farewell, Mynheer ! with which they salute my departure shows that I have succeeded in making myself agreea- ble to them. But I know full well it is all due to the skates, and that their last, lin- gering looks are directed towards them and not upon me. Upon another day I had another experi- ence. This was with two Dutchmen of higher degree, who though neither of them had ever been out of Holland, or de sired to see the world, wore a very agree- able cosmopolitan polish to their manners. I had come to the town of Vries, about ten miles north of Assen, the provincial cap- ital. Here I was in the heart of that prov- ince of Drenthe which is said to be the worst-mannered district in the Nether- lands. And so I unstrapped my skates at the canal-side, and made way for a young man and a young woman who were anxious to start for Groningen, whence I had come; after which I walked up the long, straight road towards a church tower which I guessed was in the centre of the village. It was a charming bright day, and Sun- day. The sky was clear, though with an unmistakable pale, frosty haze between the earth and it, and the methodical trees above this straight road were prettily decked with frosty rime. Ere I had reached the heart of the village, I had passed fully a score of lads in groups, each with his skates in his hand, and I believe I may say that each one of the twenty proffered me a genial Sabbath greeting. But in the village it was not quite the same. I was sadly hungry, having eaten but. lightly of the bread and butter and raw smoked ham of the breakfast table in Groningen that morning. The word loge- inent caught my eye on a board over the door of an assuming red-brick house. I knocked and waited in hope; but I was to be disappointed. A young lady in a vast deal of finery over the gold skull-cap which was the most remarkable thing about her (a local hereditary treasure, worth a small fortune in some cases) having opened un- to me, was soon out of patience with my speech. The house was an hotel to be sure, but she ~vould rather I went for my dinner to the building over the way, which was also an inn. And so thither I went, with the echo of her tinkling ridicule in my ears, as she turned aside to her friends in an inner chamber. Here it was different. The landlord, an honest, fat fellow with a healthy, red face, was eager to serve me. His wife, also in a gold skull-cap, and round both of face and body, was his mate in hospitality. While dinner was prel)aring, my host and I visited the old church of Vries adjacent. Its tower was shapely, and its windows in particular merit a better fate than the de- struction with which, after an existence of six or seven centuries, they are now men- aced. For the rest, it was bare and white, as it was bound to be. My companion prattled to me all the while about many THE DUTCHMAN AT HOME. 55 things the drift of which I but imperfectly comprehended. On the pulpit ledge was a row of buttons, metal and bone; these the youth of Vries had of late put into the offertory box, instead of pence. My friend fully entered into their mirthful humor. But he thought it a very small matter that his predecessors in Vries, some three centuries or more ago, had ravished the brasses from the tombs in the pavement, and battered the chiselled capitals of the columns which once graced the building. He assured me I might walk in the sanc- tuary with my hat on, and smoke my cigar even as he continued to smoke his, without fear of the consequences; but here also I surprised him by my obstinacy, even as I made him open his eyes when I expressed regret for the vanished brasses of the tombs. At parting from this man I shook him by the hand, for he had shown a kindly spirit. This amazed a new companion who had come to me. Do you in En- gland shake hands with men like him? he asked. He was rather a young man, sojourning temporarily in Vries for pur- poses connected with her Majesty Queen Wilhelminas revenue, and he had accosted me in English in the inn, and when he dis- covered that I was a genuine Englishman had straightway gone up-stairs to his room and put on his best clothes, including a blue satin necktie. I had complimented him on his English, which was far from bad, and a great comfort to me; and this had endeared me to him so that he must needs carry me off to the burgomaster to be introduced. It is not so in Holland, he continued, when I explained that in England I had often shaken hands with men who stood worse with the world than the portly inn-keeper of Vries. Here we live in rings, as it were one within an- other, and each not touching the other, even though it be everso near. The gov- ernment functionary thinks himself above every one. The wholesale merchants scorn the retail merchants, and the retail merchants treat those beneath them with contempt. It is quite severe, this distinc- tion bet~veen the classes, and we find it very hard to get out of our grooves. I thought it was the same in England, but you have enlightened me, and I thank you.~~ I may have improved on my companions English in this presentation of his views, but the sense is exact. I gathered from his tone and speech that he would as soon have offered his hand (it was white and small) to a chimpanzee as to a rustic of Drenthe. The burgomaster confirmed his notions. He was an affable, stalwart man, and he dwelt in a precise villa with a dolls house edition of it set up in an arbor on one side of it. I did not want to be an annoyance to him,,but when he proposed to be my guide there and then to one of the Hunnebedden, or so-called tombs of the Huns, in the neighborhood, I could not help accepting his offer. We traversed three miles or so of typi- cal Drenthe peat waste land. It was flat as the palm of my hand, and there was more of it beyond. The snow lay several inches deep, so that our excursion was not one of undiluted pleasure. But the burgo- master laughed to derision the idea that his worshipful feet might suffer from the snow. He told me that in Drenthe a sheep cost no more than sixteen shillings and eightpence, and that the peasant who can get work five or six days a week, at sixpence or sevenpence a day, thinks him- self in rather a fortunate plight. And when we had viewed the Hunnebedden (an arrangement of eleven granite boulders to form a sort of cave above ground), he in- dulged me with gin at a wayside house, and shook my hand warmly as he sent me speeding along the ice towards Assen. I wish I could remember fully our con- versation during the two hours we spent together. What of it stays in my mind is an eccentric o/k pod,-idtz, in which the chief elements depend on the cordial de- testation of Germany by the contiguous Dutch provinces, and their determination at all costs to keep themselves out of the hands of Kaiser William, and on the diffi- culty with which a true-born Dutchman can understand an Englishmans liking to wander away from his home. A writer many years ago has told us that when the queen of Wurtenburg visited Zaan- dam [a town about ten miles from Amster- dam], at a dinner they gave her she asked the mayor, Monsieur, avez-vous beau- coup voyage? Madame, he replied, jai ~ ~ Amsterdam. So it was with my burgomaster and the young revenue- commissioner. They were in entire sym- pathy with the late Mayor of Zaandam and his ambitions. And as I skated away under the bright moon at a madcap pace, I thought to myself that perhaps they were right. A mans patriotism does have to bear some shocks if he of his free will exiles himself from his native land for months and years in succession. His domestic instincts also must get much en- feebled. But yet, as to the conclusion whether it be or be not better never to set THE DUTCHMAN AT HOME. foot outside ones native land, I had come to no decision when the yellow lights of Assen broke through the thin fog which veiled the country, and it was time to seek another inn. So far, I think I have limned the Dutch character with no unkind hand. Now it behoves me to run a tilt with a person, for whom in the abstract, however, I have much respect. This is the humble, red- armed drudge-maiden who on Saturday morning goes forth with mop and pail against the world, and leaves no man in peace until her appointed task be done, and done thoroughly. It was at another canal-side tavern that I made her acquaintance. I had skated from Leeuwarden, the capital of Friesland, in the direction of Dokkum, where some eleven hundred years ago St. Boniface was martyred. The ice was so very rough and angular that it gave me a splitting head- ache ere I had lost sight of the church towers and windmills of Leeuwarden. Moreover, on this occasion the day was not pleasant. There was no sun, nor glimmer of sun. It was thick, grey, wind- less weather, and mortal man could not tell whether it was still freezing or begin- ning to thaw. I had skated about ten miles, and felt as if half my bones were out of joint. The landscapes had been as grim as my expe- riences. On each side of the rigid water- way the country stretched to the sky-line, flatter than the flattest pancake that was ever made. Here and there I saw a squat farmhouse that seemed all roof; here and there a windmill, motionless as an Egyp- tian mummy; here and there a saddle- back-towered church. There were sheep in the snow of the fields, and very dirty their wool looked in contrast with what they seemed to browse upon. For other society I had to put up with the ravens which flew to and fro across the canal, turning their shapely black bills this ~vay and that in quest of worms. I began to think that I myself might be the chief object of their notice, that they hoped ere daylight waned to sup upon me and my wearied bones. Also, there were occa- sional magpies, with an overwhelming air of self-importance in that strut of theirs. Else there was nothing, save myself, the biliouscomplexioned sky, and the stubbly rushes whose extremities were welded into twelve or fourteen inches of ice. After several miles of this, I hailed with elation the signs of a considerable village, in the outskirts of which were yellow- haired damsels and very stout small boys skating on the canal, the latter smoking cigars while they skated. of The inn was about half way in the line one-storied red houses which faced the water, and I scrambled into it on my skates and called for refreshment. An extremely corpulent woman in wooden clogs, with her dress pinned high, was directing the domestic drudge how to place a series of bright copper buckets full of water. They were just about to begin the weekly inundation of the public room. It was a pleasant room, with a singular model of an apricot-tree in wax, hung against the wall in a glass case. The fruit on the tree was quite seductive, and there was a waxen ladder to aid in the plucking of it. But even while I was examining this ornament, there was a roar of waters in my ears, and the flow of the first of the buckets surged to my boots. Then with what vigor and lusty inspirations the red- haired and purple-cheeked damsel began to apply her mop! She too had drawn her clothes to her knees and the attitudes she assumed in her work were as ungrace- ful as they could be. In stentorian tones the housewife issued her instructions. First one table was pushed aside, then another, then the forms which here served for chairs. Then they were all piled to- gether upon one side of the room. And so we poor travellers (there were three of us) were driven from side to side, and from one soaked board to another, until at length I began to doubt if I should not have done better to have sat down on an ice-floe by the canal-side. And one bucket after another was discharged against us by the purple-faced damsel, whose cheeks glistened with soap, and whose large red arms looked as if Jack Frost had taken up a lodging in the marrow of her elbow. Even the master of the house seemed dis- satisfied with so much fuss of cleanliness, and winked twice or thrice drily to a friend when his wifes voice was extra harsh, or there was more than an inch of soap suds round about us. Yet with him this weekly flood is an institution. But for my part I could not endure it; and so I went away towards Dokkum convinced in my heart that of all tyrants there can be none to equal the Dutch wife on a wash- ing-day. Now Dokkum is the Friesland townlet which above all others took my fancy, and I am unwilling to say aught in deprecia- tion of it and its people. To be sure, the Dokkum children shouted after me as a vreernde man while I skated upon the THE DUTCHMAN AT HOME. 57 canal which circumvents and divides the place. But this is a very tolerable sort of homage to ones individuality. And, anx- ious to see if their aggressiveness could by any chance pass beyond the verbal stage (there was plenty of snow for snow- balling) I came at length to a pause, and sat down on a bench in a coffee-stall on the ice. Then how suddenly the better part of their young human nature came td the fore. Their ribald tongues fell si- lent. First they stared, and then they drew near in a body, and paid a chorus of compliments to my skates. And after- wards, when it appeared that I was con- tent to sit indefinitely for their entertain- ment, they screamed for their mothers and little sisters who were skating in the neighborhood; so that, before I had fully estimated the responsibility of my posi- tion, I was the centre of a throng of Dok- kumites who contemplated me much as I should suppose a devout Hindoo would look upon the latest incarnation of his chief divinity. The pretty, rosy-cheeked damsels said many pretty things about my skates in ejaculatory phrases, and their mothers were scarcely less civil. From this situation I relieved myself by going ashore on the leathern soles to my feet, and wandering amid the low, cleanly, red houses of Dokkum. Thus hazard led me to a small inn wherein I discovered the fairest face I had seen in all Holland, ay, and in England too, for many a day. She was a girl of but twenty or so, and her first-born babe lay in a large cradle, under the green covering to which she was peeping at her little treasure with such a happy light in her face when I en- tered the room. I cannot describe her as she appeared to me, but I will try. She was rather tall for a Dutch girl, and much less heavy of shape than most of her sis- ters. Indeed she had a waist, which alone marked her as a marvel in this land of women framed like the pillars of a col- legiate church. Her profile was almost classic in its severity; the nose straight, and the chin beautifully outlined. Her brow was low, and her black hair (another anomaly in this flaxen-locked country) just drooped engagingly over it. The mouth was neither too large nor too sm all;it was of the proper width to allow her to talk freely, and to show the very white r~gular teeth which were yet another of her un- common collection of charms. Lastly, she had a divine healthy complexion, and her eyes were of that love-compelling color which is neither blue nor black but takes now one and now the other tint, and they were caressed by the prettiest little curved eyebrows you ever saw. From the crowd of gapers by the canal- side to this haven of Olympus was a change indeed. It was better still when I found that, bad thpugh my Dutch was, she could, when she tried hard, comprehend some of it. And so she supplied me with refreshment, and had no objection to a cigar afterwards, and no other customers came to disturb us, and she prattled about her little baby (born on July ~th, and chris- tened Jan Cornelius) and asked me if I too were wed, and why I was not wed, and many more questions, all of which I did my best, though at grievous cost, to answer. All this time her husband (the enviable fellow) was trumpeting in the band which that afternoon had been summoned to play at an ice-revel held in the neighborhood of Dokkum. The ice- revel was one reason why the trumpeters young wife and the stranger were allowed to have the house so entirely to them- selves. I too, said the girl, should dearly have liked to go to see them race; but I would not leave the little one here alone. And this charming little town, with its red houses and big green and black wind- mills, and burly barges and boats fast frozen in the opaque ice, was the site as nearly as may be of the murder of the apostles of Germany and central Eu- rope! On a summers day [June 4th or 5th, in the year 755] the messengers of peace, a little company of some fifty in all, planted their tents on the banks of a river near Dockum or Dorkum, there awaiting the arrival on the morrow of a large number of converts to be confirmed by the missionary bishop. But the early morning witnessed a strangely different sight. Boniface and his companions found themselves beset by a concourse of armed pagans [one may see in the museum of Leeuwarden just the kind of weapons the rogues carried], eager to stop the progress of these destroyers of their idols, and to seize the vessels of gold and silver sup- posed to be in their keeping. Boniface met his fate with the calmness of one of the early Christians in a Roman amphi- theatre. Scarcely any of his followers escaped. His assailants fought among themselves over the scanty booty which disappointed their expectations, and Pepin availed himself of the excuse for invading Frisia by way of avenging their massacre. Dokkum is not actually the scene of this murder. Murmerwoude, a village about half an hours walk distant, bears the dis THE DUTCHMAN AT HOME. 58 honor of the deed. But there is little doubt the pagan Frieslanders who killed St. Boniface were natives of Dokkum, which has existed ever since about 240 A.D., and which, before 755 A.D., was a fortified town surrounded by a wall. But in spite of th~ towns unfortunate reputation, I was heartily sorry to leave it when the pretty girl of Dokkum warned me that it would be too late for ice-work if I did not start again in the next half- hour. Nothing was more piquant in her than her matronly solicitude for my com- fort in conjunction with her tender, girlish face and ways. She was unwilling to let me pay for the parting glass, offered, perhaps, as a conventional courtesy- In skating in the northern provinces of Holland, one soon admires the stalwart aspect of the Friesland women upon the ice. This applies to the women of all ages. I have met dames as hard-featured and ~veather-worn as Rembrandts Dame flas in the Amsterdam gallery, seventy if a day; and they have made their six or eight miles an hour without an effort, and have steered over rough ice with a balance and tact little short of marvellous. As for the younger women, they move llke sylphs. Whether they are alone, or con- voyed between two men, one before and one behind, so that they are quite shielded from the inconvenience of the freezing blast, their feet are perfectly at ease. Ones days on the Dutch canals, and espe- cially in Friesland, print themselves on the memory not cinly for the uniform, yet not altogether dull appearance of the coun- try and its villages, but also for the multi- tude of very red cheeks and bright eyes which pass one by with lightning speed, undi ssembled laughter, and unconscious grace- I do not believe there is a land where the spirit of independence exists more lustily than here. No doubt, in his heart the Frieslander loves the girl of his choice as fully as nature would have him love her; but he dees not seem to show his affection very strongly. If the girl have some difficulty with her skates, according to the guide-books the competition is keen as to who shall be favored with the work of re-adjustment. Yet I have seen, and many times seen, Friesland damsels sep- arate from their male escorts, and sit in the snow for their toil of this kind while the Friesland gentleman does but use the opportunity to light another ci- gar. Perhaps the man is thus neglectful rather in accordance with the bidding of nature than his own heart. These Fries- land damsels are so manifestly strong and able that it seems absurd to fancy even for a moment that there is anything civil- ity might spare them. The car- riages in Holland are somewhat trying ordeals even to the inured male; but the Friesland Women do not mind them, nor does the mordant vapor from the bad cigars in seven or eight mouths deprive their eyes of their wonted lustre. Some say that Holland, and especially the more strictly pastoral parts of it, is better seen in summer than in winter. One may then certainly be more sure of seeing the grass of its fields. The pre- vailing colors are then the green of the meadows, and the blue of the sky. As M. Harvard has described it for us: Grassy plains stretching their blue outlines on the grey morning sky, dark steeples, a few red roofs, an occasional hamlet, a large village, a small town with its gables and chimneys. - Nearer at hand . . . immense plains dotted with cattle, with here and there a cottage, or one of those rich, substantial farmhouses where everything indicated order and plenty. One can imagine it easily enough. A single glance at one of Ruysdaels landscapes lets us into the whole secret. The accessories of wind- mills, sails to the craft on the canals, and men and women are easily supplied. When the eye has thus seen one Dutch land- scape, the imagination may stock the mind with a whole gallery of pictures, and they shall all be true to nature. A touch or two of Jan Steens humor will enable you to go from the outside of the heavy-browed farmhouse to th~ inside, and so add to your diversion and your picture-gallery. But winter of course quite transforms the country. Where is then the violet- colored peat-water of the Friesland meres, upon which the sunlight works such mag- ical hues of gold and bronze? It is solid for a foot down, and gusts from the north- east that hang ones beard with icicles sweep across the vast, flat surfaces of ice, which sometimes run to the horizon in all directions. The red roofs and the black or the slate-blue spires of the churches are mantled in snow; and very pretty they are, peeping through the bare twigs of the trees, which seem to cower together towards the buildings to keep the cot- tagers warm. Save for the sheep, which need all their wool to keep them from con- gealing in the night, the cattle are gone from the fields, which are white wherever the eye looks. The arms of the windmills are stretched as if pleadingly towards heaven and earth, and no man shall say SIR JOHN MACDONALD. 59 when the canals will loosen and let the millers boats renew their journeying. Yet, if for no other reason, Friesland cannot but be better in winter for the sake of its fine, tonic air. In summer, with so much water about, there may be agues for those susceptible to such afflictions, and there will on bad days be fogs which no man likes. But when all the waters are bound hard and fast, the breezes blow pure and undefiled across the level land. They are keen, but how invigorating! An aver- age winter here ought, at least for a cer- tain number of its weeks, to be as beneficial as Davos. And nothing can be imagined more delightful than a tour on skates from one snow-bound village to another, with the wintry blue sky overhead by day, and the bright winters moon as a lamp above the glistening course of the canals by night. The people, too, are then seen at their best. They are in holiday hu- mor; a stranger cannot for the life of him believe he is in the land of the proverbially stolid and surly Dutchman. Perhaps one might add that the hotels are not up to the standard of Davos. Indeed, they are distinctly indifferent. Time enough, how. ever, to say worse things of them when the frequenters of Davos in all seriousness turn their attention towards Friesland. For the present, it is a land which the more hardy tourist may rely upon as hav- ing very much to himself, in winter. CHARLES EDWARDES. From BlacKwoods Magazine. SIR JOHN MACDONALD. A love of freedom rarely felt, Of freedom in her regal seat Of England; not the schoolboy heat, The blind hysterics of the Celt. And manhood fused with female grace In such a sort, the child would twine A trustful hand unasked in chine, And find his comfort in thy face. IN an age when separatist tendencies have the patronage of one of the great parties of the kingdom, and when certain of the colonies show a disposition to press the purely local view of colonial interests unduly on the imperial government and on Parliament, it is of melancholy import to know that one of the greatest of the Con- servative forces in the colonial empire has passed away. At a time when the greatest of the colo- nial dominions of the crown, having passed through several prolonged stages of mate- rial growth and political development, finds itself face to face with problems of a new character demanding solution, it is of se- rious consequence to know that the head and hand which, for a quarter of a century, have guarded its fortunes and guided its way, will guard and guide them no more. At a time whenpersonal loyalty is losing itself in formulas, and hiding itself in ex- planations, so that the sincere or the curi- ous may suspect it is not loyalty at all, it is sad to know that there has passed away a great British subject, whose loyalty was that of the earlier ages and sincerer times; whose policy, during forty-seven years of public life, was to add to the strength and glory of the empire; and whose latest public utterance ~vas a passionate procla- mation: A British subject I was born, and a British subject I will die. The death of Sir John Macdonald, pre- inier of Canada, has indeed deprived the crown of a great subject, the empire of a great propagandist of imperial views, and the Dominion of the greatest of its public men. We did not need the arrival of the Canadian papers to tell how the touching messages of the queen were received by the dying statesmans family and friends at the same time with messages from Simla and from Rome, from London and from Melbourne, and from the remotest regions of the Canadian Dominion. Dur- ing the week of his illness Parliament in- deed met day by day, but little business was done. In the larger cities business was at certain times almost suspended during the arrival and publication of the bulletins of the physicians. When he died, the outburst of public feeling was remarkable; it was such a passion of pub- lic grief as we read of in ancient history when good kings died of old. The an- nouncement of the death of the premier was made to the House by the oldest of his colleagues, who was unable to contain his emotion; and his statement was re- ceived by the leader of the opposition in a speech of such beauty and felicity, and such pathetic power, as had never been heard in that chamber before. A public funeral was decreed, which was carried into effect. The body was placed in state in the Senate chamber. Members of Parliament remained in turns by the coffin nibht and day. Thousands of people thronged the city of Ottawa to witness the ceremonies, and take a last look at the old chieftain who was so well known to them all. All along the line of railway, as the body was taken to Kingston for burial, the people gathered at stations or by the track, and with bared heads and sad faces saw the coffin of their well-beloved go by. 6o SIR JOHN MACDONALD. Tributes to his memory have been numer- policy, and its own ideas of the political ous. Monuments will go up in more cities future. than one to honor him. And those who Sir John Macdohald was born in Glas- have so long been his friends and his fol- gow in 1815; was educated at Kingston, lowers who have looked to him for lead- Ontario, to which place his parents had ersh~p and advice, and measures and policy emigrated was afterwards admitted to know that they must face the difficulties the bar the career most sough tafterby of the present and the future without the ambitious young men in Canada and the old guidance and the old caution and wis- United States; and finally, in 1844, was dom. elected to Parliament for Kingston The loss of this guidance is all the more which he represented at his death to deplorable since it is but the latest of a the second Parliament of the United Prov- sequence of losses, each of which has ince of Canada, the union of Upper and deprived some province of Canada of the Lower Canada having taken place in 1841. services of a man to whom the people were The public men of that period had to con- wont to look for political light and leading. tend with many difficult public questions. Joseph Ho~ve, the greatest of the old race These were of Nova Scotia Liberals, who gave the 1st, The problems arising out of the Dominion his aid in 1869, though in 1867 conquest, such as the seignorial tenure; he had opposed it, passed away in 1873. the land reserves for the Protestant clergy, Sir George Cartier, without whose aid the which were claimed exclusively by the Dominion could not have been formed, and clergy of the English Church ; the confis- who held the allegiance of Quebec in fee cation of the estates of the Jesuits for many years, died in England and in which gave trouble for a century, and was political eclipse, though his memory is only settled a couple of years ago by the still cherished, and his statue stands as a act of the legislature of the Province, en~ public monument by the side of the Houses dorsed by Parliament and by the English of Parliament at Ottawa. George Brown, law officers of the crown. the eminent Liberal leader of Ontario, who 2d, The problems arising out of the joined hands with Sir John Macdonald in union itself, such as representation by 1864 to take the earliest measures for the population, the composition of the upper confederation of the provinces, fell a vic- house, the powers of the governor, the tim to an assassin in i88o. Sir Antoine question of the double majoritythat is, Darien, the late chief justice of Quebec, the necessity of a party leader having a who was, while in politics, the pure and majority from each province in order to chivalrous leader of the French Canadian carry on a government. Liberals, died but a day or two before Sir So slow was the political development John Macdonald. Sir Leonard Tilley, of Canada, as compared with the rapid now governor of New Brunswick, is too leap of the Australian colonies, into the far advanced in age, and too feeble in full measure of responsible government, health, to afford any aid to the Dominion that the political problems of the earlier of which he had been so long a powerful period remained unsettled when, in 1844, and respected leader among his provincial Sir John Macdonald entered public life. countrymen. The same may be said of This slowness of development was due to the gifted and cultivated Sir Alexanc4er obvious causes. For example Campbell who is now governor of Onta. (a) The invasion of Canada, in 1775, rio, but from whom no further active po- from the United States, prolonged and litical service can be expected. The able strengthened the period of military rule. and resolute Sir Charles Tupper, Bart., is (b) The loyalist emigration previous to about the only one who remains in active and after the treaty of 1783 gave no en- public life, of all the able and courageous couragement to agitation for political free- men who formed the Dominion of Canada dom, which had, over the border, resulted in 1867. Sir John Macdonald was thus in rebellion. almost alone in conducting Canadian (c) The war of 1812, the invasion of affairs; though, of course, he had col- Canada, the struggles by sea and land, and leagues who were able, and are still able, the suspicions entertained of the loyalty to form a strong administration. His of all political agitators, still further death, however, severs the train of tradi- checked the ~rowt tion which carries us back to the days dom. b h of political free- when the provinces were still separate, It was not unnatural, therefore, that each with its ovn laws, its own tariff, its ~vhen, after the rebellion of 1837, and in own coinage and currency, its own trade consequence of Lord Durhams famous SIR JOHN MACDONALD. 