CROMWELL. By THOMAS CARLYLE.
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CROMWELL'S BIRTHPLACE.
HUNTINGDON itself lies pleasantly along the left
bank of the Ouse, sloping pleasantly upwards from
Ouse Bridge, which connects it with the old village of Godmanchester;
the Town itself consisting mainly of one fair
street, which towards the north end of it opens into a kind
of irregular market-place, and then contracting again soon
terminates. The two churches of All-Saints' and St. John's,
as you walk up northward from the Bridge, appear successively
on your left; the church-yards flanked with shops or
other houses. The Ouse, which is of very circular course
in this quarter, winding as if reluctant to enter the Fen-country, —
says one topographer, has still a respectable
drab-color gathered from the clays of Bedfordshire, has
not yet the Stygian black which in a few miles further it
assumes for good. Huntingdon, as it were, looks over into
the Fens; Godmanchester, just across the river, already
stands on black bog. The country to the East is all Fen
(mostly unreclaimed in Oliver's time, and still of a very
dropsical character); to the West it is hard green ground,
agreeably broken into little heights, duly fringed with wood,
and bearing marks of comfortable long-continued cultivation.
Here, on the edge of the firm green land, and looking over
into the black marshes with their alder-trees and willow-trees,
did Oliver Cromwell pass his young years.
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COINCIDENCES.
While Oliver Cromwell was entering himself of Sidney-Sussex
College, William Shakespeare was taking his farewell
of this world. Oliver's Father had, most likely, come
with him; it is but some fifteen miles from Huntingdon;
you can go and come in a day. Oliver's Father saw Oliver
write in the Album at Cambridge: at Stratford, Shakespeare's
Ann Hathaway was weeping over his bed. The
first world-great thing that remains of English History, the
Literature of Shakespeare, was ending; the second world-great
thing that remains of English History, the armed
Appeal of Puritanism to the Invisible God of Heaven
against many very visible Devils, on Earth and Elsewhere,
was, so to speak, beginning. They have their exits and their
entrances. And one People, in its time, plays many parts.
Chevalier Florian, in his “Life of Cervantes,” has remarked
that Shakespeare's death-day, 23d April, 1616,
was likewise that of Cervantes at Madrid. “Twenty-third
of April” is, sure enough, the authentic Spanish date: but
Chevalier Florian has omitted to notice that the English
twenty-third is of Old Style. The brave Miguel died ten
days before Shakespeare; and already lay buried, smoothed
right nobly into his long rest. The Historical Student can
meditate on these things.
HIS CONVERSION.
In those years it must be that Dr. Simcott, Physician in
Huntingdon, had to do with Oliver's hypochondriac maladies.
He told Sir Philip Warwick, unluckily specifying no
date, or none that has survived, “he had often been sent for
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at midnight:” Mr. Cromwell for many years was very
“splenetic” (spleen-struck), often thought he was just about
to die, and also “had fancies about the Town Cross.”
Brief intimation, of which the reflecting reader may make a
great deal. Samuel Johnson, too, had hypochondrias; all
great souls are apt to have, — and to be in thick darkness
generally, till the eternal ways and the celestial guidingstars
disclose themselves, and the vague Abyss of Life knit
itself up into Firmaments for them. Temptations in the
wilderness, Choices of Hercules, and the like, in succinct or
loose form, are appointed for every man that will assert a
soul in himself and be a man. Let Oliver take comfort in
his dark sorrows and melancholies. The quantity of sorrow
he has, does it not mean withal the quantity of sympathy
he has, the quantity of faculty and victory he shall
yet have? Our sorrow is the inverted image of our nobleness.
The depth of our despair measures what capability
and height of claim we have to hope. Black smoke as of
Tophet filling all your universe, it can yet by true heartenergy
become flame, and brilliancy of Heaven. Courage!
It is therefore in these years, undated by History, that we
must place Oliver's clear recognition of Calvinistic Christianity;
what he, with unspeakable joy, would name his Conversion, —
his deliverance from the jaws of Eternal Death.
Certainly a grand epoch for a man: properly the one
epoch; the turning-point which guides upwards, or guides
downwards, him and his activity for evermore. Wilt thou
join with the dragons; wilt thou join with the Gods? Of
thee, too, the question is asked; — whether by a man in
Geneva gown, by a man in “Four surplices at Allhallowtide,”
with words very imperfect; or by no man and no
words, but only by the Silences, by the Eternities, by the
Life everlasting and the Death everlasting. That the
“Sense of difference between Right and Wrong” had filled
all Time and all Space for man, and bodied itself forth into
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a Heaven and Hell for him; this constitutes the grand feature
of those Puritan, Old-Christian Ages; — this is the
element which stamps them as Heroic, and has rendered
their works great, manlike, fruitful to all generations. It is
by far the memorablest achievement of our Species; without
that element in some form or other, nothing of Heroic
had ever been among us.
For many centuries Catholic Christianity — a fit embodiment
of that divine Sense — had been current more or less,
making the generations noble: and here in England, in the
Century called the Seventeenth, we see the last aspect of it
hitherto, — not the last of all, it is to be hoped. Oliver
was henceforth a Christian man; believed in God, not on
Sundays only, but on all days, in all places, and in all cases.
CHARLES AND THE PARLIAMENT.
Sir Oliver Cromwell has faded from the Parliamentary
scene into the deep Fen-country, but Oliver Cromwell,
Esq. appears there as Member for Huntingdon, at Westminster
“on Monday, the 17th of March,” 1627-8. This
was the Third Parliament of Charles; by much the most
notable of all Parliaments till Charles's Long Parliament
met, which proved his last.
Having sharply, with swift impetuosity and indignation,
dismissed two Parliaments because they would not “supply”
him without taking “grievances” along with them; and,
meanwhile and afterwards, having failed in every operation
foreign and domestic, at Cadiz, at Rhé, at Rochelle; and
having failed, too, in getting supplies by unparliamentary
methods, Charles “consulted with Sir Robert Cotton what
was to be done;” who answered, Summon a Parliament
again. So this celebrated Parliament was summoned. It
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met, as we said, in March, 1628, and continued with one
prorogation till March, 1629. The two former Parliaments
had sat but a few weeks each, till they were indignantly
hurled asunder again; this one continued nearly a year.
Wentworth (Strafford) was of this Parliament; Hampden,
too, Selden, Pym, Holles, and others known to us; all these
had been of former Parliaments as well; Oliver Cromwell,
Member for Huntingdon, sat there for the first time.
It is very evident, King Charles, baffled in all his enterprises,
and reduced really to a kind of crisis, wished much
this Parliament should succeed; and took what he must have
thought incredible pains for that end. The poor King
strives visibly throughout to control himself, to be soft and
patient; inwardly writhing and rustling with royal rage.
Unfortunate King, we see him chafing, stamping, — a very
fiery steed, but bridled, check-bitted, by innumerable straps
and considerations; struggling much to be composed.
Alas! it would not do. This Parliament was more Puritanic,
more intent on rigorous Law and divine Gospel,
than any other had ever been. As indeed all these Parliaments
grow strangely in Puritianism; more and ever more
earnest rises from the hearts of them all, “O Sacred Majesty,
lead us not to Antichrist, to Illegality, to temporal and
eternal Perdition!” The Nobility and Gentry of England
were then a very strange body of men. The English
Squire of the Seventeenth Century clearly appears to have
believed in God, not as a figure of speech, but as a very
fact, very awful to the heart of the English Squire. “He
wore his Bible doctrine round him,” says one, “as our
Squire wears his shotbelt; went abroad with it, nothing
doubting.” King Charles was going on his father's course,
only with frightful acceleration: he and his respectable
Traditions and Notions, clothed in old sheepskin and
respectable Church-tippets, were all pulling one way;
England and the Eternal Laws pulling another; the rent
fast widening till no man could heal it.
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This was the celebrated Parliament which framed the Petition
of Right, and set London all astir with “bells and bonfires”
at the passing thereof; and did other feats not to be
particularized here. Across the murkiest element in which
any great Entity was ever shown to human creatures, it still
rises, after much consideration, to the modern man, in a dim
but undeniable manner, as a most brave and noble Parliament.
The like of which were worth its weight in diamonds
even now; but has grown very unattainable now,
next door to incredible now. We have to say that this Parliament
chastised sycophant Priests, Mainwaring, Sibthorp,
and other Arminian sycophants, a disgrace to God's
Church; that it had an eye to other still more elevated
Church-sycophants, as the mainspring of all; but was cautious
to give offence by naming them. That it carefully
“abstained from naming the Duke of Buckingham.” That
it decided on giving ample subsidies, but not till there were
reasonable discussion of grievances. That in manner it was
most gentle, soft-spoken, cautious, reverential; and in substance
most resolute and valiant. Truly with valiant, patient
energy, in a slow, steadfast English manner, it carried,
across infinite confused opposition and discouragement,
its Petition of Right, and what else it had to carry. Four
hundred brave men, — brave men and true, after their sort!
One laments to find such a Parliament smothered under
Dryasdust's shot-rubbish. The memory of it, could any
real memory of it rise upon honorable gentlemen and us,
might be admonitory, — would be astonishing at least.
A GENTLEMAN FARMER.
In or soon after 1631, as we laboriously infer from the
imbroglio records of poor Noble, Oliver decided on an
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enlarged sphere of action as a Farmer; sold his properties
in Huntingdon, all or some of them; rented certain grazinglands
at St. Ives, five miles down the River, eastward of his
native place, and removed thither. The Deed of Sale is
dated 7th May, 1631; the properties are specified as in the
possession of himself or his Mother; the sum they yielded
was £1800. With this sum Oliver stocked his Grazing-Farm
at St. Ives. The Mother, we infer, continued to
reside at Huntingdon, but withdrawn now from active occupation,
in the retirement befitting a widow up in years.
There is even some gleam of evidence to that effect: her
properties are sold; but Oliver's children born to him at St.
Ives are still christened at Huntingdon, in the Church he
was used to; which may mean also that their good Grandmother
was still there.
Properly this was no change in Oliver's old activities; it
was an enlargement of the sphere of them. His Mother
still at Huntingdon, within few miles of him, he could still
superintend and protect her existence there, while managing
his new operations at St. Ives. He continued here till the
summer or spring of 1636. A studious imagination may
sufficiently construct the figure of his equable life in those
years. Diligent grass-farming; mowing, milking, cattlemarketing:
add “hypocondria,” fits of the blackness of
darkness, with glances of the brightness of very Heaven;
prayer, religious reading and meditation; household epochs,
joys, and cares: — we have a solid, substantial, inoffensive
Farmer of St. Ives, hoping to walk with integrity and humble
devout diligence through this world; and, by his Maker's
infinite mercy, to escape destruction, and find eternal
salvation in wider Divine Worlds. This latter, this is the
grand clause in his Life, which dwarfs all other clauses.
Much wider destinies than he anticipated were appointed
him on Earth; but that, in comparison to the alternative of
Heaven or Hell to all Eternity, was a mighty small matter.
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VESTIGES.
Oliver, as we observed, has left hardly any memorial of
himself at St. Ives. The ground he farmed is still partly
capable of being specified, certain records or leases being
still in existence. It lies at the lower or South-east end of
the Town; a stagnant flat tract of land, extending between
the houses or rather kitchen-gardens of St. Ives in that
quarter, and the banks of the River, which, very tortuous
always, has made a new bend here. If well drained, this
land looks as if it would produce abundant grass, but naturally
it must be little other than a bog. Tall bushy ranges
of willow-trees and the like, at present, divide it into fields;
the River, not visible till you are close on it, bounding
them all to the South. At the top of the fields next to the
Town is an ancient massive Barn, still used as such; the
people call it “Cromwell's Barn;” — and nobody can prove
that it was not his! It was evidently some ancient man's
or series of ancient men's.
Quitting St. Ives Fen-ward or Eastward, the last house
of all, which stands on your right hand among gardens,
seemingly the best house in the place, and called Slepe
Hall, is confidently pointed out as “Oliver's House.” It is
indisputably Slepe-Hall House, and Oliver's Farm was
rented from the estate of Slepe Hall. It is at present used
for a Boarding-school: the worthy inhabitants believe it to
be Oliver's; and even point out his “Chapel” or secret Puritan
Sermon-room in the lower story of the house: no Sermon-room,
as you may well discern, but to appearance some
sort of scullery or wash-house or bake-house. “It was here
he used to preach,” say they. Courtesy forbids you to
answer, “Never!” But in fact there is no likelihood that
this was Oliver's House at all: in its present state it does
not seem to be a century old; and originally, as is like, it
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must have served as residence to the Proprietors of Slepe-Hall
estate, not to the Farmer of a part thereof. Tradition
makes a sad blur of Oliver's memory in his native country!
We know, and shall know, only this, for certain here, that
Oliver farmed part or whole of these Slepe-Hall Lands,
over which the human feet can still walk with assurance;
past which the River Ouse still slumberously rolls towards
Earith Bulwark and the Fen-country. Here of a certainty
Oliver did walk and look about him habitually during those
five years from 1631 to 1636; a man studious of many
temporal and many eternal things. His cattle grazed here,
his ploughs tilled here, the heavenly skies and infernal
abysses overarched and underarched him here.....
How he lived at St. Ives: how he saluted men on the
streets; read Bibles; sold cattle; and walked, with heavy
footfall and many thoughts, through the Market Green or
old narrow lanes in St. Ives, by the shore of the black
Ouse River, — shall be left to the reader's imagination.
There is in this man talent for farming; there are thoughts
enough, thoughts bounded by the Ouse River, thoughts that
go beyond Eternity, — and a great black sea of things that
he has never yet been able to think.
SHIPMONEY.
On the very day while Oliver Cromwell was writing this
Letter at St. Ives, two obscure individuals, “Peter Aldridge
and Thomas Lane, Assessors of Shipmoney,” over in Buckinghamshire,
had assembled a Parish Meeting in the Church
of Great Kimble, to assess, and rate the Shipmoney of the
said Parish: there, in the cold weather, at the foot of the
Chiltern Hills, “11 January, 1635,” the Parish did attend,
“John Hampden, Esquire,” at the head of them, and by a
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Return still extant, refused to pay the same or any portion
thereof, — witness the above “Assessors,” witness also two
“Parish Constables” whom we remit from such unexpected
celebrity. John Hampden's share for this Parish is thirty-one
shillings and sixpence: for another Parish it is twenty
shillings; on which latter sum, not on the former, John
Hampden was tried.
THE SHIPMONEY TRIAL.
In the end of that same year [1637] there had risen all
over England huge rumors concerning the Shipmoney Trial
at London. On the 6th of November, 1637, this important
Process of Mr. Hampden's began. Learned Mr. St. John,
a dark tough man, of the toughness of leather, spake with
irrefragable law-eloquence, law-logic, for three days running,
on Mr. Hampden's side; and learned Mr. Holborn
for three other days; — preserved yet by Rushworth in
acres of typography, unreadable now to all mortals. For
other learned gentlemen, tough as leather, spoke on the
opposite side; and learned judges animadverted, at endless
length, amid the expectancy of men. With brief pauses,
the Trial lasted for three weeks and three days. Mr.
Hampden became the most famous man in England, — by
accident partly. The sentence was not delivered till April,
1638; and then it went against Mr. Hampden: judgment
in Exchequer ran to this effect, “Consideratum est per eosdem
Barones quod prædictus Johannes Hampden de iisdem
viginti solidis oneretur,” — He must pay the Twenty shillings, —
“et inde satisfaciat.” No hope in Law-Courts,
then; Petition of Right and Tallagio non concedendo
have become an old song.
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BATTLE OF NASEBY.
The old Hamlet of Naseby stands yet, on its old hill-top,
very much as it did in Saxon days, on the Northwestern
border of Northamptonshire, some seven or eight miles
from Market-Harborough in Leicestershire, nearly on a
line, and nearly midway, between that Town and Daventry.
A peaceable old Hamlet, of some eight hundred souls; clay
cottages for laborers, but neatly thatched and swept;
smith's shop, saddler's shop, beer shop, all in order; forming
a kind of square, which leads off Southwards into two
long streets: the old Church, with its graves, stands in the
centre, the truncated spire finishing itself with a strange old
Ball, held up by rods; a “hollow copper Ball, which came
from Boulogne in Henry the Eighth's time,” — which has,
like Hudibras's breeches, “been at the Siege of Bullen.”
The ground is upland, moorland, though now growing corn;
was not enclosed till the last generation, and is still somewhat
bare of wood. It stands nearly in the heart of England:
gentle Dulness, taking a turn at etymology, sometimes
derives it from Navel; “Navesby, quasi Navelsby,
from being,” &c.: Avon Well, the distinct source of
Shakespeare's Avon, is on the Western slope of the high
grounds; Nen and Welland, streams leading towards Cromwell's
Fen-country, begin to gather themselves from boggy
places on the Eastern side. The grounds, as we say, lie
high; and are still, in their new subdivisions, known by
the name of “Hills,” “Rutput Hill,” “Mill Hill,” “Dust
Hill,” and the like, precisely as in Rushworth's time: but
they are not properly hills at all; they are broad blunt
clayey masses, swelling towards and from each other, like
indolent waves of a sea, sometimes of miles in extent.
It was on this high moor-ground, in the centre of England,
that King Charles, on the 14th of June, 1645, fought
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his last Battle; dashed fiercely against the New-Model
Army, which he had despised till then; and saw himself
shivered utterly to ruin thereby. “Prince Rupert, on the
King's right wing, charged up the hill, and carried all before
him;” but Lieutenant-General Cromwell charged down
hill on the other wing, likewise carrying all before him, —
and did not gallop off the field to plunder. He, Cromwell,
ordered thither by the Parliament, had arrived from the
Association two days before, “amid shouts from the whole
Army:” he had the ordering of the Horse this morning.
Prince Rupert, on returning from his plunder, finds the
King's Infantry a ruin; prepares to charge again with the
rallied Cavalry; but the Cavalry, too, when it came to the
point, “broke all asunder,” never to reassemble more. The
chase went through Harborough, where the King had already
been that morning, when in an evil hour he turned
back, to revenge some “surprise of an outpost at Naseby
the night before,” and give the Roundheads battle.
Ample details of this Battle, and of the movements prior
and posterior to it, are to be found in Sprigge, or copied
with some abridgment into Rushworth; who has also copied
a strange old Plan of the Battle; half-plan, half-picture,
which the Sale-Catalogues are very chary of, in the case of
Sprigge. By assiduous attention, aided by this Plan, as the
old names yet stick to their localities, the narrative can still
be, and has lately been, pretty accurately verified, and the
Figure of the old Battle dimly brought back again. The
reader shall imagine it, for the present. On the crown of
Naseby Height stands a modern Battle-monument; but, by
an unlucky oversight, it is above a mile to the east of where
the Battle really was. There are, likewise, two modern
Books about Naseby and its Battle, both of them without
value.
The Parliamentary Army stood ranged on the height
still partly called “Mill Hill,” as, in Rushworth's time, a
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mile and half from Naseby; the King's Army, on a parallel
“Hill,” its back to Harborough, with the wide table of upland
now named Broad Moor between them, where indeed
the main brunt of the action still clearly enough shows itself
to have been. There are hollow spots, of a rank vegetation,
scattered over that Broad Moor, which are understood
to have once been burial mounds, some of which, one to my
knowledge, have been, with more or less of sacrilege, verified
as such. A friend of mine has in his cabinet two ancient
grinder-teeth, dug lately from that ground, and waits
for an opportunity to rebury them there. — Sound, effectual
grinders, one of them very large; which ate their breakfast
on the fourteenth morning of June, two hundred years ago,
and, except to be clinched once in grim battle, had never
work to do more in this world! “A stack of dead bodies,
perhaps about a hundred, had been buried in this Trench,
piled, as in a wall, a man's length thick; the skeletons lay
in courses, the heads of one course to the heels of the next;
one figure, by the strange position of the bones, gave us the
hideous notion of its having been thrown in before death.
We did not proceed far; — perhaps some half-dozen skeletons.
The bones were treated with all piety, watched rigorously
over Sunday, till they could be covered in again.”
Sweet friends, for Jesus' sake forbear!
At this Battle, Mr. John Rushworth, our Historical Rushworth,
had, unexpectedly, for some instants, sight of a very
famous person. Mr. John is Secretary to Fairfax, and they
have placed him to-day among the Baggage-wagons, near
Naseby Hamlet, above a mile from the fighting, where he
waits in an anxious manner. It is known how Prince Rupert
broke our left wing while Cromwell was breaking their
left. “A gentleman of public employment, in the late service
near Naseby,” writes next day, “Harborough, 15th
June, 2 in the morning,” a rough graphic Letter in the
Newspapers, wherein is this sentence: —
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* * * “A party of theirs that broke through the left
wing of horse, came quite behind the rear to our Train, the
Leader of them being a person somewhat in habit like the
General, in a red montero, as the General had. He came
as a friend; our commander of the guard of the Train went
with his hat in his hand, and asked him, How the day
went? thinking it had been the General: the Cavalier, who
we since heard was Rupert, asked him and the rest, If they
would have quarter? They cried No; gave fire, and instantly
beat them off. It was a happy deliverance,” —
without doubt.
There were taken here a good few “ladies of quality in
carriages,” — and above a hundred Irish ladies not of quality,
tattery camp-followers, “with long skean-knives about a
foot in length,” which they well knew how to use, upon
whom, I fear, the Ordinance against Papists pressed hard
this day. The King's Carriage was also taken, with a Cabinet
and many Royal Autographs in it, which, when printed,
made a sad impression against his Majesty, — gave, in fact,
a most melancholy view of the veracity of his Majesty.
“On the word of a King,” all was lost!
BRIDGET CROMWELL'S WEDDING
And now, dated on the Monday before, at Holton, a
country Parish in those parts, there is this still legible in
the old Church Register, — intimately interesting to some
friends of ours! “HENRY IRETON, Commissary-General
to Sir Thomas Fairfax, and BRIDGET, Daughter to
Oliver Cromwell, Lieutenant-General of the Horse, to the
said Sir Thomas Fairfax, were married, by Mr. Dell, in the
Lady Whorwood her house in Holton, June 15th, 1646. —
ALBAN EALES, Rector.”
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Ireton, we are to remark, was one of Fairfax's Commissioners
on the Treaty for surrendering Oxford, and
busy under the walls there at present. Holton is some five
miles east of the City; Holton House, we guess, by various
indications, to have been Fairfax's own quarter. Dell, already
and afterwards well known, was the General's Chaplain
at this date. Of “the Lady Whorwood” I have traces,
rather in the Royalist direction; her strong moated House,
very useful to Fairfax in those weeks, still stands conspicuous
in that region, though now under new figure and ownership;
drawbridge become fixed, deep ditch now dry, moated
island changed into a flower-garden; — “rebuilt in 1807.”
Fairfax's lines, we observe, extended “from Headington
Hill to Marston,” several miles in advance of Holton
House, then “from Marston,” across the Cherwell, and
over from that to the Isis on the North side of the City”;
southward, and elsewhere, the besieged, “by a dam at St.
Clement's Bridge, had laid the country all under water”:
in such scenes, with the treaty just ending, and general
peace like to follow, did Ireton welcome his bride, — a
brave young damsel of twenty-one, escorted, doubtless, by
her Father, among others, to the Lord General's house,
and there, by Rev. Mr. Dell, solemnly handed over to
new destinies!
DEATH WARRANT.
The Trial of Charles Stuart falls not to be described in
this place: the deep meanings that lie in it cannot be so
much as glanced at here. Oliver Cromwell attends in the
High Court of Justice at every session except one; Fairfax
sits only in the first. Ludlow, Whalley, Walton, names
known to us, are also constant attendants in that High
Court, during that long-memorable Month of January, 1649.
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The King is thrice brought to the Bar; refuses to plead,
comports himself with royal dignity, with royal haughtiness,
strong in his divine right; “smiles” contemptuously,
“looks with an austere countenance;” does not seem, till
the very last, to have fairly believed that they would dare
to sentence him. But they were men sufficiently provided
with daring; men, we are bound to see, who sat there as in
the Presence of the Maker of all men, as executing the judgments
of Heaven above, and had not the fear of any man or
thing on the Earth below. Bradshaw said to the King,
“Sir, you are not permitted to issue out in these discoursings.
This Court is satisfied of its authority. No Court will
bear to hear its authority questioned in that manner.” —
“Clerk, read the Sentence!”
And so, under date, Monday 29th January, 1648-9, there
is this stern Document to be introduced; not specifically of
Oliver's composition; but expressing in every letter of it
the conviction of Oliver's heart, in this, one of his most important
appearances on the stage of earthly life.
To Colonel Francis Hacker, Colonel Huncks, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Phayr, and to every one of them.
At the High Court of Justice for the Trying and Judging of
Charles Stuart, King of England, 29th January, 1648.
Whereas Charles Stuart, King of England, is and
standeth convicted, attainted and condemned of High Treason
and other high Crimes; and Sentence upon Saturday
last was pronounced against him by this Court, To be put to
death by the severing of his head from his body; of which
Sentence execution yet remaineth to be done:
These are therefore to will and require you to see the
said Sentence executed, in the open street before Whitehall,
upon the morrow, being the Thirtieth day of this instant
month of January, between the hours of Ten in the
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morning and Five in the afternoon, with full effect. And for so
doing, this shall be your warrant.
And these are to require all Officers and Soldiers, and
others the good People of this Nation of England, to be
assisting unto you in this service.
Given under our hands and seals.
John Bradshaw,
Thomas Grey, “Lord Groby,”
Oliver Cromwell.
(“And Fifty-six others.”)
“Tetræ belluæ, ac molossis suis ferociores. Hideous monsters,
more ferocious than their own mastiffs!” shrieks Saumaise;
shrieks all the world, in unmelodious soul-confusing
diapason of distraction, — happily at length grown very
faint in our day. The truth is, no modern reader can conceive
the then atrocity, ferocity, unspeakability of this fact.
First, after long reading in the old dead Pamphlets does
one see the magnitude of it. To be equalled, nay to be preferred
think some, in point of horror, to “the Crucifixion of
Christ.” Alas, in these irreverent times of ours, if all the
Kings of Europe were cut in pieces at one swoop, and flung
in heaps in St. Margaret's Churchyard on the same day, the
emotion would, in strict arithmetical truth, be small in comparison!
We know it not, this atrocity of the English
Regicides; shall never know it. I reckon it perhaps the
most daring action any Body of Men to be met with in History
ever, with clear consciousness, deliberately set themselves
to do. Dread Phantoms, glaring supernal on you, —
when once they are quelled and their light snuffed out,
none knows the terror of the Phantom! The Phantom is a
poor paper-lantern with a candle-end in it, which any whipster
dare now beard.
A certain Queen in some South-Sea Island, I have read
in Missionary Books, had been converted to Christianity
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did not any longer believe in the old gods. She assembled
her people; said to them, “My faithful People, the gods do
not dwell in that burning mountain in the centre of our Isle.
That is not God; no, that is a common burning-mountain, —
mere culinary fire burning under peculiar circumstances.
See, I will walk before you to that burning-mountain;
will empty my wash-bowl into it, cast my slipper
over it, defy it to the uttermost; and stand the consequences!”
She walked accordingly, this South-Sea Heroine,
nerved to the sticking-place; her people following in
pale horror and expectancy: she did her experiment; —
and, I am told, they have truer notions of the gods in that
Island ever since! Experiment which it is now very easy
to repeat, and very needless. Honor to the Brave who deliver
us from Phantom-dynasties, in South-Sea Islands and
in North!
This action of the English Regicides did in effect strike a
damp like death through the heart of Flunkeyism universally
in this world. Whereof Flunkeyism, Cant, Cloth-worship,
or whatever ugly name it have, has gone about incurably
sick ever since; and is now at length, in these generations,
very rapidly dying. The like of which action will not
be needed for a thousand years again. Needed, alas — not
till a new genuine Hero-worship has arisen, has perfected
itself; and had time to generate into a Flunkeyism and
Cloth-worship again! Which I take to be a very long date
indeed.
MR. MILTON
On which same evening, [March 13, 1468,] furthermore,
one discerns in a faint but an authentic manner, certain dim
gentlemen of the highest authority, young Sir Harry Vane
to appearance one of them, repairing to the lodging of one
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Mr. Milton, “a small house in Holborn, which opens backwards
into Lincoln's Inn Fields; to put an official question
to him there.” Not a doubt of it they saw Mr. John this
evening. In the official Book this yet stands legible:
“Die Martis, 13° Martii, 1648.” “That it is referred to
the same Committee,” Whitlocke, Vane, Lord Lisle, Earl
of Denbigh, Harry Marten, Mr. Lisle, “or any two of them,
to speak with Mr. Milton, to know, Whether he will be employed
as Secretary for the Foreign Languages? and to report
to the Council.” I have authority to say that Mr.
Milton, thus unexpectedly applied to, consents; is formally
appointed on Thursday next; makes his proof-shot, “to the
Senate of Hamburgh,” about a week hence; — and gives,
and continues to give, great satisfaction to that Council, to
me, and to the whole Nation now, and to all Nations!
Such romance lies in the State-Paper Office.
THE LEVELLERS — ENGLISH SANSCULOTTISM.
While Miss Dorothy Mayor is choosing her wedding-dresses,
and Richard Cromwell is looking forward to a life
of Arcadian felicity now near at hand, there has turned up
for Richard's Father and other parties interested, on the
public side of things, a matter of very different complexion,
requiring to be instantly dealt with in the interim. The
matter of the class called Levellers; concerning which we
must now say a few words.
In 1647 there were Army Adjutators; and among some
of them wild notions afloat, as to the swift attainability of
Perfect Freedom, civil and religious, and a practical Millennium
on this Earth; notions which required, in the Rendezvous
at Corkbushfield, “Rendezvous of Ware,” as they
oftenest call it, to be very resolutely trodden out. Eleven
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chief mutineers were ordered from the ranks in that Rendezvous;
were condemned by swift Court-Martial to die;
and Trooper Arnald, one of them, was accordingly shot
there and then; which extinguished the mutiny for that
time. War since, and Justice on Delinquents, England
made a Free Commonwealth, and such like, have kept the
Army busy; but a deep republican leaven, working all
along among these men, breaks now again into very formidable
development. As the following brief glimpses and
excerpts may satisfy an attentive reader who will spread
them out, to the due expansion, in his mind. Take first
this glimpse into the civil province; and discern with
amazement, a whole submarine world of Calvinistic Sansculottism,
Five-point Charter, and the Rights of Man, threatening
to emerge almost two centuries before its time.
“The Council of State,” says Whitlocke, just while
Mr. Barton is boggling about the Hursley Marriage-settlements,
“has intelligence of certain Levellers appearing at St.
Margaret's Hill, near Cobham in Surrey, and at St. George's
Hill,” in the same quarter: “that they were digging the
ground, and sowing it with roots and beans. One Everard,
once of the Army, who terms himself a Prophet, is the
chief of them:” one Winstanley is another chief. They
were Thirty men, and said that they should be shortly Four-thousand.
They invited all to come in and help them; and
promised them meat, drink, and clothes. They threatened
to pull down Park-pales, and to lay all open; and threaten
the neighbors that they will shortly make them all come up
to the hills and work.” These infatuated persons, beginning
a new era in this headlong manner on the chalk hills
of Surrey, are laid hold of by certain Justices, “by the country
people,” and also by “two troops of horse;” and complain
loudly of such treatment; appealing to all men
whether it be fair. This is the account they give of themselves
when brought before the General some days afterwards:
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“April 20th, 1649. Everard and Winstanley, the chief
of those that digged at St. George's Hill in Surrey, came to
the General and made a large declaration, to justify their
proceedings. Everard said, He was of the race of the
Jews,” as most men called Saxon, and other, properly are;
“That all the Liberties of the People were lost by the coming
in of William the Conquerer; and that, ever since, the
People of God had lived under tyranny and oppression
worse than that of our Forefathers under the Egyptians.
But now the time of deliverance was at hand; and God
would bring His People out of this slavery, and restore
them to their freedom in enjoying the fruits and benefits of
the Earth. And that there had lately appeared to him,
Everard, a vision; which bade him, Arise and dig and
plough the Earth, and receive the fruits thereof. That
their intent is to restore the Creation to its former condition.
That as God had promised to make the barren land
fruitful, so now what they did, was to restore the ancient
Community of enjoying the Fruits of the Earth, and to distribute
the benefit thereof to the poor and needy, and to feed
the hungry and clothe the naked. That they intend not
to meddle with any man's property, nor to break down any
pales or enclosures,” in spite of reports to the contrary;
“but only to meddle with what is common and untilled, and
to make it fruitful for the use of man. That the time will
suddenly be, when all men shall willingly come in and give
up their lands and estates, and submit to this Community of
Goods.”