6i report, the Upper and Lower Provinces were united in 1841, the problems so long unsolved in each district should now de- mand final solution. To every one of these problems Sir John Macdonald lent the aid of his ability. He was a Conservative, but not a Tory, of the old type; and in the first Liberal- Conservative administration ever formed in Canada, Mr. Attorney General Mac- donald brought in bills to secularize the clergy reserves, and to abolish the seigno- rial tenures, compensating the owners of the lands. He even favored the measure for making the Legislative Council of the United Province elective a measure which was continued till 1867, when, on the formation of the Senate, the nomina- tive system was preferred. In the years 1854 to 1858 he had so grown in political strength, that from be- ing simply the attorney-general in the Macnab-Morin administration, he rose to be, first, the Upper Canada leader in the Tach~-Macdonald government, and finally, the head~ of the government in the Mac- donald-Cartier administration. From 1858 dates the remarkable and unbroken friend- ship and alliance between John A. Mac- donald and George E. Cartier, which was destined to have such great and useful re- sults on the history of the Dominion of Canada. It would not greatly interest the British reader to detail the rise and fall of the various administrations which existed in Canada between i8~8, when Mr. Macdon- ald became practically the leader of his party, and 1867, when the confederation was formed. During most of these years Mr. Macdonald maintained his hold on power. In 1867 all the provinces that is, the four principal provinces, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were formed into a confederation; the negotia- tions for which, and the agitations which resulted from it, broke up parties in every province, and re-established the Liberal- Conseryative party, which has since that time kept both its name, its policy, and its power. In 187o71 British Columbia joined the union, and Manitoba was cre- ated; in 1873 Prince Edward Island be- came a part of the Dominion. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had brief periods of unrest, but finally were made cQntent by financial rearrangements. This union of the colonies in one great colony was, in effect, but a return to an earlier type. Previous to the period of constitu- tional government, the British dominions had been governed with a certain degree of unity of action and harmony of policy. The British governors knew what was wanted of them. The laws ~vere all alike; the courts (except in Quebec) were all alike; the currn~cy was the same; the commerce was equally unrestricted; the customs laws were the same; the objects and aims of the people were the same all over the whole extent of the British ter- ritory north of the St. Lawrence. With the advent of constitutional government still more with the advent of respon- sible government there came differences in law, differences in customs duties, differences in currency, differences in p0 litical objects and in commercial interests and designs. Political developments had weakened instead of strengthened the crowns dominions in North America; and so jealous and diverse were the commer- cial and fiscal interests of the provinces, that when in i866 there was a possibility of obtaining a renewal of the reciprocity treaty of 1854 with the United States, the provincial delegates to Washington were forced to abandon the plan because it could only be carried out by law and not by treaty, and they knew it was useless to endeavor to secure uniform legislation on the subject. The confederation of 1867 supplied the unity of action, the harmony of policy, the common agreement in commercial plans, the consolidation of law, the unifi- cation of tariffs and currency, which had prevailed in the earlier times, had been given up in the provincial times, and which were now needed to make a nation. And to this confederation Sir John Macdonald contributed more knowledge, influence, experience, forethought, and patriotism than any other member of the several conventions which brought it finally about. In order to secure the support of the Lib- eral leader in the initial steps towards the union, Sir John Macdonald even consented to waive his claims as a leader, and to serve as a member of the government with the Liberal leader, under a chief who was acceptable to this gentleman. Sir John was the chairman of the convention which in i866 met in London to frame the Act of Union. Sir George Cartier was also a member, representing the province of Quebec. It has often been regretted that in framing the Act of Union, so many concessions were made to the national in- terests and feelings of the people of Que- bec; but it should never be forgotten that without those concessions the Dominion of Canada could never have been formed; 62 SIR JOHN MACDONALD. and it must be obvious that without the I made more numerous. The coasts were strictest respect alike for the spirit and lighted at all dangerous points. The fish- letter of those concessions, the Dominion eries were protected from the destructive cannot be maintained, encroachments of the Americans. The The new confederation began at once to Treaty of Washington was in part the re- develop its own progeny of political ques- suIt of this system of protection. And on tions. The building of the Intercolonial this occasion was established in practice Railway from Halifax to Quebec had been a precedent of which official recognition made part of the bargain with the man- has since been givenviz., that in. all time provinces. The building of the Pa- cases of negotiation with the United States cific Railway had been made part of the concerning Canadian interests, a Canadian bargain with British Columbia. The ac- public man should form part of the corn- quisition and development of the north- mission. It has also been settled since west territories had become a necessity 1882 that no colony shall be included in of national life. The peace of this tern- the operation of any commercial treaty, tory, when acquired in 1870, by negotia- without a reservation of the assent of the tions detailed in Mr. Langs Life of Sir colony to the arrangement. Stafford Northcote, had to be enforced The great distinguishing mark of Sir by an expedition, and maintained by an John Macdonalds political influence was armed force of mounted police. The the inauguration of what is called the trade relations of Canada With the United national policy. The necessity for it, as States needed immediate attention. In stated by its advocates, arose in this way. i866 the reciprocity treaty, negotiated by At the abrogation of the reciprocity Lord Elgin in 1854, had been abrogated treaty in i866, and at the beginning of in a fit of aggressive petulance by the the confederation of the provinces in 1867, United States; and the channels of trade Canada found herself with a customs in Canada, particularly in the maritime tariff of about fifteen per cent., side by provinces, were suddenly choked, with side with the United States with a tariff results more or less disastrous. The of from thirty-five to fifty per cent. For merits of this treaty of 1854 have always some years this did not matter. Prices been absurdly exaggerated. There are ranged high in the United States; manu- no accurate grounds for ascertaining its factures had been checked, and agriculture favorable effect on Canadian development, was necessarily checked also; the dis- for the Crimean war caused a great de- turbance of industry caused by the war mand for all Canadian products except still operated. But in a few years the lumber; and the American civil war, west filled up, agriculture developed, man- which followed, created a continual de- ufacturing became active, prices fell, and niand at high prices for everything which whenever a surplus of any sort was on Canada could produce. The treaty was hand in the American market, it was abrogated at the close of the war. There shifted into the Canadian market and sold is therefore no ground whatever for claim- at slaughter prices perhaps to the ing that the treaty of 1854 was valuable, immediate benefit of those who could pay and all efforts for its renewal proceed upon cash, but to the serious injury of every mere supposition. form of manufacture in Canada, and to These problems Sir John Macdonald, the injury of the farmers as well. It was aided by a singularly able cabinet, in which determined to stop this; and in 1878, on all the larger provlnces xv ere represented, the return of Sir John Macdonald to power undertook to grapple with. He grappled after an exclusion of four years by the successfully with all. The Intercolonial Liberals, he put into force the promise Railway was completed within five years he had made to the electors, and framed a from the date of confederation. The system of protection which has been called aorth-west was acquired, the money paid, the national policy. Under it, or in spite and a new province created within four of it, as some contend, Canada has pros- years from the date of the union. The pered greatly. The policy was sustained Pacific Railway, after delays of various at the general elections of 1878, i88z, 1887, sorts, financial and political, was begun in and finally in 1891, though on this occasion i8So, and finished in five years, an effort the farming population of Ontario to a of political courage on the part of the certain extent abandoned the national government, and of financial skill and policy, and favored a policy of closer Pe- management on the part of the company, lations with the United States, against which has probably no equal in modern which, however, on reasonable terms, Sir times. The canals were deepened and John Macdonal I mac~e no protest. In SIR JOHN MACDONALD. 63 deed at the time of his death he had ar- ranged for a meeting of Canadian public men with Mr. Blain~ at Washington, to negotiate for some friendly rearrangement of tariffs. But death stays the hand of the old statesman. The election campaign of 1891, which Sir John very earnestly looked on, under the circumstances, as a fight for British connection, no doubt brought on the paralysis which caused his death. The present writer saw him the day before he entered on the election cam- paign, and saw him again on his return; he was a changed and broken man. The severe weather, the election excitement, the constant speaking and travelling, ex- hausted the remains of the splendid vital- ity which had carried the light-hearted old chief through so many campaigns. And now, what manner of man was he, this famous colonist, who was no less famous an imperialist? In appearance he was said to be very like Lord Beaconsfield, but his face was not so heavy-featured as Lord Beaconsfields nor so sad and so im- passive. A sarcastic smile was often on his face in the House of Commons, but that was for his opponents; to his friends his glance was friendly and fascinating. The extent of this personal fascination was very remarkable. Lord Beaconsfields personal influence began late in life; Sir John Macdonalds influence began with his public life, and kept always accumu- lating. His personal kindness was un- ceasing. He was on familiar terms with every Parliamentary member of his party; knew the needs of his constituency and his personal peculiarities, and never lost a chance to please a supporter by means of the small courtesies of life, as well as by the greater opportunities of politics and patronage. Having been so long in office twenty out of the twenty-four years of the history of the confederation he had had the al)pointment of the majority of the bench in each province, of nearly all the Senate, of the whole of the public service, itself an immense body. This alone would have made him political friends. His wit was of th~ heat-lightning kind rapid and brilliant; but he was never deadly or scornful, or only so when sorely provoked. He was fond of anecdotes to illustrate a political situation; and though he used new stories for the House of Commons, sometimes he appears to have repeated of set purpose the same old stories year after year upon the platform to his public atidi- ences, until Sir Johns old stories were as familiar to the farmers of the country as his appearance was. In private life he was charming. He was not averse to the convivial habits of men forty years ago, but of later years was cautious on festive occasions. He was sure to leave no man. silent at his table or in his company; his tact in this respectwas remarkable. As an orator, Sir John Macdonald had more of the English than of the Ameri- can manner; he was direct in argument, but sometimes hesitating in speech ; but his speeches always read well, and have a pleasant literary flavor, the result of extensive reading. He had the air of always speaking unprepared, but he had all the facts of his case well in hand, and took great trouble to procure minute in- formation, and was particularly grateful for any aid given him in arranging the details of public questions. He was a born debater; and though he did not need- lessly rush into Parliamentary scuffles, he~ was always ready for them. A glance at the index title, Macdonald, Sir John, in the Canadian Hansard in any year, shows the extraordinary number of ques- tions with which he was familiar. The cause of this familiarity, quite independent of natural energy, may be found in the prac- tice of the Canadian Cabinet. In England the tradition of departmental government still surviv~s ; the Cabinet does not meet continually, and departmental business is done by the head of the office; and the under-secretary, in cases where such exist, commonly makes the explanation. But Canada is a confederation, and the Cabi- net represents provincial interests, race interests, religious interests, and business interests. The Cabinet meets every day during the business season. All depart- mental business comes up in council. Not~ a contract is given, not a man promoted, not a messenger appointed, not a bill pre-. pared, not an item of government busi- ness of any sort, but is first submitted to. council, and an order passed thereon. Therefore every minister who is attentive may know all the business that comes before the House. Sir John Macdonald was pre-eminently attentive, and was mas- ter of the details of every order passed in. council. He was a keen student of books. Though he was always a Conservative, he bad much admiration for the mode in which Mr. Walter Bagehot treated the problems of the British Constitution though to some Conservatives Mr. Bage- hot~s views are at times a little irreverent. The political literature concerning the eighteenth century was his favorite study. He knew the private lives of the public 64 SIR JOHN MACDONALD. men of England since Pitt with much familiarity. All the vexed questions of political history in England were con- stantly in his mind. But all books were welcome to him. He was a reader of B/ackwood from an early period, and the Noctes Ambrosian& he was fond of quoting. A friend of his who was ad- dicted to political verse-writing once sent him an adaptation of the Hey, boys, down we go! and by return of mail re- ceived a note saying that the adapta- tion which he had detected ~vas good, and mentioning where the original was to be found. On another occasion, during a stirring -am paign, the same friend was amazed to receive from the veteran a long criticism of Mr. Isaacs. No anecdote of public life in England had escaped him. He had made and maintained a friendship with Lord Beaconsfield. It was after a visit made to Lord Beaconsfield by Sir John Macdonald that the former delivered a speech advocating the policy of peopling the illimitable wilderness of western Canada. On that occasion Sir John had much conversation with the British states. man, and has often told the friend before mentioned that they talked till midnight at Hughenden, and that their talk, when not of public affairs, was of books, and that the British premier was so particular in his references that if any doubt existed as as to a quotation, he would have the book down from the shelves to verify it. On this occasion, too, Lord Beaconsfield illus- trated involuntarily the peculiar bent of his mind. On mention of the fact that Sir John was the first ruler of the Dominion in a political sense, Lord Beaconsfield said, Ah! like Saul, the first ruler in Israel. And on mention of the fact that Sir John had been about forty years in public life, Lord Beaconsfield said, About the years of David. The main characteristic of Sir John Macdonalds mind, especially as he grew to be an old, a confessedly old, man, was his personal devotion to the queen and the empire. He was no sycophant, as more than one colonial minister could tell; but he had a passion of loyalty, and a great desire to advance the imperial interests. The imperial charaGter of the Intercolo- nial Railway; the imperial character of the Pacific railway; the usefulness of the great north-west as an abiding-place for future generations of British subjects, these things were always in his mind. He could pardon no man who stood between him and the ultimate accomplishment of his plans of making these great public properties useful to the empire at large. He looked forward to the time when for trade purposes, and for defence purposes, at least, there would be a closer union of the colonies with the United Kingdom. He was particularly opposed to the insane policy of allowing any of the North Amer- ican colonies to make trade treaties with foreign countries without regard to the interests of neighboring colonies, and par- ticularly without reference to British in- terests. Now he has passed away; and as he has left behind him no man who can sway at will the various political forces which yielded such constant obedience to his will, so, it is to be feared, he has left be. hind no one who will have opportunity and power to carry forward his imperial views. We, who mourn for him as for a father or dear friend, feel a keen sense of personal loss; but the country has suffered a loss at present irreparable. The spirit of wis- dom would perhaps whisper, No man is indispensable; parties rise and fall; states- men come and go; Pitt and Fox, Castle- reagh and Canning, Melbourne and Peel, Russell and Beaconsfield, have all passed away, and when each one went, men said, Where shall we find another such? and another such came and carried on the work, and passed away in his turn; and so it will it ever be, for power, too, is van- ity. But our grief is too recent for that consolation, and our sense of loss too great to find comfort in it; and all over Canada there exists to-day the pathetic feeling we shall look upon his like no more! MARTIN J. GRIFFIN. AN ingenious contrivance has been recently This is painted on the inner side with a repre- adopted at the Hippodrome in Paris, with a sentation of the Place du Vieux March~ at view to producing scenic effects, in the cen- Rouen (the piece being Jeanne dArc), tral oval space, without the spectators op- and, as it is strongly illuminated, at a given posite being seen at the same time. An moment, from the centre, the light outside elliptical screen of fine steel netting is let being low, a spectator at any point has an ex- down in Comparative darkness, so as to be cellent view of the scene, while seeing noth- about twelve feet in front of the benches. ing of the crowd beyond. NatLire.

LITTELLS LIVING AGE. Fifth Series, No. 2467. October 10 1891. ~ From Beginning, Volume LXXVI. - ~ Vol. CXCI. CONTENTS. ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW, HEERA NUND IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH, LAURENCE OLIPHANT A REMEMBRANCE ON THE RELATION OF PAINTERS PAL- ACE OF PLEASURE TO THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC DRAMA HIGH LIFE FLOWERS AND THE POETS REBECCA AND HER DAUGHTERS, PERSIA UNDER THE PRESENT SHAH, THE BRIDGE OF THE HUNDRED SPANS, A LEGEND OF TYRONE, A BLANK, MY LORD, Contemporary Review, Macmillans Magazine, Temple Bar, Scottish Review, New Review, Fortnightly Review, Cornhill Magazine, Gentlemans Magazine, Leisure Hour, Asiatic Quarterly Review, Good Words, - . 4 - - 76 - So - - 92 - - 102 - - io6 - - III - - 116 - - 121 - - 125 - - 127 P0 E T R Y. ~ 1 POOR BEELZEBUB, I BRIDGE OF THE HUNDRED SPANS, PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL & 00., BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTIOJ~fO For EIGHT DOLLARS, remifted directly to tke Pukilsisers, the LIVING AGE will be psmctually forwarded for a year,free of ~oszag-e 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 money 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 LIT-FELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, i8 cents. I. II. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. x. XI. 66 127 66 A LEGEND OF TYRONE, ETC. A LEGEND OF TYRONE. (77lefirst and last stanzas are omitted.) CROUCHED round a bare hearth in hard, frosty weather, Three lone helpless weans cling closely to- gether- Tangled those gold locks once bonnie and bright, Theres no one to fondle the baby to-night. My mammie I want; oh I my mammie I want I The big tears stream down with a low wailing chaunt. Sweet Eilys slight arms enfold the gold head; Poor weeny Willie, sure mammie is dead. And daddie is crazy from drinking all day, Come down, holy angels, and take us away I Eily and Eddie kept kissing and crying Outside, the weird winds are sobbing and sighing. All in a moment the children are still, Only a quick coo of gladness from Will. The sheeling no longer seems empty or bare, For, clothed in soft raiment, the mother stands there. They gather around her, they cling to her dress; She rains down soft kisses for each shy caress; Her light, loving touches, smooth out tangled locks, And pressed to her bosom the baby she rocks. He lies in his cot, theres a fire on the hearth; To Eily and Eddie tis heaven upon earth, For mothers deft fingers have been every- where, She lulls them to rest in the low suggaun chair. They gaze open-eyed, then the eyes gently close, As petals fold into the heart of a rose, But ope soon again in awe, love, but not fear, And fondly they murmur, Our mammie is here. She lays them down softly, she wraps them around, They lie in sweet slumbers, she starts at a sound I The cock loudly crows, and the spirits away The drunkard steals in at the dawning of day. ELLEN OLEARY. A BLANK, MY LORD. WE met (like others) in a crowd A very unromantic meeting I Yet Fate to us has neer allowed A warmer greeting. For you were poor, you will allow, And I was not, that bright September When first we met. (I wonder now If you remember.) In Fashions chains you saw me led, And s6 it never struck you clearly That it could come into my head To love you dearly. Twas not your fault, I must admit: You simply worshipped from a distance, And I could take no note of it Without assistance. And thus we drifted far apart, Not bound by een the frailest fetter; Yet yours completely was my heart For worse or better. So owing to your fatal pride, And owing to my foolish shyness, The love, you never knew of, died For ever. FINIS. ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER. Speaker. POOR BEELZEBTJBI Sia RANDAL had a scolding wife, A regular Xantippe, Who led him such an awful life, No wonder he was hippy. But as he did not wish to be The butt of all the city, He hid his feelings skilfully In this dissembling ditty: Oh, what were man without a wife? Mine is the blessing of my life! Beelzebub was passing near, Oerheard his fond laudation, Quoth he, A wife, so sweet and dear, Would be a consolation I And so he stole Sir Randals wife By temptings sharp and shady, As Mother Eve he did deceive, So he deceived My Lady! For women still (ay theres the rub!) Will listen to Beelzebub. When she was gone, of course, you know, It made a dreadful scandal; The neighbors said, We told you so! And pitied poor Sir Randall Sir Randal only winked his eye (Appropriate solution!) My friends, quoth he, I shall not try The Courts for restitution, For though I have to cook and scrub, Ipity poor Beelzebub I Temple Bar. FREDERIC E. WEATHERLY. ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW. From The Contemporary Review. ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW. BY W. E. BALL, LL.D. IN these days theology is not popular. Even the clergy find it well to conceal rather than to parade their proficiency in the branch of learning of which they are supposed to be professors. To preach theology is very soon to preach to empty pews. Yet in past ages this study has excited the keenest popular interest. What has occasioned the change? Is it that the development of theology as a living science has been arrested; and that the language in which it is taught has become classicalbut dead? For in spite of the boasted test of orthodoxy, gitod sem~er quod ubique quod ab ornnibds, theology in former ages has developed, or at least has changed. Theology may be said to be religious truth presented in philosophic form. But in what philosophic form? Or rather, in the form of what philosophy? Living theologies have been clothed in the language and permeated with the spirit of living philosophies. The philosophy of a past age will not serve as a vehicle for the theology of this. If the theology preached and taught to-day be preached and taught in terms of the philosophy of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, it may be orthodox, but it cannot be popular. The possibility of a revival of lay interest in theology has been demonstrated quite lately. Professor Drummonds Natural Law in the Spiritual XVorld excited much hostile criticism, but it was read not only by ministers of religion, but also by the multitude. The reason is obvious. Whatever may be thought of the authors conclusions, his language is that of the current philosophy. He brings theology forth from the tomb of dead controversies, and divests it of the shroud of obsolete definition. Th& reanimated form may not be vigorous; but at least it is reanimated, and it breathes the atmosphere of modern thought. It is sometimes asserted and the as- sertion marks the hatred and contempt into which theology has fallen that the Bible contains no theology. But this is surely wide of the fact. The Gospels, in- deed, contain the statement of religious truth rather than reasoning concerning it. But the Epistles of St. Paul are theological treatises. They consist largely of abstract argument; they formulate with more or less distinctness a- system of divine meta- physics. St. Paul was, indeed, the chief formulator of Christian doctrine; and it is a part of the object of the present article to show that, like all other popular theo- logians, he clothed his conceptions of reli.. gion in the language of contemporary philosophy. St. Paul became the formulator of Chris- tian doctrine because he was the inter~ preter of the Gospel to the gentile nations. The conversion of the Hebrews involved the task of harmonizing the superstructure of Christianity with the ancient founda- tions of Mosaic law. But in the case of the gentiles the foundations were lacking, and it was necessary to enunciate a com- plete theory of natural and revealed reli- gious truth. Without St. Paul, or some one like him imbued with gentile culture, the Christian religion could hardly have extended itself beyond Palestine. He af- forded a marked contrast to his colleagues in the apostolate in many respects, but most of all in this, that he was a Roman citizen. In his time the citizenship of Rome was much more than a mere social distinction. It was accompanied by inci- dents which affected every relation of life. In the routine of business, in the making of contracts, in the payment of taxes, in the commonest details of domestic man- agement, in the whole field of litigation, in testamentary dispositions and the succes- sion to inheritances, the Roman citizen was confronted with technical distinctions between his position and that of the Ro- man subject who had not received the franchise. It was impossible for a mans citizenship to remain an unnoticed element in his daily life At that period there ex- isted no professional class corresponding to the modern solicitor, for the juriscon- sults were rather professors of law than lawyers. To the private citizen a knowl- edge of the law was more than an advan- tage; it was a necessity. The Roman people had an innate genius for law. The science of jurisprudence was the only intellectual pursuit in which 68 ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW. they discovered the highest order of ex- aphor at all. Adoption, as we know it in cellence. With her fine faculty for assim- English life, is a comparatively rare social ilating her conquests to herself, Rome incident. It has no place in our laws, and spread her passion for the study of law can scarcely be said to have any definite wherever she imposed her yoke. The in- place in our customs. Among the Jews habitants of distant provinces came to adoption was hardly even a social incident, rival the Italians themselves as masters of and in a juridic sense it was absolutely their national science. At no long period unknown. The family records of the after the death of St. Paul, Gaius, who chosen people were kept with scrupulous ~like himself was a native of Asia Minor, care in order that the lineage of the deliv- became the greatest jurist of the age. erer might be identified. Fictitious kin. From an intricate mass of technicality ship could manifestly find no recognition there was evolved a philosophy which in Hebrew genealogies. Amongst the soon modified, and which was destined to Romans, however, adoption was a familiar transform, the system in which it orig. social phenomenon, and much more. Its mated. Already in the reign of Augustus initial ceremonies and incidents occupied a school of la~vyers had arisen whose a large and important place in their law. genius and enlightenment gave no uncer- By adoptidn under the Roman law an tam promise of that meridian brilliance of entire stranger in blood became a member jurisprudence which illuminated the epoch of the family into which he was adopted of the Antonines. The Augustan age of exactly as if he had been born into it. He literature gave birth to the Augustan age became a member of the family in a higher of law, sense than some who had the family blood J udea, although conquered by Rome, in their veins, than emancipated sons, or was never Romanized. It was occupied descendants through females. He as~ by Roman soldiery and governed by Ro. sumed the family name, partook in its man officials; but it was never colonized mystic sacrificial rites, and became, not by Roman citizens or subjected to Roman on sufferance or at will, but to all intents law. It was otherwise generally through- and purposes, a member of the house of out the Roman world; and it is not until his adopter; nor could the tie thus formed we call to mind how closely the Roman be broken save through the ceremony of law affected the daily life of the great mass emancipation. Adoption was what is called of the subjects of the empire, and how in law a cati/is deminuzio, which so far deeply the study of Roman jurisprudence extinguished the pre-existing personality imbued their minds and colored their of the person who underwent it that dur- ideas, that we obtain an adequate sense of ing many centuries it operated as an ex- the forcefulness of many of St. Pauls allu- tinction of his debts.* But the most sions, or duly appreciate the appropriate- striking illustration of the manner in which ness of some of his lines of argument to the law regarded relationship by adoption the spirit of the age in which he lived, or is to be seen in the fact that it constituted discern that some of the doctrines of the as complete a bar to intermarriage as re- faith have assumed the form in which they lationship by blood. have come down to us from the accident St. Paul is the only one of the sacred if in such a connection we may speak writers who makes use of the metaphor of nccidents of the apostles status and of adoption. Nor is i~ the word only education, which is peculiar to him, but also the idea. Of all distinctively Pauline phraseology, This metaphor was his translation into the perhaps the metaphor which enshrines the language of gentile thought of Christs most important truths, and which has be- great doctrine of the new birth. Ex come most thoroughly incorporated in the cept a man be born again he cannot see language at once of theology and devotion, is that of adoption. The word has become * This would only apply when the person adopted (or arrogated, as the phrase would be in this case) was so far naturalized in the vocabulary of re- suijuris. If not .iuiyuTis, he could in strict law have ligion that we hardly recognize it as a met- no debts. the kingdom of God ;this was the most vital, and at the same time the most diffi- cult, teaching of the Messiah; this was the doctrine of spiritual initiation into that spiritual kingdom which Christ came to found. St. Paul exchanges the physical metaphor of regeneration for the legal metaphor of adoption. The adopted per~ son became in the eye of the law a new creature. He was born again into a new family. By the aid of this figure the gen- tile convert was enabled to realize in a vivid manner the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of the faithful, the oblitera- tion of past penalties, the right to the mystic inheritance. He was enabled to realize that upon this spiritual act old things passed away and all things became new. St. Pauls use of the metaphor of adoption has, no doubt, exercised a pro- found influence upon the form of dogma. It is intimately connected with the doc- trine of assurance. This doctrine is prin- cipally founded upon Rom. viii. 1416. In this passage, as elsewhere, the Third Per- son in the Trinity is represented in the character of a witness. The reference is to the legal ceremony of .adoption. The common form of adoption was singularly dramatic. It consisted of the ancient and venerated ceremonial conveyance with the scales and brass, followed by a ficti- tious law-suit. The proceedings took place in the presence of seven witnesses. The fictitious sale and re-sale, and the final vindication or claim, were accompanied by the utterance of legal formul~. Upon the words used depended whether the ceremony amounted to the sale of a son into slavery or his adoption into a new family. The touch of the festuca or cere- monial wand might be accompanied by the formula, I claim this man as my son, or it might be accompanied by the formula, I claim this man as my slave. The form of sale into bondage was almost indistinguishable from the form of adop- tion. It was the spirit which was differ- ent. It was the function of the ~vitnesses to testify that the transaction was in truth the adoption of a child. The adopter it may be supposed has died; the adopted son claims the inheritance; but his claim is disputed and his status as son is denied. 69 Litigation ensues. After the ceremony with the scales and brass, declares the plaintiff, the deceased claimed me by the name of son. He took me to his home. I called h~m father and he allowed it. It is true I served him; but it was not the service of a slave, but of a child. I sat at his table, where the slaves never sat. He told me the inheritance was mine. But the law requires corroborative evidence. One of the seven witnesses is called. I was present, he says, at the ceremony. It was I who held the scales and struck them with the ingot of brass. The transaction was not a sale into slav-. ery. It was an adoption. I heard the words of the vindication, and I say this person was claimed by the deceased not as a slave, but as a son. Ye have not received/he spirit of bond- age again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry A bba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and ~f children, then heirs. This text is sometimes quoted as though the witness of the Divine Snirit were addressed to the human spirit. A glance at the original Greek is sufficient to show that what is referred to is a coin- cidence of testimony, the joint witness of the Holy Ghost and the soul of the be- liever to the same spiritual fact. St. Pauls other references to adoption are equally interesting and equally incapa- ble of explanation except by reference to the Roman law. They are found in pas- sages which abound in legal phraseology, and require for their elucidation an ac- quaintance with the incidents not only of adoption, but also of heirship and slavery. In one celebrated passage St. Paul seems to substitute the idea of the new birth for that of adoption in stating the basis of the believers heirship. In Titus iii. ~, washing of regeneration is said to be poured out upon us, that we might be made heirs. This text seems to show clearly the identity of the spirit- ual facts described under the names of adoption and regeneration. It is also in- teresting as affording the chief foundation for the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW. 70 ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW. It is certain that this doctrine has very early patristic authority in its favor. In the office of baptism there is one portion of great antiquity, which may perhaps owe its form to the belief of early Christianity upon this point. No one can say with any degree of certainty whether the signature with the cross is a genuinely primitive practice; but there is no doubt that it is a very ancient practice. This symbolic act, accompanied by the words, We receive this child (or person) into the congregation of Christs flock, bears a striking resem- blance to the vindication, or claim, with the festuca in the ceremony of adoption. If it be true that adoption was the render- ing into the vernacular of gentile thought of the doctrine of regeneration, and if re- generation was understood to result from, or at least to be coincident with, baptism, it would not be unnatural that something of the symbolism of secular adoption should be imported into the first liturgical ser- vices into ~vhich the simple rite of immer- sion or aspersion was expanded. In this connection it is interesting to observe that there is another portion of the office of baptism which bears clearly discernible traces of the influence of Roman jurisprudence. That part of. the baptismal service which assumes the form of a covenant seems certainly to have been framed upon the pattern of the venerable species of Roman contract known as the .rt:~uZatio. In the English service the part referred to consists of four covenantal questions and responses, beginning with Dost thou renounce the devil and all his works? The second question consists of the creed put in an interrogative form. In the most ancient liturgies each article of the creed is placed in a separate inter- rogatory with a separate response. The third question and answer taken together constitute the acceptance of baptism in this faith. The fourth question and answer taken together constitute the vow of obedience to the commandments of God. Here it is to be observed that the person exacting the several undertakings is the person who, so to speak, puts them into shape; he summarizes them in the form of interrogations. The person under- taking the several obligations expresses his assent in a short answer. In the first, second, and fourth answers he does so in the very word in which the question is put to him. The engagement, so to speak, is looked upon from the point of view of the promisee, and not from that of the promisor. These were the charac- teristics, as every student of Roman law is aware, of the st~~uZatio, an extremely ancient form of contract to which, although made by word of mouth, there attached much of the peculiar efficacy which in our Jaw attaches to contracts made by deed. But the derivation of this portion of the baptismal office does not depend merely upon analogy of form. The formal ques- tion of the st4nelatio originally might only be put and answered by the use of the words, spondes .sj5ondeo. Hence the person making the promise was called the sponsor, just as the person exacting it was called the st~z5ulator. The word sponsor figures prominently in the office of baptism of infants. The name has been taken to imply suretyship, and is referred to as bearing that meaning in the post-bap- tismal service (which, however, dates only from the year 1552). It is true that the word sponsor was frequently used to sig- nify a surety, from the circumstance that the contract of suretyship was often made by means of the .rtzftulatio. But in the office of baptism the god-parents do not undertake any contract of suretyship. The name sponsor was, no doubt, originally applied from the circumstance that the person so designated was the person who in fact made the formal s~onsiones in re- sponse to the successive stzftuiationes of the baptist. Tl~e sponsor, in short, was the person who answered fort the in- fant in the sense of answering instead of him, and not in the sense of answering in his default. The adult was of course his own sponsor, inasmuch as he made his own responses. The derivation of the covenantal ques- tions and answers from the Roman sti~u- latia throws an interesting light upon a passage in the first Epistle of St. Peter. In the Greek language, which was spoken by a large part of the subjects of the Ro- man Empire the contract of stz~5ulatio was known by the name of eperJtesis or eye- rdtema, the latter form of the word by one of those transitions of signification so common in Greek came to mean, also, the promise or undertaking made by means of the stipula/jo. In the very earliest pa- tristic writings, the plural e~er~temata is habitually employed to describe the prom- ises or vows made in response to the questions of the baptismal service. These e~er~ternata comprised, as has been seen, the declarations of-assent to the various articles of the creed. Indeed, it is from the early offices of baptism that what is traditionally known as the Apostles Creed has been compiled that is to say, we fipd it in no earlier documents, and in no ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW. earlier form. The passage in i Peter iii. 2021 reads as follows: The long-suffer- ing of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is eight, souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The word here translated answer is eper~tema, a word nowhere else used in the New Testa- ment, and the equivalent, as has been seen of the Latin stipulatio. The apostles meaning is plain. It is not the rite of baptism in itself which saves, but the sincere declaration of faith and promise of obedience. The obscurity of the text vanishes, and we are incidentally afforded strong evidence of the influence of Ro- man law upon the form of the baptismal ceremony, as well as an indirect testimony that the Apostles Creed is justly entitled to the name which it traditionally bears. The metaphor of the spiritual inher- itance is peculiarly, though not exclu- sively, Pauline. St. Peter employs it twice, and St. James once, but St. Paul in a multitude of instances; it is closely in- terwoven with the substance of the longest and most intricate arguments in his epis- tles; it appears in the reports of his ser- mons in the Acts of the Apostles; he alone of all sacred writers employs it in what may be described as the most daring of all theological conceptions, that which is embodied in the celebrated definition of believers as heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. It may be urged that in his use of the metaphor of inheritance St. Paul is merely drawing upon the common stock of illus- trations derived from the facts of ordinary life, without reference to any specific legal theories. But such a metaphor cannot be used, nor can its full significance be ap- preciated, without reference to specific legal theories. Take, for instance, the phrase just quoted. If we were not so thoroughly familiar with the description of the faithful as heirs of God, would not this expression strike us as peculiarly forced and unhappy? If these words had not been used by St. Paul, would any mod- ern divine have ventured to use them as explanatory of the relation between God and the human soul? To our minds, heir- ship involves no more than the idea of the acquisition of property by succession, and the idea of succession is manifestly in- applicable with reference to the eternal God. That the heirship to which St. Paul alludes is Roman and not Hebrew heirship is evident not merely from the accompany- ing reference to adoption, but also from the fact that it is a joint and equal heir- ship. In the Hebrew law the rights of primogeniture existed in a modified form, closely resembling the ancient custom of Normandy which still obtains in our own Channel Islands. In Roman law all unemancipated children succeeded equally to the property of a deceased father upon his intestacy. The whole complex and voluminous system of Roman inheritance depends upon a remarkable theory of indissoluble unity between the heir and his ancestor. The notion was that though the physical person of the deceased had perished, his legal personality survived and descended unimpaired to his heir or co-heirs in whom his identity (so far as the law was con- cerned) was continued (Maines An- cient Law, p. 181). The testator lived on in his heir, or in the group of his co- heirs. He was in law the same person with them (Lb., p. x88). In pure Ro- man jurisprudence the principle that a man lives on in his heir the elimination,so to speak, ofthefact of death is too ob- viously for mistake the centre round which the whole law of testamentary and intes- tate succession is circling (Lb., p. 190). Sir Henry Maine explains this idea by reference to the period when the family, and not the individual, was the unit of society. The prolongation of a mans legal ex- istence in his heir, or in a group of co- heirs, is neither more nor less than a characteristic of the family transferred by a fiction to the individual (Ancient Law, p. i86). In English law there is a well- known maxim, Ne~no est heres viventis, but this was no principle of the Roman law. The moment a child was born he was his fathers heir. The word heres originally means lord or proprietor. The namesake of the apostle, Paul the jurist, who lived in the third century after Christ, observes that there is a species of co-partnership in the family property be~ tween a father and his children; when therefore, says he, the father dies, it is not so correct to say that they succeed to his property, as that they acquire the free control of their own. This inchoate part- nership of an unemancipated son in his fathers possessions, and his close identi- fication with his person, may be regarded as some set-off against the quasi-servitude of his position under the formidable pa- tria ~otestas. 72 ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW. In the light of the theories of Roman jurisprudence incongruity disappears from this great Pauline metaphor, and we dis- cern in it a new sublimity. Instead of the death of the ancestor being essentially connected with the idea of inheritance, we find this circumstance eliminated. The heir has not to wait for the moment of his fathers decease. In and through his fa~her, he is already a participator in the family possessions. The father does not die, but lives on forever in his family. Physically absent he is spiritually present, not with so much as in his children. In this phrase, the heirs of God, there is presented a most vivid view of the inti- mate and eternal union between the be- liever and God, and of the faithful souls possession in present reality, and not merely in anticipation of the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven. St. Pauls references to spiritual in- heritance in the Roman sense are fre- quently rendered more obscure by the introduction of allusions to the Roman wi/i. The word diathik?, which in the avthorized version is sometimes trans- lated covenant and sometimes testa- ment or will, occurs thirty-three times in the New Testament. Three of the Evan- gelists employ the word in their report of our Lords sacramental declaration, This is the blood of the new testament. Here, of course, it is no more than the transla- tion into Greek of the original language spoken by Christ. The word also occurs once in the Apocalypse, and with these exceptions it is exclusively used by St. Paul; that is, assuming that he was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The double meaning of the word diathik~ has occasioned both translators and commentators extreme difficulty. This may be seen particularly in the mass of exegetical literature which deals with the famous argument concerning the two covenants or two testaments in the 7th, 8th and 9th chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrws. The principal perplexity of commentators has arisen from the appar- ent incongruity between a covenant or contract and a testament or will. A will is not a contract, and a contract is not a will, and yet the same word is used for both. Even in the reversed version, although diath~kj is translated cove- nant in every other part of the three chapters referred to, from an obvious necessity it is rendered by the word tes- tament in Heb. ix. i6, 17. Another perplexity arises from the discussion of the priesthood of Christ, which in these chap- ters is interwoven with the discussion of the covenants or testaments. The explanation of these difficulties must be found, if at all, in the Roman law of will-making; and this is a quarter in which apparently the commentators have not looked for assistance. It need hardly be said that St. Paul, in any metaphor based upo& will-making, could only refer to the Roman will. The Romans were the inventors of the will. The Rabbinical will, only admitted in ex- ceptional cases, was unknown before the Roman conquest of Palestine, and was directly based upon the Roman model. The double meaning of the word dia- thik~ is explained at once when it is re- membered that the Roman will was in its origin actually a contract inter vivos; and that in the time of St. Paul it retained at least, in general usage, the form of a contract. Originally the testator in articulo mortis sold his estate or family to the person whom he wished to be his heir. A nomi- nal price was paid. There were present the scale-holder, who weighed out, or pur- ported to weigh out, the purchase-money, five witnesses to testify to the transaction, and the heir himself, who had the name of em~torfamiZis, or purchaser of the es- tate. The ceremony in its essential fea- tures remained the same in the time of St. Paul and for many centuries later. The pr~torian or written will, already em- ployed in the first century, was only an alternative form, and was comparatively little used. But long before the time of St. Paul some important modifications had taken place. The ceremony was not de- ferred until the last moments of life. It had become rather a contract to deliver than an out-and-out sale. The emptor famili~ was no longer the heir himself, but the executor or trustee who took the estate subject to the obligation to hand it over to the real beneficiary; and the tes- tator at the time of the fictitious sale gave verbal directions as to the destination of his property. In the position of the emptor famili~,, at this stage of the devel- opment of the will, it is possible that an explanation may be discerned of the de- scription of Christ as the mediator of a new testament, and the surety of a better testament. Viewed in the light of Roman law, it will be found that in the twofold discus- sion of the priesthood of Christ, and the two testaments, there is no more real lack of harmony than in the twofold use of the word diathiki. The heir was a hiero ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW. 73 phant. The institution of will-making it- self is supposed to have been due to the extraordinary horror with which the heathen Roman contemplated the neglect at his decease of those obsequies which were the first and most important function of the heir, and which upon the failure of natural heirs must have remained unper- formed save for the institution of the tes- tament. But the duty of the heir was not limited to the observance of funeral rites. The death of the head ofa family was, as has been pointed out, in a measure ig- nored. He was supposed to preside in spirit over the destiny of his representa- tives. His image was retained in the household. It was for the duly consti- tuted heir to keep up the communication, so to speak, between the departed and the survivors. It was for him to propitiate the manes of the deceased and to secure his tutelary aid. Ancestor-worship is sup- posed by some to have been the origin of all religion. The Christian may rather discern in this practice some pathetic reminiscence of a purer primeval faith, and trace in the idea of the godhood of the father some dim survival of the doctrine of the fatherhood of God. The sacerdotal aspect of inheritance only disappeared with the prevalence of Christianity. The pr~torian will has been mentioned as- affording already in the time of St. Paul an alternative to the more ordinary or mancipatory will. In the pr~torian will the ceremony with the scales was dispensed with ; the testators directions instead of being verbally delivered were reduced to writing, and fastened up by the seals of seven witnesses. The seven wit- nesses represented the five witnesses of the older form, together with the scale- holder and emptor familite. The seals served the double purpose of securing se- crecy and providing a means of authenti- cation. This species of will was the first and only instrument known to the Roman law which required sealing. More than that: This was the first appearance of sealing in the history of jurisprudence, considered as a mode of authentication (Maines Ancient Law, p 210). There is probably a reference to the praetorian will in Ephesians i. 1314: In whom having also believed ye were sealed with the Holy Ghost of promise, which is an ear- nest of our inheritance unti.l the redemp- tion of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory. As translated it is difficult, if not impossible, to assign any precise meaning to this passage. It should rather be rendered, In whom having also believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of testimony, which is an earnest of our inheritance until the ransoming accomplished by the act of taking posses- sion (of the inheritance) to the praise of his glory. Here,,as elsewhere, the Holy Spirit is referred to as a witnesS. It is his seal which authenticates the new tes- tament, by which we obtain the inherit- ance. The spiritual inheritance, as in other passages, is referred to by St. Paul as succeeding upon a state of bondage. When a slave was appointed heir, al- though expressly emancipated by the will which gave him the inheritance, his free- dom commenced not immediately upon the making of the will, but from the mo- ment when he entered into the inheritance. This is the ransoming accomplished by the act of taking possession. In the last words of the passage, to the praise of his glory, an allusion may be found to a well-known Roman custom. The emanci- pated slaves who attended the funeral of their emancipator were the praise of his glory. Testamentary emancipation was so fashionable a form of posthumous osten- tation, the desire to be followed to the grave by a crowd of freedmen wearing the cap of liberty was so strong, that very shortly before the time when St. Paul wrote, the legislature expressly limited the number of slaves that an owner might manumit by will. There is one passage in the writings of St. Paul which relates to the law of guar- dianship in connection with the law of in- inheritance, and which possesses some points of peculiar interest. The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant (R.V., bond-servant), though he is lord of all, but is under tutors and governors (R.V -, guardians and stewards) until the time appointed by the father. This passage refers to the guardianship of orphans under an age which for practical purposes may be stated as fourteen. The expression until the time appointed by the father would be better rendered un- til the time of the fathers appointing ze., the period over which the fathers power of appointing a guardian extended. This period was arbitrarily fixed, and could not be extended by the fathers testamen- tary directions. The guardian was the tutor of Roman law that is, the protector of his person and estate. The steward was the slave of the tutor, appointed by him when necessary as a bailiff to manage some distant portion of the infants prop- erty. Tutelage was a device for artificially prolonging the ~atria ~otestas notwith 74 ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW. standing the decease of the father. The text has sometimes been regarded as ap- plying to a ch,td whose father was living. But this is obviously an error. Theflhius fain/has, so long as he remained a fl/lies farnihias that is, so long as his father livedwas not less in the condition of a bond-servant at forty than at fourteen. The chapter commencing with the pas- sage which has been quoted, and the chap. ter preceding it, abound in legal allusion and legal argument, into the detail of which it is not necessary to enter here. The problem to which St. Paul is addressing himself in this and other parts of his writ- ings is one which evidently caused no little perplexity amongst Christian converts. Christianity was in effect the substitution of what St. Paul calls the law of faith, or, more shortly, faith, for the ceremo- nial law. Current speculations enable us to grasp more readily than those to whom St. Paul addressed himself the idea of an evolution, so to speak, from the law of Moses to the law of Christ. We may rec- ognize a development of spirituality in the supersession of ceremony by faith. But the early convert remembered that the reign of ceremony had itself superseded.a previous reign of faith. There was faith, as St. Paul so earnestly insists, before the law. The progress of religion between Abraham and Christ was a progress from faith to faith. Now if the law of faith were a sufficient religious rule, how came it to have been superseded at all? Did not the very fact of the imposition of the ceremonial law imply its necessity, or at least its superiority over the simpler form of religion which preceded it? St. Paul is fond of personification, but his personifications are not poetical, but legal. In his argument he figures the Jewish nation as a child, who was heir to the inheritance of Abraham. The Mosaic law is a guardian appointed to protect the infancy of the nation, and to train it up for the period when in the fulness of time it should enter upon the inheritance. This inheritance is the advent of the Mes- siah. But although upon the advent of the Messiah ~ period of tutelage is past and the inheritance entered upon, the child still a child is not left without protect- ing care, for he gives himself in adop- tion to God, and is received into the family of the great father; and whereas he was formerly but the heir of Abraham, he now becomes by a new and better title the heir of the Deity. The result of the whole argument is that the law of faith is the law of the family. It was the law of patriarchal households, and it is to be the law of the new and mystic household the household of faith. The life of the patriarch was solitary. He dwelt apart from men, surrounded only by hi8 family and servants; to these he was the only lawgiver and the only priest. Duty towards God was unencum- bered with ceremonial observances. Duty towards men needed no elaboration in spe- cific rules. A ritual law would have been as much out of place in the primitive fam- ily as a civil law. The simple principles of affection and faith were a sufficient substitute for both. The imposition of the law of Moses was coincident with the transition of the family into the nation. When the family develops into a tribe and the tribe expands into a nation, affec- tion is no longer a sufficient rule of con- duct between individuals. The paternal authority is superseded by custom, and custom is consolidated into codes of law. Worship becomes national and public, and the head of the family relinquishes the functions of the priesthood to a conse- crated order. The home is replaced by the society; and this is in itself an expla- nation of the dispensation of discipline. But Christs mission was to restore the family, not by disintegrating society, but by comprehending it. All men were to become brethren, and all the sons of God. The purpose of the law was accomplished; the training of the long orphaned nation was complete; and the reign of faith was restored. The supersession of the law of Moses by the law of faith is the subject of a very long and very elaborate argument in the Epistle to the Romans. Among Hebrew and gentile converts alike the question had arisen, what law of religious observ- ance and conduct was henceforward to be observed. Our Lord was not ostensibly a legislator. He did not explicitly enact a code, or formulate a system of Church government. Even after the faith had been accepted, the believer might not at once, or readily, perceive that the faith in- volved and comprehended a code; that Christs life was in itself a law; that his precepts were the summary of a spiritual- ized jurisprudence; that, in truth, the epoch in divine government had arrived for discarding detailed rules of conduct and ritual, and their replacement by great principles, the particular application of which was reserved for the forum of the individual conscience. It was not easily apprehended that it was in this sense that Christ had come not to destroy, but to ful ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW. 75 flu the law. Moreover, much of that part of the law which related to civil matters was, prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, still the common law of Judea; and there never was any question of abrogating the moral law contained in the Mosaic legis- lation. It is worthy of note, that at the period when St. Paul wrote, and for a long time previously, Roman jurisprudence had been deeply engaged with a problem extremely analogous to that which perplexed the early Church. The Roman republic was as exclusive in its spirit as the Jewish theocracy. The ancient Quiritarian law, elaborately cere- monial in its character, was regarded as the peculiar heritage of the Roman citizen. Foreigners were jealously excluded from participating in its benefits. A separate system and separate tribunals were estab- lished for those who were outside the pale of citizenship. Every student of Roman law knows how this subsidiary system, distinguished for its extreme simplicity and based on reason instead of immemo- rial usage, was gradually brought into competition with the old Quiritarian juris- prudence, and finally superseded it. Orig- inally disliked and despised, the Pr~torian law, by means in part of the influence of the stoical philosophy, came to be the ob- ject of peculiar admiration. It was lauded as the law of nature, restored from the Golden Age; it was eulogized by the name of equity. What the Pr~torian law was to the Quiritarian law, the law of Christ was to the law of Moses. Like the Pr~torian law, the law of Christ was characterized by its simplicity. It consisted of the great principles which underlay the rigid rules and forms of the Mosaic code. What the Pr~torian law was conceived to be by cur- rent speculation, that the law of Christ actually was a law of millennial perfec- tion. During the first century the schools resounded with discussions concerning the origin and nature of the Pr~etorian equity, and the degree and manner in which it ought to supersede the Quirita- nan law. In the light of these juridical controversies we may discern some ex- planation both of the nature of the diffi- culty which beset the early Church, and of the method of reasoning which the apostle adopts in dealing with it. Further illustrations might be adduced of metaphors and lines of argument in the writings of St. Paul which appear to be derived from the Roman law. St. Paul is, perhaps, of all writers either ancient or modern the most difficult to understand. It cannot be that his obscurity is deliber- ate. It is due chiefly, no doubt, to our ignorance of the intellectual atmosphere of the age in which he lived. It is not suggested that a stl!dy of the Roman law, as it existed in the first century, will afford a universal picklock to the perplexing passages in which the Pauline epistles abound. But it is certain that no satisfac- tory commentary upon these epistles will ever be produced except by an author who, in addition to his other qualifications, is a thorough master of the history of civil jurisprudence. In these days few students of divinity have even an elementary acquaintance with Roman law. Even students of law show little taste for a branch of study which has no direct, and very little indi- rect, bearing upon the every day practice of their profession. They read the little that they are obliged to read with reluc- tance, and forget it with alacrity. The Roman law, indeed, as every reader of English history is aware, was always un- popular amongst the common lawyers. But it was not always a department of learning neglected by the clergy. In for- mer times Church dignitaries were often eminent civilians, to use the term which has been commonly applied in this country to proficients in the study of Roman juris- prudence. The canon or ecclesiastical law, including the law of testate and in- testate succession, was based upon Roman law. The Roman law which is embodied in the English system of equity was mainly imported into it by ecclesiastical lord chancellors. It may excite some surprise that civil- ian divines of olden days have left little or nothing to show their consciousness of St. Pauls frequent use of the language of that jurisprudence with which they were familiar. It may be that the unbending dogma of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures which formerly prevailed would in any case have deterred them from look- ing in any purely mundane direction for the elucidation of an apostles language. But in truth they were not in a position to discern so much as may now be discerned of the leggl element in the writings of St. Paul. The Roman law with which they were acquainted was the refined system which was elaborated and consolidated under the authority of Justinian in the sixth century after Christ. This system was widely different from that which pre- vailed in the time of St. Paul. The dis- covery of the Institutes of Gaius, in the 76 HEE2RA NUND. year x8i6, threw a flood of light on the re- prietors or not, had come to congratulate moter history of the law and of the jurid. me, a stranger, on having taken, not only ical ideas of the Roman people. it was the house, but the garden also. The sa- not until the year i86i that the great work hibr, he said, went home so often nowa- of the late Sir Henry Maine on Ancient days that they had ceased to care for Law made the public or even the law- gardens. This one having been in a con- yers aware of the full importance of this tractors hands for years had become, as it discovery. It may be that commentators were, a miserable, low-degree native place. and theologians still fail to appreciate the In fact, he had found it necessary to steep value, for the purposes of Scriptural exe~ his own knowledge in oblivion in order gesis, of Gaius and his modern expositors. that content should grow side by side with country vegetables. Yet he had not for- gotten the golden age, when, under the ~gis of some judge with a mysterious Magazine. name, he too, Heera Nund the Arain, had From Macmillans raised celery and beet-root, French beans HEERA NUND and artichokes, asparagus and petercelli. HE stood in the verandah, salaaming He reeled off the English names with a with both hands, in each of which he held glibness and inaccuracy in which, some- a bouquetround-topped, compressed, how, there lurked a pathetic dignity. prim little posies, with fat bundles of stalk Then suddenly, from behind a favoring bound spirally with date-fibre; altogether pillar, he sprung upon me the usual native more like ninepins than bouquets, for the offering, consisting of a flat basket dec- time of flowers was not yet, and only a few orated with a few coarse vegetables. A ill-conditioned rosebuds, suggestive of bunch of rank-smelling turnips, half -a- worms, and a dejected chczmpak or two dozen blue radishes running two to the showed amongst the green. pound, various heaps of native greens, a The holder was hardly more decorative bit off an overblown cauliflower proclaim- than the posies. Bandy, hairy brown legs, ing its bazaar origin by the turmeric pow- with toes set wide open by big brass rings, deradhering to it in patches, a leaf-cup of a sight bringing discomfort within ones mint ornamented by two glowing chillies. own slippers from sheer sympathy; a He laid the whole at my feet with a pro- squat body, tightly buttoned into a sleeve- found obeisance. This dust-like offer- less white coat; a face of mild ugliness ing, he said gravely, is all that the good overshadowed by an immaculately white God (khoda) can give to the sahib. Let turban. From the coral and gold neck- the presence (kuzoor) wait a few months lace round his thick throat, and the cres- and see what Heera Nund can do for cent-shaped earrings in his spreading ears him. I guessed him to be of the Arain caste. I shall not soon forget the ludicrous He was, in fact, Heera Nund, gardener to solemnity of voice and gesture, or the my new landlord; therefore, for the pres- simple self - importance, overlaying the ent, my servant. Had I enquired into the ugly face with the smile of a cat licking matter, I should probably have found that cream. his forbears had cultivated the surround- I did not see him again for some days, ing land for centuries ; certainly long years for accession to a new office curtails lei- before masterful men from the West had sure. When, however, I found time for a jotted down their trivial boundary pillars stroll round my new domain I discovered to divide light from darkness, the black Heera Nund hard at work. His coatee man from the white, cantonments from the hung on a bush; his bare, brown back rest of Gods earth. One of these little glistened in the sunshine as he stooped white pillars stood in a corner of my gar- down to deepen a water-course with his den, and beyond it lay an illimitable adze-like shovel. A brake of sugarcane, stretch of bare brown plain, waiting till red-brown and gold, showed where the the young wheat came to clothe its naked- garden proper merged into the peasants ness. land beyond; for the well, whence the I did not enquire, however, few people water came that flowed round Heera doin India. Perhaps theyare intimidated Nunds hidden feet as he stood in the by the extreme antiquity of all things, and runnel, irrigated quite a large stretch of dread letting loose the floodgates of gar. the fields around my holding. The well- rulous memory. Be that as it may, I was wheel creaked in recurring discords, every content to accept the fact that Heera now and again giving out a note or two as Nund, whether representing ancestral pro- if it were going to begin a tune. The red HEERA NUND. 77 evening sun shone through the mango- trees, where the green parrots hung like unripe fruit. The bullocks circled round and round; the water dripped and gur- gled. How about the seeds I sent you? I asked, when Heera Nund drew his wet feet from the stream, and composing him- self for the effort, produced an elaborate salaam. He left humility behind him as he stalked over to a narrow strip of ground on the other side of the well, a long strip portioned out into squares and circles like a dolls garden, with tiny one-span walks between. Behold 1 he said. His Honor will observe that the cabbage caste have life already. Truly enough the half-covered seeds showed gussets of white in their brown jackets. But where are the tickets? I sent word specially that you were to be sure to stick the labels on each bed. How am I to know which is which? The presence can see that the sticks are there, he answered with a superior smile; but there are others beside the sahibs who love tickets. He pointed to the tree above us, where on a branch sat a peculiarly bushy-tailed squirrel, as happy as a king over the brus- sel-sprouts wrapper, which he was crum pling into a ball with deft hands and sharp teeth. How I came to know it was this particular wrapper happened thus: I threw my cap at the offender, and in his flight he dropped the paper on my bald head; it was hard, and had points. They are misbegotten devils, re- marked Heera cheerfully; but they are building nests, sahib, and like to paper the inside. Notwithstanding, the presence need fear no confusion; his slave has many names in his head. This is arty walkrin (early Walcheren), that is droo- made (drumhead), yonder is dookoyark (Duke of York), and that, that, and that ____ He would have gone on intermin- ably, had I not changed the subject by asking what was growing beneath a dilap idated hand-light, which stood next to a sturdy crop of broad-cast radishes. Only a few panes of glass remained intact, but the vacancies had been neatly supplied by coarse muslin. The gardeners face, al- ways simple in expression, became quite homogeneous with pure content. Huzoor/ It is the matit (female gardener)! The malin I What on earth do you Have you ever watched the face of a general servant when she takes the covers off the Christmas dinner? Have you ever seen a very young conjuror lift his fathers hat to show you that the handkerchief (which he has palpably secreted else- where), is no longer in its legitimate hid- ing-place? Something of that mingled triumph and fear lest some accident may have befallen skill in the interim showed itself in Heera Nunds countenance as he removed the light with a flourish, thus disclosing to view a fat and remarkably black baby asleep on a bed of leaves. It was attired in a pair of silver bangles, and a Maws feeding-bottle grew, like some new kind of root-crop, from the ground beside it. My daughter, huzoor little Dhro- padi the malin. His voice thrilled even my bachelor ears as he squatted down and began me- chanically to fan the swift-gathering flies from the sleeping child. You seem to be very fond of her, I remarked after a pause. It is only agirl after all. Have you no son? He shook his head. She is the only one, and I waited for her ten years. Ten long years; so I was glad even to get a malin. Dhropadi grows as fast as a boy; almost as fast as the huzoors cabbages. Only the other day she was no bigger than my hand. Your wife is dead, I suppose? The question was, perhaps, a little brutal, but it was so unusual to see a man doing dry nurse to a baby girl, that I took it for granted that the mother had died months before, at the childs birth. I never saw a face change more rapidly than his; the simplicity left it, and in place thereof came a curious anxiety such as a child might show with the dawning conviction that it has lost itself. She is not at all dead, huzoor; on the contrary she is very young. Children cry sometimes, and my house does not like crying. You see, when people are young they require more sleep; when she is old, as I am, she will be able to keep awake. His tone was argumentative, as if he were reasoning the matter out for his own edification. Not that Dhropadi keeps me awake often, he added, in hasty apol- ogy to that infants reputation; consid- ering how young a person she is, her ways are very straight-walking and meek. If she cries you can always stop her with the watering-pot, I suppose. He looked shocked at the suggestion. Huzoor! it is not difficult to stop 78 HEERA NUND. them; such a very little thing pleases a baby. Sometimes it is the sunshine, sometimes it is the wind in the trees, sometimes it is the birds, or the squirrels, or the flowers. When it is tired of these there is always the milk in its stomach. Dhropadis goat is yonder; it lives on your Honors weeds. You are her father and her mother. However much I might repudiate the relationship, I soon became quite accus- tomed to finding Dhropadi in the most unexpected places in my garden. For, soon after my first introduction to her, the claims of an early crop of lettuces to pro- tection from the squirrels led Heera Nund to transfer the hand-light from one of his charges to another. Dhropadi, he said, could grow nicely without it now; the black ants could not carry her off, and the squirrels had quite begun to recognize that she was of the race of Adam. At first, however, he took precautions against mistakes, and many a time I have seen the sleeping child stuck round with pea-sticks, or decorated with fluttering feathers on a string, to scare away the birds. Some. times she was blanching with the celery, and once I nearly trod on her as she lay among the toppings in a thick plantation of blossoming beans. But she never came to harm; the only misadventure being when her father would lay her to sleep in some dry water chahnel, and, forgetting which one it was, turn the shallow stream that way. Then there would be a momen- tary outcry at the cold bath; but the next, she would be pacified with a flower, and sit in the sun to dry, for to say sooth no more good-tempered child ever existed than Dhropadi. In this, at any rate, she was like her father, though I could trace no resemblance in other ways. She is like my house, he would say, when I no- ticed the fact. She is young and I am old, quite old. Indeed, as time passed I saw that Heera Nund was older than I thought at first. Before the barber came in the morning there was quite a silver stubble on his bronze cheek, and his bright, rest- less eyes were haggard and anxious. De- spite his almost comic jauntiness and self-importance he struck me as having a hunted look at times, especially when he came out from the mud-walled enclosure at the further end of the garden, where his house lived. He went there but sel- dom, spending his days in tending Dhro- padi and his plants with an almost extrav- agant devotion. His state of mind when 11.lat young lady used her new accomplish. ment of crawling, to the detrtment of a bed of sootullians (Sweet Williams) in which he took special pride, was quite pathetic. I found him simply howling be- tween regret for the plants and fear lest I should order punishment to the offender. His gratitude when I laughed was un- bounded. After this Dhropadi used to be set in a twelve-inch pot, half sunk in the ground, where she would stay contentedly for hours, drumming the sides with a carrot, while Heera weeded and dibbled. She grows, he would say, snatching her up fiercely in his arms; she grows as all my plants grow. See my sootul- hans! They will blossom soon and then all the sahibs will come and say, See the sootullians which Heera Nund and Dhro- padi have grown for the huzoor. Yet with all this blazoning of content the man was curiously restless; almost like a child in his desire for action and vivid interest in trivialities. See the misbegotten creature I have found eating the honorable huzoors roots! he would say, casting a wire-worm on the verandah steps, and dancing on it vindictively. It was in the huzoors carnations, but by the blessing of God and Heera Nunds vigi- lance it is dead. Nothing escapes me. Have I not fought wire-worms since the beginning of all things, I and my fathers? We kill all creeping, crawling things, ex- cept the holy snake that brings fruit and blossom to the garden. One night I was disturbed by unseemly noises, coming apparently from the ser- vants quarters; but my remonstrances next morning were met, by my bearer, with swift denial. It is Heera. He, poor man, has to beat his wife almost every night now. I wonder the presence has not heard her before; she screams very loud. I stood aghast. He should let her go, or kill her, con- tinued the bearer placidly, She is not worth the trouble of beating; but he is a fool, because she is Dhropadis mother. Yes, he is a fool; he beats her when he finds her lover there. He should beat her well before the man comes. That is the best way with women.