These are the principles of Everard, Winstanley, and the
poor Brotherhood, seemingly Saxon, but properly of the
race of the Jews, who were found dibbling beans on St.
George's Hill, under the clear April skies in 1649, and
hastily bringing in a new era in that manner. “And for
all such as will come in and work with them, they shall
have meat, drink, and clothes, which is all that is necessary
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to the life of man: and as for money, there is not any need
of it; nor of clothes more than to cover nakedness.” For
the rest, “That they will not defend themselves by arms,
but will submit unto authority, and wait till the promised
opportunity be offered, which they conceive to be at hand.
And that as their forefathers lived in tents, so it would be
suitable to their condition, now to live in the same.
“While they were before the General, they stood with
their hats on; and being demanded the reason thereof, they
said, Because he was but their fellow-creature. Being
asked the meaning of that phrase, Give honor to whom honor
is due, — they said, Your mouths shall be stopped that
ask such a question.”
Dull Bulstrode hath “set down this the more largely because
it was the beginning of the appearance” of an extensive
levelling doctrine, much to be “avoided” by judicious
persons, seeing it is “a weak persuasion.” The germ of
Quakerism, and much else, is curiously visible here. But
let us look now at the military phasis of the matter; where
“a weak persuasion,” mounted on cavalry horses, with
sabres and fire-arms in its hand, may become a very perilous
one.
Friday, 20th April, 1649. The Lieutenant-General has
consented to go to Ireland; the City also will lend money;
and now this Friday the Council of the Army meets at
Whitehall to decide what regiments shall go on that service.
“After a solemn seeking of God by prayer,” they
agree that it shall be by lot: tickets are put into a hat, a
child draws them: the regiments, fourteen of foot and fourteen
of horse, are decided on in this manner. “The officers
on whom the lot fell, in all the twenty-eight regiments,
expressed much cheerfulness at the decision.” The officers
did: — but the common men are by no means all of that
humor. The common men, blown upon by Lilburn, and
his five small Beagles, have notions about England's new
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Chains, about the Hunting of Foxes from Triploe Heath,
and in fact ideas concerning the capability that lies in man,
and in a free Commonwealth, which are of the most alarming
description.
Thursday, 26th April. This night at the Bull in Bishopsgate
there has an alarming mutiny broken out in a
troop of Whalley's regiment there. Whalley's men are not
allotted for Ireland: but they refuse to quit London, as they
are ordered; they want this and that first; they seize their
colors from the Cornet, who is lodged at the Bull there: —
the General and the Lieutenant-General have to hasten
thither; quell them, pack them forth on their march; seizing
fifteen of them first, to be tried by Court-Martial.
Tried by instant Court-Martial, five of them are found
guilty, doomed to die, but pardoned; and one of them,
Trooper Lockyer, is doomed and not pardoned. Trooper
Lockyer is shot, in Paul's Churchyard, on the morrow. A
very brave young man, they say; though but three-and-twenty,
“he has served seven years in these Wars,” ever
since the Wars began. “Religious,” too, “of excellent
parts and much beloved;” — but with hot notions as to
human Freedom, and the rate at which the millenniums
are attainable, poor Lockyer! He falls shot in Paul's
Churchyard on Friday, amid the tears of men and women.
Paul's Cathedral, we remark, is now a Horseguard; horses
stamp in the Canons' stalls there: and Paul's Cross itself,
as smacking of Popery, where in fact Alablaster once
preached flat Popery, is swept altogether away, and its
leaden roof melted into bullets, or mixed with tin for
culinary pewter. Lockyer's corpse is watched and wept
over, not without prayer, in the eastern regions of the City,
till a new week come; and on Monday, this is what we see
advancing westward by way of funeral to him.
“About one hundred went before the Corpse, five or six
in a file; the Corpse was then brought, with six trumpets
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sounding a soldier's knell; then the Trooper's Horse came,
clothed all over in mourning, and led by a footman. The
Corpse was adorned with bundles of Rosemary, one half
stained in blood; and the Sword of the deceased along with
them. Some thousands followed in rank and file: all had
sea-green-and-black ribbons tied on their hats, and to their
breasts: and the women brought up the rear. At the new
Churchyard in Westminster, some thousands more of the
better sort met them, who thought not fit to march through
the City. Many looked upon this funeral as an affront to
the Parliament and Army; others called these people `Levellers;
' but they took no notice of any one's sayings.”
That was the end of Trooper Lockyer: six trumpets wailing
stern music through London streets; Rosemaries and
Sword half-dipped in blood; funeral of many thousands in
seagreen Ribbons and black: — testimony of a weak persuasion,
now looking somewhat perilous. Lieutenant-Colonel
Lilburn, and his five small Beagles, now in a kind of
loose arrest under the Lieutenant of the Tower, make haste
to profit by the general emotion; publish on the 1st of May
their “Agreement of the People,” — their Bentham-Sieyes
Constitution: Annual very exquisite Parliament, and other
Lilburn apparatus; whereby the Perfection of Human Nature
will with a maximum of rapidity be secured, and a
millennium straightway arrive, sings the Lilburn Oracle.
May 9th. Richard Cromwell is safe wedded; Richard's
Father is reviewing troops in Hyde Park, “seagreen colors
in some of their hats.” The Lieutenant-General speaks earnestly
to them. Has not the Parliament been diligent, doing
its best? It has punished Delinquents; it has voted, in
these very days, resolutions for dissolving itself and assembling
future Parliaments. It has protected trade; got a
good Navy afloat. You soldiers, there is exact payment
provided for you. Martial Law? Death, or other punishment
of mutineers? Well! Whoever cannot stand
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Martial Law is not fit to be a soldier: his best plan will be to
lay down his arms; he shall have his ticket, and get his arrears
as we others do, — we that still mean to fight against
the enemies of England and this Cause. — One trooper
showed signs of insolence; the Lieutenant-General suppressed
him by rigor and by clemency: the seagreen ribbons
were torn from such hats as had them. The humor
of the men is not the most perfect. This Review was on
Wednesday: Lilburn and his five small Beagles are, on
Saturday, committed close Prisoners to the Tower, each
rigorously to a cell of his own.
It is high time. For now the flame has caught the
ranks of the Army itself, in Oxfordshire, in Gloucestershire,
at Salisbury, where head-quarters are; and rapidly
there is, on all hands, a dangerous conflagration blazing out.
In Oxfordshire, one Captain Thompson, not known to us
before, has burst from his quarters at Banbury, with a
Party of Two-Hundred, in these same days; has sent forth
his England's Standard Advanced; insisting passionately on
the New Chains we are fettered with; indignantly demanding
swift perfection of Human Freedom, justice on the
murderers of Lockyer and Arnald; — threatening that if a
hair of Lilburn and the five small Beagles be hurt, he will
avenge it “seventy-and-seven fold.” This Thompson's Party,
swiftly attacked by his Colonel, is broken within the
week; he himself escapes with a few, and still roves up and
down. To join whom, or to communicate with Gloucestershire
where help lies, there has, in the interim, open mutiny,
“above a Thousand strong,” with subalterns, with a
Cornet Thompson brother of the Captain, but without any
leader of mark, broken out at Salisbury: the General and
Lieutenant-General, with what force can be raised, are
hastening thitherward in all speed. Now were the time for
Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn; now or never might noisy
John do some considerable injury to the Cause he has at
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heart: but he sits, in these critical hours, fast within stone
walls!
Monday, 14th May. All Sunday the General and Lieutenant-General
marched in full speed, by Alton, by Andover,
towards Salisbury; the mutineers, hearing of them,
start northward for Buckinghamshire, then for Berkshire;
the General and Lieutenant-General turning also northward
after them in hot chase. The mutineers arrive at
Wantage; make for Oxfordshire by Newbridge; find the
Bridge already seized; cross higher up by swimming; get
to Burford, very weary, and “turn out their horses to
grass; Fairfax and Cromwell still following in hot speed,
a march of near fifty miles that Monday. What boots
it, there is no leader, noisy John is sitting fast within stone
walls! The mutineers lie asleep in Burford, their horses
out at grass; the Lieutenant-General, having rested at a
safe distance since dark, bursts into Burford as the clocks
are striking midnight. He has beset some hundreds of the
mutineers, “who could only fire some shots out of windows;” —
has dissipated the mutiny, trodden down the Levelling
Principle out of English affairs once more. Here
is the last scene of the business; the rigorous Court-Martial
having now sat; the decimated doomed Mutineers being
placed on the leads of the Church to see.
Thursday, 17th May. — “This day in Burford Church-yard,
Cornet Thompson, brother to Thompson the chief
leader, was brought to the place of execution; and expressed
himself to this purpose, That it was just what did
befall him; that God did not own the ways he went; that
he had offended the General: he desired the prayers of the
people; and told the soldiers who were appointed to shoot
him, that when he held out his hands, they should do their
duty. And accordingly he was immediately, after the sign
given, shot to death. Next after him was a corporal,
brought to the same place of execution; where, looking
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upon his fellow-mutineers, he set his back against the wall;
and bade them who were appointed to shoot, `Shoot!' and
died desperately. The third, being also a corporal, was
brought to the same place; and without the least acknowledgment
of error, or show of fear, he pulled off his doublet,
standing a pretty distance from the wall; and bade the
soldiers do their duty; looking them in the face till they
gave fire, not showing the least kind of terror or fearfulness
of spirit.” So die the Leveller Corporals; strong they,
after their sort, for the Liberties of England; resolute to
the very death. Misguided Corporals! But History, which
has wept for a misguided Charles Stuart, and blubbered, in
the most copious helpless manner, near two centuries now,
whole floods of brine, enough to salt the Herring fishery, —
will not refuse these poor Corporals also her tributary sigh.
With Arnald of the Rendezvous at Ware, with Lockyer of
the Bull in Bishopsgate, and other misguided martyrs to
the Liberties of England then and since, may they sleep
well!
Cornet Dean who now came forward, as the next to be
shot, expressed penitence; got pardon from the General:
and there was no more shooting. Lieutenant-General Cromwell
went into the Church, called down the Decimated of
the Mutineers; rebuked, admonished; said, the General in
his mercy had forgiven them. Misguided men, would you
ruin this Cause, which marvellous Providences have so confirmed
to us to be the Cause of God? Go, repent, and rebel
no more lest a worse thing befall you! “They wept,”
says the old Newspaper; they retired to the Devizes for a
time; were then restored to their regiments, and marched
cheerfully for Ireland. Captain Thompson, the Cornet's
brother, the first of all the Mutineers, he too, a few days
afterwards, was fallen in with in Northamptonshire, still
mutinous; his men took quarter; he himself “fled to a
wood,” fired and fenced there, and again desperately fired,
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declared he would never yield alive; — whereupon “a
Corporal with seven bullets in his carbine” ended Captain
Thompson too; and this formidable conflagration, to the
last glimmer of it, was extinct.
Sansculottism, as we said above, has to lie submerged for
almost two centuries yet. Levelling, in the practical civil
or military provinces of English things, is forbidden to be.
In the spiritual provinces it cannot be forbidden; for there
it everywhere already is. It ceases dibbling beans on St.
George's Hill near Cobham; ceases galloping in mutiny
across the Isis to Burford; takes into Quakerisms, and kingdoms
which are not of this world. My poor friend Dryasdust
lamentably tears his hair over the intolerance of that
old Time to Quakerism and such like; if Dryasdust had seen
the dibbling on St. George's Hill, the threatened fall of
“Park-pales,” and the gallop to Burford, he would reflect
that conviction in an earnest age means, not lengthy Spouting
in Exeter-hall, but rapid silent Practice on the face of
the Earth; and would perhaps leave his poor hair alone.
SCOTCH PURITANISM.
The faults or misfortunes of the Scotch People, in their
Puritan business, are many; but, properly their grand fault
is this, That they have produced for it no sufficiently heroic
man among them. No man that has an eye to see beyond
the letter and the rubric; to discern, across many consecrated
rubrics of the Past, the inarticulate divineness too of the
Present and the Future, and dare all perils in the faith of
that! With Oliver Cromwell born a Scotchman, with a
Hero King and a unanimous Hero Nation at his back, it
might have been far otherwise. With Oliver born Scotch,
one sees not but the whole world might have become
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Puritan; might have struggled, yet a long while, to fashion
itself according to that divine Hebrew Gospel, — to the exclusion
of other Gospels not Hebrew, which also are divine,
and will have their share of fulfilment here! — But of such
issue there is no danger. Instead of inspired Olivers, glowing
with direct insight and noble daring, we have Argyles,
Loudons, and narrow, more or less opaque persons of the
Pedant species. Committees of Estates, Committees of
Kirks, much tied-up in formulas, both of them: a bigoted
Theocracy without the Inspiration; which is a very hopeless
phenomenon indeed. The Scotch People are all willing,
eager of heart; asking, Whitherward? But the Leaders
stand aghast at the new forms of danger, and in a vehement
discrepant manner some calling, Halt! others calling, Backward!
others, Forward! — huge confusion ensues. Confusion
which will need an Oliver to repress it; to bind it up
in tight manacles, if not otherwise; and say, “There, sit
there and consider thyself a little!”
The meaning of the Scotch Covenant was, That God's
divine Law of the Bible should be put in practice in these
Nations; verily it, and not the Four Surplices at Allhallowtide,
or any Formula of cloth or sheepskin here or elsewhere
which merely pretended to be it: but then the Covenant
says expressly, there is to be a Stuart King in the
business: we cannot do without our Stuart King! Given
a divine Law of the Bible on one hand, and a Stuart King,
Charles First or Charles Second, on the other: alas, did
History ever present a more irreducible case of equations in
this world? I pity the poor Scotch Pedant Governors, still
more the poor Scotch People, who had no other to follow!
Nay, as for that, the People did get through in the end,
such was their indomitable pious constancy, and other worth
and fortune: and Presbytery became a Fact among them,
to the whole length possible for it; not without endless results.
But for the poor Governors this irreducible case
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proved, as it were, fatal! They have never since, if we
will look narrowly at it, governed Scotland, or even well
known that they were there to attempt governing it. Once
they lay on Dunse Hill, “each Earl with his Regiment of
Tenants round him,” For Christ's Crown and Covenant;
and never since had they any noble National act, which it
was given them to do. Growing desperate of Christ's
Crown and Covenant, they, in the next generation, when
our Annus Mirabilis arrived, hurried up to Court, looking
out for other Crowns and Covenants; deserted Scotland
and her Cause, somewhat basely; took to booing and booing
for Causes of their own, unhappy mortals; — and Scotland
and all Causes that were Scotland's have had to go on very
much without them ever since!
THE BATTLE OF DUNBAR.
The small Town of Dunbar stands, high and windy, looking
down over its herring-boats, over its grim old Castle
now much honeycombed, — on one of those projecting rock
promontories with which that shore of the Frith of Forth is
niched and vandyked, as far as the eye can reach. A beautiful
sea; good land too, now that the plougher understands
his trade; a grim niched barrier of whinstone sheltering it
from the chafings and tumblings of the big blue German
Ocean. Seaward, St. Abb's Head, of whinstone, bounds
your horizon to the east, not very far off; west, close by, is
the deep bay, and fishy little village of Belhaven: the
gloomy Bass and other rock-islets, and farther the Hills of
Fife, and foreshadows of the Highlands, are visible as you
look seaward. From the bottom of Belhaven Bay to that
of the next sea-bight, St. Abb's ward, the Town and its
environs form a peninsula. Along the base of which
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peninsula, “not much above a mile and a half from sea to sea,”
Oliver Cromwell's Army, on Monday, the 2d of September,
1650, stands ranked, with its tents and Town behind
it, — in very forlorn circumstances. This now is all the
ground that Oliver is lord of in Scotland. His Ships lie in
the offing, with biscuit and transport for him; but visible
elsewhere in the Earth no help.
Landward, as you look from the Town of Dunbar there
rises, some short mile off, a dusky continent of barren heath
Hills; the Lammermoor, where only mountain-sheep can
be at home. The crossing of which, by any of its boggy
passes, and brawling stream-courses, no Army, hardly a
solitary Scotch Packman could attempt, in such weather.
To the edge of these Lammermoor Heights, David Lesley
has betaken himself; lies now along the outmost spur of
them, — a long Hill of considerable height, which the Dunbar
people call the Dun, Doon, or sometimes for fashion's
sake the Down, adding to it the Teutonic hill likewise,
though Dun itself in old Celtic signifies Hill. On this
Doon Hill lies David Lesley, with the victorious Scotch
Army, upwards of Twenty thousand strong; with the Committees
of Kirk and Estates, the chief Dignitaries of the
Country, and in fact the flower of what the pure Covenant
in this the Twelfth year of its existence can still bring
forth. There lies he, since Sunday night, on the top and
slope of this Doon Hill, with the impassable heath continents
behind him: embraces, as within outspread tigerclaws,
the base-line of Oliver's Dunbar Peninsula; waiting
what Oliver will do. Cockburnspath with its ravines has
been seized on Oliver's left, and made impassable; behind
Oliver is the sea; in front of him Lesley, Doon Hill, and
the heath-continent of Lammermoor. Lesley's force is of
Three-and-twenty thousand, in spirits as of men chasing:
Oliver's about half as many, in spirits as of men chased.
What is to become of Oliver?....
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The base of Oliver's Dunbar Peninsula, as we have
called it (or Dunbar Pinfold, where he is now hemmed in,
upon “an entanglement very difficult”), extends from Belhaven
Bay on his right, to Brocksmouth House on his left;
“about a mile and a half from sea to sea:” Brocksmouth
House, the Earl (now Duke) of Roxburgh's mansion,
which still stands there, his soldiers now occupy as their
extreme post on the left. As its name iudicates, it is the
mouth or issue of a small Rivulet, or Burn called Brock,
Brocksburn; which, springing from the Lammermoor, and
skirting David Lesley's Doon Hill, finds its egress here,
into the sea. The reader who would form an image to
himself of the great Tuesday, 3d of September, 1650, at
Dunbar, must note well this little Burn. It runs in a deep
grassy glen, which the South-country Officers in those old
Pamphlets describe as a “deep ditch, forty feet in depth,
and about as many in width,” — ditch dug out by the little
Brook itself, and carpeted with greensward, in the course of
long thousands of years. It runs pretty close by the foot of
Doon Hill; forms, from this point to the sea, the boundary
of Oliver's position: his force is arranged in battle-order
along the left bank of this Brocksburn, and its grassy glen;
he is busied all Monday, he and his Officers, in ranking
them there. “Before sunrise on Monday” Lesley sent
down his horse from the Hill-top, to occupy the other side
of this Brook; “about four in the afternoon,” his train
came down, his whole Army gradually came down; and
they now are ranking themselves on the opposite side of
Brocksburn, — on rather narrow ground; cornfields, but
swiftly sloping upwards to the steep of Doon Hill. This
goes on, in the wild showers and winds of Monday, 2nd
September, 1650, on both sides of the Rivulet of Brock.
Whoever will begin the attack, must get across this Brook
and its glen first; a thing of much disadvantage.
Behind Oliver's ranks, between him and Dunbar, stand
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his tents; sprinkled up and down, by battalions, over the
face of this “Peninsula”; which is a low though very uneven
tract of ground; now in our time all yellow with
wheat and barley in the autumn season, but at that date
only partially tilled, — describable by Yorkshire Hodgson
as a place of plashes and rough bent-grass; terribly beaten
by showery winds that day, so that your tent will hardly
stand. There was then but one Farm-house on this tract,
where now are not a few: thither were Oliver's Cannon
sent this morning; they had at first been lodged “in the
Church,” an edifice standing then as now somewhat apart,
at the south end of Dunbar.....
And now farther, on the great scale, we are to remark
very specially that there is just one other “pass” across the
Brocksburn; and this is precisely where the London road
now crosses it; about a mile east from the former pass,
and perhaps two gunshots west from Brocksmouth House.
There the great road then as now crosses the Burn of
Brock; the steep grassy glen, or “broad ditch forty feet
deep,” flattening itself out here once more into a passable
slope: passable, but still steep on the southern or Lesley
side, still mounting up there, with considerable acclivity, into
a high table-ground, out of which the Doon Hill, as outskirt
of the Lammermoor, a short mile to your right, gradually
gathers itself. There, at this “pass,” on and above the
present London road, as you discover after long dreary dim
examining, took place the brunt or essential agony of the
Battle of Dunbar long ago. Read in the extinct old Pamphlets,
and ever again obstinately read, till some light arise
in them, look even with unmilitary eyes at the ground as it
now is, you do at least obtain small glimmerings of distinct
features here and there, — which gradually coalesce into a
kind of image for you; and some spectrum of the Fact becomes
visible; rises veritable, face to face on you, grim and
sad in the depths of the old dead Time. Yes, my travelling
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friends, vehiculating in gigs or otherwise over that piece of
London road, you may say to yourselves, Here without
monument is the grave of a valiant thing which was done
under the Sun; the footprint of a Hero, not yet quite undistinguishable,
is here!
“The Lord General about four o'clock,” say the old Pamphlets,
“went into the Town to take some refreshment,” a
hasty late dinner, or early supper, whichever we may call
it; “and very soon returned back,” — having written Sir
Arthur's Letter, I think, in the interim. Coursing about
the field, with enough of things to order; walking at last
with Lambert in the Park or Garden of Brocksmouth
House, he discerns that Lesley is astir on the Hillside;
altering his position somewhat. That Lesley in fact is
coming wholly down to the basis of the Hill, where his
horse had been since sunrise: coming wholly down to the
edge of the Brook and glen, among the sloping harvestfields
there; and also is bringing up his left wing of horse,
most part of it, towards his right; edging himself, “shogging,”
as Oliver calls it, his whole line more and more to
the right! His meaning is, to get hold of Brocksmouth
House and the pass of the Brook there; after which it will
be free to him to attack us when he will! Lesley in fact
considered, or at least the Committee of Estates and Kirk
consider, that Oliver is lost; that, on the whole, he must
not be left to retreat, but must be attacked and annihilated
here. A vague story, due to Bishop Burnet, the watery
source of many such, still circulates about the world, That
it was the Kirk Committee who forced Lesley down against
his will; that Oliver, at sight of it, exclaimed, “The Lord
hath delivered,” &c.: which nobody is in the least bound to
believe. It appears, from other quarters, that Lesley was
advised or sanctioned in this attempt by the Committee of
Estates and Kirk, but also that he was by no means hard to
advise; that, in fact, lying on the top of Doon Hill,
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shelterless in such weather, was no operation to spin out beyond
necessity; and that if anybody pressed too much upon him
with advice to come down and fight, it was likeliest to be
Royalist Civil Dignitaries, who had plagued him with their
cavillings at his cunctations, at his “secret fellow-feeling for
the Sectarians and Regicides.” ever since this War began.
The poor Scotch Clergy have enough of their own to answer
for in this business; let every back bear the burden
that belongs to it. In a word, Lesley descends, has been descending
all day, and “shogs” himself to the right, urged I
believe, by manifold counsel, and by the nature of the case;
and, what is equally important for us, Oliver sees him, and
sees through him, in this movement of his.
At sight of this movement, Oliver suggests to Lambert
standing by him, Does it not give us an advantage, if we,
instead of him, like to begin the attack? Here is the
Enemy's right wing coming out to the open space, free to
be attacked on any side; and the main-battle hampered in
narrow sloping ground, between Doon Hill and the Brook,
has no room to manœuvre or assist: beat this right wing
where it now stands; take it in flank and front with an
overpowering force, — it is driven upon its own main-battle,
the whole Army is beaten? Lambert eagerly assents “had
meant to say the same thing.” Monk, who comes up at
the moment, likewise assents; as the other Officers do,
when the case is set before them. It is the plan resolved
upon for battle. The attack shall begin to-morrow before
dawn.
And so the soldiers stand to their arms, or lie within instant
reach of their arms, all night; being upon an engagement
very difficult indeed. The night is wild and wet; —
2d of September means 12th by our calendar: the Harvest
Moon wades deep among clouds of sleet and hail. Whoever
has a heart for prayer, let him pray now, for the
wrestle of death is at hand. Pray, — and withal keep his
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powder dry! And be ready for extremities, and quit himself
like a man! Thus they pass the night; making that
Dunbar Peninsula and Brock Rivulet long memorable to
me. We English have some tents; the Scots have none.
The hoarse sea moans bodeful, swinging low and heavy
against these whinstone bays; the sea and the tempests are
abroad, all else asleep but we, — and there is One that rides
on the wings of the wind.
Towards three in the morning, the Scotch foot, by order
of a Major-General, say some, extinguish their matches, all
but two in a company; cower under the corn-shocks, seeking
some imperfect shelter and sleep. Be wakeful, ye English;
watch, and pray, and keep your powder dry. About
four o'clock comes order to my pudding-headed Yorkshire
friend, that his regiment must mount and march straightway;
his and various other regiments march, pouring swiftly
to the left to Brocksmouth House, to the Pass over the
Brock. With overpowering force let us storm the Scots
right wing there; beat that, and all is beaten. Major
Hodgson, riding along, heard, he says, “a Cornet praying
in the night”; a company of poor men, I think, making
worship there, under the void Heaven, before battle joined:
Major Hodgson, giving his charge to a brother Officer,
turned aside to listen for a minute, and worship and pray
along with them; haply his last prayer on this Earth, as it
might prove to be. But no; this Cornet prayed with such
effusion as was wonderful; and imparted strength to my
Yorkshire friend, who strengthened his men by telling them
of it. And the Heavens, in their mercy, I think, have
opened us a way of deliverance! — The Moon gleams out,
hard and blue, riding among hail-clouds; and over St. Abb's
Head a streak of dawn is rising.
And now is the hour when the attack should be, and no
Lambert is yet here, he is ordering the line far to the right
yet; and Oliver occasionally, in Hodgson's hearing, is
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impatient for him. The Scots too, on this wing, are awake;
thinking to surprise us; there is their trumpet sounding, we
heard it once; and Lambert, who was to lead the attack, is
not here. The Lord General is impatient; — behold Lambert
at last! The trumpets peal, shattering with fierce
clangor Night's silence; the cannons awaken along all the
line: “The Lord of Hosts! The Lord of Hosts!” On,
my brave ones, on!
The dispute “on this right wing, was hot and stiff for
three quarters of an hour.” Plenty of fire, from field-pieces,
snaphances, matchlocks, entertained the Scotch main-battle
across the Brock; — poor stiffened men, roused from
the corn-shocks with their matches all out! But here on
the right, their horse “with lancers in the front rank,”
charge desperately; drive us back across the hollow of the
Rivulet; back a little; but the Lord gives us courage, and
we storm home again, horse and foot, upon them, with a
shock like tornado tempests; break them, beat them, drive
them all adrift. “Some fled towards Copperspath, but most
across their own foot.” Their own poor foot, whose
matches were hardly well alight yet! Poor men, it was a
terrible awakening for them: field-pieces and charge of foot
across the Brocksburn: and now here is their own horse in
mad panic, trampling them to death. Above Three-thousand
killed upon the place: “I never saw such a charge of
foot and horse,” says one; nor did I. Oliver was still near
to Yorkshire Hodgson, when the shock succeeded. Hodgson
heard him say: “They run! I profess they run!”
And over St. Abb's Head, and the German Ocean, just
then, burst the first gleam of the level sun upon us, “and I
heard Nol say, in the words of the Psalmist, `Let God arise,
let His enemies be scattered,'” — or in Rous's metre,
Let God arise, and scattered
Let all his enemies be;
And let all those that do him hate
Before his presence flee!
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Even so. The Scotch Army is shivered to utter ruin;
rushes in tumultuous wreck, hither, thither; to Belhaven,
or, in their distraction, even to Dunbar; the chase goes as
far as Haddington; led by Hacker. “The Lord General
made a halt,” says Hodgson, “and sang the Hundred-and-seventeenth
Psalm,” till our horse could gather for the
chase. Hundred-and-seventeenth Psalm, at the foot of the
Doon Hill; there we uplift it, to the tune of Bangor, or
some still higher score, and roll it strong and great against
the sky:
O give ye praise unto the Lord,
All nati-ons that be;
Likewise ye people all accord
His name to magnify!
For great to-us-ward ever are
His loving kindnesses;
His truth endures for evermore:
The Lord, O do ye bless!
And now to the chase again.
The prisoners are Ten-thousand, — all the foot in a mass.
* * * Such is Dunbar Battle; which might almost be
called Dunbar Drove, for it was a frightful rout. Brought
on by miscalculation; misunderstanding of the difference
between substances and semblances; — by mismanagement
and the chance of war.
DISMISSAL OF THE RUMP.
Wednesday, 20th April, 1653. — My Lord General is in
his reception-room this morning, in plain black clothes and
gray worsted stockings; he, with many Officers: but few
Members have yet come, though punctual Bulstrode and
certain others are there. Some waiting there is; some
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impatience that the Members would come. The Members do
not come: instead of Members, comes a notice that they
are busy getting on with their Bill [for Parliamentary Reform
] in the House, hurrying it double quick through all
the stages. Possible, New message that it will be Law in
a little while, if no interposition take place! Bulstrode
hastens off to the House: my Lord General, at first incredulous,
does now also hasten off, — nay orders that a company
of Musketeers of his own regiment attend him. Hastens
off, with a very high expression of countenance, I think;
saying or feeling: Who would have believed it of them?
“It is not honest; yea it is contrary to common honesty!” —
My Lord General, the big hour is come!
Young Colonel Sidney, the celebrated Algernon, sat in
the House this morning: a House of some Fifty-three. Algernon
has left distinct note of the affair; less distinct we
have from Bulstrode, who was also there, who seems in
some points to be even wilfully wrong. Solid Ludlow was
far off in Ireland, but gathered many details in after-years;
and faithfully wrote them down, in the unappeasable indignation
of his heart. Combining these three originals, we
have, after various perusals and collations and considerations,
obtained the following authentic, moderately conceivable
account.
“The Parliament sitting as usual, and being in debate
upon the Bill, with the amendments, which it was thought
would have been passed that day, the Lord General Cromwell
came into the House, clad in plain black clothes and
gray worsted-stockings, and sat down, as he used to do, in
an ordinary place.” For some time he listens to this interesting
debate on the Bill; beckoning once to Harrison,
who came over to him, and answered dubitatingly. Whereupon
the Lord General sat still, for about a quarter of an
hour longer. But now the question being to be put, That
this Bill do now pass, he beckons again to Harrison, says,
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“This is the time I must do it!” — and so “rose up, put off
his hat, and spake. At the first, and for a good while, he
spake to the commendation of the Parliament for their pains
and care of the public good; but afterwards he changed his
style, told them of their injustice, delays of justice, self-interest,
and other faults,” — rising higher and higher, into
a very aggravated style indeed. An honorable Member,
Sir Peter Wentworth by name, not known to my readers,
and by me better known than trusted, rises to order, as we
phrase it; says, “It is a strange language this; unusual
within the walls of Parliament this! And from a trusted
servant too; and one whom we have so highly honored;
and one —” “Come, come!” exclaims my Lord General,
in a very high key. “We have had enough of this,” —
and in fact my Lord General, now blazing all up into clear
conflagration, exclaims, “I will put an end to your prating,”
and steps forth into the floor of the House, and “clapping
on his hat,” and occasionally “stamping the floor with his
feet,” begins a discourse which no man can report! He
says — Heavens! he is heard saying: “It is not fit that you
should sit here any longer! You have sat too long here for
any good you have been doing lately. You shall now give
place to better men! — Call them in!” adds he briefly, to
Harrison, in word of command: “and some twenty or
thirty” grim musketeers enter, with bullets in their snaphances;
grimly prompt for orders; and stand in some attitude
of Carry-arms there. Veteran men: men of might
and men of war, their faces are as the faces of lions, and
their feet are swift as the roes upon the mountains: — not
beautiful to honorable gentlemen at this moment.
“You call yourselves a Parliament,” continues my Lord
General, in clear blaze of conflagration: “you are no Parliament;
I say, you are no Parliament! some of you are
drunkards,” — and his eye flashes on poor Mr Chaloner, an
official man of some value, addicted to the bottle; “some of
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you are —,” and he glares into Harry Marten, and the
poor Sir Peter, who rose to order, lewd livers both; “living
in open contempt of God's Commandments. Following
your own greedy appetites, and the Devil's Commandments.
`Corrupt, unjust persons.'” “And here, I think,
he glanced at Sir Bulstrode Whitlocke, one of the Commissioners
of the Great Seal, giving him and others very
sharp language, though he named them not”: “Corrupt,
unjust persons; scandalous to the profession of the Gospel:
how can you be a Parliament for God's People? Depart,
I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of
God, — go!”
The House is of course all on its feet, — uncertain almost
whether not on its head: such a scene as was never seen
before in any House of Commons. History reports with a
shudder that my Lord General, lifting the sacred Mace
itself, said, “What shall we do with this bawble? Take it
away!” — and gave it to a musketeer. And now, “Fetch
him down!” says he to Harrison, flashing on the Speaker.