~~ It was an old story it seemed, dating before Dhropadis appearance on the scene. It occurred to me that perhaps a deeper tragedy than I had thought for was ripening in my garden among the ripening plahts. I found myself watching Dhr& padi and her father with an almost morbid interest, and hoping that, if my idle suspi- cion was right, kindly fate might hide the HEERA NUND. 79 truth away forever, in the bottom of that well where Heera often held the child to smile at her own reflection, far down where the water showed like a huge, round dewdrop. So time ~vent on, until the sootullians showed blossom buds and Dhropadi cut her first tooth on one and the same day. Perhaps the excitement of the double event was too much for Heeras nerves; perhaps what happened was due anyhow; but as I strolled through the garden that evening at sundown I saw the most com- ically pathetic sight my eyes ever beheld. Heera Nund, clothed, but not in his right mind, was dancing a can-can among his sootullians, while Dhropadi shrieked with delight and beat frantically on her flower- pot. Even with the knowledge of all that came after, the remembrance provokes a smile. The rythmic bobbing up and down of the uncouth figure, the cow-like kicks of the bandy legs, the preternaturally grave face above, the crushed sootullians below. I sent him in charge of two sepoys to the dispensary, and there he remained for two months, more or less. When he came back he was very quiet, very thin, and there were marks of several blisters on the back of his head. He resumed work cheerfully, with many apologies for having been ill, and once more he and Dhropadi who had been handed over meantime, under police supervision, to her mother were to be found spending their days to- gether in amicable companionship. His only regrets being apparently that the sootullians had blossomed and Dhropadi learnt to walk in his absence. But for one or two little eccentricities I might have been tempted to forget that can-can among the flowers; indeed I al- ways met his enquiries as to the sootul- hans with the remark that they had done as well as could be expected, in the circum- stances. The eccentricities, however, if few, were striking. One was his exag- gerated gratitude for the blisters on the back of his head; the last thing in the world one would have thought likely to produce an outburst of that Christian vir- tue. But it did, and an allusion to the all too visible scars invariably crowned the frequent recital of the benefits he had re- ceived at my hands. Another was the difficulty he had in distinguishing Dhro- padi from the other fruits of his labors. On two separate occasions she formed part of the daily basket of vegetables which he brought in to me, and very quaint the little black morsel looked sitting sur- rounded by tomatoes and melons. But though he treated the matter as an elabo- rate joke when I remarked on it, there was a dazed, uncertain look in his eyes as ir he were not quite sure as to the right end of the stick. Nevertheless peace and contentment reigned apparently in his house. When I sat out in the dark, hot evenings, a glow of flickering firelight from within showed the mysterious, mud-walled enclosure by the wall, decorous and conventional. The winking stars looking down into it knew more of the life within than I did, but at any rate no unseemly cries disturbed the scented night air and the huzoors slum- bers. Perhaps the police supervision had impressed the lover with the dangers of lurking house-trespass by night; perhaps the dark - browed, heavy - jowled young woman who had taken my warning so sul- lenly had learnt more craft; perhaps the languor which creeps over all things in May had sucked the vigor even from pas- sion. Who could say? Those crumbling mud walls hid it all, and Heera seemed to have begun a new life with the hot-weather vegetables. So matters stood when an old enemy laid hold of me. Ten days after I found my- self racing Death with a determination to reach the sea, and feel the salt west wind on my face before he and I closed with each other. The strange hurry and eager- ness of it all comes back to some of us like a nightmare, years after the exile is over. The doctors verdict, the swift pack- ing of a trunk or two, the hope, the fear, the mad longing at least to see the dear faces once more. They packed me and a half hundred pil- lows into apalkigharione afternoon. The servants stood, white clad, in a row beside the white pillars, dazzling in the slanting sunlight. I drove through the flower gar- den dusty and scorched. At the gate stood Heera Nund, one arm occupied by Dhro- padi, the other supporting a huge basket of vegetables. He looked uncertain which to present; finally, seeing the carriage drive on, he deliberately let the basket fall, and running to my side, thrust the childs chubby hands forward. They held just such ninepin bouquets as he had carried on our first introduction, Take them, sahib I he cried. Take them for luck I and come back soon to the mali and the malin. As the ghari turned sharp down the road I saw him standing amidst the ruins of the basket with Dhropadi in his arms. Six months passed before I set foot on Indian soil again; and then fate, and ~ 8o IRISH BULLS) AND BULLS NOT IRISH. restless government, sent me to a new station. When my servants arrived with my baggage from the old one, I naturally fell to asking questions. And how is Heera Nund? was one. My bearer smiled benignly. Huzoor, he is well in the month of July he was hanged. Bearer! Without doubt; it was in the month of July. He killed his wife with an axe. Dhropadi was bitten by a snake while she slept one day when Heera had to leave her with her mother; and that night he killed his wife as she slept also. It was a mistake to be so revengeful, for every one knew Dhropadi was not really his daugh- ter. Do you think that Heera knew? She told him when the child died, in order to stop his grief; but it did not. She was very kind to himafter the other one went to prison for lurking about. And did no one teU about it all? About what, huzoor? About the vegetables, and Dhropadi, and the sootullians, and the blisters on the back of his head! Did no one say the man was mad? There was a new assistant at the dis- pensary, sahib, and her people were very rich; besides Heera was not mad at all. He did it on purpose. He was a bad man, and the sirkar did right to hang him,in July. But as 1 turned away I could think of nothing but that can-can among the soo- tullians, with little Dhropadi beating time with a carrot. F. A. STEEL. From Temple Bar. IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. A BULL defies definition; but, for that matter, so does wit, and so does many another word in the language of which one would be glad to get a definition. There are many men, indeed, who would be only too happy could they arrive at the definition of a libel; but the lawyers, as a body, would not be found sharing in the general joy. Imperfect definition, coupled with the ill-temper of mankind, is the source of all litigation; so that sound definition would do away with half the law-suits. John Locke fancied he could put an end to logomachies by his chapter on words. But then he was the first to depart from the meanings that he himself had assigned to them, and so in a very little while the amphibologies took to sprouting again, like potatoes in spring, with redoubled force. In the same way, a privet hedge grows thicker and sprouts the faster for its periodical clippings. It is, perhaps, as well that it should be so. For what would become of the multiplication of books, and of all the printing and publish- ing concerns that now run along so briskly, if authors should ever get into the way of saying only what ought to be said, and of using words in a fixed sense, so that there could be little obscurity as to what is in- tended? Why, truly the trade of authors and publishers would fall to a moiety straight, and many who now can hardly live must then go into utter bankruptcy. The economy of everything requires, as a first condition of its existence and respec- tability, that it shall be made to pay. After that is secured you may philosophize as you please. Bishop Parker, when he was asked by a friend which was the best body of divinity, said, with great single- ness of purpose, It is that which can best help a man to keep a coach and six. If this be admitted as an ecclesiastical verity, how much more suitable is it of adoption as a lay principle. We are fortunately not called upon to furnish the definition of a bull; but as Sydney Smith volunteered one, we will avail ourselves of it en .5a.rsant. He writes: We shall venture to say that a bull is an apparent congruity, and real incongruity of ideas, suddenly discovered. And if this ac- count of bulls be just, they are (as might have been supposed) the very reverse of wit; for as wit discovers real relations that are not ap- parent, bulls admit apparent relations that are not real. A shot or two directed at this will riddle it through and through. A veteran officer so pestered Louis XIV. to give him some appointment, that the king, in a huff, said, loud enough to be overheard, He is the most troublesome officer that I have in my service. That, sire, said the old man, is precisely what your Majestys enemies all say of me. The king felt, upon this sharp rejoinder, he had been, as an econo- mist might say, guilty of an act of unen- lightened selfishness; and he therefore granted to the wit of the old soldier what his merit would never have won for him. The next case is that of an Englishman who wrote in his letter, I would say more, but that there is a d-.d tall Irishman looking over my shoulder and reading every word of this. On which the Hi- bernian exclaimed, You lie, you scoun~ IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. drel I Sydney Smith cites these to illustrate his position, the first as true wit, the last as a blunder that only an Irishman could be guilty of. Let us grant it for the moment. But what shall we say to Ers- kines exclamation, on being told that some man had died worth 200,000, That is a pretty sum for a man to begin the next world with. If ever there was wit, this is wit; yet what real relation, before un- apparent, does it discover to our view? It rests on an apparent relation, and the fun consists in the unreality. It is a Scotch bull, according to the definition or canon of our canon of St. Pauls. Definitions are themselves things to move laughter, capital jokes, if you have no fool, lawyer, Scotchman, or logician present who will insist on treating such things as being thoroughly serious, and as actual matters of fact. Edgeworth, in his Essay on Irish Bulls, tells us how hard he found it to read old Joe Miller through. He got hold of an edition that was published in i8oo. He says i8oi, but then he is not accurate, even in his quotations. The book he studied was a digest of fifty jest books, beginning in 1551, and running down to i8oo. He took this course before penning his essay, in order to arrive at a competent knowledge of the treasures of English wit. He declares that in wading through Coke upon Littleton, he was never so much tired (p. 91). He satisfied himself that English wit had reached but a very low standard of excellence. He began by wishing to find this, and so he found it. His book is a complete hugger-mugger; it has as much of arrangement and order as we find in an Irish cabin where the pig hobnobs with the family. But, none the less, his book is interesting, and brimful of the wit of others. He damages it considerably as a total by his pertinacity in the defence of his countrymen from the disparagement which the Hibernian bull has brought upon them. The pages he devotes spe- cially to this topic are as dull as if he were still dozing over Cokes Institutes or Repotts. He seems to have been a vigorous, irrepressible kind of man. Byron, who met him at Sir Humphry and Lady Davys house in 1813, calls him active, brisk, and endless in fact, a bore. The bucks of London in that day had, in jest, drawn up a paper for the recall of Sid- dons to the stage; and Tom Moore had proposed a paper recalling Mr. Edgeworth to Ireland, whilst Byron himself suggested a Society for the Suppression of Edge- worth. LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXVI. 3902 The principal thing to be learned from all this is that ornament is not substance, a few pearls may embellish, but a dress covered with them, like Esterhazys, be- comes very heavy wear and almost insup- portable. Edgewoisth had found it so in going through the Joe Miller collection, and attributed it to the dullness of the art. Now there are many things coarse, vulgar, and ill-described in Millers book, still there is also a sprinkling of very bright wit to be found in it. The too close proximity it is that clouds the effect, as the milky way looks dull against a bright particular star. Perhaps the finest collec- tion of bright sayings ever brought to- gether may be Lord Bacons apophthegms unless, indeed, those collected by Julius C~sar should have been better, but then they have been lost. Myself I would rather have had them than the perished decades of Livv. Of this sort of thing, however, a page or two at a time is quite enough, yet they are much more widely diversified in quality and variety of lights than bulls can very well be made. Bulls are wit, or the want of it, coming to a happy kind of grief over some unantici- pated stumbling block lying in the way. One or two of these may be intensely funny, and make you laugh, as the Span. iard did reading Don Quixote; but to make you satisfied with them for long, the work of a true craftsman, who threads them well together, must be superadded. A bull is nonsense, or art, or both to- gether. But an aphorism is a far higher flight of thought, and may in a sentence epitomize a whole train of philosophizing, as a walnut contains a whole tree poten- tially. When Solon was asked if he had given the Athenians the best laws, he re- joined, like a Spartan, The best they could receive. Cato Major, too, had a pithy saying of his own, That wise men learnt more by fools, than fools by wise men. Even puns may be far wiser than to merely show the presence of a pickpocket, as Swift put it, if indeed it were not some- body before Swift, perhaps Dennis, who said that foolish thing which Dr. Johnson re-echoed. Here, for instance, is a pun that should not be forgotten. When Sylla laid down the dictatorship, C~sar said, Sylla is ignorant of letters, so cannot dictate. If this story does nothing else it vindicates the pun. Even Johnson must plead guilty to a magniloquent riddle, the fundamental merit of which resolves into a pun. What is majesty stripped of its externals but a jest? (Majest y). 82 IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. The idea was not his, only the magnilo- quence that sets it off so finely belongs to him. Intrinsically it may pass as a Joe Miller, and we find it in the collected jest books. John Dennis, the critic, certainly hated a pun, and is said to have quitted the com- pany of Daniel Purcell the punster, with this bitter pickpocketing sarcasm upon his lips. Puns are historical, as we.~see from C~sar, and we also see they may be profound. One oddly enough had a tem- ple built to it in old Roman times, for Oc- tavius going into the battle of Actium, happened to meet an ass called Eutychus or good fortune, driven by a man named Nic~n or victorious. After the battle was won he built a temple, Suetonius tells us, and set up therein an image of this donkey and its master. Here is a pun developing into a church, but puns are things quite kept out of the pulpit. Few admire Row- land Hills on the Wapping Sinner,~ when he went to preach a sermon in that locality. Few also who appreciate true wit, and are but little led by opinion, will much sympathize with Swift, Dennis, Johnson for biting speech against the pun. You may take it for certain they were one and all of them only waiting for a chance of editing a good one. Another historical instance of the pun occurs in the life of Pope Sixtus V. The cottage in which he was born was but a miserable hut, and let in the sunlight through the holes in the thatch. It was in allusion to this in after life he used pleasantly to say that he was the son of an illustrious house, which in the Italian runs still better, as, nato di casa i/lustre. The most super-exquisite Chesterfield in Europe should after this exempt the pun from critical censure as bad wit. A story is told of Lord Eldon in witty defence of punning, which others, how- ever, attribute to Erskine. Somebody was disparaging the pun in his presence, as being the lowest kind of wit. That, said Eldon, may be true, for it is the foundation of all. Certainly there will be but very little wit left in the world after eliminating rigidly all that approaches to a play upon words. A pun is essentially a play upon words, but the finest wit ever uttered is almost always partially so. A capital pun may arise by pure accident, as recorded in Buckes Book of Table Talk (i. 310). A Mr. Alexander Gun was dismissed from a post in the Customs at Edinburgh, jor circulating some false ru- mor. The dismissal is said to have been thus noted in the Cttstoms books at the time: A. Gun discharged for making a false report. Addison, unfortunately for himself, took side against the pun, and proposed what he thought an excellent test of such wit. TranslatiQn was to be the touchstone; if it would bear that, the wit was real, if not it was buta bare pun, the merecounterfeit of wit. He could not have examined his test far. Try Killigrews wit when King Charles was to furnish him the topic. On myself, said his Majesty. The king is no subject, was the prompt reply. (Le rol nest~as un sujet.) That translates well enough, Mr. Joseph Addison, by your leave, we think. A Mons. de G. who squinted formidably, asked Talleyrand, when affairs were at a highly critical junc- ture, how things were going. Mais comme vous voyez, monsieur. (Why, as badly as you see, sir.) The two tongues may run in a curricle, and the wit trundle safely enough on the pole that divides them. A lovely girl was attending the lectures of a Greek philosopher. A grain of dust blew into her eye, and she begged the professors aid to remove it. As he zealously strove to free the sparkling orb, some one called out to him, Do not spoil the pupil. M~ r~v x6p~jv dLa~bOeip?7~. The curricie yokes again as also this, a man ploughed up the field where his father was buried. This is truly, said Cicero, to cultivate a fathers memory. (Hoc en vera colere monumentuin ,i5atris.) With these cases before us we must drop transla- tion as a test of merit. Wit is too subtle to be handled thus; like quicksilver, it will slip through a mans fingers while you are telling him what to do with it. There may be wit, bless your soul, latent in the mistakes of even book labelling. Luche- sini, the Jesuit, published a book on the Absurdities discovered in the works of Machiavelli by Father Luchesini. The bookseller backed it briefly thus: Ab- surdities of Father Luchesini. It was in this way made to fit the label capitally, if not the authors purpose. When Edgeworth wrote his book on Irish bulls, he found that bulls were not Irish, and that the word bull could not be defined; so that you may almost say his book is about nothing whatever in the uni- verse, only it is highly amusing. In the course of t he presents us with a glorious bouquet of the gathered flowers of the wit of other men, without attempting strict definition of what a bull is. It may be said that one feature almost inseparably accompanies it, and that is, that the thing said contradicts itself amusingly by the IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. 83 form in which it is stated a discrepancy which the hearer perceives at once, ~rhilst the uttereris for a moment unconscious of the apparent blunder. Edgeworth takes two lines from John- son, and thinks that they contain a bull Turn from the glittering bribe yqur scornful eye, Nor sell for gold what gold can never buy. He thinks, and a great many others agree with him in thinking, that if it could not be sold it could not be bought. It is a quibble to insist that what you sell must be buyable i~t5so facto, though this is what is generally maintained. When you sell yourself, as the expression runs, for gold, it is intended to represent, that in doing something disgraceful for a bribe you have parted with your honor. The briber did not want your honor, nor bid for it, but for your dirty co-operation. You sold your honor phraseologically, but he did not pay you for it (nothing could); therefore he did not buy it. Gold cannot buy it, and you can never buy. it back. Your soul is bartered to smutty Pluto, and when the cash is gone you are without an equivalent; or if you hoard it you are but Midas, whose ears grow long as his wisdom shortens. Edgeworth says heis afraid that Johnsons distich is absurd, though the thought is of extraordinary fineness. This is far nearer to a bull than Johnsons line is, for a line cannot truly be absurd and fine at the same time. The same remark has been made by weak- kneed critics upon that noble inspiration in Ecclesiasticus, inculcating buy the truth and sell it not. Edgeworth himself advances a witty exception, saying that a patriot may sell his reputation, and the purchaser get nothing by it. Patriots have before now sold their country, and, in the worlds phraseology, threw reputa- tion with it. Are you not ashamed of yourself in the remorse of having sold your country? was said to one of these gentry about the time of the Union. Not I, said he, I only regret I have no more countries to sell. Patriotism, Johnson defined to be the last refuge of a scoun- drel. Such patriotism is But such a man, though he can sell his country, can- not sell his reputation nor his conscience. He parts with his reputation, but it is not bought; and as he does not possess a con- science, he cannot have sold what he did not possess. The true form of bull is this. An Irish- man addresses a gentleman quite inno- cently with, Please, your worship, he sent me to the devil, and I came straight to your Honor. Here the man is momen- tarily unconscious of the construction that may be put upon what he says. He has no idea of the inference to be drawn that his patron is the foul fiend. His brevity here is most in fault, for had he added a word more it would all have been unim- peachable as well as being wholly denuded of fun. Add to tell your Honor, and the address is as pointless as every-day and commonplace can make it. But it finds its counterpart in Marmontel. The peas- ant in Annette and Lubin says, The bailiff sent us to the devil, and we are come to put ourselves under your lord- ships protection. It has grown proverbial that liars should have a good memory, or else they should. confine themselves, like Earl Russel, to telling as few lies as possible. The com- pliments of polite society are so close akin. to falsehood, and the transition of ideas in conversation is so rapid, as to give ground for the further aphorism, that a flatterer should be endowed with a most comprehen- sive forecast, lest in snatching the dpropos, he break upon the maldpropos. Tis as easy as lying. Yes, it is easy enough not to hit the truth, and yet miss at the same time the agreeableness you aim at. Let this be jotted down as a sunken rock in the chart of fashion for the men and ladies who flutter in salons, and who seek after leasino Take now an instance or two. Madame Denis, the great French ac- tress, had just stepped from the stage, having played to admiration the part of Zara(p. 35, 6). To act that *ell, she said, a woman should be young and hand- some. Ah, non, madame. Pardon me, ejaculated an unlucky gentleman anxious to compliment, you are a convincing proof to the contrary. There was a grand. chance here for the truth, but society and diplomacy register few successes in that; direction. He could have said, True, madame, but high intelligences possess both in quintessence, they have the gift of perennial beauty. On this occasion the Frenchman was as felicitous as the replyof the lady to George IL, who hoped she had enjoyed all the gaieties of town since her arrival. I have seen every- thing, your Majesty, worth seeing in London except a coronation, was thb maladroit rejoinder. What could the king say other than, Dear madame, I would willingly die to gratify you, but we must wait a little longer, I fear. The gossip diaries chronicle nothing, so perhaps the king said nothing, but allowed the gau 84 IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. cherie to fall gently into oblivion. Edge- worth tells the story of an earl marshal, who at a coronation, when the king found fault with some part of the arrangements, could only excuse himself with, Please, your Majesty, I hope it will go better next time. Even judges sometimes fail to forecast the full purport of what they are saying. Serjeant Arabin, without any taint of Irish blood, said many surprising things in pass- ing sentence on prisoners at the bar. He has been known to say, It is in my power to transport you for a period very consid- erably beyond the term of your natural life, but the court in its mercy will not go so far as it lawfully might go. He once even offered a prisoner a chance of re- deeming a character that he had irretriev- ably lost. Judge Graham, raised to the bench in x8oo, was so polite that he would address one found guilty of burglary as My honest fr-lend, you are found guilty of felony, for which it is my painful duty, etc. (Red Book, 24, 9) Payne Knight, poor man, committed suicide. Rogers says in his Table Talk (p. 204),that he would come to him of an evening shortly before his death, and tell him how he loathed existence. The drug he had recourse to was the strongest prus- sic acid; to this Rogers appends the re- mark, I understand he was dead before it touched his UPs. Compared with such despatch as this a stroke of lightning may be called dilatory. Here we may refer to the Irishmans cure for suicide. He considered that the true way to stop it was to make it capital, and punishable by death (Grose, Olio, 196). Watts says in his Logic, that A guinea is pure gold if it has in it no alloy. rhere are very few guineas of this sort, and such a coin would be quite unfit for the wear and tear of circulation; but even if there were, the phrase pure gold might easily introduce a bull, for it would none the less be filthy lucre, which is about as consistent as Dr. Jekylls description of Edward Hyde as a man who. alone in the ranks of mankind was lure evil. Every- thing seems to tend and trend to a beset- ting confusion of this kind. Fuller, in his Life of Berengarius the Reformer, says that he would suffer no woman to come near him, not because the sex were in any way displeasing to him, but that he had such adversaries to guard against that it was requisite to cut off all occasion of suspicion. Fullers quaint comment is that in such a case overmuch wariness is only a becoming caution, for that, if it be not too much it will be too little. There you have the very form of a bull, a contradiction in terms, but not the spirit of one, because Fuller is evidently con, scious of what he is saying and in the liveliest manner possible. A metaphor and a bull are close akin, for Johnsons definition of the former will go a good way towards describing the bull. He says a metaphor is the application of a word to an use to which, in its original import, it cannot be put. Thomas Carlyle, in his Oliver Crom- well, contradicts his own statement, whilst he notifies of that book that some omissions will also appear in this edition.. Thus it is that bulls multiply as you look for them. In Greek and Latin and in all the tongues upon earth it occurs, and seems to be not a lapsus Zinguce, sed un- guarum omnium lapsus, a shadow, as it were, inseparable from the substance of the speech of man. Even the minstrel of Ulysses cannot get along without it. See what he says: . Self-taught am I, and the god puts all manner of lays into my heart. The black bull has set its hoof upon him here in the poverty of forecast.. Were his lays inspired? Then he was not self-taught. Even plodding John Stow will have it that Gresham at the Royal Exchange laid the first foundation-stone, being of brick. Baker, in his Biographia Dramatica, talks of a marble gravestone as being erected to Mrs. Manley, the playwright, and supposed author of the first volume of the Turkish Spy. Now she lived on Lambeth Hill with the Tory printer, Alderman Barber, till her death, and was then buried in the middle aisle of St. Ben- net, Pauls Wharf. The slab of marble erected to her memory must therefore have been laid flat. Granger, in his Biograph- ical History, gives an account of several curious portraits of Queen Elizabeth, un- der which her history is summarized in eight or ten lines of letter-press; one of the points set forth is that she overthrew the Spanish invincible navy. An Irish gentleman, to whom this was pointed out, replied that he could not see that they were invincible, for all they succeeded in doing was to lose almost every ship that put out to sea, showing, as the French say, that there is nothing sure in war but the uncertainty of it. When Derrick con- doled with an Irish gentleman upon the recent death of his father, It is what we must all come to if we only live long enough, said the Irishman. The idea, however, is no more Irish than French, IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. for when a Frenchman had built his ch~- teau and completed the chapel to it, he called together his children and said, Jesp& e que nous y serons tous enterr~s, si Dieu nous pr~te vie. The famous classic of Thetford, E. IL Barker, in his, Reminiscences, relates a curious story of this sort. A man argued the moon to be more really serviceable than the sun. For, said he, the sun shines only in the daytime, when he is not wanted at all, but is not like the moon that lights you at night. Dr. Isaac Watts, the man of logical mind, puts something a good deal like a bull into his lyricon Englands three great salvations the Armada, Gunpowder Plot, and King William III.s accession. One of the verses runs thus: Beneath the senate and the throne, Engines of hellish thunder lay; There the dark seeds of fire were sown, 7~ s~g5ring a bright but dismal day. The contradiction here arises from too bold an ellipsis. In a poem on true cour- age, this oddity occurs Souls alone Are heirs of dying worlds. The words are incongruous but not funny. One is harassed with a lingering notion of probate duty. A rather striking bull occurs in the Double Falsehood, by Louis Theobald. He describes one of the characters to be such as that None but himself can be his parallel. But whether the man himself can be so paralleled or not, the passage can, for in Senecas Hercules Furens, the same thing is said of Hercules: Qu~ris Alcid~ parem? Nemo est nisi ipse. Do you need a parallel to Alcides? It can be nobody but himself; it is not very likely that the parallel was known to Theobald, but if so he is a most pithy translator. Still on much slenderer ground than this, the cry of plagiarism has been raised. What follows almost is still stranger, for John Andrews, the learned Bishop of Aleria, who did so much for the early printers and their art, used to affix elaborate epistles to the works brought out by his ~rotegis. That on Livy is par- ticularly elaborate (Beloe, Anec., iii., 283). Livy he thinks to be Herculem menlo Historiarum. Livy, says he, growing en- thusiastic, not only excelled other writers, but also even far surpassed himself; sed sei~sum quoque longe antecellit. He is not only his own parallel, but his alacrity is such that lie leaves himself behind in the race, and runs away from his own shadow, or his own spirit from his own body. Have y~u any brothers and sis- ters? No, said Dominiant. Alas! I have no brothers but myself (Edge- worth, 72). Edgeworth tells us of a great Irish ora- tor who was silenced in the House of Commons with inextinguishable laughter for merely saying, I am sorry to hear my honorablefriend stand mute. Laughing at this he appears to consider as highly disrespectful to the Irish nation. He re- gards it as a trivial error to attribute to the ear what belongs to the province of the eye to take cognizance of. Probably if the orator had said, I am sorry to see my honorable friend stand mute, the House of Commons would have been 1-libernian enough to accept it simply because the phrase has grown current. Yet it is just as foolish as the other, for you can no more see a man stand mute, than you can hear him. Silence and muteness are nothing, and therefore not objects at all of the bodily senses. This incident may serve to show how poor a thing~ is lan- guage, how nearly. its best expression stands allied to nonsense, how requisite it is, so only that the meaning be conveyed to another mind, that wise men should accept it frankly without a quibbling on the phrasing. What is a vacuum, Dr. Butters? was asked by a Parliamentary committee. A vacuum, sir? why, a vacuum is a place full of emptiness. The committee laughed, the wise men of Greece would very likely have bowed their acquiescence in silence, seeing at a glance that the illiterate Butters knew very well what he was talking about. Alderman Curtis once said that his bar- b& rs epigram took him