Speaker Lenthall, more an ancient Roman than anything
else, declares, He will not come till forced. “Sir,” said
Harrison, “I will lend you a hand”; — on which Speaker
Lenthall came down, and gloomily vanished. They all
vanished; flooding gloomily, clamorously out, to their ulterior
business, and respective places of abode: the Long
Parliament is dissolved! “`It 's you, that have forced me to
this,' exclaims my Lord General: `I have sought the Lord
night and day, that He would rather slay me than put me
upon the doing of this work.' At their going out, some say,
the Lord General said to young Sir Harry Vane, calling
him by his name, that he might have prevented this; but
that he was a juggler, and had not common honesty. `O,
Sir Harry Vane, thou with thy subtle casuistries, and abstruse
hair-splittings, thou art other than a good one, I
think! The Lord deliver thee from me, Sir Harry Vane!'
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All being gone out, the door of the House was locked, and
the Key with the Mace, as I heard, was carried away by
Colonel Otley”; — and it is all over, and the unspeakable
Catastrophe has come, and remains.
THE BAREBONES PARLIAMENT.
Concerning this Puritan Convention of the Notables,
which in English History is called the Little Parliament,
and derisively Barebones's Parliament, we have not much
more to say. They are, if by no means the remarkablest
Assembly, yet the Assembly for the remarkablest purpose
who have ever met in the Modern World. The business is,
No less than introducing of the Christian Religion into real
practice in the Social Affairs of this Nation. Christian Religion,
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments: such,
for many hundred years, has been the universal solemnly
recognized Theory of all men's Affairs; Theory sent down
out of Heaven itself; but the question is now that of reducing
it to Practice in said Affairs; — a most noble, surely,
and most necessary attempt; which should not have been
put off so long in this Nation! We have conquered the Enemies
of Christ; let us now, in real practical earnest, set
about doing the Commandments of Christ, now that there is
free room for us! Such was the purpose of this Puritan Assembly
of the Notables, which History calls the Little Parliament,
or derisively Barebones's Parliament.
It is well known they failed: to us, alas! it is too evident
they could not but fail. Fearful impediments lay against
that effort of theirs; the sluggishness, the slavish half-and-halfness,
the greediness, the cowardice, and general opacity
and falsity of some ten million men against it; alas, the
whole world, and what we call the Devil and all his angels,
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against it! Considerable angels, human and other; most extensive
arrangements, investments to be sold off at a tremendous
sacrifice; in general the entire set of luggage-traps
and very extensive stock of merchant-goods and real and
floating property, amassed by that assiduous Entity above-mentioned,
for a thousand years or more! For these, and
also for other obstructions, it could not take effect at that
time; and the Little Parliament became a Barebones's Parliament,
and had to go its ways again.
CONSPIRACIES.
To see a little what kind of England it was, and what
kind of incipient Protectorate it was, take, as usual, the following
small and few fractions of Authenticity of various
complexion, fished from the doubtful slumber-lakes, and
dust vortexes, and hang them out at their places in the void
night of things. They are not very luminous; but if they
were well let alone, and the positively tenebrific were well
forgotten, they might assist our imaginations in some slight
measure.
Sunday, 18th December, 1653. A certain loud-tongued,
loud-minded Mr. Feak, of Anabaptist-Leveller persuasion,
with a Colleague seemingly Welsh, named Powel, have a
Preaching-Establishment, this good while past in Blackfriars;
a Preaching-Establishment every Sunday, which on
Monday evening becomes a National-Charter Convention
as we should now call it; there Feak, Powel, and Company
are in the habit of vomiting forth from their own inner-man,
into other inner-men greedy of such pabulum, a very flamy
fuliginous set of doctrines, — such as the human mind,
superadding Anabaptistry to Sansculottism, can make some
attempt to conceive. Sunday, the 18th, which is two days
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after the Lord Protector's Installation, this Feak-Powel
Meeting was unusually large; the Feak-Powel inner-man
unusually charged. Elements of soot and fire really copious:
fuliginous flamy in a very high degree! At a time,
too, when all Doctrine does not satisfy itself with spouting,
but longs to become instant Action. “Go and tell your
Protector,” said the Anabaptist Prophet, “that he has deceived
the Lord's People; that he is a perjured villain,” —
“will not reign long,” or I am deceived: “will end worse
than the last Protector did,” Protector Somerset who died
on the scaffold, or the tyrant Crooked Richard himself!
Say I said it! A very foul chimney indeed, here got on
fire. And “Major General Harrison, the most eminent
man of the Anabaptist Party, being consulted whether
he would own the new Protectoral Government, answered
frankly, No”; was thereupon ordered to retire home to
Staffordshire, and keep quiet.
Does the reader bethink him of those old Leveller Corporals
at Burford, and Diggers at St. George's Hill five
years ago; of Quakerisms, Calvinistic Sansculottisms, and
one of the strangest Spiritual Developments ever seen in
any country? The reader sees here one foul chimney on
fire, the Feak-Powel chimney in Blackfriars; and must consider
for himself what masses of combustible materials, noble
fuel and base soot and smoky explosive fire-damp, in
the general English Household it communicates with! Republicans
Proper, of the Long Parliament; Republican
Fifth-Monarchists of the Little Parliament; the solid Ludlows,
the fervent Harrisons: from Harry Vane down to
Christopher Feak, all manner of Republicans find Cromwell
unforgivable. To the Harrison-and-Feak species Kingship
in every sort, and government of man by man, is carnal,
expressly contrary to various Gospel Scriptures. Very horrible
for a man to think of governing men; whether he
ought even to govern cattle, and drive them to field and to
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needful penfold, “except in the way of love and persuasion,”
seems doubtful to me! But fancy a reign of Christ
and his Saints; Christ and his Saints just about to come,—
had not Oliver Cromwell stept in and prevented it!
The reader discerns combustabilities enough; conflagrations,
plots, stubborn disaffections and confusions, on the Republican
and Republican-Anabaptist side of things. It is the
first Plot-department which my Lord Protector will have to
deal with all his life long. This he must wisely damp down,
as he may. Wisely: for he knows what is noble in the
matter, and what is base in it; and would not sweep the
fuel and the soot both out of doors at once.
Tuesday, 14th February, 1653-4. “At the Ship-Tavern
in the Old Bailey, kept by Mr. Thomas Amps,” we come
upon the second life-long Plot-department: Eleven truculent,
rather threadbare persons, sitting over small drink
there, on the Tuesday night, considering how the Protector
might be assassinated. Poor broken Royalist men; payless
old Captains, most of them, or such like; with their steeplehats
worn very brown, and jack-boots slit, — and projects
that cannot be executed. Mr. Amps knows nothing of
them, except that they came to him to drink; nor do we.
Probe them with questions; clap them in the Tower for a
while; Guilty, poor knaves: but not worth hanging: — disappear
again into the general mass of Royalist Plotting,
and ferment there.
The Royalists have lain quiet ever since Worcester, waiting
what issue matters would take. Dangerous to meddle
with a Rump Parliament; or other steadily regimented
thing; safer if you can find it fallen out of rank; hopefullest
of all when it collects itself into a Single Head.
The Royalists judge, with some reason, that if they could
kill Oliver Protector, this Commonwealth were much endangered.
In these Easter weeks, too, or Whitsun weeks,
there comes “from our Court,” (Charles Stuart's Court,)
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“at Paris,” great encouragement to all men of spirit in
straitened circumstances, A Royal Proclamation “By the
King,” drawn up, say some, by Secretary Clarendon; setting
forth that “Whereas a certain base, mechanic fellow,
by name Oliver Cromwell, has usurped our throne,” much
to our and other people's inconvenience, whosoever will kill
the said mechanic fellow “by sword, pistol, or poison,” shall
have £ 500 a year settled upon him, with colonelcies in our
Army, and other rewards suitable, and be a made man, —
“on the word and faith of a Christian King.” A Proclamation
which cannot be circulated except in secret; but is
well worth reading by all loyal men. And so Royalist
Plots also succeed one another, thick and threefold through
Oliver's whole life; — but cannot take effect. Vain for a
Christian King and his cunningest Chancellors to summon
all the sinners of the Earth, and whatever of necessitous
Truculent-Flunkeyism there may be, and to bid, in the
name of Heaven and of another place, for the Head of
Oliver Cromwell; once for all, they cannot have it, that
Head of Cromwell; — not till he has entirely done with it,
and can make them welcome to their benefit from it.
JAMES NAYLER AND COMPANY.
“In the month of October, 1655,” there was seen a
strange sight at Bristol in the West. A Procession of
Eight Persons; one, a man on horseback, riding single; the
others, men and women, partly riding double, partly on foot,
in the muddiest highway, in the wettest weather; singing,
all but the single rider, at whose bridle splash and walk two
women: “Hosannah! Holy, holy! Lord God of Sabaoth!”
and other things, “in a buzzing tone,” which the impartial
hearer could not make out. The single-rider is a rawboned
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male figure, “with lank hair reaching below his cheeks;”
hat drawn close over his brows; “nose rising slightly in the
middle;” of abstruse “down look,” and large dangerous
jaws strictly closed: he sings not; sits there covered; and
is sung to by the others bare. Amid pouring deluges, and
mud knee-deep: “so that the rain ran in at their necks, and
they vented it at their hose and breeches”: a spectacle to
the West of England and Posterity! Singing as above;
answering no question except in song. From Bedminster
to Ratcliffe Gate, along the streets to the High Cross of
Bristol: at the High Cross they are laid hold of by the
Authorities; — turn out to be James Nayler and Company.
James Nayler, “from Andersloe” or Ardsley “in Yorkshire,”
heretofore a Trooper under Lambert; now a Quaker
and something more. Infatuated Nayler and Company;
given up to Enthusiasm, — to Animal-Magnetism, to
Chaos and Bedlam in one shape or other! Who will need
to be coerced by the Major-Generals, I think; — to be forwarded
to London, and there sifted and cross-questioned.
Is not the Spiritualism of England developing itself in
strange forms? The Hydra, royalist and sansculottic, has
many heads.
THE WEST INDIAN INTEREST.
The Grand Sea-Armament which sailed from Portsmouth
at Christmas, 1654, proved unsuccessful. It went westward;
opened its sealed Instructions at a certain latitude;
found that they were instructions to attack Hispaniola, to
attack the Spanish Power in the West Indies; it did attack
Hispaniola, and lamentably failed; attacked the Spanish
Power in the West Indies, and has hitherto realized almost
nothing, — a mere waste Island of Jamacia, to all appearance
little worth the keeping at such cost. It is hitherto
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the unsuccessfulest enterprise Oliver Cromwell ever had
concern with. Desborow fitted it out at Portsmouth, while
the Lord Protector was busy with his First refractory Pedant
Parliament; there are faults imputed to Desborow: but
the grand fault the Lord Protector imputes to himself, That
he chose, or sanctioned the choice of Generals improper to
command it. Sea-General Penn, Land-General Venables,
they were unfortunate, they were incompetent; fell into
disagreements, into distempers of the bowels; had critical
Civil Commissioners with them, too, who did not mend
the matter. Venables lay “six weeks in bed,” very ill of
sad West-India maladies; for the rest, a covetous lazy dog,
who cared nothing for the business, but wanted to be home
at his Irish Government again. Penn is Father of Penn
the Pennsylvanian Quaker; a man somewhat quick of temper
“like to break his heart,” when affairs went wrong;
unfit to right them again. The two Generals came voluntarily
home in the end of last August [1655], leaving the
wreck of their forces in Jamaica; and were straightway
lodged in the Tower for quitting their post.
A great Armament of Thirty, nay of Sixty ships; of
Four-thousand soldiers, two regiments of whom were veterans,
the rest a somewhat sad miscellany of broken Royalists,
unruly Levellers, and the like, who would volunteer, —
whom Venables augmented at Barbadoes, with a still more
unruly set to Nine-thousand: this great Armament the
Lord Protector has strenuously hurled, as a sudden fiery
bolt, into the dark Domdaniel of Spanish Iniquity in the far
West; and it has exploded there, almost without effect.
The Armament saw Hispaniola, and Hispaniola with fear
and wonder saw it, on the 14th of April, 1655: but the
Armament, a sad miscellany of distempered unruly persons,
durst not land “where Drake had landed,” and at once take
the Town and Island: the Armament hovered hither and
thither; and at last agreed to land some sixty miles off;
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marched therefrom through thick-tangled woods, under tropical
heats, till it was nearly dead with mere marching;
was then set upon by ambuscadoes; fought miserably ill,
the unruly persons of it, or would not fight at all; fled
back to its ships a mass of miserable disorganic ruin; and
“dying there at the rate of two-hundred a day,” made for
Jamaica.
Jamaica, a poor unpopulous Island, was quickly taken, as
rich Hispaniola might have been, and the Spaniards were
driven away: but to men in biliary humor it seemed hardly
worth the taking or the keeping. “Immense droves of
wild cattle: cows and horses, run about Jamaica”; dusky
Spaniards dwell in hatos, in unswept shealings: “80,000
hogs are killed every year for the sake of their lard, which
is sold under the name of hog's-butter at Carthagena”: but
what can we do with all that! The poor Armament continuing
to die as if by murrain, and all things looking worse
and worse to poor biliary Generals. Sea-General Penn set
sail for home, whom Land-General Venables swiftly followed:
leaving Vice-Admiral Goodson, “Major-General
Fortescue,” or almost whosoever liked, to manage in their
absence, and their ruined moribund forces to die as they
could; — and are now lodged in the Tower, as they deserved
to be. The Lord Protector, and virtually England
with him, had hoped to see the dark empire of bloody
Antichristian Spain a little shaken in the West; some
reparation got for its inhuman massacrings, and long continued
tyrannies, — massacrings, exterminations of us, “at
St. Kitts in 1629, at Tortuga in 1637, at Santa Cruz
in 1650”: so, in the name of England, had this Lord Protector
hoped; and he has now to take his disappointment.
The ulterior history of these Western Affairs, of this new
Jamaica under Cromwell, lies far dislocated, drowned deep,
in the Slumber-Lakes of Thurloe and Company; in a most
dark, stupefied, and altogether dismal condition. A history
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indeed, which, as you painfully fish it up and by degrees
reawaken it to life, is in itself sufficiently dismal. Not
much to be intermeddled with here. The English left in
Jamaica, the English successively sent thither, prosper as ill
as need be; still die, soldiers and settlers of them, at a
frightful rate per day; languish, for most part, astonished in
their sultry strange new element; and cannot be brought to
front with right manhood the deadly inextricable jungle of
tropical confusions, outer and inner, in which they find themselves.
Brave Governors, Fortescue, Sedgwick, Brayne,
one after the other, die rapidly, of the climate and of broken
heart; their life-fire all spent there, in that dark chaos, and
as yet no result visible. It is painful to read what misbehavior
there is, what difficulties there are.
Almost the one steady light-point in the business is the
Protector's own spirit of determination. If England have
now a “West-India Interest,” and Jamaica be an Island
worth something, it is to this Protector mainly that we owe
it. Here too, as in former darknesses, “Hope shines in
him, like a pillar of fire, when it has gone out in all the
others.” Having put his hand to this work, he will not for
any discouragement turn back. Jamaica shall yet be a colony;
Spain and its dark Domdaniel shall yet be smitten to
the heart, — the enemies of God and His Gospel, by the
soldiers and servants of God. It must, and it shall. We
have failed in the West, but not wholly; in the West and in
the East, by sea and by land, as occasion shall be ministered,
we will try it again and again..... Reinforcement
went on the back of reinforcement, during this Protector's
lifetime; “a Thousand Irish Girls” went; not to
speak of the rogue-and-vagabond species from Scotland, —
“we can help you” at any time “to two or three hundred
of these.” And so at length a West-India Interest did take
root; and bears spices and poisons, and other produce, to
this day.
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QUARTERMASTER SINDERCOMB THE ASSASSIN.
Miles Sindercomb, now a cashiered Quartermaster living
about Town, was once a zealous Deptford lad, who enlisted
to fight for Liberty, at the beginning of these wars.
He fought strongly on the side of Liberty, being an earnest
fierce young fellow; — then gradually got astray into Levelling
courses, and wandered ever deeper there, till daylight
forsook him, and it became quite dark. He was one
of the desperate misguided Corporals, or Quartermasters,
doomed to be shot at Burford, seven years ago: but he escaped
over night, and was not shot there; took service in
Scotland; got again to be Quartermaster; was in the Overton
Plot, for seizing Monk and marching into England,
lately; whereupon Monk cashiered him: and he came to
Town; lodged himself here, in a sulky threadbare manner, —
in Alsatia or elsewhere. A gloomy man and Ex-Quartermaster;
has become one of Sexby's people, “on the
faith of a Christian King”; nothing now left of him but the
fierceness, groping some path for itself, in the utter dark.
Henry Toope, one of his Highness's Lifeguard: gives us,
or will give us, an inkling of Sindercomb; and we know
something of his courses and inventions, which are many.
He rode in Hyde Park among his Highness's escort, with
Sexby; but the deed could not then be done. Leave me
the £ 1600, said he; and I will find a way to do it. Sexby
left it him and went abroad.
Inventive Sindercomb then took a House in Hammersmith;
Garden-House, I think, “which had a banqueting-room
looking into the road”; road very narrow at that
part; — road from Whitehall to Hampton Court on Saturday
afternoons. Inventive Sindercomb here set about providing
blunderbusses of the due explosive force, — ancient
“infernal machines,” in fact, — with these he will blow his
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Highness's Coach and his Highness's self into small pieces,
if it please Heaven. It did not please Heaven, — probably
not Henry Toope of his Highness's Lifeguard. This
first scheme proved a failure.
Inventive Sindercomb, to justify his £ 1600, had to try
something. He decided to fire Whitehall by night, and have
a stroke at his Highness in the tumult. He has “a hundred
swift horses, two in a stable, up and down”: — set a
hundred stout ruffians on the back of these, in the nocturnal
fire; and try Thursday, 8th January, 1656-7; that is to be
the Night. On the dusk of Thursday, January 8th, he with
old-trooper Cecil, his second in the business, attends Public
Worship in Whitehall Chapel; is seen loitering there afterwards,
“near the Lord Lambert's seat.” Nothing more is
seen of him: but about half-past eleven at night, the sentinel
on guard catches a smell of fire; — finds holed wainscots,
picked locks; a basket of the most virulent wildfire,
“fit almost to burn through stones,” with lit match slowly
creeping towards it, computed to reach it in some half-hour
hence, about the stroke of midnight! — His Highness is
summoned, the Council is summoned; — alas, Toope of the
Lifeguard is examined and Sindercomb's lodging is known.
Just when the wildfire should have blazed, two Guardsmen
wait upon Sindercomb; seize him, not without hard defence
on his part, “wherein his nose was nearly cut off”; bring
him to his Highness. Toope testifies; Cecil peaches: —
inventive Sindercomb has failed for the last time. To the
Tower with him, to a jury of his country with him! — The
emotion in the Parliament and in the Public, next morning,
was great. It had been proposed to ring an alarm at the
moment of discovery, and summon the Trainbands; but his
Highness would not hear of it.
This Parliament, really intent on settling the Nation,
could not want for emotions, in regard to such a matter!
Parliament adjourns for a week, till the roots of the Plot are
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investigated somewhat. Parliament, on reassembling, appoints
a day of Thanksgiving for the Nation; Friday, come
four weeks, which is February 20th, that shall be the general
Thanksgiving Day: and in the mean time we decide to
go over in a body, and congratulate his Highness. A mark
of great respect to him.....
On Monday, 9th February, Sindercomb was tried by a
jury in the Upper Bench; and doomed to suffer as a traitor
and assassin, on the Saturday following. The night before
Saturday his poor Sister, though narrowly watched, smuggled
him some poison: he went to bed, saying, “Well, this
is the last time I shall go to bed”; the attendants heard him
snore heavily, and then cease; they looked, and he lay dead.
“He was of that wretched sect called Soul-Sleepers, who believe
that the soul falls asleep at death”; a gloomy, far-misguided
man. They buried him on Tower-hill, with due ignominy,
and there he rests; with none but frantic Anabaptist
Sexby, or Deceptive Presbyterian Titus, to sing his praise.
INSTALLED AS PROTECTOR.
Land-General Reynolds has gone to the French Netherlands,
with Six-thousand men, to join Turenne in fighting
the Spaniards there; and Sea-General Montague, is about
hoisting his flag to co-operate with him from the other element.
By sea and land are many things passing; — and
here in London is the loudest thing of all: not yet to be
entirely omitted by us, though now it has fallen very silent
in comparison. Inauguration of the Lord Protector; second
and more solemn Installation of him, now that he is fully
recognized by Parliament itself. He cannot yet, as it
proves, be crowned King; but he shall be installed in his
Protectorship with all solemnity befitting such an occasion.
Friday, 26th June, 1657. The Parliament and all the
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world are busy with this grand affair; the labors of the
Session being now complete, the last finish being now given
to our new Instrument of Government, to our elaborate
Petition and Advice, we will add this topstone to the work,
and so amid the shoutings of mankind, disperse for the
recess. Friday at two o'clock, “in a place prepared,” duly
prepared, with all manner of “platforms,” “cloths of state,”
and “seats raised one above the other,” “at the upper end of
Westminster Hall.” Palace Yard, and London generally,
is all a-tiptoe, out of doors. Within doors, Speaker Widdrington
and the Master of the Ceremonies have done their
best: the Judges, the Aldermen, the Parliament, the Council,
the foreign Ambassadors, and domestic Dignitaries without
end; chairs of state, cloths of state, trumpet-peals, and
acclamations of the people — Let the reader conceive it; or
read in old pamphlets the “exact relation” of it with all the
speeches and phenomena, worthier than such things usually
are of being read.
“His Highness standing under the Cloth of State,” says
Bulstrode, whose fine feelings are evidently touched by it,
“the Speaker, in the name of the Parliament, presented to
him: First, a Robe of purple velvet; which the Speaker,
assisted by Whitlocke and others, put upon his Highness.
Then he,” the Speaker, “delivered to him the Bible richly
gilt and bossed,” an affecting symbolic Gift: “After that,
the Speaker girt the Sword about his Highness; and delivered
into his hand the Sceptre of massy gold. And then,
this done, he made a Speech to him on these several things
presented”; eloquent mellifluous Speech, setting forth the
high and true significance of these several Symbols, Speech
still worth reading; to which his Highness answered in
silence by dignified gesture only. “Then Mr. Speaker
gave him the Oath”; and so ended really in a solemn manner.
“And Mr. Manton, by prayer, recommended his
Highness, the Parliament, the Council, the Forces by land
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and sea, and the whole Government and People of the
Three Nations, to the blessing and protection of God.” —
And then “the people gave several great shouts”; and
“the trumpets sounded; and the Protector sat in his chair
of state, holding the Sceptre in his hand”; a remarkable
sight to see. “On his right sat the Ambassador of
France,” on his left some other Ambassador; and all round,
standing or sitting were Dignitaries of the highest quality;
“and near the Earl of Warwick, stood the Lord Viscount
Lisle, stood General Montague and Whitlocke, each of
them having a drawn sword in his hand,” — a sublime sight
to some of us!
And so this Solemnity transacts itself; — which, at the
moment, was solemn enough; and is not yet, at this or any
hollowest moment of Human History, intrinsically altogether
other. A really dignified and veritable piece of Symbolism;
perhaps the last we hitherto, in these quack-ridden
histrionic ages, have been privileged to see on such an occasion.
ROYALIST INSURRECTION FAILURE.
His Highness, before this Monday's sun sets [Feb. 4,
1658], has begun to lodge the Anarchic Ringleaders, Royalist,
Fifth-Monarchist, in the Tower; his Highness is bent
once more with all his faculty, the Talking-Apparatus being
gone, to front this Hydra, and trample it down once again.
On Saturday he summons his Officers, his Acting-Apparatus,
to Whitehall round him; explains to them “in a Speech
two hours long” what kind of Hydra it is; asks, Shall it conquer
us, involve us in blood and confusion? They answer
from their hearts, No, it shall not! “We will stand and
fall with your Highness, we will live and die with you!” —
It is the last duel this Oliver has with any Hydra
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fomented into life by a Talking-Apparatus; and he again conquers
it, invincibly compresses it, as he has heretofore done.
One day, in the early days of March next, his Highness
said to Lord Broghil: An old friend of yours is in Town,
the Duke of Ormond, now lodged in Drury Lane, at the
Papist Surgeon's there; you had better tell him to be gone!
Whereat his Lordship stared; found it a fact however; and
his Grace of Ormond did go with exemplary speed, and got
again to Bruges and the Sacred Majesty, with report That
Cromwell had many enemies, but that the rise of the Royalists
was moonshine. And on the 12th of the month his
Highness had the Mayor and Common Council with him in
a body at Whitehall; and “in a Speech at large” explained
to them that his Grace of Ormond was gone only “on Tuesday
last”; that there were Spanish Invasions, Royalist Insurrections,
and Frantic-Anabaptist Insurrections rapidly
ripening; — that it would well beseem the City of London
to have its Militia in good order. To which the Mayor and
Common Council “being very sensible thereof,” made zealous
response by speech and by act. In a word, the Talking-Apparatus
being gone, and an Oliver Protector now at
the head of the Acting-Apparatus, no Insurrection, in the
eyes of reasonable persons, had any chance. The leading
Royalists shrank close into their privacies again, — considerable
numbers of them had to shrink into durance in the
Tower. Among which latter class his Highness, justly incensed,
and “considering,” as Thurloe says, “that it was not
fit there should be a Plot of this kind every winter,” had
determined that a High Court of Justice should take cognizance
of some. High Court of Justice is accordingly nominated
as the Act of Parliament prescribes: among the parties
marked for Trial by it are Sir Henry Slingsby, long
since prisoner for Penruddock's business, and the Rev. Dr.
Hewit, a man of much forwardness in Royalism. Sir Henry,
prisoner in Hull and acquainted with the Chief Officers
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there, has been treating with them for betrayal of the place
to his Majesty; has even, to that end, given one of them a
Majesty's Commission; for whose Spanish Invasion such a
Haven and Fortress would have been extremely convenient.
Reverend Dr. Hewit, preaching by sufferance, according to
the old ritual, “in St. Gregory's Church near Paul's,” to a
select disaffected audience, has farther seen good to distinguish
himself very much by secular zeal in this business of
the Royalist Insurrection and Spanish Charles-Stuart Invasion; —
which has now come to nothing, and left poor Dr.
Hewit in a most questionable position. Of these two, and
of others, a High Court of Justice shall take cognizance.
The Insurrection having no chance in the eyes of reasonable
Royalists, and they in consequence refusing to lead it,
the large body of unreasonable Royalists now in London
City, or gathering thither, decide, with indignation, That they
will try it on their own score and lead it themselves. Hands
to work, then, ye unreasonable Royalists; pipe, All hands!
Saturday the 15th of May, that is the night appointed: To
rise that Saturday Night; beat drums for “Royalist Apprentices,”
“fire houses at the Tower,” slay this man, slay
that, and bring matters to a good issue. Alas, on the very
edge of the appointed hour, as usual, we are all seized; the
ringleaders of us are all seized, “at the Mermaid in Cheapside,” —
for Thurloe and his Highness have long known
what we were upon! Barkstead, Governor of the Tower,
“marches into the City with five drakes,” at the rattle of
which every Royalist Apprentice, and party implicated,
shakes in his shoes: — and this also has gone to vapor,
leaving only for result certain new individuals of the Civic
class to give account of it to the High Court of Justice.
Tuesday, 25th May, 1658, the High Court of Justice sat;
a formidable Sanhedrim of above a Hundred-and-thirty
heads; consisting of “all the Judges,” chief Law Officials,
and others named in the Writ, according to Act of
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Parliament; — sat “in Westminster Hall, at nine in the morning,
for the Trial of Sir Henry Slingsby, Knight, John Hewit,
Doctor of Divinity,” and three others whom we may forget.
Sat day after day till all were judged. Poor Sir Henry, on
the first day, was condemned; he pleaded what he could,
poor gentleman, a very constant Royalist all along; but the
Hull business was too palpable; he was condemned to die.
Reverend Dr. Hewit, whose proceedings also had become
very palpable, refused to plead at all; refused even “to take
off his hat,” says Carrion Heath, “till the officer was coming
to do it for him”; had a “Paper of Demurrers prepared by
the learned Mr. Prynne,” who is now again doing business
this way; “conducted himself not very wisely,” says Bulstrode.
He likewise received sentence of death. The others,
by narrow missing, escaped; by good luck, or the Protector's
mercy, suffered nothing.
As to Slingsby and Hewit, the Protector was inexorable.
Hewit has already taken a very high line: let him persevere
in it! Slingsby was the Lord Fauconberg's uncle,
married to his Aunt Bellasis; but that could not stead him,—
perhaps that was but a new monition to be strict with
him. The Commonwealth of England and its Peace are not
nothing! These Royalist Plots every winter, deliveries
of garrisons to Charles Stuart, and reckless “usherings of us
into blood,” shall end! Hewit and Slingsby suffered on
Tower Hill, on Monday, 8th June; amid the manifold
rumor and emotion of men. Of the City insurrectionists
six were condemned; three of whom were executed, three
pardoned. And so the High Court of Justice dissolved
itself; and at this and not at more expense of blood, the
huge Insurrectionary movement ended, and lay silent within
its caves again.
Whether in any future year it would have tried another
rising against such a Lord Protector, one does not know, —
one guesses rather in the negative. The Royalist Cause,
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after so many failures, after such a sort of enterprises “on
the word of a Christian King,” had naturally sunk very low.
Some twelvemonth hence, with a Commonwealth not now
under Cromwell, but only under the impulse of Cromwell,
a Christian King hastening down to the Treaty of the Pyrenees,
where France and Spain were making Peace, found
one of the coldest receptions. Cardinal Mazarin “sent his
coaches and guards a day's journey to meet Lockhart, the
Commonwealth Ambassador”; but refused to meet the
Christian King at all; would not even meet Ormond except
as if by accident, “on the public road,” to say that there was
no hope. The Spanish Minister, Don Louis de Haro, was
civiller in manner; but as to Spanish Charles-Stuart Invasions
or the like, he also decisively shook his head. The
Royalist cause was as good as desperate in England; a melancholy
Reminiscence, fast fading away into the realm of
shadows. Not till Puritanism sank of its own accord, could
Royalism rise again. But Puritanism, the King of it once
away, fell loose very naturally in every fibre, — fell into
Kinglessness, what we call Anarchy; crumbled down, ever
faster, for Sixteen Months, in mad suicide, and universal
clashing and collision; proved, by trial after trial, that there
lay not in it either Government or so much as Self-Government
any more; that a Government of England by it was
henceforth an impossibility. Amid the general wreck of
things, all Government threatening now to be impossible,
the Reminiscence of Royalty rose again, “Let us take
refuge in the Past, the Future is not possible!” and Major-General
Monk crossed the Tweed at Coldstream, with
results which are well known.
Results which we will not quarrel with, very mournful as
they have been! If it please Heaven, these Two Hundred
Years of universal Cant in Speech, with so much of Cottonspinning,
Coal-boring, Commercing, and other valuable Sincerity
of Work going on the while, shall not be quite lost to
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us! Our Cant will vanish, our whole baleful cunningly-compacted
Universe of Cant, as does a heavy Nightmare
Dream. We shall awaken; and find ourselves in a world
greatly widened. — Why Puritanism could not continue?
My friend, Puritanism was not the Complete Theory of this
immense Universe; no, only a part thereof! To me it
seems, in my hours of hope, as if the Destinies meant something
grander with England than even Oliver Protector did!
We will not quarrel with the Destinies; we will work as
we can towards fulfilment of them.
DEATH OF THE PROTECTOR.
Oliver's look was yet strong; and young for his years,
which were Fifty-nine last April [1658]. The “Threescore
and ten years,” the Psalmist's limit, which probably
was often in Oliver's thoughts and in those of others there,
might have been anticipated for him: Ten years more of
Life; — which, we may compute, would have given another
History to all the Centuries of England. But it was not to
be so, it was to be otherwise. Oliver's health, as we might
observe, was but uncertain in late times; often “indisposed”
the spring before last. His course of life had not been
favorable to health! “A burden too heavy for man!” as
he himself, with a sigh, would sometimes say. Incessant
toil; inconceivable labor, of head and heart and hand; toil,
peril, and sorrow manifold, continued for near Twenty years
now, had done their part: those robust life-energies, it afterward
appeared, had been gradually eaten out. Like a Tower
strong to the eye, but with its foundations undermined;
which has not long to stand; the fall of which, on any shock,
may be sudden.