but three hours to produce exle;ng5ore. We have now seen Cmsar and Johnson and Pope Sixtus V. punning; Seneca, Rogers, John Stow, and Serjeant Arabin making bulls, and we shall find greater men still doing the same thing before we have done. A bull may show ability mo- mentarily at fault, but no fool ever yet made a good bull. A good bull is often a capital thought slightly phrase-damaged, or as Lamb described Coleridge to be, an archangel spoilt in the making. This I take to be the best phrase that ever fell from the lips of that felicitous stutterer. Edgeworths apologetic anxiety betrays the Hibernian on tenter-hooks. It is a 86 IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. sort of liturgical prayer raised by him con- tinually against the sin that doth so easily beset us. Shakespeare tells of making assurance doubly sure. Now if a man look strictly into this, it is as arrant nonsense as to bolt a door with a boiled carrot. But before we rule it so, ask yourself the fur- ther question, is it an expressioh you would expect to fall from the lips of any fool of your acquaintance? It is true there are not a few mistakes that only thinking makes, but then a man must be a thinker before he can make them. Castlereagh was much laughed at for saying that he hoped certain gentlemen would not turn theIr backs upon them- selves. In one sense (to adopt a bull with our eyes open) it is nonsense; but in an- other it is full of truth. Take but one instance: every turn-coat in a fashion turns his back upon himself, at any rate what was his back; so that a turn-coats back may almost be said to be like Sir Boyle Roches bird, in two places at once. A bull, when you come to think of it, is a mischievous thing, whether it occur in grammar or in rhetoric. It is like the proverbial bull in a china-shop, and is only less mischievous because our porcelain is worth more than men s words are generally. Nearly everything we do or say allies itself to a bull. What is chiaroscuro in painting but a bull? A pianoforte is a bull in music, a kind of double-action instrument that somewhat resembles Georginas story of the man who, about the weight of the pig said, After all, it did not weigh as much as I expected, but somehow I never thought it would. Swift relates a story as of An- thony Henlys farmer, who, when dying of an asthma, said, Well, if I can get this breath once out, - Ill take care it shall never get in again. Horace Walpole, when busily insisting upon our deterioration as medallists from the high standard of the ancients, remarks that from our coins our retrograde frog- ress in science is evident. Much of our modern progress consists of a persistent retreat from excellence, and retrogress ought to be used in place of progress, and will be introduced, no doubt, if conceit should some day allow us to take any ac- count of the direction in which weare going. From Walpole it is clear that we English can fall into a bull nearly as well as the Irish, but there is little sport in our bull-driving. In our Liturgy we get whose service is perfect freedom. Again, when it is remarked that the seeds of the Gospel have been watered with the blood of the saints, it becomes very clear that the bull and the metaphor have blood relations. Augustus Hare, in his admira- ble Walks, in London, says of our me- tropolis that it is always moving into the country, and never arriving there,~~ Sir Thomas Hayes, city chamberlain at the time of the Rye House Plot, said that the citizens put themselves in a state of defence, for they did not know but that to-morrow morning they might all rise with their throats cut. Dr. Burneys definition of music is that music cannot be described, and a good many other things seem to be in precisely the same case. It is as good as the French je ne sais quoi, to indicate a subtle delicacy or excellence that baffles elucidation by words. Dr. Martin Lister, in his famous Jour- ney to Paris, in 1699, speaking of the danger of the wooden houses in London, says that when a man goes to sleep here he lies like a dead Roman upon a funeral pile, dreading some unexpected apotheo- sis. It is not every Irishman who can compress two bulls into one sentence. In Edwin Arnolds Light of Asia we come upon the line : Took up his slate of ox-red sandal-wood. Addison, in allusion to the fecundity of Congreves wit, and his too lavish bril- liancy, closes with this perfect bull per- fect, that is, if it had been unconscious, and not, as it is, intentional: He had more pleased us had he pleased us less. Coleridge says of puns, these are best when exquisitely bad. Perhaps the same is true of bulls, that they ~vould only be made worse by being made better. An Irishman, exhibiting the rapacity of the clergy, said, Be the farmer never so poor, theyll make him pay their tenths whether he can or no. Somebody remarked to an Irishman that absentee landlords were diminishing in Ireland. Diminishing, sir? said he why, the whole country is full of them! The re- mark isa bull, as well as the answer. Is there ~ny great, difference between this and what ~schylus says of death, that it is the healer of irremediable ~voes? Or what does the reader think of Trumpet- major Chades Bonniot, who wrote to Na- poleon III. ~ Jai contracts sous votre cher oncle deux blessures mortelles, qui depuis 38 ans font lornement de mon existence, lune ~ IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. 87 (a coupe droite et (autre ~ Wagram. Si ces deux anecdote: vous paraissent susceptibles de la Legion dhonneur, jai bien celul de vous remercier ~ lavance. Madame Bonniot sera sensible ~ cette amabilit6 de votre part. CHARLES BoNNIor, trompette-major. In Haywards Diary of a Lady of Quality, which was the substance of a journal kept by Miss Frances Williams Wynn, there occurs a curious Latin bull in an epitaph (p.343): Ille quidem plenus annis abut; plenus honoribus, illis etiam quos recusavit. (He died full of years, and full of honors, even of those which he refused to accept.) Here we are on the very water-line of sense and nonsense; a man can hardly be said to possess what he refuses to accept, and yet, to push aside the honors and distinctions of this world as being things scarce worth the holding, may do a man more honor than the honors themselves could confer upon him. An- toine de la Salle, long before Madame de Sta~l, had described Zove in his day by a brilliant contradiction as cet dgoisme d deux. De Sta~l herself describes enlight- ened men as being, by their thoughts, con- temporary with future ages. Ils sont toujours contemporains des si~cles futurs par leur pens~es. Born before his time is our phrase, and implies that he ought to have been the contemporary of posterity. He has done, something, by anticipation, for that posterity which Sir Boyle Roche refused to benefit; his shrewd remark was, Why should we do anything for posterity? What has poster- ity ever done for us? This may be less logical, but is more humorous far than what Simon had said long before: Adieu, post& it~! Je ne te connais pas. The question here arising is one for a casuist to unravel, whether the word adieu thus employed does not constitute a bull. Can a man bid farewell to a thing that has never been present with him, and with which, consequently, he has had no ac- quaintance? Can things part that never yet have met? You have forfeited your conscience, said one man reproachfully to another. I never had one, was the rejoinder, which seems efficiently to rebut the accusation. In this connection ought to be read Swifts Dedication to Prince Posterity in his Tale of a Tub. He ~vas ever most proud of his accuracy as a writer, and could not endure to be taken for an Irishman by anything that came from his lips or pen. He has, however, contrived to publish a bull in his first Drapiers Let- ter: Therefore I do most eai nestly exhort you, as men, as Christians, as parents, and as lovers of your country, to read this paper with the utmost attention, or to get it read to you by others. This, says Ferrier, in his Illustra- tions of Sterne (i. 8o), is the jest-book story of the Templar over again, who left a note in the keyhole of his door directing the finder, if unable to read, to carry it to the stationer at the gate, now Messrs. Butterworths, to read it for him. Grose relates the following for a fact: that in May, 1784, a bill was sent from Ireland for the royal assent relating to franking. One clause enacted that any member who, from illness or any other cause, should be unable to write might authorize another to frank for him, provided that, on the back of the letter so franked, the member give under his hand a full certificate of his inability to write. Professor Ferrier refers to Ralphs History of England, in which a party of Irish men on the side of James II. are appointed to fortify a pass against the advance of the English troops. When the work was completed, it was dis- covered they had set up the stockades the wrong way about, so as to secure the pass against themselves. Few bulls are so solidly constructed as this. Ferrier thinks this to be the most extraordinary of all blunders. The reader will kindly compare it with the following, which was only not perpe- trated like the above because it was im- possible to do so. In the bill for pulling down the old Newgate at Dublin, employ- ing the old materials, and rebuilding it on the same site, it was enacted that, to avoid useless expense, the prisoners should re- main in the old Newgate till the new one was finished (Grose, Olio, 204). Leigh Hunt, in his Court Suburbs, suggests (i. 219) a practical bull, and says that we may next hear of an artist who gets a stammering man to sit for a por- trait of Moses, because the great law-giver had an impediment in his speech. It would not be historical painting this, but in virtuosi-slang it might be called perhaps a conversation piece. An Egyptian proverb, however, runs, The mother of foresight looks back- ward. This made an Irishman ask whether a mother could turn her back on her own progeny. Of course it means that by looking backward, and interrogating the past a man may arrive at shrewd guesses concerning the future. He may scrutinize keenly the past 88 IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain. But this is hardly an instance in which a proverb expresses the wisdom of a na- tion. Some one within earshot of an Irishman happened to say that Shakespeare died on the day of his birth. By the mother of Ireland 1 said he, Shakespeare was the man for a good days work thin; a janius that could turn out Hamlet and all the rest of it, complayte, in an ephemeral twenty-four hours deserved to live after- ward at his aise foriver and iver. If it were true that the Irish enjoyed the sole privilege of making blunders such as these, we might say of them ~vhat Scaliger said of the Italians, There are none stupid in Italy (Bk. Tab. Talk, ii. 31), or we might rightly repeat of them what Carac- cioli applied to the Neapolitans, Fools are not born under these skies. (So/to guesto cielo non nascono ciocchi.) All the world seems to conspire at times to ex- press itself in words that are contradic- tory. To enjoy ill health is an accepted phrase, and is analogous to what the classic Racine says in Andromaque (v. 5): Grace aux Dieux I mon malheur passe mon esp~rance. Racine is well backed in practice by the great authority of Virgil. How could I hope for this so great a grief? Hunc ego si potui tantum sperare dolorem. The natural tendency to contradiction when men are laboring to express their ideas forcibly is amusingly shown by War- ner in his Recollections. He knew an energetic preacher who made frequent use of this expression, What I mean by an upright man is a downright honest man.~~ This reminds one of what they did at Westminster Abbey, where they buried Ben Johnson perpendicularly, but it was head do~vn~vards. So that rare and up- right Ben became honest downright Ben. Dr. Maclame describes the letters of William III. as being, inconceivably zlear. One of the incongruities of speech falls to the lot of Paley, who would permit his daughters to go to parties, but one must always stop at home to rub him for rheu- matism if required. This, he said, taught them natural affection. Prob- ably quite as much so as his book teaches us natural theology. Reporting on the condition of Cotton House in Westmins ter, Wren says that for a substantial repair it would have to be taken down It is said that a French soldier, sta- tioned at a picture gallery, had strict orders to allow no one to pass without first depositing his walking-stick. A gentle. man came with his hands in his pocket. The soldier, taking him by the arm, said, Citizen, ~vhere is your stick? I have no stick! Then you will have to go back and get one before I can allow you to pass. As this man read his orders, the intention was that, as a preliminary to in. specting the gallery, everybody was to de- posit a stick not that those who had a stick should not be allowed to carry it with them into the gallery. A German lady, in writing to borrow money of her sweet- heart, is said to have made the following ingenuous allusion in her postscript: I am so thoroughly ashamed of my request, that I sent after the bearer of this note to call him back, but he had aot far on the way. b already too Captain Patrick Blake, Grose says, heard some young officers talking irrever- ently about religion; at length they men- tioned the devil ludicrously. He jumped ouf of his chair and insisted on their leav- ing off such indecent discourse. By J asus, said he, the devil is an improper subject for your mirth, gentlemen, being the fourth person of the Trinity. There is also a story told of an Irish gentleman who wanted to learn of an eminent singing master, so he inquired the terms. Two guineas for the first lesson, said the maestro, and for as many as you please afterwards a guinea each. Oh, bother thefirst lesson, said the inquirer, let us commence with the second. Tim, do you snore when you are asleep? said an American. No, never, for I lay awake one whole night on pur- pose to see. The analogue to this occured to Porson once at a dinner-party where Captain Cook became the topic of the moment. An ignorant person, as Timbs tells the story, wishing to contribute his mite said to the professor, Pray, was Cook killed on his first voyage? I believe he was, said Porson, but he did not mind it much, but immediately entered on a second. As to an ignorant person, one is re- minded by it of Lamb and the exciseman whose bumps he wanted to feel, from the man s having put a question to one of them. Sir, do you think Milton a great man? This is always put down to stu- pidity ; it might be that, or nervousness, or sarcasm; for doubtless our exciseman IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. 89 had heard many strange opinions ex- pressed in that company which were clean contrary to those held by the stupid world in general, and he might have wished to hear whether they entertained the opinion of Miltons genius that the stupid world in general pretends to hold of a man whose books they practically know nothing about. The ignorant person sitting next to Porson could only have felt bashful surely, and talked this fatal nonsense rather than say nothing to his colossal neighbor. Commercial advertisements are not free from bulls. A new washing-machine was advertised with the heading of Every man his own Washerwoman. Beecham cannot advertise his pills without a bull. He says that if Beechams Pills, St. Helens are not on the government stamp, they are a forgery. Imagine a charcre of forgery for not having copied a signature. The advertisement writer next time should be put through a course of the pills to clear his head before he sits down to address the public. In the Times obituary, of all places, there occurred a complete bull on the 2nd December, 1879, thus On the 1st Dec., at 3 Elgin Crescent, Ken- sington Park, Col. William Burney, K.H., one of the very few survivors of the Peninsu- lar and Waterloo, in his 88th year. Here we have the dead man represented as a survivor. When people publish things of this sort, they remind one of the Irish- man who said of himself, I am a very stupid animal; I only know what I know, and of that only half. Ireland, in his Confessions, talks of stamping the signet of invalidity upon certain papers. These are fine words to bring a blunder out of. The Irish often give you a lively, rampant, humorous bull, like the sprightly, spurning animal of a Spanish bull-fight, whilst English and other bulls seem to come from the com- monplace brain of calves that are being driven to market at East Thickley. Sheri- dan, however, puts it the other way about, saying that his countrymen always have the potato in their brain thus, Please, your Honor, we know theres nobody in it, but who knows how many may come out? He declared that Kelly would ask him to scrape for him whilst he was knocking at the door, and that Kelly used to say of his playhouse, The house is chuck-full, how much fuller it will be when the king comes to-morrow! An Irishman also said to him, Had I been killed by the fall, who would have maintained me for life ? ~ We have already shown that judges can make bulls on the bench; but the British Apollo, 1740, pretends thatthe term is derived from Obadiah Bull, an Irish lawyer prac- tising in London in tbe reign of Henry VII, who was famous for such utterances. It may interest some reader to be reminded that the papal rescript is called bulla,.from the seal affixed, the material of which was of lead. Wedgwood says it is a bubble, and so called from the noise Bullire is to bubble or boil really a hot drop of lead; so that to fulminate a papal missive becomes highly appropriate. Long before artillery of bouches dfeu was perfect, the pope fired leaden bullets and brought kings down with them. The word of the Lord is as a two-edged sword, but the word of his vice-general was a once irresistible projectile of lead. Had he kept it to gold, as the earliest bulls were, there would have been many to serve it still in England. If it comes from B6?2La or Bova~, which means a decree, as Moreri declares, with much probability, then Mr. Wedgwood boiling, boils over. But human decrees may be bubbles nevertheless. The omnipotence of Parliament is like the infallibility of Rome. The Spectator in i886 gave some strik- ing illustrations of Irish humor and the use of the English language. The master was giving to a laborer a glass of whiskey, and doing so, said, Youll remember, Corney, that every glass you take is a nail in your coffin. Well, your honor, says Corney, may be, as you have the hammer in your hand, youd just drive another home. It would appear from the following in- teresting anecdote that an extraordinary surprise or a startling personal experience may throw the mind into a condition to ejaculate naturally something very much resembling a bull. Charles II., out hunt- ing one day, got separated from the hunt and entered the cottage of a cobbler for refreshment. The man gave him bread and cheese and began to talk about the king, expressing much anxiety to see him. Mount behind me, said his guest, and I will show him to yOu. But how shall I know him? Why, the king will be the only one covered. By this time they had come up with the nobles, and the cob- bler looked about for the king. He found soon that he alone and the king had their hats on; so rising to the occasion, he tapped the king on the shoulder, and said, I think it must be either you or I, sir. This happy confusion of the cobbler about his own identity suggests the story of the individual who accosted his friend 90 IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. with At a distance I was unable to rec- ognize who you were; as you came nearer I thought it was you, but now I see it is your brother. Grose relates that Caulfield, meeting Mr. Thomas Sandby, said, My dear Sandby, I am glad to see you. Pray is it you or your brother ? P It was a Spaniard who remarkedingeniously, that an author should always write hi~ own index, ret who will write the book. Edgeworth relates the story of .an English shopkeeper who did pretty well in the direction of the bull proper when, to recommend the durability of some fabric for a ladys dress, he said, Madam, it will wear forever, and make you a petticoat afterwards. This iS quite equal to the Irishmans rope which had only one end, because the other had been cut away. Take, again, the rhyming dis- tich by Caulfield on the Highland roads constructed by Marshal Wade If you had seen these roads before they were made, Youd have lift up your eyes, and blessed Marshal Wade. (Grose.) When a friend condoled with Pat in tribulation, telling him to bear up, for that lffe was only a dream. Ah, said Pat, thats very good of your Honor to com- fort me, and it would only that Im so often thrubbled with waking to the uncomfort~- ble facts. There was an old commentator, whose works are forgotten now, who praised the divine goodness for always making the largest rivers flow hard by the most populous cities. There was a Frenchman, we find from the Longueru- ana (122), who said angrily, when told that the king had sent to Rome to buy antiques, Why cant we make them here for ourselves? A contributor to Notes and Queries said that Peter Cunninghams Letters of Walpole was the only complete edition, though by no means what that gentleman mzght have made it. One of the funniest absurdities of ex~ pression seems to have been elicited from the superfine politenes~of a foreign cor- respondent of our Royal Society. In writing to them, he speaks of the earth- quake that had the honor to be noticed by them. How gratifying to the earthquake, say of Lisbon, to find its efforts and great exertions thus appreciated by science. Guizot, in his French synonyms, repeats the neat distinction drawn by Girard: On est tine par disposition desprit, et :gnorant pas d~faut dinstruction. Hear- ing the Sphinx mentioned in company, an Irishman whispered into his friends ear, The Sphinx! Who is that? A mon- ster, man. Och, a Munster man; I had no ide~ he was of Connaught. Inhisch~pter on practical bulls, Edge- worth is hin~self very amusing. He de- clares, in his helter-skelter way, although he has been dealing largely with Irish bulls all along, that he has not been suc- cessful in finding Irish bulls, but we will now look for them in conduct, for (al- though he has not proved so) the Irish may be said to act as well as utter bulls. He adds sarcastically a hope to find them unmlitched by the blunders of all other nations. To establish this he pro. duces three instances. But his argument constitutes a bull in itself, for only one is Irish ; the second is English; the third is Hyder Alis, and therefore Indian, His Irish one is capital. In the Rebellion they Were very angry with a banker; so they collected all his notes that they could get together, and in dire revenge made a bonfire of them. That evening the banker was heard praying fervently in the bank parlor for his enemies, who had done for him what his best friends had never thought of doing. We will now give a few, specimens from great authors, and so close. We have shown that Homer can nod into a bull. So our Victor Hugo; for when the delegates of Paris workmen returned from the Phil- adelphia Exhibition of 1876, they sent him an invitation, which he refused, being busy with his Appeal on behalf of Servia; still in his em~ressement to serve liberty and the cause of insubordination every- where, he telegraphed his sympathy to them in an epigrammatic confusion of epithets saying he sent them a grasp of the hand from the bottom of his heart (~ozgn6e de main). Pope says that Ho- mer has s~vallowed up the honor of those who succeeded him. Shall we call this a papal bull? In the very name Roman Catholic, Milton finds a papal bull And whereas the Papist boasts himself to be a Roman Catholic, it is a mere contradic- tion, one of the Popes bulls, as if he should say universal particular, a catholic schismatic (Milton On True Religion, p. .562. Fletch- ers Ed.). But there is another bull in Popes Es- say on Criticism When first young Maro in his noble mind A work t outlas immortal Rome designed. Was it not the grand mot of Napoleon by which he expressed his ~etitesse that IRISH BULLS, AND BULLS NOT IRISH. 9 he had banished the word imp ossi~le from the French dictionary much as he cut England out of his map of Europe? But both the word and our island remain un- expunged in every other edition. The islanders, too, performed the quite impos- sible feat of overcoming his Invincibles. Dumont tells us that Mirabeau esteemed the word impossible to be foolish. Never use, he said to his secretary, that fool- ish ~vord again in my presence. Like Mirabeau himself, Napoleon appropriated ideas whenever they suited him~ In this case be only plagiarized a plagiarist; you cannot wrong such a one. Lord Chatham, in a fit of the gout, re- ceived one of the admirals in his sick room only to be told that to get the required expedition afloat was impossible It must ~ail1 sir, this day week, was the eagle-eyed n~ans fire-flashing reply. As he rose from his chair, the beaded perspi- ration bursting from his forehead with the agony caused him as he firmly planted the gouty foot upon the floor, and suiting the action to the word, added, I trample on impossibilities. He fell back faint- ing, but he conveyed his lesson, ~nd the fleet sailed. If all orators could follow up words with actions so intense as this, their art would grow respectable. Chat- ham in this, and in much else done by him and said, is the only perfect orator per- haps that men have ever known. Demos- thenes may have surpassed him in words, and Cicero in wit, but in action, which the old men set such store by, Chatham is first and alone. Chatham in action is a god compared with them; for by action they understood sculpturesque and histri- onic propriety of pose only. Our Chatham bent words and action in his own person to herpic deeds. This is to be a man, ~nd not that helpless, word-pattering ma- chine that telephones the voice and views of other men hack to them, which com- monlyis called an orator. That immoral character cultivating persuasion to get applause out of it will preach down- wards if the multitudinous swine turn but the spout to the easy bent that leads them to destruction. Reyno1d~s~ in his eulogium, i783, em- balming~the memory of G. M. Mozer, the Academician, writes~ He may truly be said in every sense to have been thefather of the present race of artists. This re- minds one of Charles II., who, when they told him that hewascalled the father of his people, laughed, and said that he was indeed of a good many of them. Locke, in his Essay concerning Hu- man Understanding, puts out a very curi ous argument on personal identity, wherein one of the semi-absurd suppositions is, If Socrates and the present mayor of Queenborough agree that they are the same person. How the two could agree to a proposition st foolish we need not discuss. But as Socrates has been so longdead, the only witness to the agree- ment, we may be sure, was Lockes pres- ent mayor of Queenborough ; and if he chooses, on Plates doctrine of remiriis- cence, to assert th4 he is the same person as Socrates, we shall feel inclined to say that he is the first person in the world who has proved Socrates to be an ass. Milton abounds with bold contradic- tions Who shall tempt with wanderingfeet The dark unbottomed infinite abyss, And through the palpable obscure find out His uncouth way? Again we read Yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness visible. Or when in Samson Agonistes we read As in a land of darkness, yet in light To live a life half dead, a living death, And buried; but 0 yet more miserable, Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave. When Campbell wrote his Irish ballad of OConnors Child better, as they say, than any Irishman ever wrote he became so truly Hibernian as to glide into the perpetration of an unconscious bull. He puts this line into the mouth of a blind man, Nor refused my last crust to his pit~/ulface, which, by the nature of the case, he could not see. Swift had been told that his beadle at St. Patricks was a poet, Seward tells us, so the next day being the 5th November, the dean sent for him and insisted that he should make some verses on it, and this was the result, apparently impromptu To-nights the day, I speak it with great sorrow, That we were all to have heen blown up to-morrow. Whilst referring to the bulls of very great men, let us not forget Mr. Dillons recent perpetration, in which, speaking of his friends, he said that they had seen themselves filling paupersgraves. This, as was noticed at the time, rivals the mas- terpieces of Sir Boyle Roche, one of which was, Why, Mr. Speaker, honorable mem- bers never come down to this House without expecting to find their mangled remains lying on the table. C. A. WARD. 92 LAURENCE OLIPHANT. From The Scottish Review. and character which descended to her LAURENCE OLIPHANT.* son, while the father is said to have been MRS. OLIPHANT has written a singu- a man of much individual power and larly interesting, and indeed fascinating, originality, an excellent lawyer and trusted biography of her distant kinsman. That official. Both of them were devoutly it is also picturesque need hardly be said. ligious, much given to self-examination It was scarcely possible that the biog- and self-reproaching, and though obliged raphy of the author of Haifa and Epi- from their position to mingle in the gaie- sodes in a Life of Adventure could be ties and seductions of the world, abhorring otherwise, especially when pi~oceeding them, and often rebuking themselves for from the hand of stE skilful and sympa- the agreeable manner in which they found thetic a writer as the author of the lives them appealing to their social instincts. of Edward Irving and Principal Tul- Laurence was their only child. Both of loch. The storyof hisoutward life, of his them were passionately attached to him, wanderings and adventures in almost and their chief anxiety was to train him every quarter of the globe, Mr. Oliphant in the way of godliness. In 1839, the has himself told us in several charming home at Cape Town was broken up. Sir and delightful volumes, and in others he Anthony was transferred to the chief has given us hints and indications of the justiceship of Ceylon, and his wife and mysteries of his deeper and hidden life, child sailed for England, partly on account and sometimes large passages in which he of Lady Oliphants health and partly for has unveiled them more or less distinctly, the education of Laurence. A letter writ- It is with this latter side of his nature that ten soon after this, when the chief justice the present volumes are more particularly had settled down to his new duties and occupied. Comparatively little is said of had had time to look about him, gives us his travels and adventures, and very little a charming glimpse into his character and of his writings. The Memoir is for the of the relations existing between him and most part taken up with unfolding the his son. In it, the chief justice writes to growth and development of that inward his ten year old child almost as if he were and spiritual side of his life which made an equal, tells him of his loneliness and him so strangely incomprehensible to the of his longing to see Lowry and his majority of those who were acquainted motherof his backslidings, how he had with him, and to all appearance, notwith.i become careless in his speech, and had standing the many favoring circumstances used bad words thoughtlessly how he with which he was surrounded, wrecked a had found a friend in an officer who was career which bore every promise of being tall and thin, like Robert Baillie, of the exceedingly useful and brilliant. There 72nd,and how the letter is written are many things in the volumes which are for my sons welfare, and that mamma singularly perplexing. Mrs. Oliphant may know that there is somebody here owns her inability to explain them, and who will love and take care of papa when most readers will in all probability do the she is far away. All this and there same. Yetitisthepassagesinwhich these is much more in a similar strainis same strange and enigmatical things oc- scarcely what we should expect a chief cur, that give to the Memoir the main justice to write, but there is a charming part of its piquancy and attraction. They simplicity and frankness about it. It re- are wonderfully suggestive, sometimes veals the character of the boys father, startlingly so, and present us with a series and the intimate relations which already of psychological puzzles, to which at pres- existed between them. Lady Oliphants ent there seems to be no adequate solu- letters to little Lowry about the same time, tion. when he was absent from her at Mr. Parrs Laurence Oliphant was born at Cape school at Durnford Manor, near Salisbury, To~vn in 1829, where his father, An- are interesting for similar reasons. In thony Oliphant, the second son of the one she asks him to speak to her as he Laird of Condie, was attorney-general, used to do, and to tell her his besetting His mother was Maria Campbell, the sins, and he replies: One of them is my daughter of Colonel Campbell of the 72nd not saying my prayers as I ought, hurry- Highlanders. Both the father and the ing over them to get up in the morning mother were in their way notable. The because I am late, and at night because it latter, we are told, was full of the vivacity is cold; another is my hiding what I do Memoir of the Life of Laurence Oliphant, and of naughty, and keeping it from Mr. Parrs Alice Oliphant, his wife. By M. 0. W. 01iph~nt. eyes, not thinking the eye of God is upon Two volumes. Edinhurgh and London, s89x. me, a greater eye than mans; and another, LAURENCE OLIPHANT. my cribbing things from other boys, which is another word for stealing not exactly stealing, but leads to it And then leav- ing his religious introspection, he goes on to say, with a touch of very natural vexa- tion: I am such a horrid sumer [arith me- tician]; it is that that gets me down in my class so much. I was perfectly beaten last week, for they brought me down from top to bottom. But the chief thing with Lady Oliphant was the state of his con- science. From his infancy he had been surrounded with an atmosphere of reli- gion, and trained to turn his thoughts in- ward and subject himself to a careful moral scrutiny. This, together with the predisposition which he inherited from his parents, who both practised the methods of the Evangelicalism of the time, must have had a great influence in determining much of his subsequent career. In 1841 Lady Oliphant joined her hus- band in Ceylon, and left her son with Mr. Parr, who had removed to Preston, in Lancashire, where he had accepted a liv- ing. But neither she nor the chief justice could endure the strain of separation from him, and orders were soon received in London for him to be sent home with a tutor, to carry on his education. There is a tradition that the telegraphic summons was, Send out the kid at once. But Mrs. Oliphant sets this aside as a fond invention of a later day, chiefly for the very good reason that there was then no telegraph. Out, however, Laurence went, accompanied by two boys, the sons of Mr. Moydart, a neighbor at Colombo, and by Mr. Gepp, now vicar of Higher Easton, near Chelmsford, whom Major Oliphant, the boys uncle, had selected as a tutor for him. By that time, says Mrs. Oliphant, Lowry had developed out of the early stage of childhood into an active and lively boy, eager for new experiences, and all the novelty and movement that were to be had. - He was between twelve and thirteen, with all his faculties awake, and his whole being agog for novelty and incident, when he set out to join his parents in the late winter of I84I~ The journey, of which he has himself given an account, lasted between two and three months, and was not without incident and adventure: There was then no P. and 0., and the voyage ~vas frequently interrupted by breakdowns and pauses for repair. One accident led him to Mocha, the first of the many then unfrequented spots which he was after- wards to tread. At Colombo young Oliphant settled down to his lessons with Mr. Gepp and 93 the Moydart boys, and to that close com- panionship with his mother which was to occupy so large a share of his thoughts, and to have so considerable an influence upon his life. Th~ direction of his edu- cation she appears.to have taken wholly into her own hands, or rather to have placed it in a larger measure in his. She was still a young woman there was but eighteen years between us, he used to sayand though Lady Oliphant loved to be obeyed, yet she had from his infancy placed the boy the Darling, as his father invariably calls him, with a little affectionate mockery in a position of influence and equality not perhaps very safe for a child, but always delightful be- tween these two; for the quick-witted and sharp-sigh ted boy had always a clii valrous tenderness for his mother, even when, as happened sometimes, he found it neces- sary to keep her in her proper place. In illustration of this Mrs. Oliphant relates thefollowing incident. It happened one morning when the tutors scheme of work appearing unsatisfactory to Lady Oliphant, she came into the schoolroom toannounce her desire that it should be altered. To do this before the open.eyed and all-ob- servant boys was, perhaps, not very ju- dicious, and the young preceptor was wounded and vexed. There was probably a sirocco, or its equivalent, blowingthat universal excuse for every fault Qf temper in warm latitudes and a quarrel was im- minent, when Lo~vry rose from his books and came to the rescue. Mamma, this is not the right place for you, said the heaven-born diplomat, offering her his arm, with the fine manners which, no doubt, she had been at such pains to teach him, and leading her away no doubt half amused, half pleased, half angry, with the social skill of the boy. The incident is amusing enough but did not promise mu~h for the authority of the tutor or for Lowrys education. Of really serious education, young Oh- phant, in fact, got little, perhaps none. He did pretty much as he chose, and the direction of ~vhat little training or disci- pline he got was mostly in his own hands. His influence over his parents was re- markable. Their intentions were good his welfare ~vas their chief anxiety, and they fully purposed to complete his edu- cation in the usual way. With a view to this, sonic time after the incident above related, he was sent again to the care of a tutor in England to be prepared for the university. But before he had entered at the university, or had even ~vell settled LAURENCE OLIPHANT. 94 down to work, Sir Anthony unexpectedly there as indelibly stamped upon my arrived in England on a two years leave memory. He had a singular knack of of absence. The upshot may be told in finding out adventures, and when anything the words of the son. I was on the point more than usual was going on in his neigh. of going up to Cambridge at the time, he borhood, he was sure to be found in the says in his Episodes in a Life of Adven- thick of it. One night, we are told,he was ture; but when he announced that he in the middle of a yelling: crowd who intended to travel for a couple of years were holding a political demonstration, with my mother on the Continent, I repre. pulling at the ropes with which .fhearms sented so strongly the superior adirantages in front of the Austrian Legation at Rome from an educational point of view, ot were being torn down and dragged along European travel over ordinary scholastic to a bonfire. On another, he was roused training, and my arguments were so ur- from sleep by the murmur of many voices, gently backed by my mother, that I found and looking out of his window saw adense myself to my great delight, transferred crowd moving beneath. To rush into his from the quiet of a Warwickshire vicar- clothes was the work of a mon-ent, and age to the Champs Elys~es in Paris ; and, in another instant he found hitrself one after passing the winter there, spent the of a shrieking, howling mob, at the doors following year roaming over Germany, of the Propaganda, against which many Switzerland, and the Tyrol. It was in blows were being directed by iniprovised 1846 that this new scheme of education, battering rams. I remember the doors developed in the fertile brains of young crashing in, he says, and the mob crash- Oliphant, and strongly advocated by his ing after them, to find empty cells and mother, was adopted, and the boy, as deserted corridors, for the monks had Mrs. Oliphant remarks, turned once for sought safety in flight. All this might all into the rolling stone, which he con- be very exciting to a rash and impetuous tinued to be for the rest of. his life. He youth, but had it been known that this himself, when moving a bout from place to young abettor of revolution was the son of place, and indulging in all the excitement a distinguished British official, things of travel, used to wonder, he tells us, might have taken a very awkward turn. whether I was not more usefully and However, to use the ~vords of Mrs. instructively employed than laboring pain- Oliphant, no harm would seem to have fully over the differential calculus ; and come of it, unless, indeed, this first taste whether the execrable patois of the peas- of the sweetness of excitement, and the ants in the Italian valleys, which I took fire of the multitude in motion awakened great pains in acquiring, was not likely to the latent spark in the mind of one des- be of quite as much use to me in after life tined to see so much of such movements in as ancient Greek. Perhaps it was, but after-life. the question is one which is not easy to At the termination of this extraordinary answer. It is permissible to believe, how- attempt at education, the remarkable sub- ever, as Mrs. Oliphant remarks, that the stitute for Cambridge which had com- ancient Greek and the profounder culture mended itself to the Oliphant family, might have saved him and tbe world from father, mother, and son returned to Cey~ some ~vild dreams of after-life, without Ion. Here Laurence was appointed secre- diminishing the force and originality of his tary to his father, and was soon advanced being. At any rate, it was an experiment to the position of a barrister, pleading worth trying, and one almost feels disposed before the supreme courts, and transacting to regret that the common sense of Sir a good deal of very serious business. In Anthony, who seems to have opposed the family circle, we are told, nothing this new method of education by contact, could be done without him. He was was compelled to give way before the everywhere, in the centre of everything, vagaries of his son. The world might affectionately contemptuous of papas pow- have lost some degree of originality and ers of taking care of himself, and laying brilliancy, but the chances are it would down the law, in delightful ease of lone and have been more than recompensed by its unquestioned supremacy, to his mother. positive gains. When not occupied with business, or writ- The journey was full of incident and ing to Lady Oliphant at Newera Ellia enjoyment, at least to the youngest oiem- among the hills, or taking her place at ber of the party. They crossed the Alps papas dinner-parties, he was seeking and entered Italy. Just then Italy was adventure in extensive rambles or shoot- seething with excitement, and Oliphant ing expeditions, in which he sometimes records the salient features of his stay ran considerable risk. LAURENCE OLIPHANT. 95 A singular destiny, however, seems to have been against his settling down to anything or anywhere. He had not been long in Ceylon before an unusual and in- teresting visitor touched at it on his return to India from England. This was the Nepaulese minister, Jung Bahadour, who seems to have produced no less a sensation in Ceylon than he did in England. After a few days acquaintance young Oliphant was invited to accompany him to Nepaul. The promise of adventure which the invi- tation held out, was too strong for one in whom the instinct of the traveller and adventurer was already so well developed, to resist. Remonstrances seem to have come from some of the friends of the Oliphant family against allowing him to go on so wild an expedition; but his own wishes carried the day, and he left Ceylon with his new friend in December, I8~o. Of his adventures he has himself given a vivid sketch, but quite as interesting are the letters which he wrote to his mother during the journey. Here he writes, more freely, recounting his flirtations, asking his mother to write him a letter of good advice, as I want it now, and certainly shall by the time I shall get it. In one letter he startles her with the question, How would you like a Roman Catholic daughter-in-law? In another he inti- mates with much delight that of the as- sembled party he alone could polk. He re-opens a third to describe a hunt. In one he says, I have taken to making love furiously, as I know I am going away im- mediately. In others, and even in the same, notwithstanding their fun and gaiety, he turns to more serious matters, evi- dently induced to do so by his mothers inquiries after his spiritual condition. In one, he writes: It is difficult to practise habits of self-examination riding upon an elephant, with a companion who is always talking or singing within a few feet, but it is otherwise in a palkee, which is certainly a dull means of conveyance, but forces one into ones self more than anything. The conclusion he comes to about himself is that his great weakness is flexibility of conscience, joined to a power of adapting myself to the society into which I may happen to be thrown. He then goes on to give the following account of i~s origin: It originated, I think, in a wish to be civil to everybody, and a regard for peo- ples feelings, and has degenerated into a selfish habit of being agreeable to them simply to suit my own convenience. I think I can be firm enough when I have an object to gain, and have not even the excuse of being so easily led as I used to think. I am only led when it is to pay, which is a most sordid motive i3 fact, the more I see of my own character, the more despicable it appears, as being so deeply hypocritical that I can hardly trust myself; hence arose a disinclination even to speak about myself. How blind one is to ones own interest not to see that, put. ting it on ones own ground, it would pay much better to be an upright, God-fearing man than anything else I Fortunately reli- gion is a thing that one cannot acquire from such a motive, or I am sure I should have done so before this. Confessions of this kind would doubtless be pleasing to his parents, more especially to his mother. They were evidently sincere. He ends by hoping tbereis no humbug in it, and says it is honest as far as I know, but dont believe in it implicitly. In another letter, on the other hand, he is disposed to defend his flexibility of con- science. As to his tendency to be agree- able and sympathetic, he tells his mother, I inherit it from your side of the house evidently. But the tendency I see to be bad in fact. Here and there, too, in these letters there are chance references to his. father, who is still papa to the home- loving adventurer. There is no such travelling companion, the young man says, as his papa. The men of his own age are as nice fellows as can be, whom he delights to emulate in every bodily ex- ercise, to win a genial triumph over either in the elephant-hunt or the new polka, making a friendship for life out of a ball- room rivalry; but, after all, there is no- body like his father for real companion- ship. This rapid and brilliant rush through India was the beginning both of his life of adventure and of his literary career. On his return he found it impossible to settle doWn in Ceylon to the routine of official existence, and before many weeks had elapsed he and Lady Oliphant were on their way to England; he to take up the study of law, and his mother to await the- period fixed for her husbands retirement from his chief justiceship. On their ar- rival in London Oliphant appears to have- lost no time in beginning his legal studios. Lincolns Inn was selected, mainly it would appear, on the ground that he had been assured that in consideration of his previous studies and practical experience- in Ceylon, he might there be very speedily called to the bar. There is not much evi- dence, however, that he was animated by any serious desire to fit himself for his- 96 LAURENCE OLIPHANT. profession, or that he was much in ear- nest. He hoped to get through somehow, but with as little labor as possible I think, he says, if I get up the two or three books necessary for acquiring a proper knowledge of mercantile law, in- cluding bills of exchange, together with the law of evidence, pleading and real property may take care of themselves. One part of his studies, that which con- sisted in eating ~so many dinners, he thoroughly enjoyed. In a letter dated November 24th, i8~i, he gives an amusing description of his first: I have eaten some stringy boiled beef at Lincolns Inn Hall in company with three hundred others, not one soul of whom 1 had ever seen before; but I unhesitatingly talked to my next neighbor, and soon, by dropping in an unconcerned manner remarks upon a tiger I knocked over here, and a man I de- fended for murder there, talking learnedly about Ceylon affairs, etc., incited the curios- ity of those whose reserve would not other- wise have allowed them to notice me, too much to let them remain silent. Still I felt rather verdant on first entering, and was only saved from sitting down at the table appro- priated to barristers by hearing one man re- mark he was not going to sit there, as so-and-so was his senior; so I concluded that if he was kit senior, he was most certainly mine, and choosing the youngest-looking man I could find, I seated myself next to him. His brilliant conversational gifts soon made him a favorite in society. He grew enamored of life in London, and boasted of its advantages - It will require no common inducement, he said in one of his letters at the time, to make me ever return to Ceylon. Life is not long enough to waste the best part of it by living away from all the advantages which civilization affords, to break up all the ties one may have formed, and which can never be re- united, to be destitute as well of the means of improvement as of common informatior~ upon every-day topics. Among other things he took to politics, became a friend of the people, and began to give a hand in the benevolent work which was then going on in the slums of Westmins- ter. But Lincolns Inn moved much too slowly for him. Before he had been a year there he resolved to try the Scotch bar, and by the summer of i8~z he had taken up his quarters in Edinburgh, and was busy cramming. He continued, however, to eat his dinners in Lincolns Inn, and when in London returned to his missionary efforts in the slums. In 1852 he set out on his journey through Russia, and made his famous visit to the Crimea. The success of his first venture as an author which had lately ap- peared, had made him ambitious for fur- ther, and he began to be on the outlook for something to write about. At the same time~he was in quest of sport and adventure. He decided therefore to go to some out-of-the-way place and do some- thing that nobody else had done. The only part of Europe within reach fulfilling the required conditions, he tells us in the Episodes, seemed to me to be Rus- sian Lapland, for I had heard from an Archangel merchant that the Kem and other rivers in that region swarmed with guileless salmon, who had never been offered a fly, and that it would he easy to cross over to Spitzbergen and get a shot at some white bears. But when he and his companion, Mr. Oswald Smith, reached St. Petersburg, the Russian officials in- terposed, and instead of offering flies to the guileless salmon of Russian Lapland, the two young men sent home their sport- ing equipment, and turned their steps southwards. They visited Moscow, at- tended the great fair at Nijni Novgorod, and embarked on the Volga, and sailing down it, disembarked at Tsaitsin, on its right bank, not far from Astracan. They rode thence through the country of the Don Cossacks to the Sea of Azof, and crossing over this entered the Crimea, and made their way to Sebastopol. The Cri- mea was then an unknown country, and Sebastopol a mysterious city, of which many legends but no definite information had reached the world. At Odessa the young travellers left Russia and returned home by the Danube. Little sport had been obtained, but the purpose of getting something to write about had been tri- umphantly achieved, as the following year proved when the experiences of the jour- ney were laid before the public in the Russian Shores of the Black Sea. I owed the Russian authorities at St. Peters- burg, he says in the Episodes, a debt of the deepest gratitude for the journey thus forced upon us in default of a better, as the book which I wrote describing it, and especially the Crimea, appeared at the moment that war was declared by England against Russia, and a military expedition, which should have for its objective point the Tauric peninsula, had been decided upon. One, perhaps the main, result, so far as he himself was concerned, was that he was introduced to the notice of the government. In the early part of the year 1854, he says, I was startled one morning by the clattering of a mounted LAURENCE OLIPHANT. 97 orderly, who reined up at the door of my modest lodging in Half Moon Street, and impressed my worthy landlady with a no- tion of my importance which she had not hitherto entertained, by handing her a let- ter which required an immediate answer. The letter proved to be from Lord Rag- lans chief of the staff, asking him to re- pair at once to the Horse Guards. On his arrival there he was introduced to the presence of a number of generals, and interrogated by Lord de Ros, Sir John Burgoyne, and others, as to his knowledge of the Crimea and Sebastopol. His in- formation was of course of the utmost value, and was readily given, and with that facility and self-confidence which appear to have characterized him all through in such matters, he also developed before the council his ideas of what ought to be done. The immediate prospect of war in the East led him to abandon his legal studies once for all. Mr. Delane offered him the post of Times correspondent with the ex- peditionary force, but he was anxious for employment in the campaign under gov- ernment, and Lord Clarendon seems to have undertaken to send him out as soon as opportunity arose. Meantime Lord Elgin, on his appointment to the Wash- ington mission, offered him the post of private secretary, a post which he accept- ed, he tells us, in the hope that I might be back in time to find employment in the East before the war was over. Contrary to expectation in America, the mission was soon over, and was tremendously triumphant. We have signed a stun- ning treaty, Oliphant wrote, though its opponents were afterwards in the habit of saying that it had been floated through on champagne, a statement, it would ap- pear, not altogether void of truth. From Washington Oliphant accompanied Lord Elgin to Can~ida, where he was appointed superintendent-general of Indian affairs, much to his own surprise, and not without strong opposition both in the Canadian press and in the service. The post, how- ever, was not permanent, and notwith- standing his youth and inexperience, he managed to discharge its duties with con- siderable success. All during his absence he was, of course, in frequent communication with Lady Oh- phant, who followed him with the utmost anxiety as to his spiritual welfare. His letters to her are full of gaiety, and charm- ingly frank. Now and then her questions touch him to the quick and he falls into a state of despondency. Lord Elgin, he LIVING AGL VOL. LXXVL 3903 tells her, says he never knows what I am at, at one moment going to the extreme end of gaiety, at another, to disgust and despondency. . . - He sees my twinges of conscience, and asked me the other day whether I was goi.ng to lay all the sins I seemed so much oppressed with at his door. At another time, Lord Elgin said to him: All these comments of yours upon our proceedings distress me very much. After all, we are only amusing people, and if you have got anything to repent of, I wish youd wait and do it on board ship! Lord Elgin, in fact, seems to have been greatly perplexed, perhaps partly amused and partly irritated, by the changeful moods of his young secretary. If he was, it is not to be wondered at. Oliphants letters at the time are a curious mixture of gaiety and pious meditation. Here and there one comes across an odd bit of casuistry. After exclaiming: Flesh and blood cant stand the temptation of such hosts of charming girls, an outcry which Mrs. Oliphant tells us was not at all intended to be humorous he goes on to say: There is a class of sins which are very difficult to resist, because you cannot put your finger upon the exact point where they become sins. Now, for instance, a certain degree of intimacy with young ladies is no harm; and it is difficult to define where flirting begins, or what amount even of joking and laughing, though perfectly innocent, is not expedi- ent, and one gets led imperceptibly on without feeling the harm that is being done to both parties until it is too late. As I told you before, I am not in any degree involved in anything; but I dare say I should be if I stayed; or, as an alterna- tive, become more utterly heartless in these matters than I am already. The point is a nice one and deserves discus- sion, but here it is apparently discussed only to be set aside, for he immediately turns to a lively description of the setting in of a Canadian winter. The year 1855 saw Oliphant in England without employment and proposing to Lord Clarendon that he should be sent on a mission to Schmayl, for the purpose, if possible, of concocting some scheme with that chieftain by which combined opera- tions could be carried on, either with the Turkish contingent, which was then just organized by General Vivian, or with the regular Turkish army. What Lord Clar- endon