The Manzinis and Ducs de Crequi, with their splendors,
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and congratulations about Dunkirk, interesting to the street
populations and general public, had not yet withdrawn, when
at Hampton Court there had begun a private scene, of
much deeper and quite opposite interest there. The Lady
Claypole, Oliver's favorite Daughter, a favorite of all the
world, had fallen sick we know not when; lay sick now, —
to death, as it proved. Her disease was of internal female
nature; the painfullest and most harassing to mind and
sense, it is understood, that falls to the lot of a human creature.
Hampton Court we can fancy once more, in those
July days, a house of sorrow; pale Death knocking there,
as at the door of the meanest hut. “She had great sufferings,
great exercises of spirit!” Yes: — and in the depths
of the old Centuries, we see a pale anxious Mother, anxious
Husband, anxious weeping Sisters, a poor young Frances
weeping anew in her weeds. “For the last fourteen days”
his Highness has been by her bedside at Hampton Court,
unable to attend to any public business whatever. Be still,
my Child; trust thou yet in God: in the waves of the Dark
River, there too is He a God of help! — On the 6th day of
August she lay dead; at rest forever. My young, my beautiful,
my brave! She is taken from me; I am left bereaved
of her. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away;
blessed be the Name of the Lord!....
In the same dark days occurred George Fox's third
and last interview with Oliver..... George dates nothing;
and his facts everywhere lie round him like the leatherparings
of his old shop: but we judge it may have been
about the time when the Manzinis and Ducs de Crequi
were parading in their gilt coaches, That George and two
Friends “going out of Town,” on a summer day, “two of
Hacker's men” had met them, — taken them, brought them
to the Mews. “Prisoners there a while”: — but the Lord's
power was over Hacker's men; they had to let us go.
Whereupon:
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“The same day, taking boat I went down” (up) “to
Kingston, and from thence to Hampton Court, to speak
with the Protector about the Sufferings of Friends. I met
him riding into Hampton-Court Park; and before I came to
him as he rode at the head of his Lifeguard, I saw and felt
a waft” (whiff) “of death go forth against him.” — — Or
in favor of him, George? His life, if thou knew it, has not
been a merry thing for this man, now or heretofore! I fancy
he has been looking, this long while, to give it up, whenever
the Commander-in-chief required. To quit his laborious
sentry-post; honorably lay up his arms, and be gone to
his rest: — all Eternity to rest in, O George! Was thy
own life merry, for example, in the hollow of the tree; clad
permanently in leather? And does kingly purple, and governing
refractory worlds instead of stitching coarse shoes,
make it merrier? The waft of death is not against him I
think, — perhaps against thee, and me, and others, O
George, when the Nell-Gwyn Defender and Two Centuries
of all-victorious Cant have come in upon us! My unfortunate
George, — — “a waft of death go forth against him;
and when I came to him, he looked like a dead man.
After I had laid the Sufferings of Friends before him, and
had warned him accordingly as I was moved to speak to
him, he bade me come to his house. So I returned to
Kingston; and, the next day, went up to Hampton Court
to speak farther with him. But when I came, Harvey, who
was one that waited on him, told me the Doctors were not
willing that I should speak with him. So I passed away,
and never saw him more.”
Friday, the 20th of August, 1658, this was probably the
day on which George Fox saw Oliver riding into Hampton
Park with his Guards for the last time. That Friday, as
we find, his Highness seemed much better: but on the morrow
a sad change had taken place; feverish symptoms, for
which the Doctors vigorously prescribed quiet. Saturday
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to Tuesday the symptons continued ever worsening: a kind
of tertian ague, “bastard tertian” as the old Doctors name
it; for which it was ordered that his Highness should return
to Whitehall, as to a more favorable air in that complaint.
On Tuesday, accordingly, he quitted Hampton Court; —
never to see it more.
“His time was come,” says Harvey, “and neither prayers
nor tears could prevail with God to lengthen out his life,
and continue him longer to us. Prayers abundantly and
incessantly poured out on his behalf, both publicly and privately,
as was observed, in a more than ordinary way. Besides
many a secret sigh, — secret and unheard by men, yet
like the cry of Moses, more loud, and strongly laying hold
on God, than many spoken supplications. All which, — the
hearts of God's People being thus mightily stirred up, —
did seem to beget confidence in some, and hopes in all; yea
some thoughts in himself, that God would restore him.”
“Prayers public and private”: they are worth imagining
to ourselves. Meetings of Preachers, Chaplains, and Godly
Persons; “Owen, Goodwin, Sterry, with a company of
others in an adjoining room”; in Whitehall, and elsewhere
over religious London and England, fervent outpourings of
many a loyal heart. For there were hearts to whom the
nobleness of this man was known; and his worth to the
Puritan Cause was evident. Prayers, — strange enough to
us; in a dialect fallen obsolete, forgotten now. Authentic
wrestlings of ancient Human Souls, — who were alive then,
with their affections, awe-struck pieties; with their Human
Wishes, risen to be transcendent, hoping to prevail with the
Inexorable. All swallowed now in the depths of dark
Time; which is full of such, since the beginning! Truly it
is a great scene of World-History, this in old Whitehall:
Oliver Cromwell drawing nigh to his end. The exit of
Oliver Cromwell, and of English Puritanism; a great
Light, one of our few authentic Solar Luminaries, going
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down now amid the clouds of Death. Like the setting of a
great victorious summer Sun — its course now finished.
“So stirbt ein Held,” says Schiller; “So dies a Hero! Sight
worthy to be worshipped!” He died, this Hero Oliver, in
Resignation to God, as the Brave have all done. “We could
not be more desirous he should abide,” says the pious
Harvey, “than he was content and willing to be gone.” The
struggle lasted, amid hope and fear, for ten days.....
On Monday, August 30th, there roared and howled all
day a mighty storm of wind. Ludlow, coming up to Town
from Essex, could not start in the morning for wind; tried
it in the afternoon; still could not get along, in his coach,
for head-wind; had to stop at Epping. On the morrow,
Fleetwood came to him in the Protector's name, to ask,
What he wanted here? — Nothing of public concernment,
only to see my mother-in-law! answered the solid man. For
indeed he did not know that Oliver was dying; that the glorious
hour of Disenthralment, and immortal “Liberty” to
plunge over precipices with one's self and one's Cause, was
so nigh! — It came; and he took the precipices, like a
strongboned resolute blind ginhorse, rejoicing in the breakage
of its halter, in a very gallant constitutional manner.
Adieu, my solid friend; if I go to Vevay, I will read thy
Monument there, perhaps not without emotion, after all!
It was on this stormy Monday, while rocking-winds, heard
in the sick-room and everywhere, were piping aloud, that
Thurloe and an Official person entered to inquire, Who, in
case of the worst, was to be his Highness's Successor? The
Successor is named in a sealed Paper already drawn up,
above a year ago, at Hampton Court; now lying in such
and such a place. The Paper was sent for, searched for;
it could never be found. Richard's is the name understood
to have been written in that Paper: not a good name; but
in fact one does not know. In ten years' time, had ten
years more been granted, Richard might have become a
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fitter man; might have been cancelled, if palpably unfit.
Or perhaps it was Fleetwood's name, — and the Paper by
certain parties was stolen? None knows. On the Thursday
night following, “and not till then,” his Highness is
understood to have formally named “Richard!” — or perhaps
it might only be some heavy-laden “Yes, yes!” spoken
out of the thick death-slumbers, in answer to Thurloe's question
“Richard?” The thing is a little uncertain. It was,
once more, a matter of much moment; — giving color probably
to all the subsequent Centuries of England, this answer!....
Thursday night the writer of our old Pamphlet was himself
in attendance on his Highness; and has preserved a
trait or two; with which let us hasten to conclude. To-morrow
is September Third, always kept as a Thanksgivingday,
since the Victories of Dunbar and Worcester. The
wearied one, “that very night before the Lord took him to
his everlasting rest,” was heard thus, with oppressed voice,
speaking: —
“`Truly God is good; indeed, He is; He will not —'
then his speech failed him, but, as I apprehended, it was,
`He will not leave me.' This saying, `God is good,' he frequently
used all along; and would speak it with much
cheerfulness, and fervor of spirit, in the midst of his pains.
Again he said: `I would be willing to live to be farther
serviceable to God and His People: but my work is done.
Yet God will be with His People.'
“He was very restless most part of the night, speaking
often to himself. And there being something to drink
offered him, he was desired to take the same, and endeavor
to sleep. Unto which he answered: `It is not my desire
to drink or sleep; but my design is, to make what haste I
can to be gone.'
“Afterwards, towards morning, he used divers holy expressions,
implying much inward consolation and peace;
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among the rest he spake some exceeding self-debasing
words, annihilating and judging himself. And truly it was
observed, that a public spirit to God's Cause did breathe in
him, — as in his lifetime so now to his very last.”
When the morrow's sun rose, Oliver was speechless; between
three and four in the afternoon, he lay dead. Friday,
3d September, 1658. “The consternation and astonishment
of all people,” writes Fauconberg, “are inexpressible; their
hearts seem as if sunk within them. My poor Wife, — I
know not what on earth to do with her. When seemingly
quieted, she bursts out again into a passion that tears her
very heart to pieces.” Husht, poor weeping Mary! Here
is a Life-battle right nobly done. Seest thou not,
The storm is changed into a calm,
At His command and will;
So that the waves which raged before,
Now quiet are and still!
Then are they glad, — because at rest
And quiet now they be:
So to the haven He them brings
Which they desired to see.
“Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord”; blessed are
the valiant that have lived in the Lord. “Amen, saith the
Spirit,” Amen. “They do rest from their labors, and their
works follow them.”
“Their works follow them.” As, I think, this Oliver
Cromwell's works have done, and are still doing? We have
had our “Revolutions of Eighty-eight,” officially called “glorious”;
and other Revolutions not yet called glorious, and
somewhat has been gained for poor Mankind. Men's ears
are not now slit off by rash Officiality; Officiality will, for
long henceforth, be more cautious about men's ears. The
tyrannous Star-chambers, branding-irons, chimerical Kings
and Surplices at All-hallowtide, they are gone, or with
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immense velocity going, Oliver's works do follow him! — The
works of a man, bury them under what guano-mountains and
obscene owl-droppings you will, do not perish, cannot perish.
What of Heroism, what of Eternal Light was in a Man
and his Life, is with very great exactness added to the Eternities,
remains forever a new divine portion of the Sum of
Things; and no owl's voice, this way or that, in the least,
avails in the matter. But we have to end here.
Oliver is gone; and with him England's Puritanism,
laboriously built together by this man, and made a thing
far-shining miraculous to its own Century, and memorable
to all the Centuries, soon goes. Puritanism, without its
King, is kingless, anarchic; falls into dislocation, self-collision;
staggers, plunges into ever deeper anarchy; King,
Defender of the Puritan Faith there can none now be
found; — and nothing is left but to recall the old disowned
Defender with the remnants of his Four Surplices, and
Two Centuries of Hypocrisis (or Play-acting not so called),
and put up with all that, the best we may. The Genius of
England no longer soars Sunward, world-defiant like an
Eagle through the storms, “mewing her mighty youth,” as
John Milton saw her do: the Genius of England, much
more like a greedy Ostrich intent on provender and a
whole skin mainly, stands with its other extremity Sunward
with its Ostrich-head stuck into the readiest bush of old
Church-tippets, King-cloaks, or what other “sheltering Fallacy”
there may be, and so awaits the issue. The issue has
been slow; but it is now seen to have been inevitable.
No Ostrich, intent on gross terrene provender, and sticking
its head into Fallacies, but will be awakened one day, —
in a terrible a posteriori manner, if not otherwise! —
Awake before it come to that! God and man bid us awake!
The Voices of our Fathers, with thousand-fold stern monition
to one and all, bid us awake.
-- -- p559-111
LITTLE BELL. By T. WESTWOOD.
“He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.”
The Ancient Mariner.
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PIPED the Blackbird, on the beechwood spray,
“Pretty maid, slow wandering this way,
What 's your name?” quoth he.
“What's your name? Oh! stop and straight unfold,
Pretty maid, with showery curls of gold.”
“Little Bell,” said she.
Little Bell sat down beneath the rocks,
Tossed aside her gleaming, golden locks,
“Bonny bird!” quoth she,
“Sing me your best song, before I go.”
“Here 's the very finest song, I know,
Little Bell,” said he.
And the Blackbird piped — you never heard
Half so gay a song from any bird;
Full of quips and wiles,
Now so round and rich, now soft and slow,
All for love of that sweet face below,
Dimpled o'er with smiles.
And the while that bonny bird did pour
His full heart out, freely, o'er and o'er,
'Neath the morning skies,
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In the little childish heart below,
All the sweetness seemed to grow and grow,
And shine forth in happy overflow
From the brown, bright eyes.
Down the dell she tripped, and through the glade —
Peeped the squirrel from the hazel shade,
And, from out the tree,
Swung and leaped and frolicked, void of fear,
While bold Blackbird piped, that all might hear,
“Little Bell!” piped he.
Little Bell sat down amid the fern:
“Squirrel, Squirrel! to your task return;
Bring me nuts!” quoth she.
Up, away! the frisky Squirrel hies,
Golden wood-lights glancing in his eyes,
And adown the tree,
Great ripe nuts, kissed brown by July sun,
In the little lap drop, one by one —
Hark! how Blackbird pipes, to see the fun!
“Happy Bell!” pipes he.
Little Bell looked up and down the glade:
“Squirrel, Squirrel, from the nut-tree shade,
Bonny Blackbird, if you 're not afraid,
Come and share with me!”
Down came Squirrel, eager for his fare,
Down came bonny Blackbird, I declare;
Little Bell gave each his honest share —
Ah! the merry three!
And the while those frolic playmates twain
Piped and frisked from bough to bough again,
'Neath the morning skies,
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In the little childish heart below,
All the sweetness seemed to grow and grow,
And shine out in happy overflow,
From her brown, bright eyes.
By her snow-white cot, at close of day,
Knelt sweet Bell, with folded palms, to pray.
Very calm and clear
Rose the praying voice, to where, unseen,
In blue heaven, an angel shape serene
Paused awhile to hear.
“What good child is this,” the angel said,
“That, with happy heart, beside her bed,
Prays so lovingly?”
Low and soft, oh! very low and soft,
Crooned the Blackbird in the orchard croft,
“Bell, dear Bell!” crooned he.
“Whom God's creatures love,” the angel fair
Murmured, “God doth bless with angels' care;
Child, thy bed shall be
Folded safe from harm; love, deep and kind,
Shall watch round and leave good gifts behind,
Little Bell, for thee.”
-- -- p559-118
THE MORMON'S WIFE. By ROSE TERRY.
“`Woe to that man,' his warning voice replied
To all who questioned, or in silence sighed —
`Woe to that man who ventures truth to win,
And seeks his object by the path of sin!'” —
Schiller.
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“I DON'T think much, my young friend, of those Mormons!
I have had some reasons of my own for disliking
them!” said Parson Field to me, as we sat together, one
August noon, in the porch of his red house at Plainfield.
“Do tell me, sir,” said I, settling myself in an easy attitude
to hear his story — for a story from Parson Field was
not to be despised — his quaint simplicity bringing out, in
old-time and expressive phrases, whatever he describes with
the clear fidelity of an interior by Mieris. “Do tell me,”
said I again, with a deeper emphasis; whereat the old gentleman
looked at me over his spectacles, and, smiling benignantly
into my eager face, began.
“When I first came to Plainfield,” said he, “more than
thirty years ago, I had been a minister of the Lord only ten
years, and I had been settled for that period of time in a
large city, where I served acceptably to a worthy congregation;
but certain reasons of my own induced me to leave
that situation, and come here to live, where also I found
acceptance, and not many months after I came there was a
considerable reviving of the work in this place, and many
believed. Of these was a certain Joseph Frazer, a young
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Scotchman, concerning whom I felt much misgiving, lest he
should take the wrong path; but he, in due season, joined
himself to the church, and edified the brethren in walk and
conversation; so that, when he left Plainfield and settled in
the West Indies, we were loth to have him go.
“Some years afterwards we heard he was married there
to a lady of Spanish extraction, and a Catholic; and, after
ten years elapsed, she died, leaving him one child, a daughter,
eight years of age, and with her he came to Plainfield,
desiring that the child, whom he had named Adeline, after
his own mother, should have a New England training.
“But, wonderful are the ways of Providence! On his return
to Cuba, he perished in the vessel, which went down
in a heavy gale off Cape Hatteras; and when the news
came to his mother, old Mrs. Frazer, she sent for me that I
should tell the child Adeline, for she had given proofs of a
singular nature, ardent and self-confident in the extreme.
I took my hat, and went over to Mrs. Frazer's, with a very
heavy heart, for the grief of a child is a fearful thing to me,
and to be the bringer of evil tidings, that shall stain the
pureness and calm of a child's thoughts with the irreparable
shadow of death, is no light thing, nor easily to be done. I
entered into the house one day in June: it was a very sweet
day, and, as I walked quietly into the low kitchen, I saw
Adeline, with her head resting on her hands, and her large
eyes eagerly gazing out of the window at the gambols of a
scarlet-throated humming-bird. I went close to her, and
thought to myself that I would speak, but I did not, for I
saw that, in her little pale face, which made me more sad
than before; and I had it on my lips to say, `Adeline, are
you homesick?' (which was the thing of all others I should
not say) when suddenly she turned about, and answered the
question before I spoke it.
“`Sir,' said she, `I wish I was in Cuba. I had just such
a humming-bird at home; and I fed it with orange boughs
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full of white flowers, every day; but you have no orange
trees here, and I have no papa!'
“It seemed to me that the child's angel had thus opened
the way for me to speak, and I began to say some things
about the love of our universal Father, when she laid her
little hand on my arm with a fearfully strong pressure.
`Mr. Field,' said she, `is my papa dead!' I never shall
forget the eyes that looked that question into mine. I felt
like an unveiled spirit before their eager, piercing stare. I
did not answer except by a strong quiver of feeling that
would run over my features, for I loved her father even as
a kinsman, and I needed to say nothing more, for the child
fell at my feet quite rigid, and I called Mrs. Frazer, who
tried all her nurse-arts to restore little Adeline; but was
forced, at last, to send for a physician, who bled the child,
and brought her round.
“In the mean time I had gone home to prepare my sermon,
for it was not yet finished, and the day was Friday;
but I kept seeing that little lifeless face, all orphaned as it
was, and the Scripture, `As one whom his mother comforteth,
' was so borne in upon my mind, that, although I had
previously fixed upon one adapted to a setting forth of the
doctrine of election, I was wrought upon to make the other
the subject of my discourse: and truly the people wept;
almost all but Adeline, who sat in the square pew with her
great eyes fixed upon me, and her small lips apart, like one
who drinks from the stream of a rock.
“The next day I was resting, as my custom is, after the
Sabbath; and in a warm, fair day, I find no better rest than
to sit by the open window, and breathe the summer air, and
fill my eyes and heart with the innumerable love-tokens that
God hath set thickly in Nature. I was, therefore, at my
usual place, wrapt in thought, and beholding the labors of a
small bird which taught her young to fly, when I felt a
light, cold touch, and, turning, saw little Adeline beside me.
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`Sir,' said she, without any preface, `when my papa went
away, he left with me a letter, which he said I was to give
you if he died.' So far she spoke steadily, but there the
small voice quivered, and broke down. I took the letter
she proffered me, and, breaking the seal, found it a short
but touching appeal to me, as the spiritual father of Joseph
Frazer, to take his own child under my care, and be as a
father to her, inasmuch as his mother was old and feeble,
and also to be executor of his will, of which a copy was enclosed.
I said this much to the child as shortly as I could,
and with her grave voice she replied, `Sir, I should like to
be your little girl, if you will preach me some more sermons.
' Now I was affected at this answer; not the less
that the leaven of pride, which worketh in every man, was
fed by even a baby's praise; and, putting on my hat, I
walked over to Mrs. Frazer's house and laid the matter before
her. She was not, at first, willing to give Adeline up,
but at length, after much converse to and fro, she came to
my conclusion, that the child would be better in my hands,
inasmuch as she herself could not hope for a long continuance:
and as it was ordered, she died the next summer. I
sent for my sister Martha, who was somewhat past marriageable
years, but kind and good, to come and keep house
for me, and from that time Adeline was as my own child.
But I must hasten over a time, for I am too long in telling
this.
“In course of years the child grew up, tall and slender,
of a very stately carriage, and having that Scriptural glory
of a woman, long and abundant hair.
“She was still very fervid in her feelings, but reserved
and proud, and I fear I had been too tender with her for
her good, inasmuch as she thought her own will and pleasure
must always be fulfilled; and we all know that is not one of
the ordinations of Providence.
“As Adeline came to be a woman, divers youths of my
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congregation were given to call of a Sabbath night, with
red apples for me, and redder cheeks for Adeline, who was
scarcely civil to them, and often left them to my conversation,
which they seemed not to relish so much as would
have been pleasing to human nature.
“But my sainted mother, who was not wanting in the
wisdom of this world, was used to say that every man and
woman had their time of crying for the moon, and while
some knew it to be a burning fire, and others scornfully
called it cheese, and if they got it, either burned their fingers,
or despised their desire, still all generations must have
their turn, and truly I believed it, when I found that Adeline
herself began to have a pining for something which I
could not persuade her to specify. The child grew thin and
pale, and ceased the singing of psalms at her daily task, and
I could not devise what should be done for her; though
Martha strongly recommended certain herb teas, which Adeline
somewhat unreasonably rebelled against. However,
about this time, my attention was a little turned from her,
as there was much religious awakening in the place, and
among others, whom the deacons singled out as special objects
of attention, was one John Henderson, a frequent visitor
at our house, and a young man of good parts and kindly
feeling, as it seemed, but of a peculiar nature, being easily
led into either right or wrong, yet still given to fits of stubbornness,
when he could not be drawn, so to speak, with a
cart-rope.
“Now Adeline had been a professor of religion for some
years, but it did not seem to me that she took a right view
of this particular season, for many times she refused to go
to the prayer-meetings, even to those which were held with
special intentions towards the unconverted; and many times,
on my return, I found her with pale cheeks and red eyes,
evidently from tears. About this time, also, she began to
take long, solitary walks, from which she returned with her
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hands full of wild flowers, for it was now early spring; but
she cared nothing for the flowers, and would scatter them
about the house to fade, without a thought. In the mean
time, the revival progressed, but, I lament to say, with no
visible change in John Henderson. He had gotten into one
of his stubborn moods of mind, and neither heaven nor hell
seemed to affect him. The only softening I could perceive
in the young man was during the singing of hymns, which
was well done in our meeting-house, for Adeline led the
choir, and I noticed that, whenever that part of the exercises
began, John Henderson would lift up his head, and a strange
color and tender expression seemed to melt the hard lines
of his face.
“Somewhere about the latter end of April, as I was returning
from a visit to a sick man, I met John coming from
a piece of woods, that lay behind my house about a mile,
with his hands full of liverwort blossoms. I do not know
why this little circumstance gave me comfort, yet, I have
ever observed, that a man who loves the manifestations of
God in his works is more likely to be led into religion than
a brutal or a mere business man: so I was desirous of
speaking to the youth, but when he saw me he turned from
the straight path, and, like an evil-doer, fled across the
fields another way. I did not call after him, for some experience
has constrained me to think that there is no little
wisdom in sometimes letting people alone, but I took my
own way home, and having put on my cloth shoes to ease
my feet, and being in somewhat of a maze of thought, I
went up to my study, as it seemed, very quietly, for I entered
at the open door and found Adeline sitting in my armchair
by the window, quite unaware of my nearness. I
well remember how like a spirit she looked that day, with
her great eyes raised to a cloud that rested in the bright
sky, her soft black hair twisted into a crown about her
head, and her light dress falling all over the chair, while in
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her hands, lying between the slight fingers, and by the bluer
veins, was clasped a bunch of liverwort blossoms. Then I
perceived, for the first time, why my child was crying for the
moon, and that John Henderson cared for the singing and
not for the hymns, at which I sorrowed. But I sat down
by Ada, and taking the flowers out of her cold hands, began
to say that I had met John Henderson on the road with
some such blossoms, at which she looked at me even as she
did when I told her about her father, and, seeing that I
smiled, and yet was not dry-eyed, nor quite at rest, the tears
began, slowly, to run over her eyelashes, and in a few very
resolute words, she told me that Mr. Henderson had asked
her that morning to marry him.
“Now I knew not well what to say, but I set myself
aside, as far as I could, and tried not to remember how sore
a trial it would be to part with Ada, and I reasoned with
her calmly about the youth, setting forth, first, that he was
not a professing Christian, and that the Scripture seemed
plain to me on that matter, though I would not constrain
her conscience if she found it clear in this thing; and, second,
that he was a man who held fast to this world's goods,
and was like to be a follower of Mammon if he learned not
to love better things in his youth; and, third, that he was a
man who had, as one might say, a streak of granite in his
nature, against which a feeling person would continually fall
and be hurt, and which no person could work upon, if once
it came in the way even of right action. To all this Adeline
answered with more reason than I supposed a woman
could, only that I noticed, at the end of each answer, she
said in a low voice, as if it were the end of all contention, —
`and I love him.' Whereby, seeing that the thing was well
past my interference, I gave my consent with many doubts
and fears in my heart, and, having blessed the child, I sent
her away that I might meditate over this matter.
“When John came in the evening for his answer, I was
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enabled to exhort him faithfully, and, in his softened state of
feeling, he chose to tell me that he had been seeking religion
because he feared I would not give him Adeline unless
he were joined to the church, and he could not make a hypocrite
of himself, even for that, but he had hoped that in the
use of means he might be awakened and converted. At
this I was pleased, inasmuch as it showed a spirit of truth
in the young man, but I could not avoid setting before him
that self-seeking had never led any soul to God, and how
cogent a reason he had himself given for his want of success
in things pertaining to his salvation; but as I spoke Ada
came in by the other door, and John's eyes began to wander
so visibly, that I thought it best to conclude, and I must say
he appeared grateful. So I went out of the door, leaving
Ada stately and blushing as a fair rose-tree, notwithstanding
that John Henderson seemed to fancy she needed his support.
“As the year went on, and I could not in conscience let
Adeline leave me until her lover had some fixed maintenance,
I had many conversations with him, (for he also was
an orphan,) and it was at length decided that he should buy,
with Ada's portion, a goodly farm in Western New York;
and in the ensuing summer, after a year's engagement, they
were to marry. So the summer came; I know not exactly
what month was fixed for their marriage, though I have the
date somewhere, but one thing I recollect, that the hop-vine
over this porch was in full bloom, and after I had joined my
child and the youth in the bands of wedlock, I went out into
the porch to see them safe into the carriage that was to take
them to the boat, and there Ada put her arms about my
neck, and kissed me for good-by, leaving a hot tear upon my
cheek; and a south wind at that moment smote the hop-vine
so that its odor of honey and bitterness mingled swept
across my face, and always afterward this scent made me
think of Adeline. After two years had passed away, during
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which we heard from her often, we heard that she had a
little daughter born, and her letters were full of joy and
pride, so that I trembled for the child's spiritual state; but
after some three years the little girl with her mother came
to Plainfield, and I did not know but Adeline was excusable
in her joy, for such a fair and bright child was scarcely
ever seen; but the next summer came sad news: little
Nelly was dead, and Ada's grief seemed inexhaustible,
while her husband fell into one of his sullen states of mind,
and the affliction passed over them to no good end, as it
seemed.
“Soon after this, the Mormon delusion began to spread
rapidly about John Henderson's dwelling-place, and in less
than a year after Nelly's death I had a letter from Ada,
dated at St. Louis, which I will read to you, for I have it
in my pocket-book, having retained it there since yesterday,
when I took it out from the desk to consult a date.
“It begins: — `Dear Uncle,' (I had always instructed
the child so to call me, rather than father, seeing we can
have but one father, while we may be blessed with numerous
uncles) `I suppose you will wonder how I came to be
at St. Louis, and it is just my being here that I write to
explain. You know how my husband felt about Nelly's
death, but you cannot know how I felt; for, even in my
very great sorrow, I hoped all the time, that by her death,
John might be led to a love of religion. He was very unhappy,
but he would not show it, only that he took even
more tender care of me than before. I have always been
his darling and pride; he never let me work, because he
said it spoiled my hands; but after Nelly died, he was
hardly willing I should breathe; and though he never spoke
of her, or seemed to feel her loss, yet I have heard him
whisper her name in his sleep, and every morning his hair
and pillow were damp with crying; but he never knew I
saw it. After a few months, there came a Mormon preacher
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into our neighborhood, a man of a great deal of talent
and earnestness, and a firm believer in the revelation to
Joseph Smith. At first my husband did not take any
notice of him, and then he laughed at him for being a believer
in what seemed like nonsense; but one night he was
persuaded to go and hear Brother Marvin preach in the
school-house, and he came home with a very sober face. I
said nothing, but when I found there was to be a meeting
the next night, I asked to go with him, and, to my surprise,
I heard a most powerful and exciting discourse, not wanting
in either sense or feeling, though rather poor as to argument;
but I was not surprised that John wanted to hear
more, nor that, in the course of a few weeks, he avowed
himself a Mormon, and was received publicly into the sect.
Dear Uncle, you will be shocked, I know, and you will wonder
why I did not use my influence over my husband, to
keep him from this delusion; but you do not know how
much I have longed and prayed for his conversion to a religious
life; until any religion, even one full of errors,
seemed to me better than the hardened and listless state of
his mind.
“`I could not but feel, that if he were awakened to a
sense of the life to come, in any way, his own good sense
would lead him right in the end; and there is so much ardor
and faith about this strange belief, that I do not regret
his having fallen in with it, for I think the true burning of
Gospel faith will yet be kindled by means of this strange fire.
In the mean time he is very eager and full of zeal for the
cause, so much so, that thinking it to be his duty, he resolved
to sell our farm at Oakwood, and remove to Utah. If anything
could make me grieve over a change, I believe to be
for John's spiritual good, it would be this idea: but no regret
or sorrow of mine shall ever stand in the way of his
soul; so I gave as cheerful a consent as I could to the sale,
and I only cried a few tears, over little Nelly's bed, under
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the great tulip-tree. There my husband has put an iron
railing, and I have planted a great many sweet-brier vines
over the rock; and Mr. Keeney, who bought the farm, has
promised that the spot shall be kept free from weeds, so I
leave her in peace. Do write to me, Uncle Field. I feel
sure I have done right, because it has not been in my own
way, yet sometimes I am almost afraid. I shall be very
far away from you, and from home, and my child; but I
am so glad now she is in heaven, nothing can trouble her,
and I shall not much care about myself, if John goes right.
“`Give my love to Aunt Martha, and please write to
your dear child.
“`Ada Henderson.”
“I need not say, my young friend,” resumed Parson
Field, wiping his spectacles, and clearing his voice with a
vigorous ahem!! “that I could not, in conscience, approve
of Adeline's course. `Thou shalt not do evil that good may
come,' is a Gospel truth, and cannot be transgressed with
good consequences. I did write to Ada; but, inasmuch as
the act was done, I said not much concerning it, but bade
her take courage, seeing that she had meant to do right,
although in the deed she had considered John Henderson
before anything else, which was, as you may perceive, her
besetting sin, and therefore it seemed good to me to put, at
the end of my epistle, (as I was wont always to offer a suitable
text of Scripture for her meditation,) these words,
`Little children, keep yourselves from idols!' I did not
hear again from Adeline, till she had been two months in
the Mormon city, and though she tried her best to seem
contented and peaceful, in view of John's new zeal, and his
tender care of her, still I could not but think of the hopblossoms,
for I perceived, underneath this present sweetness,
a little drop of life and pain working to some unseen
end. That year passed away and we heard no more, and
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the next also, at which I wondered much; but, reflecting
on the chances of travel across those deserts, and having a
surety of Ada's affection for me, I did not repine, though I
felt some regret that there was such uncertainty of carriage;
nevertheless, I wrote as usual, that no chance might be lost.
“The third summer was unusually warm in our parts, and
its heats following upon a long, wet spring, caused much and
grievous sickness, and I was obliged to be out at all hours
with the dying, and at funerals, so that my bodily strength
was wellnigh exhausted, and at haying-time, just as I was
cutting the last swarth on my river meadow, which is lowlying
land, and steamed with hot vapor as I laid it bare to
the sun, I fell forward across my scythe-snath and fainted.
This was the beginning of a long course of fever, of a typhoid
character, during which I was either stupid or delirious
most of the time, and, while I lay sick, there came a
letter to me, from Salt Lake city, written chiefly by John
Henderson, who begged me to come on if it was a possible
thing and see his wife, who was wasting with a slow consumption,
and much bent upon seeing me. I could discern
that the letter was not willingly written; it was stiff in
speech, though writ with a trembling hand. At the end of
it were a few lines from Ada herself; a very impatient and
absolute cry for me, as if she could not die till I came.
Now Martha had opened this letter, as she was forced to by
my great illness, and, having read it, asked the doctor if it
was well to propound the contents to me, and he said decidedly
that he could not answer for my life if she did: so
Martha, like a considerate woman, wrote an answer herself
to John Henderson (of which she kept a copy for me to
see), setting forth that I was in no state to be moved with
such tidings; that, however, I should have the letter as
soon as the doctor saw fit, and sending her love and sympathy
to Ada, and a recommend that she should try balm
tea.
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“After a long season of suspense, I was graciously uplifted
from fever, and enabled to leave my bed for a few
hours daily; and, when I could ride out, which was only
by the latter end of October, I was given the child's letter,
and my heart sank within me, for I knew how bitterly she
had needed my strength to help her. It was a warm autumn
day, near to noon, when I read that letter, and, as I
leaned back in my chair, the red sunshine came in upon me,
and the smell of dead leaves, while upon the hop-vine one
late blossom, spared by the white frosts, and dropping across
the window, also put forth its scent, bringing Adeline, as it
were, right back into my arms, and the faintness passed
away from me with some tears, for I was weak, and a man
may not always be stronger than his nature. Now, when
Martha sounded the horn for dinner, and our hired man
came in from the hill-lot, where he was sowing wheat, I saw
that he had a letter in his hand of great size and thickness;
and, coming into the keeping-room where I sat, he said that
Squire White had brought it over from the Post-office as he
came along, thinking I would like to have it directly. I
was rather loth to open the great packet at first, for I bethought
myself it was likely to be some Consociation proceedings,
which were never otherwise than irksome to me,
and were now weary to think of, seeing the grasshopper
had become a burden. I reached my spectacles down from
the nail, and found the post-mark to be that of the Mormon
city; and with unsteady hand I opened the seal, and found
within several sheets of written letter-paper, directed to me
in Ada's writing, and a short letter from John Henderson,
which ran thus: —
“`Dear Sir, —
“`My first wife, Adeline Frazer Henderson, departed
this life on the sixth of July, at my house in the city of
Great Salt Lake. Shortly before dying she called upon
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me, in the presence of two sisters, and one of the Saints, to
deliver into your hands the enclosed packet, and tell you of
her death. According to her wish, I send the papers by
mail; and, hoping you may yet be called to be a partaker
in the faith of the saints below, I remain your afflicted, yet
rejoicing friend,
“`John Henderson.'
“I was really stunned for a moment, my young friend,
not only with grief at my own loss, but with pity and surprise
at the entire deadening, as it appeared, of natural affection
in the man to whom I had given my daughter; and
also my conscience was not free from offence, for I could
not but think that a more fervent and wrestling expostulation,
on the sin of marrying an unbeliever, might have saved
Adeline from sorrow in the flesh. However, I said as
much as seemed best at the time, and upon that reflection I
rested myself; for he who adheres to a pure intention, need
not repent of his deeds afterward; and the next day, when
my present anguish and weakness had somewhat abated, I
read the manuscript Ada had sent me.
“It was, doubtless, penned with much reluctance, for the
child's natural pride was great, and no less weighty subject
than her husband's salvation could have forced her to speak
of what she wrote for me: and, indeed, I should feel no
right to put the confidence into your hands, were not my
child beyond the reach of man's judgment, and did I not feel
it a sacred duty to protest, so long as life lasts, against this
abominable Mormon delusion, and the no less delusive pretext
of doing evil that good may come. I cannot read
Ada's letter aloud to you, for there is to be a funeral at two
o'clock, which I must attend; but I will give you the papers,
and you may sit in my chair and read; only, be
patient with my bees, if they come too near you, for they
like the hop-blossoms, and never sting unless you strike.”
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So saying, Parson Field gave me his leathern chair and
the papers, and I sat down in the hop-crowned porch, to
read Adeline Henderson's story, with a sort of reverence for
her that prompted me to turn the rustling pages carefully,
and feel startled if a door swung to in the quiet house, as if
I were eavesdropping; but soon I ceased to hear, absorbed
in her letter, which began as the first did.
“Dear Uncle, —
“To-day I begged John to write, and ask you to come
here. I could not write you since I came here but that
once, though your letters have been my great comfort, and
I added a few words of entreaty to his, because I am dying,
and it seems as if I must see you before I die; yet I fear
the letter may not reach you, or you may be sick: and for
that reason I write now, to tell you how terrible a necessity
urged me to persuade you to such a journey. I can write
but little at a time, my side is so painful; they call it slowconsumption
here, but I know better; the heart within me
is turned to stone, I felt it then — Ah! you see my mind
wandered in that last line; it still will return to the old
theme, like a fugue tune, such as we had in the Plainfield
singing-school. I remember one that went, `The Lord is
just, is just, is just.' — Is He? Dear Uncle, I must begin
at the beginning, or you never will know. I wrote you from
St. Louis, did I not? I meant to. From there, we had a
dreary journey, not so bad to Fort Leavenworth, but after
that inexpressibly dreary, and set with tokens of the dead,
who perished before us. A long reach of prairie, day after
day, and night after night; grass, and sky, and graves;
grass, and sky, and graves; till I hardly knew whether the
life I dragged along was life or death, as the thirsty, feverish
days wore on into the awful and breathless nights, when
every creature was dead asleep, and the very stars in heaven
grew dim in the hot, sleepy air — dreadful days! I was
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too glad to see that bitter inland sea, blue as the fresh lakes,
with its gray islands of bare rock, and sparkling sand shores,
still more rejoiced to come upon the City itself, the rows of
quaint, bare houses, and such cool water-sources, and, over
all, near enough to rest both eyes and heart, the sunlit
mountains, `the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.'
“I liked my new house well. It was too large for our
need, but pleasanter for its airiness, and the first thing I did
was to plant a little hop-vine, that I had brought all the way
with such great care, by the east porch. I wanted something
like Plainfield in my home. I don't know why I linger
so, I must write faster, for I grow weak all the time.
“I liked the City very well for awhile; the neighbors
were kind, and John more than that; I could not be unhappy
with him — I thought. We had a pretty garden,
for another man had owned the house before us, and we
had not to begin everything. Our next door neighbor, Mrs.
Colton, was good and kind to me, so was her daughter
Lizzy, a pretty girl, with fair hair, — very fair. I wonder
John liked it after mine. The first great shock I had was
at a Mormon meeting. I cannot very well remember the
ceremony, because I grew so faint; but I would not faint
away lest some one should see me. I only remember that it
was Mrs. Colton's husband with another wife being “sealed”
to him, as they say here. You don't know what that means,
Uncle Field; it is one part of this religion of Satan, that
any man may have, if he will, three or four wives, perhaps
more. I only know that shameless man, with grown daughters,
and the hair on his head snow-white, has taken two,
and his own wife, a firm believer in this — faith! looks on
calmly, and lives with them in peace. I know that, and my
soul sickened with disgust, but I did not fear; not a thought,
not a dream, not a shadow of fear crossed me. I should
have despised myself forever if the idea had stained my
soul; my husband was my husband — mine — before God
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and man! and our child was in heaven; how glad I was
she could never be a Mormon!
“I was sorry for Mrs. Colton, though she did not need it,
and when I saw John leaning over their gate, or smoking in
the porch with the old man, I thought he felt so, too, and I
was glad to see him more sociable than ever he was in the
States. After awhile he did not smoke, but talked with
Elder Colton, and then would come home and expound out
of the book of Mormon to me. I was very glad to have
him earnest in his religion, but I could not be. Then he
grew very thoughtful, and had a silent fit, but I took no
notice of it, though I think now he meant to leave me, but
I began to pine a little for home, and when I worked in the
garden, and trained the vines about our veranda, I used to
wish he would help me as he did Lizzy Colton, but I still
remembered how good he was to pity and help them.
“O fool! yet, I had rather be a fool over again than
have imagined — that I am glad of, even now — I did not
once suspect.
“But one day — I remember every little thing in that
day — even the slow ticking of the clock, as I tied up my
hop-vine; and after that I went into the garden, and sat
down on a little bench under the grape-trellis, and looked at
the mountains. How beautiful they were! all purple in the
shadow of sunset, and the sky golden green above them,
with one scarlet cloud floating slowly upward: I hope I
shall never see a red cloud again. Presently, John came
and sat by me, and I laid my head on his shoulder; I was
so glad to have him there — it cured my homesickness;
once or twice he began to say something, and stopped, but I
did not mind it. I wanted him to see a low line of mist
creeping down a cañon in the mountains, and I stood up to
point it out; so he rose, too, and in a strange, hurried way,
began to say something about the Mormon faith, and the
duties of a believer, which I did not notice either very
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much — I was so full of admiring the scarlet cloud — when,
like a sudden thunder-clap at my ear, I heard this quick,
resolute sentence: `And so, according to the advice and best
judgment of the Saints, Elizabeth Colton will be sealed to
me, after two days, as my spiritual wife.'
“Then my soul fled out of my lips, in one cry — I was
dead — my heart turned to a stone, and nothing can melt it!
I did not speak, or sigh, but sat down on the bench, and
John talked a great deal; I think he rubbed my hands and
kissed me, but I did not feel it. I went away, by and by,
when it was dark, into the house and into my room. I
locked the door and looked at the wall till morning, then I
went down and sat in a chair till night; and I drank, drank,
drank, like a fever. All the time cold water, but it never
reached my thirst. John came home, but he did not dare
touch me; I was a dead corpse, with another spirit in it —
not his wife — she was dead, and gone to heaven on a bright
cloud. I remember being glad of that.
“In two days more he had a wife, and I was not his any
longer. I staid up stairs when he was in the house, and
locked my door, till, after a great many days, I began to feel
sorry for him. Oh! how sorry! for I knew — I know — he
will see himself some day with my eyes, but not till I die.
Then I found my lips full of blood one morning, and that
pleased me, for I knew it was a promise of the life to come;
now I should go to heaven, where there are n't any Mormons.
“I believe, though, people were kind to me all the time;
for I remember they came and said things to me, and one
shook me a little to see if I felt; and one woman cried. I
was glad of that, for I could n't cry. However, after three
months, I was better: worse, John said one day, and he
brought a doctor, but the man knew as well as I did — so he
said nothing at all, and gave me some herb tea; — tell Aunt
Martha that.
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“Then I could walk out of doors, but I did not care to;
only once I smelt the hop-blossoms, and that I could not
bear, so I went out and pulled up my hop-vine by the roots,
and laid it out, all straight, in the fierce sunshine: it died
directly. In the winter, John had another wife sealed to
him; I heard somebody say so; he did not tell me, and if
he had I could not help it. I found he had taken a little
adobe house for those two, and I knew it was out of tenderness
for my feelings he did so. Oh! Uncle Field! perhaps
he has loved me all this time? I know better, though, than
that? Spring came, and I was very weak, and I grew not
to care about anything; so I told John he could bring
those two women to this house if he wished; I did not care,
only nobody must ever come into my room. He looked
ashamed, and pleased, too; but he brought them, and nobody
ever did come into my room. By and by Elizabeth
Colton brought a little baby down stairs, and its name was
Clara. Poor child! poor little Mormon child! I hope it
will die some time before it grows up; only I should not
like it to come my side of heaven, for it had blue eyes like
John's.
“Then I grew more and more ill, and now I am really
dying, and no letter has come from you! It takes so long —
three whole months, and I have been more than a year in
the house with John Henderson and the two women. I
know I shall never see you, but I must speak, I must, even
out of the grave; and I keep hearing that old fugue. `The
Lord is just, is just, is just; the Lord is just and good!'
Is he? I know He is; but I forget sometimes. Uncle
Field! you must pray for John! you must! I cannot die
and leave him in his sins, his delusion; he does not think it
is sin, but I know it. Pray! pray! dear Uncle: don't be
discouraged — do not fear — he will be undeceived some
time; he will repent, I know! The Lord is just, and I will
pray in heaven, and I will tell Nelly to, but you must. It
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says in the Bible, `the prayer of a righteous man'; and oh!
I am not righteous! I should not have married him; it
was an unequal yoke, and I have borne the burden; but I
loved him so much! Uncle Field, I did not keep myself
from idols. Pray! I shall be dead, but he lives. Pray
for him, and, if you will, for the little child — because — I
am dying. Dear Nelly! —”
“Are you blotting my letter, young man?” said Parson
Field, at my elbow, as I deciphered the last broken, trembling
line of Ada's story. “Here I have been five minutes,
and you did not hear me!” I really had blotted the letter!
-- -- p559-138
BEYOND. By JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.
WHEN youthful faith hath fled,
Of loving take thy leave;
Be constant to the dead, —
The dead cannot deceive
Sweet modest flowers of spring,
How fleet your balmy day!
And man's brief year can bring
No secondary May, —
No earthly burst again
Of gladness out of gloom;
Fond hope and vision vain,
Ungrateful to the tomb.
But 't is an old belief
That on some solemn shore
Beyond the sphere of grief,
Dear friends shall meet once more, —
Beyond the sphere of time,
And sin and fate's control,
Serene in endless prime
Of body and of soul.
That creed I fain would keep,
That hope I'll not forego;
Eternal be the sleep,
Unless to waken so.
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AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PASSAGES By JOHN MILTON.
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FOR although a poet, soaring in the high region of his
fancies, with his garland and singing-robes about him,
might, without apology, speak more of himself than I mean
to do; yet for me sitting here below in the cool element of
prose, a mortal thing among many readers, of no empyreal
conceit, to venture and divulge unusual things of myself, I
shall petition to the gentler sort, it may not be envy to me.
I must say, therefore, that after I had, for my first years, by
the ceaseless diligence and care of my father, whom God recompense,
been exercised to the tongues, and some sciences, as
my age would suffer, by sundry masters and teachers, both
at home and at the schools, it was found that whether aught
was imposed me by them that had the overlooking, or betaken
to of mine own choice in English, or other tongue,
prosing or versing, but chiefly this latter, the style, by certain
vital signs it had, was likely to live. But much latelier, in
the private academies of Italy, whither I was favored to resort,
perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory,
composed at under twenty or thereabout (for the manner is
that every one must give some proof of his wit and reading
there), met with acceptance above what was looked for;
and other things which I had shifted in scarcity of books
and conveniences, to patch up amongst them, were received
with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward to
bestow on men of this side the Alps, I began thus far to
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assent both to them and divers of my friends here at home,
and not less to an inward prompting, which now grew daily
upon me, that by labor and intent study, (which I take to be
my portion in this life,) joined with the strong propensity
of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written, to
after-times, as they should not willingly let it die. These
thoughts at once possessed me, and these other; that if I
were certain to write as men buy leases, for three lives and
downward, there ought no regard be sooner had than to
God's glory, by the honor and instruction of my country.
For which cause, and not only for that I knew it would be
hard to arrive at the second rank among the Latins, I applied
myself to that resolution which Ariosto followed against
the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the industry and art I
could unite to the adorning of my native tongue; not to
make verbal curiosities the end, (that were a toilsome vanity,)
but to be an interpreter and relater of the best and
sagest things among mine own citizens throughout this
island, in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and
choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those
Hebrews of old did for their country, I, in my proportion,
with this over and above, of being a Christian, might do for
mine; not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I
could attain to that, but content with these British islands
as my world; whose fortune hath hitherto been, that if the
Athenians, as some say, made their small deeds great and
renowned by their eloquent writers, England hath had her
noble achievements made small by the unskilful handling of
monks and mechanics.
Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too profuse,
to give any certain account of what the mind at home,
in the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose
to herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting.
Whether that epic form, whereof the two poems of
Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso are a diffuse,
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and the book of Job a brief model; or whether the rules of
Aristotle herein are strictly to be kept, or nature to be followed,
which in them that know art, and use judgment, is
no transgression, but an enriching of art. And lastly, what
king or knight before the conquest, might be chosen, in
whom to lay the pattern of a Christian hero. And as Tasso
gave to a prince of Italy his choice, whether he would command
him to write of Godfrey's expedition against the infidels,
or Belisarius against the Goths, or Charlemagne against
the Lombards; if to the instinct of nature and the emboldening
of art aught may be trusted, and that there be nothing
adverse in our climate, or the fate of this age, it haply
would be no rashness, from an equal diligence and inclination,
to present the like offer in our own ancient stories. Or
whether those dramatic constitutions, wherein Sophocles
and Euripides reign, shall be found more doctrinal and exemplary
to a nation. The Scripture also affords us a divine
pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon, consisting of two
persons, and a double chorus, as Origen rightly judges; and
the Apocalypse of St. John is the majestic image of a high
and stately tragedy, shutting up and intermingling her solemn
scenes and acts with a seven-fold chorus of hallelujahs
and harping symphonies. And this my opinion, the grave
authority of Pareus, commenting that book, is sufficient
to confirm. Or if occasion should lead, to imitate those
magnific odes and hymns, wherein Pindarus and Callimachus
are in most things worthy, some others in their frame
judicious, in their matter most an end faulty. But those
frequent songs throughout the laws and prophets, beyond all
these, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very
critical art of composition, may be easily made appear over
all the kinds of lyric poesy to be incomparable. These
abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of
God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most abuse)
in every nation: and are of power, beside the office of a
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pulpit, to inbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds
of virtue and public civility; to allay the perturbations of
the mind, and set the affections in right tune; to celebrate
in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of
God's almightiness, and what he suffers to be wrought with
high providence in his church; to sing victorious agonies of
martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of just and pious
nations, doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of
Christ; to deplore the general relapses of kingdoms and
states from justice and God's true worship. Lastly, whatsoever
in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or
grave, whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the
changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the
wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within;
all these things, with a solid and treatable smoothness, to
point out and describe. Teaching over the whole book of
sanctity and virtue, through all the instances of example,
with such delight to those especially of soft and delicious
temper, who will not so much as look upon truth herself,
unless they see her elegantly dressed; that whereas the
paths of honesty and good life appear now rugged and difficult,
though they be indeed easy and pleasant, they will then
appear to all men both easy and pleasant, though they were
rugged and difficult indeed. And what a benefit this would
be to our youth and gentry, may be soon guessed by what
we know of the corruption and bane which they suck in
daily from the writings and interludes of libidinous and
ignorant poetasters, who having scarce ever heard of that
which is the main consistence of a true poem, the choice of
such persons as they ought to introduce, and what is moral
and decent to each one, do for the most part lay up vicious
principles in sweet pills, to be swallowed down, and make
the taste of virtuous documents harsh and sour. But because
the spirit of man cannot demean itself lively in this
body, without some recreating intermission of labor and
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serious things, it were happy for the commonwealth, if our
magistrates, as in those famous governments of old, would
take into their care, not only the deciding of our contentious
law cases and brawls, but the managing of our public
sports and festival pastimes, that they might be, not such as
were authorized awhile since, the provocations of drunkenness
and lust, but such as may inure and harden our bodies,
by martial exercises, to all warlike skill and performance;
and may civilize, adorn, and make discreet our minds, by
the learned and affable meeting of frequent academies, and
the procurement of wise and artful recitations, sweetened
with eloquent and graceful enticements to the love and
practice of justice, temperance, and fortitude, instructing
and bettering the nation at all opportunities, that the call of
wisdom and virtue may be heard everywhere, as Solomon
saith: “She crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the
streets, in the top of high places, in the chief concourse,
and in the openings of the gates.” Whether this
may not be only in pulpits, but after another persuasive
method, at set and solemn paneguries, in theatres, porches,
or what other place or way may win most upon the people,
to receive at once both recreation and instruction; let them
in authority consult. The thing which I had to say, and
those intentions which have lived within me, ever since I
could conceive myself anything worth to my country, I return
to crave excuse, that urgent reason hath plucked from
me, by an abortive and foredated discovery. And the accomplishment
of them lies not but in a power above man's to
promise; but that none hath by more studious ways endeavored,
and with more unwearied spirit that none shall, that I
dare almost aver of myself, as far as life and free leisure will
extend; and that the land had once enfranchised herself
from this impertinent yoke of prelacy, under whose inquisitorious
and tyrannical duncery no free and splendid wit can
flourish. Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any
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knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go on
trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted,
as being a work not to be raised from the heat of
youth, or the vapors of wine; like that which flows at
waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencherfury
of a rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by the invocation
of dame Memory and her syren daughters; but by
devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with
all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim
with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify
the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added industrious
and select reading, steady observation, insight into all
seemly and generous arts and affairs; till which in some
measure be compassed, at mine own peril and cost, I refuse
not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loth
to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that I
can give them. Although it nothing content me to have
disclosed thus much beforehand, but that I trust hereby to
make it manifest with what small willingness I endure to
interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and leave a
calm and pleasing solitariness, fed with cheerful and confident
thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of noises and
hoarse disputes; from beholding the bright countenance of
truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies, to come
into the dim reflection of hollow antiquities sold by the
seeming bulk, and there be fain to club quotations with men
whose learning and belief lies in marginal stuffings; who
when they have, like good sumpters, laid you down their
horse-load of citations and fathers at your door, with a rhapsody
of who and who were bishops here or there, you may
take off their pack-saddles, their day's work is done, and
episcopacy, as they think, stoutly vindicated. Let any gentle
apprehension that can distinguish learned pains from
unlearned drudgery, imagine what pleasure or profoundness
can be in this, or what honor to deal against such
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adversaries. But were it the meanest under-service, if God, by his
secretary, conscience, enjoin it, it were sad for me if I should
draw back; for me especially, now when all men offer their
aid to help, ease, and lighten the difficult labors of the
Church to whose service, by the intentions of my parents and
friends, I was destined of a child, and in mine own resolutions,
till coming to some maturity of years, and perceiving
what tyranny had invaded the Church, that he who would
take orders, must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal;
which unless he took with a conscience that would retch, he
must either strait perjure, or split his faith; I thought it
better to prefer a blameless silence, before the sacred office
of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing.
-- -- p559-150
WAKENING. By WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.
A GOLDEN pen I mean to take,
A book of ivory white,
And in the mornings when I wake
The kind dream-thoughts to write,
Which come from heaven for love's support,
Like dews that fall at night.
For soon the delicate gifts decay,
As stirs the mired and smoky day.
“Sleep is like death,” and after sleep
The world seems new begun;
Its earnestness all clear and deep,
Its true solution won;
White thoughts stand luminous and firm,
Like statues in the sun;
Refreshed from super-sensuous founts,
The soul to purer vision mounts.
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-- -- p559-151
JOHN GRAHAM, FIRST VISCOUNT OF DUNDEE. By EDMUND LODGE.
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THIS remarkable man, whose name can never be forgotten
while military skill and prowess, and the most
loyal and active fidelity to an almost hopeless cause, shall
challenge recollection, was the eldest son of Sir William
Graham, of Claverhouse, in the County of Forfar, by Jane,
fourth daughter of John Carnegy, first Earl of Northesk.
His family was a scion which branched off from the ancient
stock of the great House of Montrose, early in the fifteenth
century, by the second marriage of William Lord Graham,
of Kincardine, to Mary, second daughter of Robert the
Third, King of Scotland, and had gradually acquired considerable
estates, chiefly by the bounty of the Crown. He received
his education in the University of St. Andrews, which
he left to seek on the Continent the more polished qualifications
of a private gentleman of large fortune, the sphere to
which he seemed to have been destined. In France, however,
the latent fire of his character broke forth; he entered
as a volunteer into the army of Louis the Fourteenth; and
having presently determined to adopt the military profession,
accepted in 1672 a commission of Cornet in the Horse
Guards of William the Third, Prince of Orange, by whom,
in the summer of 1674, he was promoted to be Captain of a
troop, for his signal gallantry at the battle of Seneffe, in
which indeed he saved the life of that Prince by a personal
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Grahame of Claverhouse
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effort. He asked soon after for the command of one of the
Scottish regiments in the Dutch service, and, strange to tell,
was refused, on which he threw up his commission, making
the cutting remark, that “the soldier who has not gratitude
cannot be brave,” and returned to England, bringing with
him, however, the warmest recommendations from William
to Charles the Second; and Charles, who had been just then
misadvised to subdue the obstinacy of the Scottish Covenanters
by force of arms, appointed him to lead a body of
horse which had been raised in Scotland for that purpose,
and gave him full powers to act as he might think fit against
them, although under the nominal command of the Duke of
Monmouth. His conduct in the performance of this impolitic
and cruel commission has left a stain on his memory
scarcely to be glossed over by the brilliancy of his subsequent
merits. Bred from his infancy in an enthusiastic veneration
to monarchy, and to the Established Church, his
hatred to the Whigs, as they were then called in Scotland,
was almost a part of his nature; and, under the influence of
a temper which never allowed him to be lukewarm in any
pursuit, his zeal degenerated on this occasion with a frightful
facility into a spirit of persecution. He watched and
dispersed, with the most severe vigilance, the devotional
meetings of those perverse and miserable sectaries, and
forced thousands of them to subscribe, at the point of the
sword, to an oath utterly subversive of the doctrines which
they most cherished. But this was not the worst. On the
1st of July, 1679, having attacked a conventicle on Loudoun
Hill, in Ayrshire, the neighboring peasants rose suddenly on
a detachment of his troops, and, with that almost supernatural
power which a pure thirst of vengeance alone will sometimes
confer on mere physical force, defeated them with
considerable loss. The fancied disgrace annexed to this
check raised Graham's fury to the highest pitch, and he permitted
himself to retaliate on the unarmed Whigs by cruelties
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inconsistent with the character of a brave man. The track
of his march was now uniformly marked by carnage; the
refusal of his test was punished with instant death; and the
practice of these horrible excesses, which was continued for
some months, procured for him the appellation of “Bloody
Claverhouse”; by which he is still occasionally mentioned
in that part of Scotland. He apologized for these horrors
by coldly remarking, that “if terror ended or prevented war,
it was true mercy.”
It may be concluded that this intemperance had the full
approbation of the Crown, for we find that he was appointed
in 1682 Sheriff of the Shire of Wigton; received soon after
a commission of Captain in what was called the Royal Regiment
of Horse; was sworn a Privy-Councillor in Scotland;
and had a grant from the King of the Castle of Dudhope, and
the office of Constable of Dundee. Nor was it less acceptable—
such is the rage of party, especially when excited by religious
discord — to the Scottish Episcopalians, who from that
time seemed to have reposed in him the highest confidence.
James, however, in forming on his accession a new Privy
Council for that country, was prevailed on to omit his name,
on the ground of his having connected himself in marriage
with the fanatical family of Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald,
but that umbrage was soon removed, and in 1686 he was
restored to his seat in the Council, and appointed a Brigadier-General;
in 1688 promoted to the rank of Major-General;
and, on the 12th of November in that year, created by
patent to him, and the heirs male of his body, with remainder,
in default of such issue, to his other heirs male, Viscount
of Dundee, and Baron Graham of Claverhouse, in Scotland.
The gift of these dignities was, in fact, the concluding act of
James's expiring government. Graham, who was then attending
that unhappy Prince in London, used every effort
that good sense and high spirit could suggest, to induce him to
remain in his capital, and await there with dignified firmness
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the arrival of the Prince of Orange; undertaking for himself
to collect, with that promptitude which was almost peculiar
to him, ten thousand of the King's disbanded troops, and at
their head to annihilate the Dutch forces which William had
brought with him. Perhaps there existed not on the face of
the earth another man so likely to redeem such an engagement;
but James, depressed and irresolute, refused the offer.
Struck, however, with the zeal and bravery, and indeed with
the personal affection, which had dictated it, he intrusted to
Dundee the direction of all his military affairs in Scotland,
whither that nobleman repaired just at the time that James
fled from London.
When he arrived at Edinburgh he found a Convention sitting,
as in London, of the Estates of the country, in which
he took his place. He complained to that assembly that a
design had been formed to assassinate him; required that all
strangers should be removed from the town; and, his request
having been denied, he left Edinburgh at the head of a troop
of horse, which he had hastily formed there of soldiers who
had deserted in England from his own regiment. In the
short interval afforded by the discussion of this matter, he
formed his plans. After a conference with the Duke of
Gordon, who then held the Castle for James, he set out for
Stirling, where he called a Parliament of the friends of that
Prince, and the revolutionists in Scotland saw their influence,
even within a few days, dispelled as it were by magic, in
obedience to his powerful energies. He was, in a manner,
without troops, depending on the affections of those around
him, which he had heated to enthusiasm, when a force sent
by the Convention to seize his person seemed to remind him
that he must have an army. He retired therefore into Lochaber;
summoned a meeting of the chiefs of clans in the
Highlands, and presently found himself at the head of six
thousand of the hardy natives, well armed and accoutred.
He now wrote to James, who, in compliance with French
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counsels, was wasting his time and means in Ireland, conjuring
him to embark with a part of his army for Scotland,
“where,” as he told the king, “there were no regular troops,
except four regiments, which William had lately sent down;
where his presence would fix the wavering, and intimidate
the timid; and where hosts of shepherds would start up warriors
at the first wave of his banner upon their mountains.”
With the candor and plainness of a soldier and a faithful
servant, he besought James to be content with the exercise of
his own religion, and to leave in Ireland the Earl of Melfort,
Secretary of State, between whom and himself some jealousy
existed which might be prejudicial to a service in which they
were alike devotedly sincere, however they might differ as to
the best means of advancing it. James rejected his advice.
“Dundee was furnished,” says Burnet, “with some small
store of arms and ammunition, and had kind promises, encouraging
him, and all that joined with him.”
Left now to his own discretion and his own resources, he
displayed, together with the greatest military qualifications,
and the most exalted generosity and disinterestedness, all the
subtlety of a refined politician. On his arrival at Inverness
he found that a discord had long subsisted between the
people of the town and some neighboring chiefs, on an alleged
debt from the one to the other, and that the two parties,
with their dependants, had assembled in arms to decide the
quarrel. He heard the allegations of the principals on each
side, with an affectation of the exactness of judicial inquiry,
and then, having convened the entire mass of the conflicting
parties in public, reproached them with the most cutting
severity, that they, “who were all equally friends to King
James, should be preparing, at a time when he most needed
their friendship, to draw those daggers against each other
which ought to be plunged only into the breasts of his enemies.”
He then paid from his own purse the debt in dispute;
and the late litigants, charmed by the grandeur of his
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conduct, instantly placed themselves in a cordial union under
his banner. To certain other chiefs, upon whose estates the
Earl of Argyle, who sought to restore his importance by attaching
himself to the revolutionary party, had ancient claims
in law, and to others, who had obtained grants from the
Crown of some of that nobleman's forfeited lands, he represented
the peril in which they would be placed by the success
of William's enterprise on the British throne, and
gained them readily to his beloved cause. He addressed
himself with signal effect to all the powerful men of the
north of Scotland; fomented the angry feelings of those
who thought themselves neglected by the new government;
flattered the vanity of those who, indifferent to the affairs of
either party, sought simply for power and importance; corrupted
several officers of the regiments which were in
preparation to be sent against him; and even managed to
maintain a constant correspondence with some members
of the Privy Council, by whom he was regularly apprised
of the plans contrived from time to time to counteract his
gigantic efforts. Nay, he contrived to detach, as it were in
a moment, from Lord Murray, heir to the Earl of Athol,
a body of a thousand men, raised by that nobleman on his
father's estates; a defection of Highland vassals which had
never till then occurred. “While Murray,” says my author,
“was reviewing them, they quitted their ranks; ran to an
adjoining brook; filled their bonnets with water; drank to
King James's health; and, with pipes playing, marched off
to Lord Dundee.”
So acute and experienced a commander as William could
not be long unconscious of the importance of such an enemy.
He despatched into Scotland, at the head of between five and
six thousand picked troops, General M'Kay, who had long
served him in Holland with the highest military reputation.
In the mean time, James, who had been apprised of this disposition,
sent orders to Dundee not to hazard a battle till
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the arrival of a force from Ireland, which he now promised.
Two months, however, elapsed before it appeared, which
Dundee, burning with impatience, was necessitated to pass
in the mountains, in marches of unexampled rapidity, in
furious partial attacks, and masterly retreats. It has been
well said of him, that “the first messenger of his approach
was generally his own army in fight, and that the first intelligence
of his retreat, brought accounts that he was already
out of his enemy's reach.” The long-expected aid at length
arrived, in the last week of June, 1689, consisting only of
five hundred raw and ill-provided recruits, but he instantly
made ready for action. He advanced to meet M'Kay, who
was preparing to invest the Castle of Blair, in Athol, a
fortress the possession whereof enabled James's army to
maintain a free communication between the northern and
southern Highlands, and determined to attack William's
troops on a small plain at the mouth of the pass of Killicranky,
after they should have marched through that remarkable
defile, on their road to Blair. On the 16th of
July, at noon, M'Kay's army arrived on the plain, and discovered
Dundee in array on the opposite hills. He had
resolved, for reasons abounding with military genius, to
defer his onset till the evening, and M'Kay, by various expedients
vainly tempted him during the day to descend: at
length, half an hour before sunset, his Highlanders rushed
down with the celerity and the fury of lions, and William's
army was in an instant completely routed. Dundee, who
had fought on foot, now mounted his horse, and flew towards
the pass, to cut off their retreat, when, looking back, he found
that he had outstripped his men, and was nearly alone. He
halted, and, wavering his arm in the air, pointed to the pass,
as a signal to them to hasten their march, and to occupy it.