thought of the proposal we do not know. He seems, however, to have been unwilling to commit himself, and to get rid both of the project and its author, hit 98 LAURENCE OLIPHANT. upon the plan of sending the latter to Constantinople with a letter to Lord Strat- ford de Redcliffe. This letter Oliphant imagined authorized the ambassador to send him to Daghestan, where Schamyl bad his stronghold; but Lord Stratford de Redcliffe seems to have thought otherwise. Instead of sending him off to Dao~hestan or even mentioning the project Oliphant was so eager to carry out, he invited him to go with him to the seat of ~var. whither he was then on the point of starting in his yacht; and when at last a mission to Cir- cassia was resolved upon, he sent not Oh- phant, but Mr. Alison, one of his own staff. All the same Oliphant managed to get to Circassia, not however as an agent of the British government, but as the companion of the Duke of Newcastle, and with the vanguard of the force sent thither under Omar Pasha. While there he saw some fighting, had one or two narrow escapes, and enjoyed himself immensely. But his delight was a little tempered by compunc- tions as to his mothers alarms. His let- ters to her are as frank as ever. He comforts her by saying that his letters to the Times bring him in lots of tin, and while recounting his adventures, tries to minimize the dangers to which he has been exposed as much as possible. He is at the greatest pains to assure her, that he has no intention of being a soldier, and that, though surprised into warlike acts and often taking great delight in them, he always acts with the greatest prudence. I hope you give me credit for prudence now, he writes, after telling how, in about three hours, he had thrown up no end of a battery within a few hundred yards of the enemy, and will trust me. I assure you I was in a horrible fright at getting shot, entirely on your account, and I dont recommend a man to come to fight if he has got anybody at home who loves him. I dont think he can do his duty. If it had not been for you, I should have taken an active part in the affair. Altogether, though it was in some respects a horrible experience, I am glad to have seen it. His flexibility of conscience still stuck to him. From Sugdidi he wrote: I am very jolly here such a pretty place only we cant plunder. It is a great temptation. I dont wonder at soldiers going to all lengths. One does not feel it is a bit wrong. I put a fine cock in my pocket this morning. I would have given his owner anything he asked if I could have found him; but if we dont forage we get nothing but rice and biscuits to live on. I should not plunder anything but food, and that I dont call anything. I am not sure, he goes on to say, that I am not happier occupied as my mind is now. It is when I have time to think much that doubts arise. When I just say my prayers and read a text earnestly, and then go and gallop about and am in hard, healthful exercise, I feel much better in mind and body. I feel my mind much more innocent and less bothered and per. plexed; but I am afraid this is wrong, and that ones occupation ought to be Gods work, and not what papa calls playing ones self. At the conclusion of the war he was again in London, waiting on fortune, im- patient of his want of progress, and ready to go anywhere. During the summer of i8~6, he went with Mr. Delane of the Times to America; and when the busi- ness, which he does not describe, but speaks of as likely to put a thousand pounds inhis pocket, was over, he turned his steps to the Southern States. At New Orleans he accel)ted a free passage to Nicaragua, in a ship conveying reinforce- ments to Walkers army of filibusters. Fortunately for him, when the said ship came to the mouth of the San Juan, it was stopped by a British squadron lying at anchor to keep the peace, and boarded by one of the captains. A chance remark of Oliphants discovered his nationality, and he was incontinently rransferredon board the Orion to give an account of himself to Admiral Erskine. As usual, he fell on his feet. Admiral Erskine and he turned out to be distant cousins, and in- stead of suffering for his wild and unjus- tifiable undertaking, he found himself in comfortable and amusing quarters. In the beginning of 1857, Lord Elgin, who had been appointed head of the mis- sion to China, asked Oliphant to return to the post of private secretary to him. The position was, as before, temporary. He was not recognized as a servant of the Foreign Office, nor as a member of the diplomatic staff. Still, the position gave him employment, and carried with it the prospect of better things. It is soon after this that we begin to hear of his spiritual and mystical notions. He began to talk of them, we are told, to the young men who were in attendance upon the minister, as they lounged about the deck with their cigars, under the soft tropical night. What these notions were does not precisely ap- pear. There is no trace of them in his letters. Another change is at this time also to be noted in him. According to Mrs. Oliphant, it would seem that during LAURENCE OLIPHANT. 99 the interval between this and his former secretaryship he had completely burst the strait bonds of his mothers evangel. ical views, then holding him lightly, and come to something like a tenable foun- dation for his personal beliefwhich dif- fered much from that in which he had been trained, yet which he was very anx- ious to prove to be a most real rule of life Of his adventures while accompanying this mission, so brilliant and important, he has himself written in one of his most readable and entertaining books. His let- ters, especially those to Lady Oliphant, while bright and picturesque as usual, are much fuller of religious views and feel- ings. All manner of theological topics are discussed in them. He describes his doubts and difficulties, and the conclusions he has come to, and gives expression to his indignant disapproval of the different types of Christianity with which he was acquainted. His chief guide in theology appears to have been Theodore Parker, and in philosophy, Morell. Singularly enough, too, he finds a pleasure in Long- fellow which Tennyson does not convey. His preference for Parker and Longfellow, and the time at which the change took place, would seem to show that his early association with America had much to do with his severance from the theological opinion in which he had been trained. Anyhow, from the beginning of the China mission onward, his first and last thought appears to have been religion, and the let- ters written after his departure for the East show that his mind was seething with dissatisfaction and eager desire after a better way. The philosophy in which he indulges in these letters is somewhat curi- ously unphilosophical, and one begins to see that, after all, a course of study on the old-fashioned lines might have proved more advantageous than education by contact. At the same time, while pour- ing out his religious reflections and con- fessions, he does not fail to sprinkle here and there in his letters, accounts of the other side of his life. From these it is clear that he was still the same versatile, delightful, gay, adventurous young man, who was ready for everything the ball- room and the council-chamber and the smoking-room, that whenever anything exciting was on the way he was always in the front, and that, notwithstanding his desire to be credited with prudence and caution, Lady Oliphants alarms were not without cause, nor her gentle reproofs unneeded. In reply to a letter in which he is blamed for exposing himself Lv2nec- essarily ~t Canton,~ he allows that he was wrong, and then amusingly defends him- self by saying: But it inVolves a greater act of self-denial than any I know to re- frain from going to see anything approach- ing to a fight, and though in principle I utterly disapprove of war, when it comes to, Away there, second cutters!~ human nature cant resist jumping in, whatever good resolutions one may have formed to the contrary. The China mission ended, he accompa- nied Lord Elgin to Japan and then re- turned home, to find his mother a widow. In reference to his fathers death, Mrs. Oliphant tells a curious story, which is not without parallels. It was, I think, she says, at one of the ports of Ceylon aplace so associated with himthat Laurence received the news. Sir An thonys death was entirely unexpected, and occurred, I believe, at a dinner-party to which he had gone in his usual health. I have been told that, being at sea at the time, Laurence came on deck one morning and informed his comrades that he had seen his father in the night, and that he was deadthat they endeavored to laugh him out of the impression, but in vain. The date was taken down, and on their arrival in England it was found that Sir Anthony Oliphant had indeed died on that night.~ Sir Anthonys death made the union between mother and son more close and all-absorbing than ever, but it did not quiet the restlessness of the latter nor keep him in England. The spirit of adventure, however, was not altogether to blame for this. He hoped to establish himself in the diplomatic service near home, but no appointment coming, and impatient of waiting, in i86o, when the Italian revolution broke out, he took part in it, in the hope, it ~vould seem, of be- coming an important agent in the move- ment, and always in pursuit of something to write about. At last, whefi an appoint- ment did come, and he went out to Japan as first secretary of legation, some un- lucky and serious wounds, which he re- ceived when the Legation at Yeddo was attacked, compelled him to abandon his post after he had been at it but ten days, and to return to England. On his recov- ery, he resumed his wanderings. At Vi- enna, in 1862, he met the Prince of Wales and his suite on their way to the Holy Land, and was invited to accompany them as far as Corfu. From Greece he passed to Herzegovina, and thence to Italy. In 1863 he saw something of the Polish in- Too LAURENCE OLIPHANT. surrection, and was subsequently present at the battle which settled the fate of Schleswig-Holstein. In 1864 he returned home more or less for good, apparently with the intention of entering Parliament. He coquetted with several constituencies, and at the election in 1865 was returned by the Stirling Burghs, which he had al- ready unsuccessfully contested during his fathers lifetime. This for a time brought his wanderings to an end. He settled in London, and along with Sir Algernon Borthwick and others started the Owl. It was during the same period also that Piccadilly appeared in Blackwood. In Parliament Oliphant was a failure. His only achievement was to assist in forming the Tea-Room Cave, the object of which was to pass the Reform Bill introduced by Mr. Disraeli at all hazards. Meantime he was preparing for that de- cisive step which completely altered his career and made him so great a mystery to his friends. In 1867 he became a dis. ciple or dupe of Harris, an American im- postor, and went over to Brocton, where he surrendered himself and his property into the hands of the Father, in order to learn how to live the life. But here we must let his biographer speak The next communication I had from Lau- rence [says Mrs. Oliphant], was dated from Liverpool. He was just about to sail for America, having given up everything that had previously tempted him his position, his prospects, politics, literature, society, every personal possession and hope. A universal cry of consternation followed this disappear. ance, expressed half in regret for the deluded one (who was so little like an ordinary victim of delusion), and half in scorn of his prophet, the wretched fanatic, the vulgar mystic, who had got hold of him by what wonderful wiles or for what evil purposes who could say? A man who thus abandons the world for reli- gious motives is almost sure, amid the wide censure that is inevitable, to encounter also a great deal of contempt; yet had he become a monk, either Roman or Anglican, a faint conception of his desire to save his soul might have penetrated the universal mind; but he did not do anything so comprehensible. He went into no convent, no place of holy tradi- tions, but far away into the wild to live the life, as he himself said, to work with his hands for his daily bread, giving up every- .thing he possessed; in no tragic mood, from iio shock of failure or disappointment, but with the cheerfulness and light-heartedness that were characteristic of him, and that sense of the humorous which in living or dying never forsook him. He knew what every- body would say, the jibes, the witty re- marks, the keen shafts of censure, the mock- ing with which his exit from the world would be received by those whom he left behind. He saw, indeed, so to speak, the fun of it in other eyes, even when he felt in his own soul the extreme seriousness of the step he was taking. He disappeared, as if he had gone down forever in the great sea which he had traversed to reach his new home and new life. The billows closed over him as completely; and for three years he was as if he had never been. A more extraordinary step it is difficult to conceive. The change in his mode of life was complete. He was set to clean out a large cattle shed or stable, and for days and weeks was kept wheeling bar- rows of dirt and rubbish from morning to night in perfect loneliness. Often after his days ~vork was finished, and he went to his rude lodging at nine oclock dead beat, he was sent out to draw water for household purposes for a couple of hours, or he was kept up all night casting out or holding against the infernals, with which some member of the Brocton com- munity was supposed to be infested. Later on the brilliant conversationalist and accomplished diplomatist, who had been summoned to Windsor and consulted by statesmen on grave questions of foreign policy, was driving a team, cadging straw- berries, or doing business in Wall Street in the interest of his spiritual adviser and Father. After three years of this, he was permitted to return to Europe. He came back with his head high and his eyes full of keen wit and spirit as of old, telling the tale of his incompetence as a farm-laborer, and taking no pains to hide his satisfaction at having finished his pro- bation and obtained release. At the time the Franco-German war was going on, and though liable at any moment to be sum- moned to America at the caprice of the Father, he went over to France as the representative of the Times. In 1872 he married Miss Alice le Strange, who had already become imbued with his own faith and surrendered the whole of her property unreservedly into the hands of Harris. Shortly afterwards they set out to join the community at Brocton. There the mar- riage had been at first strenuously op- posed, and then reluctantly assented to. From the moment of their arrival the treatment they received at the hands of the community, or rather from Harris, was extremely harsh. The object of it was to destroy their mutual affection, and, if pos- sible, nullify the marriage. At least the idea was propounded that it was not a true marriage of counterparts, and therefore could have no reality or sacred- LAURENCE OLIPHANT. 101 ness. The two were separated and sent to distant parts. Their faith in Harris, however, though shaken, continued. After a while the Father deemed it politic to treat them with more consideration, and the two returned to Europe. In i88i Oliphant returned to Brocton to satisfy himself as to the health of Lady Oliphant, who also had joined the community, and, in order to learn how to live the life, had been chiefly occupied in washing pocket.handkerchiefs. He found her in broken health, and troubled in heart and faith. The pooi~ lady did not live long, but the revelations she made to her son respecting the Father were such that his eyes were at last opened to the extent to which he had been deceived. The discov- ery affected him almost more powerfully than Lady Oliphants death, the approach of which neither he nor she could then be- lieve to be possible. He passed through a period of suffering and mental conflict which had no parallel in his previous life, but in the end both he and his wife were emancipated from the long and strange tyranny to which they had voluntarily sub. mitted in the hope of learning to live the life. Neither of them, however, cared to return to their old ways. After a short stay in London, they went to Constantino. ple, where Altiora Peto was written, and took part in the movement then going on for the settlement of the persecuted Jews of Wallachia and Galicia in Pales. tine. Towards the end of 1882, they set. tIed at Haifa, a small, bright Syrian town lying on the western edge of the Bay of Acre, which has since become sO closely associated with their name. Here, on January 2nd, i886, five years after the death of his mother, death deprived him of his wife. He, too, says Mrs. Oh- phant, was stricken with the fever which had killed her, but not enough to give him the happy fate of going with her to the eternal shores. The terrible blank which we have all to bear fell upon Laurence for a few brief but awful days. He lost her from his side, her helping-hand from his, her inspiring voice. But only for a few days. One night, when he lay sick and sorrowful upon his bed in the desolate house at Haifa, a sudden rush of renewed health and vigor and joy came upon the mourner. The moment of complete union had come at last; his Alice had returned to him, into his very bosom, into his heart and soul, bringing with her all the fulness of a new life, and chasing a~vay the clouds of sorrow like the morning vapors before the rising sun. Two years later, he mar- ned Miss Rosamond Dale Owen, and died a few weeks later. The character of Laurence Oliphant is exceedingly difficult to account 1~or. As exhibited in his letters, more especially in those which he addressed to Lady Oh- phant and his intimate friends, it is laid open without reserve. The same remark is true of the passages in his writings in which he speaks of himself. That he posed, or was vain, or ever consciously attempted to represent himself otherwise than he was, or felt that he was at the time of writing, are suggestions that may be set aside as without foundation. His openness and sincerity may be regarded as perfectly unquestionable. Opener or sincerer souls are rare. The difficulty is not to describe his character, but to ac- count for it. Its different elements are obvious, but how they came to co-exist in the same mind is the puzzle. He was sharp, shrewd, clever, a keen observer of others, quick to discern their faults, foi- bles, and even pretences, and a remarkably capable man of business, and yet in some respects he was extremely credulous. In fact, he had two natures, neither of which was penetrated or controlled by the other.. To all appearance they were completely separate, as completely separate, that is, as it is possible for any two sides of one and the same being to be a separation, it strikes us, ~vhich the methods of the evangelicahism in which he was brought up have always a tendency to produce. The versatility and strength of his intel- lectual, or what we might call his superfi- cial or ordinary self are obvious. Had he brought the same shrewdness and penetration to bear upon the matters of his deeper and religious life that he ex- hibited in Wall Street or in most of his business transactions elsewhere, things would have gone very differently with him; but this was precisely what he failed to do. In matters of religion he trusted, at least during the latter part of his life, when he had broken away from the faith in which he had been trained, wholly to his intuitions. They were unquestionably very high, and of the noblest and most unselfish kind; but he forgot that before they can be acted upon, even the best of intuitions require to be subjected to the most careful scrutiny and revision. Hence his unfortunate relations with Harris and the Brocton community. There can be no doubt that he was perfectly sincere, and that he was thoroughly convinced that he was only doing what was right; but the use of a little of that worldly wisdom oi A REMEMBRANCE. 102 which he made so conspicuous a use in many other matters of less concern, would, in all probability, have made him pause before placing himself, and still more be- fore inducing Lady Oliphant and his wife to place themselves so completely in the hands of a man so utterly irresponsible and with so few credentials to trustworthi- ness as Harris. When he did begin to use it, and saw his mothers ring upon the hand of one of the Fathers household, his eyes were opened, and he at once broke with him. Some of his idiosyncra- cies, both of conduct and character, may be attributed also, at least in some meas- ure, to his highly wrought sensitiveness, to the want of a more rigid discipline in his youth, and to his habit of self-exami- nation. His subjection to his sympathies, or to speak in the language of the sect, his sensitiveness to magnetic influence which, after all, is only the influence of one mind over another more sympathetic and impressionable than itself was al- most uncontrolled. The impulse of the moment was everything with him. Aris- .ng out of a nature singularly pure and unselfish, they as a rule kept him right; but however pure and unselfish ones mo- tives may be, they are not sufficient for the conduct of life. Common prudence is requisite, and the neglect to use the faculty of looking behind and before, or to act without due consideration of the issues involved, or the warnings which reflection holds out, even though they wear something of the aspect of selfish- ness, is sooner or later avenged either in extravagance of conduct or in something worse. Good motives are excellent, but before they can be implicitly trusted or raised to the highest efficiency as guides to conduct, they require to be mixed with common sense and the purest light of re- flection and judgment. Unfortunately of that rigid and often extremely unpleasant discipline by which a man learns to con- trol his sympathies, to look behind and before and to act only after considering his motives from a practical as well as a mdral point of view, Oliphant had little. His habit of introspection led him at last to distrust his moral judgment entirely, and to feel the need, as he put it, of some one to bully him. H is subjection to Harris, however, was not without its value. It was his training and discipline and to some extent it remedied the defects of his early training; but not wholly. That, we imagine, was impossible. His nature was noble, unselfish, aspiring, but out of joint. With all his shrewdness, versatility, and earnestness, he was viewy, impulsive, and impatient, discontented with old and es- tablished methods, and anxious to force the hand of Providence and make things move quicker than they will. We are hemmed in bn every side by la~vs, and he who sets them at naught or attempts to over-reach them has a serious penalty to pay. It was Oliphants fault that he did not always reckon with them. That his life was a failure we should not like to say, and indeed, are far from saying. But it may be said of him with a larger truth than of most, that his life was not what it might have been. From The New Review. A REMEMBRANCE. IT was in the vastness of Westminister Hall that I saw her for the first time saw her pointed face, her red hair, her brilliant teeth. The next time was in her own home a farmhouse that had been rebuilt and was half a villa. At the back were wheat stacks, a noisy thrashing ma- chine, a pigeon cot, and stables, whence, with jangle of harness and cries of yokels the great farm horses always seemed to be coming from or going to their work on the downs. In a garden planted with variegated firs she tended her flowers all day; and in the parlor where we assem- bled in the evening, her husband smoked his pipe in silence; theyoungladies, their blonde hair hanging down their backs, played waltzes; she alone talked, her con- versation was effusive, her laughter abun- dant and bright. I had only just turned eighteen, and was deeply interested in religious problems, and one day I told her that the book I carried in my pocket, and sometimes pretended to study, was Kants Critique of Pure Reason. My explanation of the value of the work did not seem to strike her, and her manifest want of interest in the discussion of reli- gious problems surprised me, for she passed for a religious woman and I failed to understand how mere belief could sat- isfy any one. One day, in the greenhouse, whither I had wandered, she interrupted some allusion to the chapter entitled The Deduction of the Categories with a burst of laughter, and declared that she would call me Kant. The nickname was not adopted by the rest of the family another was invented which appealed more to their imaginationbut she held to the name sne naa given me, and durng A REMEMBRANCE. 103 the course of our long friendship never addressed me by any other. There was no reason why I should have become the friend of these people. We were opposed in character and tempera- ment, but somehow we seemed to suit. There was little reflection on either side; certainly there was none on mine; at that time I was incapable of any; my youth was a vague dream, and my friends ~vere the shadows in the dream. I saw and un- derstood them only as one sees and under- stands the summer clouds when, lying at length in the tall grass, the white witches curl over the edge of the distant horizon. In such mood, visit succeeded visit, and before I was aware, the old squire who walked about the downs in a tall hat died, and my friends moved into the family place, distant about a hundred yards an Italian house, sheltered among the elms that grew along the seashore. And in their new house they became to me more real than shadows; they were then like figures on a stage, and the building of the new wing and the planting of the new garden interested me as might an incident in a play; and I left them as I might leave a play, taking up another thread in life, thinking very little of them, if I thought at all. Years passed, and after a long ab- sence abroad I met them by chance in London. Again visit succeeded visit. My friends were the same as when I had left them; their house was the same, the conduct of their lives was the same. I do not think I was conscious of any change, until, one day, walking with one of the girls in the garden, a sensation of home came upon me. I seemed always to have known these people; they seemed part and parcel of my life. It was a sudden and enchanting awaking of love; life seemed to lengthen out like the fields at dawn and to become distinct and real in many new and unim- agined ways. Above all, I was surprised to find myself admiring her who, fifteen years ago, had appeared to me not a little dowdy. She was now fifty-five, but such an age seemed impossible for so girl-like a figure and such young and effusive laugh- ter. I was, however, sure that she was fifteen years older than when I first saw her, but those fifteen years had brought each within range of the others under- standing and sympathy. We became com- panions. I noticed what dresses she wore and told her which I liked her best in. She was only cross with me when I sur- prised her in the potting shed, wearing an old bonnet, out of which hung a faded poppy. She used to cry, Dont look at me, Kant. I know Im like an old gipsy woman. You look charmino- I said, in that old bonnet. - She put down the watering can and laughingly took it from her head. It is a regular show! Not at all. You look charming when working in the greenhouse. I like you better like that than when you are dressed to go to Brighton. Do you? I thought you liked me best in my new black silk. I think I like you equally well at all times.~~ We looked at each other. There was an accent of love in our friendship. And strange, is it not? I said, I did not ad- mire you half as much when I knew you first. How was that? I was quite a young woman then. Yes, I said, regretting my own words; but dont you see, at that time I was a mere boy I lived in a dream, hardly see- ing what passed around me. Yes, of course, she said gaily, you were so young then, all you saw in me was a woman with a grownup son. Her dress was pinned up, she held in her hand the bonnet which she said made her look like an old gipsy woman, and the sunlight fell on the red hair, now grown a little thinner, but each of the immaculate teeth was an elegant piece of statuary, and not a wrinkle was there on that pretty, vixen-like face. Her figure especially showed no signs of age, and, if she and her daughters were in the room it was she that I admired. One day, while seeking through the store-room for a sheet of brown paper to pack up a book in, I came across a pile of old Alkenceums. Had I happened upon a set of drawings by Raphael I could not have been more astonished. Not one, but twenty copies of the Aiheneurn in a house where never a book was read. I looked at the dates three-and-thirty years ago. At that moment she was gathering some withering apples from the floor. XVhoever, I cried, could have left