At that moment a ball from a musket aimed at him lodged
in his body, immediately under the arm so raised. He fell
from his horse, and, fainting, was carried off the field; but,
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soon after recovering his senses for a few seconds, he hastily
inquired “how things went,” and on being answered “all
was well,” — “Then,” said he, “I am well,” and expired.
William, on hearing of his death, said, “The war in Scotland
is now ended.”
The memory of this heroic partisan has been cherished in
the hearts, and celebrated by the pens, of numbers of his
countrymen. A poet thus pathetically addresses his shade,
and bewails the loss sustained by Scotland in his death: —
“Ultime Scotorum, potuit quo sospite solo
Libertas patriæ salva fuisse tuæ.
Te moriente novos accepit Scotia cives,
Accepitque novos te moriente Deos.
Illa tibi superesse negat, tu non potes illi,
Ergo Caledonia, nomen inane, vale!
Tuque vale gentis priscæ fortissime ductor,
Optime Scotorum, atque ultime, Grame, vale!”
And Sir John Dalrymple has left us some particulars of his
military character exquisitely curious and interesting. “In
his marches,” says that author, “his men frequently wanted
bread, salt, and all liquors except water, during several weeks,
yet were ashamed to complain, when they observed that their
commander lived not more delicately than themselves. If
anything good was brought him to eat, he sent it to a faint
or sick soldier. If a soldier was weary, he offered to carry
his arms. He kept those who were with him from sinking
under their fatigues, not so much by exhortation as by preventing
them from attending to their sufferings; for this
reason he walked on foot with the men; now by the side of
one clan, and anon by that of another: he amused them with
jokes; he flattered them with his knowledge of their genealogies;
he animated them by a recital of the deeds of their
ancestors, and of the verses of their bards. It was one of
his maxims that no general should fight with an irregular
army, unless he was acquainted with every man he
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commanded. Yet, with these habits of familiarity, the severity
of his discipline was dreadful: the only punishment he inflicted
was death. All other punishments, he said, disgraced
a gentleman, and all who were with him were of that rank;
but that death was a relief from the consciousness of crime.
It is reported of him that having seen a youth fly in his first
action, he pretended he had sent him to the rear on a message.
The youth fled a second time — he brought him to
the front of the army, and saying that `a gentleman's son
ought not to fall by the hands of a common executioner,' shot
him with his own pistol.”
In society he is said to have been as much distinguished
by a delicacy and softness of manners and temper, and by
the most refined politeness, as he was by his sternness in war.
Sir Walter Scott, in his Romance of Old Mortality, in which
facts and fiction are blended with an uncommon felicity,
gives us the following picture of his person and demeanor,
evidently not the work of fancy, and probably in substance
the result of respectable and inveterate tradition: —
“Graham of Claverhouse was rather low of stature, and
slightly, though elegantly, formed; his gesture, language, and
manners, were those of one whose life had been spent among
the noble and the gay. His features exhibited even feminine
regularity. An oval face, a straight and well-formed
nose, dark hazel eyes, a complexion just sufficiently tinged
with brown to save it from the charge of effeminacy, a short
upper lip, curved upwards like that of a Grecian statue, and
slightly shaded by small mustachios of light brown, joined to
a profusion of long curled locks of the same color, which fell
down on each side of his face, contributed to form such a
countenance as limners like to paint, and ladies to look upon.
The severity of his character, as well as the higher attributes
of undaunted and enterprising valor which even his enemies
were compelled to admit, lay concealed under an exterior
which seemed adapted to the court or the saloon rather than
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to the field. The same gentleness and gayety of expression
which reigned in his features seemed to inspire his actions
and gestures; and, on the whole, he was generally esteemed,
at first sight, rather qualified to be the votary of pleasure
than of ambition. But under this soft exterior was hidden a
spirit unbounded in daring and in aspiring, yet cautious and
prudent as that of Machiavel himself. Profound in politics,
and imbued, of course, with that disregard for individual
rights which its intrigues usually generate, this leader was
cool in pursuing success, careless of death himself, and ruthless
in inflicting it upon others. Such are the characters
formed in times of civil discord, when the highest qualities,
perverted by party spirit, and inflamed by habitual opposition,
are too often combined with vices and excesses, which
deprive them at once of their merit and of their lustre.”
-- -- p559-165
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THE BURIAL-MARCH OF DUNDEE. * By W. EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN.
SOUND the fife, and cry the slogan,—
Let the pribroch shake the air
With its wild triumphal music,
Worthy of the freight we bear.
Let the ancient hills of Scotland
Hear once more the battle-song
Swell within their glens and valleys
As the clansmen march along!
Never from the field of combat,
Never from the deadly fray,
Was a nobler trophy carried
Than we bring with us to-day,—
Never, since the valiant Douglas
On his dauntless bosom bore
Good King Robert's heart — the priceless —
To our dear Redeemer's shore!
Lo! we bring with us the hero,—
Lo! we bring the conquering Græme,
Crowned as best beseems a victor
From the altar of his fame;
Fresh and bleeding from the battle
Whence his spirit took its flight,
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Midst the crashing charge of squadrons,
And the thunder of the fight!
Strike, I say, the notes of triumph,
As we march o'er moor and lea!
Is there any here will venture
To bewail our dead Dundee?
Let the widows of the traitors
Weep until their eyes are dim!
Wail ye may full well for Scotland,—
Let none dare to mourn for him!
See! above his glorious body
Lies the royal banner's fold;
See! his valiant blood is mingled
With its crimson and its gold.
See how calm he looks, and stately,
Like a warrior on his shield,
Waiting till the flush of morning
Breaks along the battle-field!
See — O never more, my comrades,
Shall we see that falcon eye
Redden with its inward lightning,
As the hour of fight drew nigh!
Never shall we hear the voice that
Clearer than the trumpet's call,
Bade us strike for King and Country,
Bade us win the field, or fall!
On the heights of Killiecrankie
Yester-morn our army lay:
Slowly rose the mist in columns
From the river's broken way;
Hoarsely roared the swollen torrent,
And the Pass was wrapt in gloom,
When the clansmen rose together
From their lair amidst the broom.
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Then we belted on our tartans,
And our bonnets down we drew,
And we felt our broadswords' edges,
And we proved them to be true;
And we prayed the prayer of soldiers,
And we cried the gathering-cry,
And we clasped the hands of kinsmen,
And we swore to do or die!
Then our leader rode before us
On his war-horse black as night, —
Well the Cameronian rebels
Know that charger in the fight! —
And a cry of exultation
From the bearded warriors rose;
For we loved the house of Claver'se,
And we thought of good Montrose.
But he raised his hand for silence —
“Soldiers! I have sworn a vow:
Ere the evening star shall glisten
On Schehallion's lofty brow,
Either we shall rest in triumph,
Or another of the Græmes
Shall have died in battle-harness
For his Country and King James!
Think upon the Royal Martyr, —
Think of what his race endure, —
Think of him whom butchers murdered
On the field of Magus Muir: —
By his sacred blood I charge ye,
By the ruined hearth and shrine, —
By the blighted hopes of Scotland,
By your injuries and mine, —
Strike this day as if the anvil
Lay beneath your blows the while,
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Be they covenanting traitors,
Or the brood of false Argyle!
Strike! and drive the trembling rebels
Backwards o'er the stormy Forth;
Let them tell their pale Convention
How they fared within the North.
Let them tell that Highland honor
Is not to be bought nor sold,
That we scorn their prince's anger
As we loathe his foreign gold.
Strike! and when the fight is over,
If ye look in vain for me,
Where the dead are lying thickest,
Search for him that was Dundee!”
Loudly then the hills re-echoed
With our answer to his call,
But a deeper echo sounded
In the bosoms of us all.
For the lands of wide Breadalbane,
Not a man who heard him speak
Would that day have left the battle.
Burning eye and flushing cheek
Told the clansmen's fierce emotion,
And they harder drew their breath;
For their souls were strong within them,
Stronger than the grasp of death.
Soon we heard a challenge-trumpet
Sounding in the Pass below,
And the distant tramp of horses,
And the voices of the foe:
Down we crouched amid the bracken,
Till the Lowland ranks drew near,
Panting like the hounds in summer,
When they scent the stately deer.
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From the dark defile emerging,
Next we saw the squadrons come,
Leslie's foot and Leven's troopers
Marching to the tuck of drum;
Through the scattered wood of birches,
O'er the broken ground and heath,
Wound the long battalion slowly,
Till they gained the plain beneath;
Then we bounded from our covert, —
Judge how looked the Saxons then,
When they saw the rugged mountains
Start to life with armèd men!
Like a tempest down the ridges
Swept the hurricane of steel,
Rose the slogan of Macdonald, —
Flashed the broadsword of Lochiel!
Vainly sped the withering volley
'Mongst the foremost of our band, —
On we poured until we met them,
Foot to foot, and hand to hand.
Horse and man went down like drift-wood
When the floods are black at Yule,
And their carcasses are whirling
In the Garry's deepest pool.
Horse and man went down before us, —
Living foe there tarried none
On the field of Killiecrankie,
When that stubborn fight was done!
And the evening star was shining
On Schehallion's distant head,
When we wiped our bloody broadswords,
And returned to count the dead.
There we found him gashed and gory,
Stretched upon the cumbered plain,
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As he told us where to seek him,
In the thickest of the slain.
And a smile was on his visage,
For within his dying ear
Pealed the joyful note of triumph,
And the clansmen's clamorous cheer:
So, amidst the battle's thunder,
Shot, and steel, and scorching flame,
In the glory of his manhood
Passed the spirit of the Græme!
Open wide the vaults of Atholl,
Where the bones of heroes rest,—
Open wide the hallowed portals
To receive another guest!
Last of Scots, and last of freemen,—
Last of all that dauntless race,
Who would rather die unsullied
Than outlive the land's disgrace!
O thou lion-hearted warrior!
Reck not of the after-time;
Honor may be deemed dishonor,
Loyalty be called a crime.
Sleep in peace with kindred ashes
Of the noble and the true,
Hands that never failed their country,
Hearts that never baseness knew.
Sleep! — and till the latest trumpet
Wakes the dead from earth and sea,
Scotland shall not boast a braver
Chieftain than our own Dundee!
eaf559n1* John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, was killed at
the battle of Killiecrankie in Scotland.
-- -- p559-171
MIGNON AS AN ANGEL. By GOETHE.
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IT chanced that the birthday of two twin-sisters, whose behavior
had been always very good, was near; I promised
that, on this occasion, the little present they had so
well deserved should be delivered to them by an angel.
They were on the stretch of curiosity regarding this phenomenon.
I had chosen Mignon for the part; and accordingly,
at the appointed day, I had her suitably equipped in a
long light snow-white dress. She was, of course, provided
with a golden girdle round her waist, and a golden fillet on
her hair. I at first proposed to omit the wings; but the
young ladies who were decking her, insisted on a pair of
large golden pinions, in preparing which they meant to
show their highest art. Thus did the strange apparition,
with a lily in the one hand, and a little basket in the other,
glide in among the girls: she surprised even me. “There
comes the angel!” said I. The children all shrank back;
at last they cried: “It is Mignon!” yet they durst not
venture to approach the wondrous figure.
“Here are your gifts,” said she, putting down the basket.
They gathered around her, they viewed, they felt, they
questioned her.
“Art though an angel?” asked one of them.
“I wish I were,” said Mignon.
“Why dost thou bear a lily?”
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Goethe
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“So pure and so open should my heart be; then were I
happy.”
“What wings are these? Let us see them!”
“They represent far finer ones, which are not yet unfolded.”
And thus significantly did she answer all their other
childlike, innocent inquiries. The little party having satisfied
their curiosity, and the impression of the show beginning
to abate, we were for proceeding to undress the little
angel. This, however, she resisted: she took her cithern;
she seated herself here, on this high writing-table, and sang
a little song with touching grace: —
Such let me seem, till such I be;
Take not my snow-white dress away;
Soon from this dusk of earth I flee
Up to the glittering lands of day.
There first a little space I rest,
Then wake so glad, to scene so kind;
In earthly robes no longer drest,
This band, this girdle left behind.
And those calm shining sons of morn,
They ask not who is maid or boy;
No robes, no garments there are worn,
Our body pure from sin's alloy.
Through little life not much I toiled,
Yet anguish long this heart has wrung,
Untimely woe my blossom spoiled;
Make me again forever young!
-- -- p559-177
THE CAGE AT CRANFORD. By MRS. GASKELL.
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HAVE I told you anything about my friends at Cranford
since the year 1856? I think not.
You remember the Gordons, don't you? She that was
Jessie Brown, who married her old love, Major Gordon:
and from being poor became quite a rich lady: but for all
that never forgot any of her old friends in Cranford.
Well! the Gordons were travelling abroad, for they were
very fond of travelling; people who have had to spend part
of their lives in a regiment always are, I think. They were
now at Paris, in May, 1856, and were going to stop there,
and in the neighborhood all summer, but Mr. Ludovic was
coming to England soon; so Mrs. Gordon wrote me word.
I was glad she told me, for just then I was waiting to make
a little present to Miss Pole, with whom I was staying; so
I wrote to Mrs. Gordon, and asked her to choose me out
something pretty and new and fashionable, that would be
acceptable to Miss Pole. Miss Pole had just been talking
a great deal about Mrs. FitzAdam's caps being so unfashionable,
which I suppose made me put in that word fashionable;
but afterwards I wished I had sent to say my present
was not to be too fashionable; for there is such a thing, I
can assure you! The price of my present was not to be
more than twenty shillings, but that is a very handsome sum
if you put it in that way, though it may not sound so much
if you only call it a sovereign.
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Mrs. Gordon wrote back to me, pleased, as she always
was, with doing anything for her old friends. She told me
she had been out for a day's shopping before going into the
country, and had got a cage for herself of the newest and
most elegant description, and had thought that she could not
do better than get another like it as my present for Miss
Pole, as cages were so much better made in Paris than anywhere
else. I was rather dismayed when I read this letter,
for however pretty a cage might be, it was something for
Miss Pole's own self, and not for her parrot, that I had intended
to get. Here had I been finding ever so many reasons
against her buying a new cap at Johnson's fashion-show,
because I thought that the present which Mrs. Gordon was
to choose for me in Paris might turn out to be an elegant
and fashionable head-dress; a kind of cross between a turban
and a cap, as I see those from Paris mostly are; and
now I had to veer round, and advise her to go as fast as she
could, and secure Mr. Johnson's cap before any other purchaser
snatched it up. But Miss Pole was too sharp for me.
“Why, Mary,” said she, “it was only yesterday you were
running down that cap like anything. You said, you know,
that lilac was too old a color for me; and green too young;
and that the mixture was very unbecoming.”
“Yes, I know,” said I; “but I have thought better of it.
I thought about it a great deal last night, and I think — I
thought — they would neutralize each other; and the shadows
of any color are, you know — something I know — complementary
colors.” I was not sure of my own meaning,
but I had an idea in my head, though I could not express it.
She took me up shortly.
“Child, you don't know what you are saying. And besides,
I don't want compliments at my time of life. I lay
awake, too, thinking of the cap. I only buy one ready-made
once a year, and of course it 's a matter for consideration;
and I came to the conclusion that you were quite right.”
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“O dear Miss Pole! I was quite wrong; if you only
knew — I did think it a very pretty cap — only —”
“Well! do just finish what you 've got to say. You 're
almost as bad as Miss Matty in your way of talking, without
being half as good as she is in other ways; though I 'm very
fond of you, Mary, I don't mean I am not; but you must see
you 're very off and on, and very muddle-headed. It 's the
truth, so you will not mind my saying so.”
It was just because it did seem like the truth at that time
that I did mind her saying so; and, in despair, I thought I
would tell her all.
“I did not mean what I said; I don't think lilac too old
or green too young: and I think the mixture very becoming
to you; and I think you will never get such a pretty cap
again, at least in Cranford.” It was fully out, so far, at
least.
“Then, Mary Smith, will you tell me what you did mean,
by speaking as you did, and convincing me against my will,
and giving me a bad night?”
“I meant — O Miss Pole, I meant to surprise you with
a present from Paris; and I thought it would be a cap.
Mrs. Gordon was to choose it, and Mr. Ludovic to bring it.
I dare say it is in England now; only it 's not a cap. And
I did not want you to buy Johnson's cap, when I thought I
was getting another for you.”
Miss Pole found this speech “muddle-headed,” I have no
doubt, though she did not say so, only making an odd noise
of perplexity. I went on: “I wrote to Mrs. Gordon, and
asked her to get you a present — something new and pretty.
I meant it to be a dress, but I suppose I did not say so; I
thought it would be a cap, for Paris is so famous for caps,
and it is —”
“You 're a good girl, Mary,” (I was past thirty, but did
not object to being called a girl; and, indeed, I generally
felt like a girl at Cranford, where everybody was so much
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older than I was,) “but when you want a thing, say what
you want; it is the best way in general. And now I suppose
Mrs. Gordon has bought something quite different? —
a pair of shoes, I dare say, for people talk a deal of Paris
shoes. Anyhow, I 'm just as much obliged to you, Mary,
my dear. Only you should not go and spend your money
on me.”
“It was not much money; and it was not a pair of shoes.
You 'll let me go and get the cap, won't you? It was so
pretty — somebody will be sure to snatch it up.”
“I don't like getting a cap that 's sure to be unbecoming.”
“But it is not; it was not. I never saw you look so well
in anything,” said I.
“Mary, Mary, remember who is the father of lies!”
“But he 's not my father,” exclaimed I, in a hurry, for I
saw Mrs. FitzAdam go down the street in the direction of
Johnson's shop. “I 'll eat my words; they were all false:
only just let me run down and buy you that cap — that
pretty cap.”
“Well! run off, child. I liked it myself till you put me
out of taste with it.”
I brought it back in triumph from under Mrs. FitzAdam's
very nose, as she was hanging in meditation over it; and
the more we saw of it, the more we felt pleased with our
purchase. We turned it on this side, and we turned it on
that; and though we hurried it away into Miss Pole's bedroom
at the sound of a double knock at the door, when we
found it was only Miss Matty and Mr. Peter, Miss Pole
could not resist the opportunity of displaying it, and said in
a solemn way to Miss Matty: “Can I speak to you for a
few minutes in private?” And I knew feminine delicacy
too well to explain what this grave prelude was to lead to;
aware how immediately Miss Matty's anxious tremor would
be allayed by the sight of the cap. I had to go on talking
to Mr. Peter, however, when I would far rather have
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been in the bedroom, and heard the observations and comments.
We talked of the new cap all day; what gowns it would
suit; whether a certain bow was not rather too coquettish
for a woman of Miss Pole's age. “No longer young,” as
she called herself, after a little struggle with the words,
though at sixty-five she need not have blushed as if she
were telling a falsehood. But at last the cap was put away,
and with a wrench we turned our thoughts from the subject.
We had been silent for a little while, each at our work with
a candle between us, when Miss Pole began: —
“It was very kind of you, Mary, to think of giving me a
present from Paris.”
“Oh, I was only too glad to be able to get you something!
I hope you will like it, though it is not what I
expected.”
“I am sure I shall like it. And a surprise is always so
pleasant.”
“Yes; but I think Mrs. Gordon has made a very odd
choice.”
“I wonder what it is. I don't like to ask, but there 's a
great deal in anticipation; I remember hearing dear Miss
Jenkyns say that `anticipation was the soul of enjoyment,'
or something like that. Now there is no anticipation in a
surprise; that 's the worst of it.”
“Shall I tell you what it is?”
“Just as you like, my dear. If it is any pleasure to you,
I am quite willing to hear.”
“Perhaps I had better not. It is something quite different
to what I expected, and meant to have got; and I 'm
not sure if I like it as well.”
“Relieve your mind, if you like, Mary. In all disappointments
sympathy is a great balm.”
“Well, then, it 's something not for you; it 's for Polly.
It 's a cage. Mrs. Gordon says they make such pretty ones
in Paris.”
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I could see that Miss Pole's first emotion was disappointment.
But she was very fond of her cockatoo, and the
thought of his smartness in his new habitation made her be
reconciled in a moment; besides that she was really grateful
to me for having planned a present for her.
“Polly! Well, yes; his old cage is very shabby; he is
so continually pecking at it with his sharp bill. I dare say
Mrs. Gordon noticed it when she called here last October.
I shall always think of you, Mary, when I see him in it.
Now we can have him in the drawing-room, for I dare say
a French cage will be quite an ornament to the room.”
And so she talked on, till we worked ourselves up into
high delight at the idea of Polly in his new abode, presentable
in it even to the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson. The next
morning Miss Pole said she had been dreaming of Polly
with her new cap on his head, while she herself sat on a
perch in the new cage and admired him. Then, as if
ashamed of having revealed the fact of imagining “such
arrant nonsense” in her sleep, she passed on rapidly to the
philosophy of dreams, quoting some book she had lately
been reading, which was either too deep in itself, or too
confused in her repetition for me to understand it. After
breakfast, we had the cap out again; and that in its different
aspects occupied us for an hour or so; and then, as it
was a fine day, we turned into the garden, where Polly was
hung on a nail outside the kitchen window. He clamored
and screamed at the sight of his mistress, who went to look
for an almond for him. I examined his cage meanwhile,
old discolored wicker-work, clumsily made by a Cranford
basket-maker. I took out Mrs. Gordon's letter; it was
dated the 15th, and this was the 20th, for I had kept it
secret for two days in my pocket. Mr. Ludovic was on
the point of setting out for England when she wrote.
“Poor Polly!” said I, as Miss Pole, returning, fed him
with the almond.
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“Ah! Polly does not know what a pretty cage he is
going to have,” said she, talking to him as she would have
done to a child; and then turning to me, she asked when I
thought it would come? We reckoned up dates, and made
out that it might arrive that very day. So she called to her
little stupid servant-maiden Fanny, and bade her go out and
buy a great brass-headed nail, very strong, strong enough to
bear Polly and the new cage, and we all three weighed the
cage in our hands, and on her return she was to come up
into the drawing-room with the nail and a hammer.
Fanny was a long time, as she always was, over her errands;
but as soon as she came back, we knocked the nail,
with solemn earnestness, into the house-wall, just outside the
drawing-room window; for, as Miss Pole observed, when I
was not there she had no one to talk to, and as in summertime
she generally sat with the window open, she could combine
two purposes, the giving air and sun to Polly-Cockatoo,
and the having his agreeable companionship in her
solitary hours.
“When it rains, my dear, or even in a very hot sun, I
shall take the cage in. I would not have your pretty present
spoilt for the world. It was very kind of you to think
of it; I am quite come round to liking it better than any
present of mere dress; and dear Mrs. Gordon has shown
all her usual pretty observation in remembering my Polly-Cockatoo.”
“Polly-Cockatoo” was his grand name; I had only once
or twice heard him spoken of by Miss Pole in this formal
manner, except when she was speaking to the servants;
then she always gave him his full designation, just as most
people call their daughters Miss, in speaking of them to
strangers or servants. But since Polly was to have a new
cage, and all the way from Paris too, Miss Pole evidently
thought it necessary to treat him with unusual respect.
We were obliged to go out to pay some calls; but we left
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strict orders with Fanny what to do if the cage arrived in
our absence, as (we had calculated) it might. Miss Pole
stood ready bonneted and shawled at the kitchen door, I
behind her, and cook behind Fanny, each of us listening to
the conversation of the other two.
“And Fanny, mind if it comes you coax Polly-Cockatoo
nicely into it. He is very particular, and may be attached
to his old cage, though it is so shabby. Remember, birds
have their feelings as much as we have! Don't hurry him
in making up his mind.”
“Please, ma'am, I think an almond would help him to
get over his feelings,” said Fanny, dropping a curtsey at
every speech, as she had been taught to do at her charity
school.
“A very good idea, very. If I have my keys in my
pocket I will give you an almond for him. I think he is
sure to like the view up the street from the window; he
likes seeing people, I think.”
“It 's but a dull look-out into the garden; nowt but
dumb flowers,” said cook, touched by this allusion to the
cheerfulness of the street, as contrasted with the view from
her own kitchen window.
“It 's a very good look-out for busy people,” said Miss
Pole, severely. And then, feeling she was likely to get
the worst of it in an encounter with her old servant, she
withdrew with meek dignity, being deaf to some sharp reply;
and of course I, being bound to keep order, was deaf
too. If the truth must be told, we rather hastened our
steps, until we had banged the street door behind us.
We called on Miss Matty, of course; and then on Mrs.
Hoggins. It seemed as if ill-luck would have it that we
went to the only two households of Cranford where there
was the encumbrance of a man, and in both places the man
was where he ought not to have been — namely, in his own
house, and in the way. Miss Pole — out of civility to me,
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and because she really was full of the new cage for Polly,
and because we all in Cranford relied on the sympathy of
our neighbors in the veriest trifle that interested us — told
Miss Matty, and Mr. Peter, and Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins; he
was standing in the drawing-room, booted and spurred, and
eating his hunk of bread and cheese in the very presence
of his aristocratic wife, my lady that was. As Miss Pole
said afterwards, if refinement was not to be found in Cranford,
blessed as it was with so many scions of county
families, she did not know where to meet with it. Bread
and cheese in a drawing-room! Onions next.
But for all Mr. Hoggins's vulgarity, Miss Pole told him
of the present she was about to receive.
“Only think! a new cage for Polly — Polly — Polly-Cockatoo,
you know, Mr. Hoggins. You remember him,
and the bite he gave me once because he wanted to be put
back in his cage, pretty bird?”
“I only hope the new cage will be strong as well as
pretty, for I must say a —” He caught a look from his
wife, I think, for he stopped short. “Well, we 're old
friends, Polly and I, and he put some practice in my way
once. I shall be up the street this afternoon, and perhaps
I shall step in and see this smart Parisian cage.”
“Do!” said Miss Pole, eagerly. “Or, if you are in a
hurry, look up at my drawing-room window; if the cage
is come, it will be hanging out there, and Polly in it.”
We had passed the omnibns that met the train from
London some time ago, so we were not surprised as we returned
home to see Fanny half out of the window, and
cook evidently either helping or hindering her. Then they
both took their heads in; but there was no cage hanging
up. We hastened up the steps.
Both Fanny and the cook met us in the passage.
“Please, ma'am,” said Fanny, “there 's no bottom to the
cage, and Polly would fly away.”
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“And there 's no top,” exclaimed cook. “He might get
out at the top quite easy.”
“Let me see,” said Miss Pole, brushing past, thinking
no doubt that her superior intelligence was all that was
needed to set things to rights. On the ground lay a bundle,
or a circle of hoops, neatly covered over with calico, no
more like a cage for Polly-Cockatoo than I am like a cage.
Cook took something up between her finger and thumb, and
lifted the unsightly present from Paris. How I wish it had
stayed there! — but foolish ambition has brought people to
ruin before now; and my twenty shillings are gone, sure
enough, and there must be some use or some ornament intended
by the maker of the thing before us.
“Don't you think it 's a mousetrap, ma'am?” asked
Fanny, dropping her little curtsey.
For reply, the cook lifted up the machine, and showed
how easily mice might run out; and Fanny shrank back
abashed. Cook was evidently set against the new invention,
and muttered about its being all of a piece with
French things — French cooks, French plums, (nasty dried-up
things,) French rolls (as had no substance in 'em.)
Miss Pole's good manners, and desire of making the best
of things in my presence, induced her to try and drown
cook's mutterings.
“Indeed, I think it will make a very nice cage for Polly-Cockatoo.
How pleased he will be to go from one hoop to
another, just like a ladder, and with a board or two at the
bottom, and nicely tied up at the top —”
Fanny was struck with a new idea.
“Please, ma'am, my sister-in-law has got an aunt as lives
lady's-maid with Sir John's daughter — Miss Arley. And
they did say as she wore iron petticoats all made of
hoops —”
“Nonsense, Fanny!” we all cried; for such a thing had
not been heard of in all Drumble, let alone Cranford, and I
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was rather looked upon in the light of a fast young woman
by all the laundresses of Cranford, because I had two corded
petticoats.
“Go mind thy business, wench,” said cook, with the utmost
contempt; “I 'll warrant we 'll manage th' cage without
thy help.”
“It is near dinner-time, Fanny, and the cloth not laid,”
said Miss Pole, hoping the remark might cut two ways;
but cook had no notion of going. She stood on the bottom
step of the stairs, holding the Paris perplexity aloft in the
air.
“It might do for a meat-safe,” said she. “Cover it o'er
wi' canvas, to keep th' flies out. It is a good framework, I
reckon, anyhow!” She held her head on one side, like a
connoisseur in meat-safes, as she was.
Miss Pole said, “Are you sure Mrs. Gordon called it a
cage, Mary? Because she is a woman of her word, and
would not have called it so if it was not.”
“Look here; I have the letter in my pocket.”
“`I have wondered how I could best fulfil your commission
for me to purchase something to the value of' — um,
um, never mind — `fashionable and pretty for dear Miss
Pole, and at length I have decided upon one of the new
kind of “cages'” (look here, Miss Pole; here is the word,
C A G E), `which are made so much lighter and more elegant
in Paris than in England. Indeed, I am not sure if
they have ever reached you, for it is not a month since I
saw the first of the kind in Paris.'”
“Does she say anything about Polly-Cockatoo?” asked
Miss Pole. “That would settle the matter at once, as
showing that she had him in her mind.”
“No — nothing.”
Just then Fanny came along the passage with the tray
full of dinner things in her hands. When she had put
them down, she stood at the door of the dining-room taking
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a distant view of the article. “Please, ma'am, it looks like
a petticoat without any stuff in it; indeed it does, if I 'm to
be whipped for saying it.”
But she only drew down upon herself a fresh objurgation
from the cook; and sorry and annoyed, I seized the opportunity
of taking the thing out of cook's hand, and carrying
it up stairs, for it was full time to get ready for dinner. But
we had very little appetite for our meal, and kept constantly
making suggestions, one to the other, as to the nature and
purpose of this Paris “cage,” but as constantly snubbing
poor little Fanny's reiteration of “Please, ma'am, I do believe
it 's a kind of petticoat — indeed I do.” At length
Miss Pole turned upon her with almost as much vehemence
as cook had done, only in choicer language.
“Don't be so silly, Fanny. Do you think ladies are like
children, and must be put in go-carts; or need wire-guards
like fires to surround them; or can get warmth out of bits of
whalebone and steel; a likely thing indeed! Don't keep
talking about what you don't understand.”
So our maiden was mute for the rest of the meal. After
dinner we had Polly brought up stairs in her old cage, and I
held out the new one, and we turned it about in every way.
At length Miss Pole said: —
“Put Polly-Cockatoo back, and shut him up in his cage.
You hold this French thing up,” (alas! that my present
should be called a “thing,”) “and I 'll sew a bottom on to
it. I 'll lay a good deal, they 've forgotten to sew in the
bottom before sending it off.” So I held and she sewed;
and then she held, and I sewed, till it was all done. Just
as we had put Polly-Cockatoo in, and were closing up the
top with a pretty piece of old yellow ribbon — and, indeed,
it was not a bad-looking cage after all our trouble — Mr.
Hoggins came up stairs, having been seen by Fanny before
he had time to knock at the door.
“Hallo!” said he, almost tumbling over us, as we were
sitting on the floor at our work. “What 's this?”
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“It 's this pretty present for Polly-Cockatoo,” said Miss
Pole, raising herself up with as much dignity as she could,
“that Mary has had sent from Paris for me.” Miss Pole
was in great spirits now we had got Polly in; I can 't say
that I was.
Mr. Hoggins began to laugh in his boisterous vulgar way.
“For Polly — ha! ha! It 's meant for you, Miss Pole—
ha! ha! It 's a new invention to hold your gowns out —
ha! ha!”
“Mr. Hoggins! you may be a surgeon, and a very clever
one, but nothing — not even your profession — gives you a
right to be indecent.”
Miss Pole was thoroughly roused, and I trembled in my
shoes. But Mr. Hoggins only laughed the more. Polly
screamed in concert, but Miss Pole stood in stiff rigid propriety,
very red in the face.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Pole, I am sure. But I am
pretty certain I am right. It 's no indecency that I can
see; my wife and Mrs. FitzAdam take in a Paris fashion-book
between 'em, and I can 't help seeing the plates of
fashions sometimes — ha! ha! ha! Look, Polly has got
out of his queer prison — ha! ha! ha!”
Just then Mr. Peter came in; Miss Matty was so curious
to know if the expected present had arrived. Mr. Hoggins
took him by the arm, and pointed to the poor thing lying
on the ground, but could not explain for laughing. Miss
Pole said: —
“Although I am not accustomed to give an explanation
of my conduct to gentlemen, yet, being insulted in my own
house by — by Mr. Hoggins, I must appeal to the brother
of my old friend — my very oldest friend. Is this article
a lady's petticoat, or a bird's cage?”
She held it up as she made this solemn inquiry. Mr.
Hoggins seized the moment to leave the room, in shame, as
I supposed, but, in reality, to fetch his wife's fashion-book;
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and, before I had completed the narration of the story of
my unlucky commission, he returned, and, holding the
fashion-plate open by the side of the extended article,
demonstrated the identity of the two.
But Mr. Peter had always a smooth way of turning off
anger, by either his fun or a compliment. “It is a cage,”
said he, bowing to Miss Pole; “but it is a cage for an
angel, instead of a bird! Come along, Hoggins, I want to
speak to you!”
And, with an apology, he took the offending and victorious
surgeon out of Miss Pole's presence. For a good
while we said nothing; and we were now rather shy of
little Fanny's superior wisdom when she brought up tea.
But towards night our spirits revived, and we were quite
ourselves again, when Miss Pole proposed that we should
cut up the pieces of steel or whalebone — which, to do them
justice, were very elastic — and make ourselves two good
comfortable English calashes out of them with the aid of a
piece of dyed silk which Miss Pole had by her.
-- -- p559-191
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VERSES ON SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. By EDMUND SPENSER.
YOU knew — who knew not? — Astrophel.
(That I should live to say I knew,
And have not in possession still!)
Things known permit me to renew:
Of him you know his merit such,
I cannot say — you hear — too much.
Within these woods of Arcady,
He chief delight and pleasure took;
And on the mountain Partheny,
Upon the crystal liquid brook,
The Muses met him every day,
That taught him song to write and say.
When he descended from the mount,
His personage seemed most divine;
A thousand graces one might count
Upon his lovely cheerful eyne.
To hear him speak and sweetly smile,
You were in Paradise the while.
A sweet attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by looks;
Continual comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospel books:
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I trow that countenance cannot lie,
Whose thoughts are legible in th' eye.
Above all others, this is he,
Which erst approvèd in his song
That love and honor might agree,
And that pure love will do no wrong.
Sweet saints, it is no sin or blame
To love a man of virtuous name.
Did never love so sweetly breathe
In any mortal breast before:
Did never Muse inspire beneath
A poet's brain with finer store.
He wrote of love with high conceit,
And beauty rear'd above her height.
-- -- p559-193
PRESCOTT'S INFIRMITY OF SIGHT. By GEORGE TICKNOR.
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WHEN the “Ferdinand and Isabella” was published,
in the winter of 1837-8, its author was nearly
forty-two years old. His character, some of whose traits
had been prominent from childhood, while others had been
slowly developed, was fully formed. His habits were settled
for life. He had a perfectly well-defined individuality,
as everybody knew who knew anything about his occupations
and ways.
Much of what went to constitute this individuality was
the result of his infirmity of sight, and of the unceasing
struggle he had made to overcome the difficulties it entailed
upon him. For, as we shall see hereafter, the thought of
this infirmity, and of the embarrassments it brought with it,
was ever before him. It colored, and in many respects it
controlled, his whole life.
The violent inflammation that resulted from the fierce
attack of rheumatism in the early months of 1815 first startled
him, I think, with the apprehension that he might possibly
be deprived of sight altogether, and that thus his future
years would be left in “total eclipse, without all hope of
day.” But from this dreary apprehension, his recovery,
slow, and partial as it was, and the buoyant spirits that entered
so largely into his constitution, at last relieved him.
He even, from time to time, as the disease fluctuated to and
fro, had hopes of an entire restoration of his sight.
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But before long, he began to judge things more exactly
as they were, and saw plainly that anything like a full recovery
of his sight was improbable, if not impossible. He
turned his thoughts, therefore, to the resources that would
still remain to him. The prospect was by no means a pleasant
one, but he looked at it steadily and calmly. All
thought of the profession which had long been so tempting
to him he gave up. He saw that he could never fulfil its
duties. But intellectual occupation he could not give up
It was a gratification and resource which his nature demanded,
and would not be refused. The difficulty was to
find out how it could be obtained. During the three months
of his confinement in total darkness at St. Michael's, he first
began to discipline his thoughts to such orderly composition
in his memory as he might have written down on paper, if
his sight had permitted it. “I have cheated,” he says, in a
letter to his family written at the end of that discouraging
period, — “I have cheated many a moment of tedium by
compositions which were soon banished from my mind for
want of an amanuensis.”
Among these compositions was a Latin ode to his friend
Gardiner, which was prepared wholly without books, but
which, though now lost, like the rest of his Latin verses, he
repeated years afterwards to his Club, who did not fail to
think it good. It is evident, however, that, for a considerable
time, he resorted to such mental occupations and exercises
rather as an amusement than as anything more serious.
Nor did he at first go far with them even as a light and transient
relief from idleness; for, though he never gave them
up altogether, and though they at last became a very important
element in his success as an author, he soon found an
agreeable substitute for them, at least so far as his immediate,
every-day wants were concerned.
The substitute to which I refer, but which itself implied
much previous reflection and thought upon what he should
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commit to paper, was an apparatus to enable the blind to
write. He heard of it in London during his first residence
there in the summer of 1816. A lady, at whose house he
visited frequently, and who became interested in his misfortune,
“told him,” as he says in a letter to his mother, “of a
newly invented machine by which blind people are enabled
to write. I have,” he adds, “before been indebted to Mrs.
Delafield for an ingenious candle-screen. If this machine
can be procured, you will be sure to feel the effects of it.”
He obtained it at once; but he did not use it until nearly
a month afterwards, when, on the 24th of August, at Paris,
he wrote home his first letter with it, saying, “It is a very
happy invention for me.” And such it certainly proved to
be, for he never ceased to use it from that day; nor does it
now seem possible that, without the facilities it afforded him,
he ever would have ventured to undertake any of the works
which have made his name what it is.
The machine — if machine it can properly be called — is
an apparatus invented by one of the well-known Wedgewood
family, and is very simple both in its structure and use. It
looks, as it lies folded up on the table, like a clumsy
portfolio, bound in morocco, and measures about ten inches
by nine when unopened. Sixteen stout parallel brass wires
fastened on the right-hand side into a frame of the same size
with the cover, much like the frame of a school-boy's slate,
and crossing it from side to side, mark the number of lines
that can be written on a page, and guide the hand in its
blind motions. This framework of wires is folded down upon
a sheet of paper thoroughly impregnated with a black substance,
especially on its under surface, beneath which lies
the sheet of common paper that is to receive the writing.
There are thus, when it is in use, three layers on the
right-hand side of the opened apparatus; viz. the wires, the
blackened sheet of paper, and the white sheet, — all lying
successively in contact with each other, the two that are
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underneath being held firmly in their places by the framework
of wires which is uppermost. The whole apparatus
is called a noctograph.
When it has been adjusted, as above described, the person
using it writes with an ivory style, or with a style made of
some harder substance, like agate, on the upper surface of
the blackened paper, which, wherever the style presses on
it, transfers the coloring matter of its under surface to the
white paper beneath it, — the writing thus produced looking
much like that done with a common black-lead pencil.
The chief difficulty in the use of such an apparatus
is obvious. The person employing it never looks upon
his work; never sees one of the marks he is making. He
trusts wholly to the wires for the direction of his hand. He
makes his letters and words only from mechanical habit.
He must, therefore, write straight forward, without any opportunity
for correction, however gross may be the mistakes
he has made, or however sure he may be that he has made
them; for, if he were to go back in order to correct an error,
he would only make his page still more confused, and probably
render it quite illegible. When, therefore, he has
made a mistake, great or small, all he can do is to go forward,
and rewrite further on the word or phrase he first intended
to write, rarely attempting to strike out what was
wrong, or to insert, in its proper place, anything that may
have been omitted. It is plain, therefore, that the person
who resorts to this apparatus as a substitute for sight ought
previously to prepare and settle in his memory what he
wishes to write, so as to make as few mistakes as possible.
With the best care his manuscript will not be very legible.
Without it, he may be sure it can hardly be deciphered
at all.
That Mr. Prescott, under his disheartening infirmities, —
I refer not only to his imperfect sight, but to the rheumatism
from which he was seldom wholly free, — should, at the age
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of five-and-twenty or thirty, with no help but this simple apparatus,
have aspired to the character of a historian dealing
with events that happened in times and countries far distant
from his own, and that are recorded chiefly in foreign languages
and by authors whose conflicting testimony was often
to be reconciled by laborious comparison, is a remarkable
fact in literary history. It is a problem the solution of
which was, I believe, never before undertaken; certainly
never before accomplished. Nor do I conceive that he himself
could have accomplished it, unless to his uncommon intellectual
gifts had been added great animal spirits, a strong,
persistent will, and a moral courage which was to be daunted
by no obstacle that he might deem it possible to remove
by almost any amount of effort.*
That he was not insensible to the difficulties of his undertaking,
we have partly seen, as we have witnessed how his
hopes fluctuated while he was struggling through the arrangements
for beginning to write his “Ferdinand and Isabella,”
and, in fact, during the whole period of its composition.
But he showed the same character, the same fertility
of resource, every day of his life, and provided, both
by forecast and self-sacrifice, against the embarrassments of
his condition as they successively presented themselves.
The first thing to be done, and the thing always to be repeated
day by day, was to strengthen, as much as possible,
what remained of his sight, and at any rate, to do nothing
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that should tend to exhaust its impaired powers. In 1821,
when he was still not without some hope of its recovery, he
made this memorandum. “I will make it my principal purpose
to restore my eye to its primitive vigor, and will do
nothing habitually that can seriously injure it.” To this end
he regulated his life with an exactness that I have never
known equalled. Especially in whatever related to the
daily distribution of his time, whether in regard to his intellectual
labors, to his social enjoyments, or to the care of his
physical powers, including his diet, he was severely exact, —
managing himself, indeed, in this last respect, under the
general directions of his wise medical adviser, Dr. Jackson,
but carrying out these directions with an ingenuity and
fidelity all his own.
He was an early riser, although it was a great effort for
him to be such. From boyhood it seemed to be contrary
to his nature to get up betimes in the morning. He was,
therefore, always awaked, and after silently, and sometimes
slowly and with reluctance, counting twenty, so as fairly to
arouse himself, he resolutely sprang out of bed; or, if he
failed, he paid a forfeit, as a memento of his weakness, to
the servant who had knocked at his chamber-door.* His
failures, however, were rare. When he was called, he was
told the state of the weather and of the thermometer. This
was important, as he was compelled by his rheumatism —
almost always present, and, when not so, always apprehended—
to regulate his dress with care; and, finding it
difficult to do so in any other way, he caused each of its
heavier external portions to be marked by his tailor with
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the number of ounces it weighed, and then put them on
according to the temperature, sure that their weight would
indicate the measure of warmth and protection they would
afford.*
As soon as he was dressed, he took his early exercise in
the open air. This, for many years, was done on horseback,
and, as he loved a spirited horse and was often thinking
more of his intellectual pursuits than of anything else
while he was riding, he sometimes caught a fall. But he
was a good rider, and was sorry to give up this form of
exercise and resort to walking or driving, as he did, by
order of his physician, in the last dozen years of his life.
No weather, except a severe storm, prevented him at any
period from thus, as he called it, “winding himself up.”
Even in the coldest of our very cold winter mornings, it
was his habit, so long as he could ride, to see the sun rise on
a particular spot three or four miles from town. In a letter
to Mrs. Ticknor, who was then in Germany, dated March,
1836, — at the end of a winter memorable for its extreme severity, —
he says, “You will give me credit for some spunk
when I tell you that I have not been frightened by the
cold a single morning from a ride on horseback to Jamaica
Plain and back again before breakfast. My mark has been
to see the sun rise by Mr. Greene's school, if you remember
where that is.” When the rides here referred to were
taken, the thermometer was often below zero of Fahrenheit.
On his return home, after adjusting his dress anew, with
reference to the temperature within doors, he sat down,
almost always in a very gay humor, to a moderate and even
spare breakfast, — a meal he much liked, because, as he said,
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he could then have his family with him in a quiet way, and
so begin the day happily. From the breakfast-table he
went at once to his study. There, while busied with what
remained of his toilet, or with the needful arrangements for
his regular occupations, Mrs. Prescott read to him, generally
from the morning papers, but sometimes from the current
literature of the day. At a fixed hour — seldom later than
ten — his reader, or secretary, came. In this, as in everything,
he required punctuality; but he noted tardiness only
by looking significantly at his watch; for it is the testimony
of all his surviving secretaries, that he never spoke a severe
word to either of them in the many years of their familiar
intercourse.
When they had met in the study, there was no thought
but of active work for about three hours.* His infirmities,
however, were always present to warn him how cautiously it
must be done, and he was extremely ingenious in the means
he devised for doing it without increasing them. The
shades and shutters for regulating the exact amount of light
which should be admitted; his own position relatively to
its direct rays, and to those that were reflected from surrounding
objects; the adaptation of his dress and of the
temperature of the room to his rheumatic affections; and
the different contrivances for taking notes from the books
that were read to him, and for impressing on his memory,
with the least possible use of his sight, such portions of
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each as were needful for his immediate purpose, — were all
of them the result of painstaking experiments, skilfully and
patiently made. But their ingenuity and adaptation were
less remarkable than the conscientious consistency with
which they were employed from day to day for forty years.
In relation to all such arrangements, two circumstances
should be noted.
The first is, that the resources of his eye were always
very small and uncertain, except for a few years, beginning
in 1840, when, from his long-continued prudence or from
some inscrutable cause, there seemed to be either an increase
of strength in the organ, or else such a diminution of its
sensibility as enabled him to use it more, though its strength
might really be diminished.
Thus, for instance, he was able to use his eye very little
in the preparation of the “Ferdinand and Isabella,” not
looking into a book sometimes for weeks and even months
together, and yet occasionally he could read several hours
in a day if he carefully divided the whole into short portions,
so as to avoid fatigue. While engaged in the composition
of the “Conquest of Mexico,” on the contrary, he was able
to read with considerable regularity, and so he was while
working on the “Conquest of Peru,” though, on the whole,
with less.*
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But he had, during nearly all this time, another difficulty
to encounter. There had come on prematurely that gradual
alteration of the eye which is the consequence of advancing
years, and for which the common remedy is spectacles.
Even when he was using what remained to him of sight on
the “Conquest of Mexico” with a freedom which not a little
animated him in his pursuits, he perceived this discouraging
change. In July, 1841, he says: “My eye, for some days,
feels dim. `I guess and fear,' as Burns says.” And in
June, 1842, when our families were spending together at
Lebanon Springs a few days which he has recorded as
otherwise very happy, he spoke to me more than once in a
tone of absolute grief, that he should never again enjoy the
magnificent spectacle of the starry heavens. To this sad
deprivation he, in fact, alludes himself in his Memoranda of
that period, where, in relation to his eyes, he says: “I find
a misty veil increasing over them, quite annoying when
reading. The other evening B— said, `How beautiful
the heavens are with so many stars!' I could hardly see
two. It made me sad.”
Spectacles, however, although they brought their appropriate
relief, brought also an inevitable inconvenience.
They fatigued his eye. He could use it, therefore, less
and less, or if he used it at all, beyond a nicely adjusted
amount, the excess was followed by a sort of irritability,
weakness, and pain in the organ which he had not felt for
many years. This went on increasing with sad regularity.
But he knew that it was inevitable, and submitted to it patiently.
In the latter part of his life he was able to use his
eye very little indeed for the purpose of reading, — in the
last year, hardly at all. Even in several of the years
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preceding, he used it only thirty-five minutes in each day,
divided exactly by the watch into portions of five minutes
each, with at least half an hour between, and always stopping
the moment pain was felt, even if it were felt at the first
instant of opening the book. I doubt whether a more persistent,
conscientious care was ever taken of an impaired
physical power. Indeed, I do not see how it could have
been made more thorough. But all care was unavailing,
and he at last knew that it was so. The decay could not be
arrested. He spoke of it rarely, but when he perceived
that in the evening twilight he could no longer walk about
the streets that were familiar to him with his accustomed
assurance, he felt it deeply. Still he persevered, and was
as watchful of what remained of his sight as if his hopes of
its restoration had continued unchecked. Indeed, I think
he always trusted that he was saving something by his anxious
care; he always believed that great prudence on one
day would enable him to do a little more work on the next
than he should be able to do without so much caution.
The other circumstance that should be noticed in relation
to the arrangements for his pursuits is, the continually increased
amount of light he was obliged to use, and which he
could use without apparent injury.
In Bedford Street, where he first began his experiments,
he could, from the extreme sensitiveness of his eye, bear
very little light. But, even before he left that quiet old
mansion, he cut out a new window in his working-room,
arranging it so that the light should fall more strongly and
more exclusively upon the book he might be using. This
did very well for a time. But when he removed to Beacon
Street, the room he built expressly for his own use contained
six contiguous windows; two of which, though large, were
glazed each with a single sheet of the finest plate-glass,
nicely protected by several curtains of delicate fabric and of
a light-blue color, one or more of which could be drawn up
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over each window to temper the light while the whole light
that was admitted through any one opening could be excluded
by solid wooden shutters. At first, though much
light was commonly used, these appliances for diminishing
it were all more or less required. But, gradually, one after
another of them was given up, and, at last, I observed that
none was found important. He needed and used all the
light he could get.
The change was a sad one, and he did not like to allude
to it. But during the last year of his life, after the first
slight access of paralysis, which much disturbed the organ
for a time, and rendered its action very irregular, he spoke
plainly to me. He said he must soon cease to use his eye
for any purpose of study, but fondly trusted that he should
always be able to recognize the features of his friends, and
should never become a burden to those he loved by needing
to be led about. His hopes were, indeed, fulfilled, but not
without the sorrow of all. The day before his sudden
death he walked the streets as freely as he had done for
years.
Still, whatever may have been the condition of his eye at
any period, — from the fierce attack of 1815 to the very end
of his life, — it was always a paramount subject of anxiety
with him. He never ceased to think of it, and to regulate
the hours, and almost the minutes, of his daily life by it.
Even in its best estate he felt that it must be spared; in its
worst, he was anxious to save something by care and abstinence.
He said, “he reckoned time by eyesight, as distances
on railroads are reckoned by hours.”
One thing in this connection may be noted as remarkable.
He knew that, if he would give up literary labor altogether,
his eye would be better at once, and would last longer.
His physicians all told him so, and their opinion was rendered
certain by his own experience; for whenever he ceased
to work for some time, as during a visit to New York in
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1842 and a visit to Europe in 1850, — in short, whenever
he took a journey or indulged himself in holidays of such a
sort as prevented him from looking into books at all or
thinking much about them, — his general health immediately
became more vigorous than might have been expected from
a relief so transient, and his sight was always improved;
sometimes materially improved. But he would not pay the
price. He perferred to submit, if it should be inevitable, to
the penalty of ultimate blindness, rather than give up his
literary pursuits.
He never liked to work more than three hours consecutively.
At one o'clock, therefore, he took a walk of about
two miles, and attended to any little business abroad that
was incumbent on him, coming home generally refreshed
and exhilarated, and ready to lounge a little and gossip.
Dinner followed, for the greater part of his life about three
o'clock, although, during a few years, he dined in winter at
five or six, which he preferred, and which he gave up only
because his health demanded the change. In the summer
he always dined early, so as to have the late afternoon for
driving and exercise during our hot season.
He enjoyed the pleasures of the table, and even its luxuries,
more than most men. But he restricted himself carefully
in the use of them, adjusting everything with reference
to its effect on the power of using his eye immediately afterwards,
and especially on his power of using it the next day.
Occasional indulgence when dining out or with friends at
home he found useful, or at least not injurious, and was encouraged
in it by his medical counsel. But he dined abroad,
as he did everything of the sort, at regulated intervals, and
not only determined beforehand in what he should deviate
from his settled habits, but often made a record of the result
for his future government.
The most embarrassing question, however, as to diet, regarded
the use of wine, which, if at first it sometimes seemed
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to be followed by bad consequences, was yet, on the whole,
found useful, and was prescribed to him. To make everything
certain, and settle the precise point to which he should
go, he instituted a series of experiments, and between March,
1818, and November, 1820, — a period of two years and
nine months, — he recorded the exact quantity of wine that
he took every day, except the few days when he entirely
abstained. It was Sherry or Madeira. In the great majority
of cases — four fifths, I should think — it ranged from
one to two glasses, but went up sometimes to four or five,
and even to six. He settled at last, upon two or two and
a half as the quantity best suited to his case, and persevered
in this as his daily habit, until the last year of his life, during
which a peculiar regimen was imposed upon him from
the peculiar circumstances of his health. In all this I wish
to be understood that he was rigorous with himself, — much
more so than persons thought who saw him only when he
was dining with friends, and when, but equally upon system
and principle, he was much more free.
He generally smoked a single weak cigar after dinner,
and listened at the same time to light reading from Mrs.
Prescott. A walk of two miles — more or less — followed;
but always enough, after the habit of riding was given up, to
make the full amount of six miles' walking for the day's
exercise, and then, between five and eight, he took a cup of
tea, and had his reader with him for work two hours more.
The labors of the day were now definitively ended. He
came down from his study to his library, and either sat
there or walked about while Mrs. Prescott read to him
from some amusing book, generally a novel, and, above all
other novels, those of Scott and Miss Edgeworth. In all
this he took great solace. He enjoyed the room as well as
the reading, and, as he moved about, would often stop before
the books, — especially his favorite books, — and be
sure that they were all in their proper places, drawn up ex
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actly to the front of their respective shelves, like soldiers
on a dress-parade, — sometimes speaking of them, and
almost to them, as if they were personal friends.
At half past ten, having first taken nearly another glass
of wine, he went to bed, fell asleep quickly, and slept soundly
and well. Suppers he early gave up, although they were a
form of social intercourse much liked in his father's house,
and common thirty or forty years ago in the circle to which
he belonged. Besides all other reasons against them, he
found that the lights commonly on the table shot their horizontal
rays so as to injure his suffering organ. Larger evening
parties, which were not so liable to this objection, he
liked rather for their social influences than for the pleasure
they gave him; but he was seen in them to the last, though
rarely and only for a short time in each. Earlier in life,
when he enjoyed them more and stayed later, he would,
in the coldest winter nights, after going home, run up and
down on a plank walk, so arranged in the garden of the
Bedford-Street house that he could do it with his eyes shut,
for twenty minutes or more, in order that his system might
be refreshed, and his sight invigorated, for the next morning's
work.* Later, unhappily, this was not needful. His
eye had lost the sensibility that gave its value to such a
habit.
In his exercise, at all its assigned hours, he was faithful
and exact. If a violent storm prevented him from going
out, or if the bright snow on sunny days in winter rendered
it dangerous for him to expose his eye to its brilliant reflec
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tion, he would dress himself as for the street and walk vigorously
about the colder parts of the house, or he would
saw and chop fire-wood, under cover, being, in the latter
case, read to all the while.
The result he sought, and generally obtained, by these
efforts was not, however, always to be had without suffering.
The first mile or two of his walk often cost him pain —
sometimes sharp pain — in consequence of the rheumatism,
which seldom deserted his limbs; but he never on this
account gave it up; for regular exercise in the open air
was, as he well knew, indispensable to the preservation of
whatever remained of his decaying sight. He persevered,
therefore, through the last two suffering years of his life,
when it was peculiarly irksome and difficult for him to
move; and even in the days immediately preceding his first
attack of paralysis, when he was very feeble, he was out
at his usual hours. His will, in truth, was always stronger
than the bodily ills that beset him, and prevailed over them
to the last.*
eaf559n2* The case of Thierry — the nearest known to me — was different.
His great work, “Histoire de la Conquête de l' Angleterre par
les Normands,” was written before he became blind. What he published
afterward was dictated, — wonderful, indeed, all of it, but
especially all that relates to what he did for the commission of the
government concerning the Tiers État, to be found in that grand
collection of “Documents inédits sur l'Histoire de France,” begun
under the auspices and influence of M. Guizot, when he was minister
of Louis-Philippe.
eaf559n3* When he was a bachelor, the servant, after waiting a certain
number of minutes at the door without receiving an answer, went in
and took away the bed-clothes. This was, at that period, the office
of faithful Nathan Webster, who was remembered kindly in Mr. Prescott's
will, and who was for nearly thirty years in the family, a true
and valued friend of all its members.
eaf559n4* As in the case of the use of wine, hereafter to be noticed, he
made, from year to year, the most minute memoranda about the use
of clothes, finding it necessary to be exact on account of the rheumatism
which, besides almost constantly infesting his limbs, always affected
his sight when it became severe.
eaf559n5* I speak here of the time during which he was busy with his
Histories. In the intervals between them, as, for instance, between
the “Ferdinand and Isabella” and the “Mexico,” between the
“Mexico” and “Peru,” &c., his habits were very different. At
these periods he indulged, sometimes for many months, in a great
deal of light, miscellaneous reading, which he used to call “literary
loafing.” This he thought not only agreeable, but refreshing and
useful; though sometimes he complained bitterly of himself for carrying
his indulgences of this sort too far.
eaf559n6* How uncertain was the state of his eye, even when it was
strongest, may be seen from memoranda made at different times,
within less than two years of each other. The first is in January,
1829, when he was full of grateful feelings for an unexpected increase
of his powers of sight. “By the blessing of Heaven,” he says, “I
have been enabled to have the free use of my eye in the daytime during
the last weeks, without the exception of a single day, although
deprived, for nearly a fortnight, of my accustomed exercise. I hope
I have not abused this great privilege.” But this condition of things
did not last long. Great fluctuations followed. In August and September
he was much discouraged by severe inflammations; and in
October, 1830, when he had been slowly writing the “Ferdinand
and Isabella” for about a year, his sight for a time became so much
impaired that he was brought — I use his own words — “seriously to
consider what steps he should take in relation to that work, if his
sight should fail him altogether.”
eaf559n7* Some persons may think this to have been a fancy of my
friend, or an over-nice estimate of the value of the open air. But
others have found the same benefit who needed it less. Sir Charles
Bell says, in his journal, that he used to sit in the open air a great
deal, and read or draw, because on the following day he found himself
so much better able to work. Some of the best passages in his great
treatises were, he says, written under these circumstances.
eaf559n8* On one occasion, when he was employed upon a work that
interested him because it related to a friend, he was attacked with
pains that made a sitting posture impossible. But he would not
yield. He took his noctograph to a sofa, and knelt before it so as to
be able to continue his work. This resource, however, failed, and
then he laid himself down flat upon the floor. This extrarordinary
operation went on during portions of nine successive days.
-- -- p559-213
BEATRICE. By DANTE.
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THIS most gentle lady reached such favor among the
people, that when she passed along the way persons
ran to see her, which gave me wonderful delight. And
when she was near any one, such modesty took possession
of his heart, that he did not dare to raise his eyes or to return
her salutation; and to this, should any one doubt it,
many, as having experienced it, could bear witness for me.
She, crowned and clothed with humility, took her way, displaying
no pride in that which she saw and heard. Many,
when she had passed, said, “This is not a woman; rather is
she one of the most beautiful angels of heaven.” Others
said, “She is a miracle. Blessed be the Lord who can perform
such a marvel!” I say that she showed herself so
gentle and so full of all beauties, that those who looked on
her felt within themselves a pure and sweet delight such as
they could not tell in words; nor was there any who could
look at her and not feel need at first to sigh. These and
more wonderful things proceeded from her, marvellously and
with power. Wherefore I, thinking on all this, proposed
to say some words, in which I would exhibit her marvellous
and excellent influences, to the end that not only
those who might actually behold her, but also others, might
know of her whatever words could tell. Then I wrote this
sonnet: —
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Dante's Beatrice
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So gentle and so modest doth appear
My lady when she giveth her salute,
That every tongue becometh trembling mute,
Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare.
And though she hears her praises, she doth go
Benignly clothed with humility,
And like a thing come down she seems to be
From heaven to earth, a miracle to show.
So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh,
She gives the heart a sweetness through the eyes,
Which none can understand who doth not prove.
And from her lip there seems indeed to move
A spirit sweet and in Love's very guise,
Which goeth saying to the soul, “Ah, sigh!”
-- -- p559-219
A LOVE STORY. * By ROBERT SOUTHEY.
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CHAPTER I.
RASH MARRIAGES. AN EARLY WIDOWHOOD. AFFLICTION RENDERED
A BLESSING TO THE SUFFERERS; AND TWO ORPHANS
LEFT, THOUGH NOT DESTITUTE, YET FRIENDLESS.
Love built a stately house; where Fortune came,
And spinning fancies, she was heard to say
That her fine cobwebs did support the frame;
Whereas they were supported by the same.
But Wisdom quickly swept them all away.
Herbert.
MRS. DOVE was the only child of a clergyman who
held a small vicarage in the West Riding. Leonard
Bacon, her father, had been left an orphan in early youth.
He had some wealthy relations by whose contributions he
was placed at an endowed grammar-school in the country,
and having through their influence gained a scholarship, to
which his own deserts might have entitled him, they continued
to assist him — sparingly enough indeed — at the
University, till he succeeded to a fellowship. Leonard was
made of Nature's finest clay, and Nature had tempered it
with the choicest dews of heaven.
He had a female cousin about three years younger than
himself, and in like manner an orphan, equally destitute, but
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far more forlorn. Man hath a fleece about him which enables
him to bear the buffetings of the storm; —but woman
when young, and lovely, and poor, is as a shorn lamb for
which the wind has not been tempered.
Leonard's father and Margaret's had been bosom friends.
They were subalterns in the same regiment, and, being for a
long time stationed at Salisbury, had become intimate at the
house of Mr. Trewbody, a gentleman of one of the oldest
families in Wiltshire. Mr. Trewbody had three daughters.
Melicent, the eldest, was a celebrated beauty, and the knowledge
of this had not tended to improve a detestable temper.
The two youngest, Deborah and Margaret, were lively, good-natured,
thoughtless, and attractive. They danced with the
two lieutenants, played to them on the spinnet, sung with
them and laughed with them, — till this mirthful intercourse
became serious, and, knowing that it would be impossible to
obtain their father's consent, they married the men of their
hearts without it. Palmer and Bacon were both without
fortune, and without any other means of subsistence than
their commissions. For four years they were as happy as
love could make them; at the end of that time Palmer was
seized with an infectious fever. Deborah was then far advanced
in pregnancy, and no solicitations could induce Bacon
to keep from his friend's bedside. The disease proved fatal;
it communicated to Bacon and his wife; the former only
survived his friend ten days, and he and Deborah were then
laid in the same grave. They left an only boy of three
years old, and in less than a month the widow Palmer was
delivered of a daughter.
In the first impulse of anger at the flight of his daughters,
and the degradation of his family, (for Bacon was the son
of a tradesman, and Palmer was nobody knew who,) Mr.
Trewbody had made his will, and left the whole sum, which
he had designed for his three daughters, to the eldest.
Whether the situation of Margaret and the two orphans
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might have touched him, is perhaps doubtful, — for the family
were either light-hearted or hard-hearted, and his heart
was of the hard sort; but he died suddenly a few months
before his sons-in-law. The only son, Trewman Trewbody,
Esq., a Wiltshire fox-hunter, like his father, succeeded to
the estate; and as he and his eldest sister hated each other
cordially, Miss Melicent left the manor-house, and established
herself in the Close at Salisbury, where she lived in
that style which a portion of £ 6,000 enabled her in those
days to support.
The circumstance which might appear so greatly to have
aggravated Mrs. Palmer's distress, if such distress be capable
of aggravation, prevented her perhaps from eventually sinking
under it. If the birth of her child was no alleviation
of her sorrow, it brought with it new feelings, new duties,
new cause for exertion, and new strength for it. She wrote
to Melicent and to her brother, simply stating her own
destitute situation, and that of the orphan Leonard; she believed
that their pride would not suffer them either to let
her starve or go to the parish for support, and in this she
was not disappointed. An answer was returned by Miss
Trewbody, informing her that she had nobody to thank but
herself for her misfortunes; but that, notwithstanding the
disgrace which she had brought upon the family, she might
expect an annual allowance of ten pounds from the writer,
and a like sum from her brother; upon this she must retire
into some obscure part of the country, and pray God to forgive
her for the offence she had committed, in marrying
beneath her birth, and against her father's consent.
Mrs. Palmer had also written to the friends of Lieutenant
Bacon, — her own husband had none who could assist her.
She expressed her willingness and her anxiety to have the
care of her sister's orphan, but represented her forlorn state.
They behaved more liberally than her own kin had done,
and promised five pounds a year as long as the boy should
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require it. With this and her pension she took a cottage in
a retired village. Grief had acted upon her heart like the
rod of Moses upon the rock in the desert; it had opened
it, and the well-spring of piety had gushed forth. Affliction
made her religious, and religion brought with it consolation,
and comfort, and joy. Leonard became as dear to her as
Margaret. The sense of duty educed a pleasure from every
privation to which she subjected herself for the sake of
economy; and, in endeavoring to fulfil her duties in that
state of life to which it had pleased God to call her, she
was happier than she had ever been in her father's house,
and not less so than in her marriage state. Her happiness
indeed was different in kind, but it was higher in degree.
For the sake of these dear children she was contented to
live, and even prayed for life; while, if it had respected
herself only, death had become to her rather an object of
desire than of dread. In this manner she lived seven years
after the loss of her husband, and was then carried off by an
acute disease, to the irreparable loss of the orphans, who
were thus orphaned indeed.
eaf559n9* Southey always intended to complete this story, but he did not live
to fulfil his purpose. It is here brought together for the first time in
America, from the pages of that admirable work which has now taken
its place as an English classic, — “The Doctor.”
CHAPTER II.
A LADY DESCRIBED WHOSE SINGLE LIFE WAS NO BLESSEDNESS
EITHER TO HERSELF OR OTHERS. A VERACIOUS EPITAPH AND
AN APPROPRIATE MONUMENT.
Beauty! my Lord, — 't is the worst part of woman!
A weak, poor thing, assaulted every hour
By creeping minutes of defacing time;
A superficies which each breath of care
Blasts off; and every humorous stream of grief,
Which flows from forth these fountains of our eyes,
Washeth away, as rain doth winter's snow.
Goff.
Miss Trewbody behaved with perfect propriety upon
the news of her sister's death. She closed her front
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windows for two days; received no visitors for a week; was
much indisposed, but resigned to the will of Providence, in
reply to messages of condolence; put her servants in mourning,
and sent for Margaret, that she might do her duty to
her sister's child by breeding her up under her own eye.
Poor Margaret was transferred from the stone floor of her
mother's cottage to the Turkey carpet of her aunt's parlor.
She was too young to comprehend at once the whole evil of
the exchange; but she learned to feel and understand it
during years of bitter dependence, unalleviated by any hope,
except that of one day seeing Leonard, the only creature on
earth whom she remembered with affection.
Seven years elapsed, and during all those years Leonard
was left to pass his holidays, summer and winter, at the
grammar-school where he had been placed at Mrs. Palmer's
death: for although the master regularly transmitted with
his half-yearly bill the most favorable accounts of his disposition
and general conduct, as well as of his progress in
learning, no wish to see the boy had ever arisen in the
hearts of his nearest relations; and no feeling of kindness,
or sense of decent humanity, had ever induced either the
fox-hunter Trewman, or Melicent his sister, to invite him
for Midsummer or Christmas. At length in the seventh
year a letter announced that his school-education had been
completed, and that he was elected to a scholarship at —
College, Oxford, which scholarship would entitle him to a
fellowship in due course of time: in the intervening years
some little assistance from his liberal benefactors would be
required; and the liberality of those kind friends would be
well bestowed upon a youth who bade so fair to do honor
to himself, and to reflect no disgrace upon his honorable connections.
The head of the family promised his part, with
an ungracious expression of satisfaction at thinking that,
“thank God, there would soon be an end of these demands
upon him.” Miss Trewbody signified her assent in the
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same amiable and religious spirit. However much her
sister had disgraced her family, she replied, “Please God,
it should never be said that she refused to do her duty.”
The whole sum which these wealthy relations contributed
was not very heavy, — an annual ten pounds each; but
they contrived to make their nephew feel the weight of
every separate portion. The Squire's half came always
with a brief note, desiring that the receipt of the enclosed
sum might be acknowledged without delay, — not a word of
kindness or courtesy accompanied it: and Miss Trewbody
never failed to administer with her remittance a few edifying
remarks upon the folly of his mother in marrying
beneath herself; and the improper conduct of his father in
connecting himself with a woman of family, against the
consent of her relations; the consequence of which was,
that he had left a child dependent upon those relations for
support. Leonard received these pleasant preparations of
charity only at distant intervals, when he regularly expected
them, with his half-yearly allowance. But Margaret meantime
was dieted upon the food of bitterness, without one
circumstance to relieve the misery of her situation.
At the time of which I am now speaking, Miss Trewbody
was a maiden lady of forty-seven, in the highest state of
preservation. The whole business of her life had been to
take care of a fine person, and in this she had succeeded
admirably. Her library consisted of two books: “Nelson's
Festivals and Fasts” was one, the other was “The Queen's
Cabinet Unlocked”; and there was not a cosmetic in the
latter which she had not faithfully prepared. Thus by
means, as she believed, of distilled waters of various kinds,
May-dew and buttermilk, her skin retained its beautiful
texture still, and much of its smoothness; and she knew at
times how to give it the appearance of that brilliancy which
it had lost. But that was a profound secret. Miss Trewbody,
remembering the example of Jezebel, always felt
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conscious that she was committing a sin when she took the
rouge-box in her hand, and generally ejaculated in a low
voice, the Lord forgive me! when she laid it down: but,
looking in the glass at the same time, she indulged a hope
that the nature of the temptation might be considered as
an excuse for the transgression. Her other great business
was to observe with the utmost precision all the punctilios
of her situation in life; and the time which was not devoted
to one or other of these worthy occupations, was employed
in scolding her servants, and tormenting her niece. This
employment, for it was so habitual that it deserved that
name, agreed excellently with her constitution. She was
troubled with no acrid humors, no fits of bile, no diseases
of the spleen, no vapors or hysterics. The morbid matter
was all collected in her temper, and found a regular vent at
her tongue. This kept the lungs in vigorous health; nay,
it even seemed to supply the place of wholesome exercise,
and to stimulate the system like a perpetual blister, with
this peculiar advantage, that instead of an inconvenience it
was a pleasure to herself, and all the annoyance was to her
dependants.
Miss Trewbody lies buried in the Cathedral at Salisbury,
where a monument was erected to her memory worthy of
remembrance itself for its appropriate inscription and accompaniments.
The epitaph recorded her as a woman
eminently pious, virtuous, and charitable, who lived universally
respected, and died sincerely lamented, by all who had
the happiness of knowing her. This inscription was upon
a marble shield supported by two Cupids, who bent their
heads over the edge, with marble tears larger than gray
pease, and something of the same color, upon their cheeks.
These were the only tears which her death occasioned, and
the only Cupids with whom she had ever any concern.
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CHAPTER III.
A SCENE WHICH WILL PUT SOME OF THOSE READERS WHO HAVE
BEEN MOST IMPATIENT WITH THE AUTHOR, IN THE BEST HUMOR
WITH HIM.
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There is no argument of more antiquity and elegancy than is the matter
of Love; for it seems to be as old as the world, and to bear date from
the first time that man and woman was: therefore in this, as in the finest
metal, the freshest wits have in all ages shown their best workmanship.
Robert Wilmot.
When Leonard had resided three years at Oxford, one
of his college-friends invited him to pass the long vacation
at his father's house, which happened to be within an easy
ride of Salisbury. One morning, therefore, he rode to that
city, rung at Miss Trewbody's door, and having sent in his
name, was admitted into the parlor, where there was no one
to receive him, while Miss Trewbody adjusted her head-dress
at the toilette, before she made her appearance. Her
feelings while she was thus employed were not of the
pleasantest kind toward this unexpected guest; and she was
prepared to accost him with a reproof for his extravagance
in undertaking so long a journey, and with some mortifying
questions concerning the business which brought him there.
But this amiable intention was put to flight, when Leonard,
as soon as she entered the room, informed her, that having
accepted an invitation into that neighborhood, from his friend
and fellow-collegian, the son of Sir Lambert Bowles, he had
taken the earliest opportunity of coming to pay his respects
to her, and acknowledging his obligations, as bound alike
by duty and inclination. The name of Sir Lambert Bowles
acted upon Miss Trewbody like a charm; and its mollifying
effect was not a little aided by the tone of her nephew's
address, and the sight of a fine youth in the first bloom of
manhood, whose appearance and manners were such, that
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she could not be surprised at the introduction he had obtained
into one of the first families in the county. The
scowl, therefore, which she brought into the room upon her
brow, passed instantly away, and was succeeded by so
gracious an aspect, that Leonard, if he had not divined the
cause, might have mistaken this gleam of sunshine for fair
weather.
A cause which Miss Trewbody could not possibly suspect
had rendered her nephew's address thus conciliatory. Had
he expected to see no other person in that house, the visit
would have been performed as an irksome obligation, and
his manner would have appeared as cold and formal as the
reception which he anticipated. But Leonard had not forgotten
the playmate and companion with whom the happy
years of his childhood had been passed. Young as he was
at their separation, his character had taken its stamp during
those peaceful years, and the impression which it then
received was indelible. Hitherto hope had never been to
him so delightful as memory. His thoughts wandered back
into the past more frequently than they took flight into the
future; and the favorite form which his imagination called
up was that of the sweet child, who in winter partook his
bench in the chimney-corner, and in summer sat with him
in the porch, and strung the fallen blossoms of jessamine
upon stalks of grass. The snowdrop and the crocus reminded
him of their little garden, the primrose of their
sunny orchard-bank, and the bluebells and the cowslip of
the fields, wherein they were allowed to run wild, and
gather them in the merry month of May. Such as she
then was he saw her frequently in sleep, with her blue
eyes, and rosy cheeks, and flaxen curls: and in his day-dreams
he sometimes pictured her to himself such as he
supposed she now might be, and dressed up the image with
all the magic of ideal beauty. His heart, therefore, was at
his lips when he inquired for his cousin. It was not
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without something like fear, and an apprehension of disappointment,
that he awaited her appearance; and he was secretly
condemning himself for the romantic folly which he had
encouraged, when the door opened, and a creature came in,—
less radiant, indeed, but more winning than his fancy
had created, for the loveliness of earth and reality was
about her.
“Margaret,” said Miss Trewbody, “do you remember
your cousin Leonard?”
Before she could answer, Leonard had taken her hand.
“'T is a long while, Margaret, since we parted! — ten
years! — But I have not forgotten the parting — nor the
blessed days of our childhood.”
She stood trembling like an aspen leaf, and looked wistfully
in his face for a moment, then hung down her head,
without power to utter a word in reply. But he felt her
tears fall fast upon his hand, and felt also that she returned
its pressure.
Leonard had some difficulty to command himself, so as to
bear a part in conversation with his aunt, and keep his eyes
and his thoughts from wandering. He accepted, however,
her invitation to stay and dine with her with undissembled
satisfaction, and the pleasure was not a little heightened
when she left the room to give some necessary orders in
consequence. Margaret still sate trembling and in silence.
He took her hand, pressed it to his lips, and said in a low
earnest voice, “Dear, dear Margaret!” She raised her
eyes, and fixing them upon him with one of those looks,
the perfect remembrance of which can never be effaced from
the heart to which they have been addressed, replied in a
lower but not less earnest tone, “Dear Leonard!” and from
that moment their lot was sealed for time and for eternity.
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CHAPTER IV.
MORE CONCERNING LOVE AND THE DREAM OF LIFE.
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Happy the bonds that hold ye;
Sure they be sweeter far than liberty,
There is no blessedness but in such bondage;
Happy that happy chain; such links are heavenly.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
I will not describe the subsequent interviews between
Leonard and his cousin, short and broken, but precious as
they were; nor that parting one, in which hands were
plighted with the sure and certain knowledge that hearts
had been interchanged. Remembrance will enable some of
my readers to portray the scene, and then perhaps a sigh
may be heaved for the days that are gone: Hope will picture
it to others — and with them the sigh will be for the
days that are to come.
There was not that indefinite deferment of hope in this
case at which the heart sickens. Leonard had been bred
up in poverty from his childhood; a parsimonious allowance,
grudgingly bestowed, had contributed to keep him frugal at
college, by calling forth a pardonable if not a commendable
sense of pride in aid of a worthier principle. He knew
that he could rely upon himself for frugality, industry, and
a cheerful as well as a contented mind. He had seen the
miserable state of bondage in which Margaret existed with
her aunt, and his resolution was made to deliver her from
that bondage as soon as he could obtain the smallest benefice
on which it was possible for them to subsist. They
agreed to live rigorously within their means, however poor,
and put their trust in Providence. They could not be deceived
in each other, for they had grown up together; and
they knew that they were not deceived in themselves.
Their love had the freshness of youth, but prudence and
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forethought were not wanting; the resolution which they
had taken brought with it peace of mind, and no misgiving
was felt in either heart when they prayed for a blessing
upon their purpose. In reality it had already brought a
blessing with it; and this they felt; for love, when it deserves
that name, produces in us what may be called a
regeneration of its own — a second birth — dimly, but yet
in some degree, resembling that which is effected by Divine
Love when its redeeming work is accomplished in the soul.
Leonard returned to Oxford happier than all this world's
wealth or this world's honors could have made him. He
had now a definite and attainable hope — an object in life
which gave to life itself a value. For Margaret, the world
no longer seemed to her like the same earth which she had
till then inhabited. Hitherto she had felt herself a forlorn
and solitary creature, without a friend; and the sweet
sounds and pleasant objects of nature, had imparted as little
cheerfulness to her as to the debtor who sees green fields in
sunshine from his prison, and hears the lark singing at liberty.
Her heart was open now to all the exhilarating and
all the softening influences of birds, fields, flowers, vernal
suns, and melodious streams. She was subject to the same
daily and hourly exercise of meekness, patience, and humility;
but the trial was no longer painful; with love in
her heart, and hope and sunshine in her prospect, she found
even a pleasure in contrasting her present condition with
that which was in store for her.
In these our days every young lady holds the pen of a
ready writer, and words flow from it as fast as it can indent
its zigzag lines, according to the reformed system of writing,—
which said system improves handwritings by making
them all alike and all illegible. At that time women wrote
better and spelt worse; but letter-writing was not one of
their accomplishments. It had not yet become one of the
general pleasures and luxuries of life, — perhaps the greatest
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gratification which the progress of civilization has given
us. There was then no mail-coach to waft a sigh across the
country at the rate of eight miles an hour. Letters came
slowly and with long intervals between; but when they
came, the happiness which they imparted to Leonard and
Margaret lasted during the interval, however long. To
Leonard it was as an exhilarant and a cordial which rejoiced
and strengthened him. He trod the earth with a lighter and
more elated movement on the day when he received a letter
from Margaret, as if he felt himself invested with an importance
which he had never possessed till the happiness of another
human being was inseparably associated with his own.
So proud a thing it was for him to wear
Love's golden chain,
With which it is best freedom to be bound.*
Happy, indeed, if there be happiness on earth, as that
same sweet poet says, is he
Who love enjoys, and placed hath his mind
Where fairest virtues fairest beauties grace,
Then in himself such store of worth doth find
That he deserves to find so good a place.*
This was Leonard's case; and when he kissed the paper
which her hand had pressed, it was with a consciousness of
the strength and sincerity of his affection, which at once rejoiced
and fortified his heart. To Margaret his letters were
like summer dew upon the herb that thirsts for such refreshment.
Whenever they arrived, a headache became the
cause or pretext for retiring earlier than usual to her chamber,
that she might weep and dream over the precious lines.
True gentle love is like the summer dew,
Which falls around when all is still and hush;
And falls unseen until its bright drops strew
With odors, herb and flower, and bank and bush.
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O love! — when womanhood is in the flush,
And man 's a young and an unspotted thing,
His first-breathed word, and her half-conscious blush,
Are fair as light in heaven, or flowers in spring.*
eaf559n10* Drummond.
eaf559n11* Allan Cunningham.
CHAPTER V.
AN EARLY BEREAVEMENT. TRUE LOVE ITS OWN COMFORTER. A
LONELY FATHER AND AN ONLY CHILD.
Read ye that run the awful truth,
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.
Cowper.
Leonard was not more than eight-and-twenty when he
obtained a living, a few miles from Doncaster. He took
his bride with him to the vicarage. The house was as humble
as the benefice, which was worth less than £ 50 a year;
but it was soon made the neatest cottage in the country
round, and upon a happier dwelling the sun never shone.
A few acres of good glebe were attached to it; and the garden
was large enough to afford healthful and pleasurable
employment to its owners. The course of true love never
ran more smoothly; but its course was short.
O how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!†
Little more than five years from the time of their marriage
had elapsed, before a head-stone in the adjacent
churchyard told where the remains of Margaret Bacon had
been deposited, in the thirtieth year of her age.
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When the stupor and the agony of that bereavement had
passed away, the very intensity of Leonard's affection became
a source of consolation. Margaret had been to him a
purely ideal object during the years of his youth; death
had again rendered her such. Imagination had beautified
and idolized her then; faith sanctified and glorified her now.
She had been to him on earth all that he had fancied, all
that he had hoped, all that he had desired. She would
again be so in heaven. And this second union nothing
could impede, nothing could interrupt, nothing could dissolve.
He had only to keep himself worthy of it by cherishing
her memory, hallowing his heart to it while he performed
a parent's duty to their child; and so doing to await
his own summons, which must one day come, which every
day was brought nearer, and which any day might bring.
'T is the only discipline we are born for;
All studies else are but as circular lines,
And death the centre where they must all meet.*
The same feeling which from his chidhood had refined
Leonard's heart, keeping it pure and undefiled, had also
corroborated the natural strength of his character, and made
him firm of purpose. It was a saying of Bishop Andrewes,
that “good husbandry is good divinity”; “the truth whereof,”
says Fuller, “no wise man will deny.” Frugality he
had always practised as a needful virtue, and found that, in
an especial manner, it brings with it its own reward. He
now resolved upon scrupulously setting apart a fourth of his
small income to make a provision for his child, in case of
her surviving him, as in the natural course of things might
be expected. If she should be removed before him — for
this was an event the possibility of which he always bore in
mind — he had resolved, that whatever should have been
accumulated with this intent, should be disposed of to some
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other pious purpose, — for such, within the limits to which
his poor means extended, he properly considered this.
And having entered on this prudential course with a calm
reliance upon Providence, in case his hour should come before
that purpose could be accomplished, he was without
any earthly hope or fear, — those alone excepted from
which no parent can be free.
The child had been christened Deborah, after her maternal
grandmother, for whom Leonard ever gratefully retained a
most affectionate and reverential remembrance. She was
a healthy, happy creature in body and in mind; at first
one of those little prating girls
Of whom fond parents tell such tedious stories;*
afterwards, as she grew up, a favorite with the village
schoolmistress, and with the whole parish; docile, good-natured,
lively and yet considerate, always gay as a lark and
busy as a bee. One of the pensive pleasures in which
Leonard indulged was to gaze on her unperceived, and
trace the likeness to her mother.
O Christ!
How that which was the life's life of our being,
Can pass away, and we recall it thus!†
That resemblance which was strong in childhood lessened
as the child grew up; for Margaret's countenance had acquired
a cast of meek melancholy during those years in
which the bread of bitterness had been her portion; and,
when hope came to her, it was that “hope deferred,” which
takes from the cheek its bloom, even when the heart, instead
of being made sick, is sustained by it. But no unhappy
circumstances depressed the constitutional buoyancy of her
daughter's spirits. Deborah brought into the world the
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happiest of all nature's endowments, an easy temper and a
light heart. Resemblant therefore as the features were,
the dissimiltude of expression was more apparent; and
when Leonard contrasted in thought the sunshine of hilarity
that lit up his daughter's face, with the sort of moonlight
loveliness which had given a serene and saint-like character
to her mother's, he wished to persuade himself, that as the
early translation of the one seemed to have been thus prefigured,
the other might be destined to live for the happiness
of others till a good old age, while length of years in
their course should ripen her for heaven.
eaf559n12† Shakespeare.
eaf559n13* Massinger.
eaf559n14* Dryden.
eaf559n15† Isaac Comnenus.
CHAPTER VI.
OBSERVATIONS WHICH SHOW, THAT WHATEVER PRIDE MEN MAY
TAKE IN THE APPELLATIONS THEY ACQUIRE IN THEIR PROGRESS
THROUGH THE WORLD, THEIR DEAREST NAME DIES BEFORE
THEM.
Thus they who reach
Gray hairs, die piecemeal.
— Southey.
The name of Leonard must now be dropped as we proceed.
Some of the South American tribes, among whom
the Jesuits labored with such exemplary zeal, and who take
their personal appellations (as most names were originally
derived) from beasts, birds, plants, and other visible objects,
abolish upon the death of every individual the name by
which he was called, and invent another for the thing from
which it was taken, so that their language, owing to this
curiously inconvenient custom, is in a state of continual
change. An abolition almost as complete with regard to
the person had taken place in the present instance. The
name, Leonard, was consecrated to him by all his dearest
and fondest recollections. He had been known by it on
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his mother's knees, and in the humble cottage of that aunt
who had been to him a second mother; and by the wife of
his bosom, his first, last, and only love. Margaret had
never spoken to him, never thought of him, by any other
name. From the hour of her death, no human voice ever
addressed him by it again. He never heard himself so
called, except in dreams. It existed only in the dead letter;
he signed it mechanically in the course of business,
but it had ceased to be a living name.
Men willingly prefix a handle to their names, and tack
on to them any two or more honorary letters of the alphabet
as a tail; they drop their surnames for a dignity, and
change them for an estate or a title. They are pleased
to be Doctor'd and Professor'd; to be Captain'd, Major'd,
Colonel'd, General'd, or Admiral'd; to be Sir John'd, my-Lorded,
or your-Grace'd. “You and I,” says Cranmer in
his Answer to Gardiner's book upon Transubstantiation —
“you and I were delivered from our surnames when we
were consecrated Bishops; sithence which time we have so
commonly been used of all men to be called Bishops, you of
Winchester, and I of Canterbury, that the most part of the
people know not that your name is Gardiner, and mine
Cranmer. And I pray God, that we being called to the
name of Lords, have not forgotten our own baser estates,
that once we were simple squires!” — But the emotion with
which the most successful suitor of Fortune hears himself
first addressed by a new and honorable title, conferred upon
him for his public deserts, touches his heart less (if that
heart be sound at the core), than when after long absence,
some one who is privileged so to use it, accosts him by his
christian name, — that household name which he has never
heard but from his nearest relations, and his old familiar
friends. By this it is that we are known to all around us
in childhood; it is used only by our parents and our nearest
kin when that stage is passed; and, as they drop off, it dies
as to its oral uses with them.
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It is because we are remembered more naturally in our
family and paternal circles by our baptismal than our hereditary
names, and remember ourselves more naturally by
them, that the Roman Catholic, renouncing, upon a principle
of perverted piety, all natural ties when he enters a
convent, and voluntarily dies to the world, assumes a new
one. This is one manifestation of that intense selfishness
which the law of monastic life inculcates, and affects to
sanctify. Alas, there need no motives of erroneous religion
to wean us from the ties of blood and of affection! They
are weakened and dissolved by fatal circumstances, and the
ways of the world, too frequently and too soon.
“Our men of rank,” said my friend one day when he was
speaking upon this subject, “are not the only persons who
go by different appellations in different parts of their lives.
We all moult our names in the natural course of life. I
was Dan in my father's house, and should still be so with
my uncle William and Mr. Guy, if they were still living.
Upon my removal to Doncaster, my master and mistress
called me Daniel, and my acquaintance Dove. In Holland
I was Mynheer Duif. Now I am the Doctor, and not
among my patients only; friends, acquaintance, and strangers,
address me by this appellation; even my wife calls
me by no other name; and I shall never be anything but
the Doctor again, — till I am registered at my burial by the
same name as at my christening.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE DOCTOR IS INTRODUCED, BY THE SMALL-POX, TO HIS FUTURE
WIFE.
Long-waiting love doth entrance find
Into the slow-believing mind.
Sydney Godolphin.
When Deborah was about nineteen, the small-pox broke
out in Doncaster, and soon spread over the surrounding
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country, occasioning everywhere a great mortality. At
that time inoculation had very rarely been practised in
the provinces; and the prejudice against it was so strong,
that Mr. Bacon, though convinced in his own mind that the
practice was not only lawful, but advisable, refrained from
having his daughter inoculated till the disease appeared in
his own parish. He had been induced to defer it during
her childhood, partly because he was unwilling to offend the
prejudices of his parishioners, which he hoped to overcome
by persuasion and reasoning when time and opportunity
might favor; still more, because he thought it unjustifiable
to introduce such a disease into his own house, with imminent
risk of communicating it to others, which were otherwise
in no danger, in which the same preparations would
not be made, and where, consequently, the danger would be
greater. But when the malady had shown itself in the parish,
then he felt that his duty as a parent required him to
take the best apparent means for the preservation of his
child; and that as a pastor also it became him now in his
own family to set an example to his parishioners.
Deborah, who had the most perfect reliance upon her
father's judgment, and lived in entire accordance with his
will in all things, readily consented; and seemed to regard
the beneficial consequences of the experiment to others with
hope, rather than to look with apprehension to it for herself.
Mr. Bacon therefore went to Doncaster and called upon
Mr. Dove. “I do not,” said he, “ask whether you would
advise me to have my daughter inoculated; where so great
a risk is to be incurred, in the case of an only child, you
might hesitate to advise it. But if you see nothing in her
present state of health, or in her constitutional tendencies,
which would render it more than ordinarily dangerous, it is
her own wish and mine, after due consideration on my part,
that she should be committed to your care, — putting our
trust in Providence.”
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Hitherto there had been no acquaintance between Mr.
Bacon and the Doctor, farther than that they knew each
other by sight and by good report. This circumstance led
to a growing intimacy. During the course of his attendance,
the Doctor fell in friendship with the father, and the
father with him.
“Did he fall in love with his patient?”
“No, ladies.”
You have already heard that he once fell in love, and
how it happened. And you have also been informed that
he caught love once, though I have not told you how,
because it would have led me into too melancholy a tale.
In this case he neither fell in love, nor caught it, nor ran
into it, nor walked into it; nor was he overtaken in it, as a
boon companion in liquor, or a runaway in his flight. Yet
there was love between the parties at last, and it was love for
love, to the heart's content of both. How this came to pass
will be related at the proper time and in the proper place.
For here let me set before the judicious reader certain
pertinent remarks by the pious and well-known author of a
popular treatise upon the Right Use of Reason, — a treatise
which has been much read to little purpose. That author
observes, that “those writers and speakers whose chief
business is to amuse or delight, to allure, terrify, or persuade
mankind, do not confine themselves to any natural order, but
in a cryptical or hidden method, adapt everything to their
designed ends. Sometimes they omit those things which
might injure their design, or grow tedious to their hearers,
though they seem to have a necessary relation to the point in
hand; sometimes they add those things which have no great
reference to the subject, but are suited to allure or refresh
the mind and the ear. They dilate sometimes, and flourish
long upon little incidents, and they skip over, and but
lightly touch the dryer part of the theme. They omit things
essential which are not beautiful; they insert little needless
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circumstances, and beautiful digressions: they invert times
and actions, in order to place everything in the most affecting
light; — they place the first things last, and the last
things first with wondrous art; and yet so manage it as to
conceal their artifice, and lead the senses and passions of
their hearers into a pleasing and powerful captivity.”
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. BACON'S PARSONAGE. CHRISTIAN RESIGNATION. TIME AND
CHANGE. WILKIE AND THE MONK IN THE ESCURIAL.
The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination;
And every lovely organ of her life
Shall come apparelled in more precious habit,
More moving delicate, and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
Than when she lived indeed.
Shakespeare.
In a Scotch village the Manse is sometimes the only good
house, and generally it is the best; almost, indeed, what in
old times the Mansion used to be in an English one. In Mr.
Bacon's parish, the vicarage, though humble as the benefice
itself, was the neatest. The cottage in which he and Margaret
passed their childhood, had been remarkable for that comfort
which is the result and the reward of order and neatness:
and when the reunion which blessed them both rendered the
remembrance of those years delightful, they returned in
this respect to the way in which they had been trained up,
practised the economy which they had learned there, and
loved to think how entirely their course of life, in all its circumstances,
would be after the heart of that person, if she
could behold it, whose memory they both with equal affection
cherished. After his bereavement, it was one of the
widower's pensive pleasures to keep everything in the same
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state as when Margaret was living. Nothing was neglected
that she used to do, or that she would have done. The
flowers were tended as carefully as if she were still to enjoy
their fragrance and their beauty; and the birds who came
in winter for their crumbs, were fed as duly for her sake, as
they had formerly been by her hands.
There was no superstition in this, nor weakness. Immoderate
grief, if it does not exhaust itself by indulgence,
easily assumes the one character or the other, or takes a
type of insanity. But he had looked for consolation, where,
when sincerely sought, it is always to be found; and he had
experienced that religion effects in a true believer all that
philosophy professes, and more than all that mere philosophy
can perform. The wounds which stoicism would cauterize,
religion heals.
There is a resignation with which, it may be feared,
most of us deceive ourselves. To bear what must be
borne, and submit to what cannot be resisted, is no more
than what the unregenerate heart is taught by the instinct
of animal nature. But to acquiesce in the afflictive dispensations
of Providence, — to make one's own will conform in
all things to that of our Heavenly Father, — to say to him
in the sincerity of faith, when we drink of the bitter cup,
“Thy will be done!” — to bless the name of the Lord as
much from the heart when he takes away as when he gives,
and with a depth of feeling, of which, perhaps, none but the
afflicted heart is capable, — this is the resignation which religion
teaches, this the sacrifice which it requires.* This
sacrifice Leonard had made, and he felt that it was accepted.
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Severe, therefore, as his loss had been, and lasting as its
effects were, it produced in him nothing like a settled sorrow,
nor even that melancholy which sorrow leaves behind.
Gibbon has said to himself, that as a mere philosopher he
could not agree with the Greeks, in thinking that those who
die in their youth are favored by the Gods:
It was because he was “a mere philosopher,” that he
failed to perceive a truth which the religious heathen acknowledged,
and which is so trivial, and of such practical
value, that it may now be seen inscribed upon village tombstones.
The Christian knows that “Blessed are the dead
which die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit.” And the
heart of the Christian mourner, in its deepest distress, hath
the witness of the Spirit to that consolatory assurance.
In this faith Leonard regarded his bereavement. His
loss, he knew, had been Margaret's gain. What, if she had
been summoned in the flower of her years, and from a state
of connubial happiness which there had been nothing to disturb
or to alloy? How soon might that flower have been
blighted, — how surely must it have faded, — how easily
might that happiness have been interrupted, by some of
those evils which flesh is heir to! And as the separation
was to take place, how mercifully had it been appointed
that he, who was the stronger vessel, should be the survivor!
Even for their child this was the best, greatly as she needed,
and would need, a mother's care. His paternal solicitude
would supply that care, as far as it was possible to supply
it; but had he been removed, mother and child must have
been left to the mercy of Providence, without any earthly
protector, or any means of support.
For her to die was gain; in him, therefore, it were sinful
as well as selfish to repine, and of such selfishness and sin
his heart acouitted him. If a wish could have recalled her
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to life, no such wish would ever have by him been uttered,
nor ever have by him been felt; certain he was, that he
loved her too well to bring her again into this world of instability
and trial. Upon earth there can be no safe happiness.
Ah! male Fortunæ devota est ara MANENTI.
Fallit, et hœc nullas accipit ara preces.*
All things here are subject to Time and Mutability:
Quod tibi largâ dedit Hora dextrâ,
Hora furaci rapiet sinistrâ.†
We must be in eternity before we can be secure against
cnange. “The world,” says Cowper, “upon which we close
our eyes at night, is never the same with that on which we
open them in the morning.”
It was to the perfect Order he should find in that state
upon which he was about to enter, that the judicious Hooker
looked forward at his death with placid and profound contentment.
Because he had been employed in contending
against a spirit of insubordination and schism which soon
proved fatal to his country; and because his life had been
passed under the perpetual discomfort of domestic discord,
the happiness of Heaven seemed, in his estimation, to consist
primarily in Order, as, indeed, in all human societies this is
the first thing needful. The discipline which Mr. Bacon had
undergone was very different in kind: what he delighted to
think was, that the souls of those whom death and redemption
have made perfect, are in a world where there is no
change, nor parting, — where nothing fades, nothing passes
away and is no more seen, but the good and the beautiful
are permanent.
Miser, chi speme in cosa mortal pone;
Ma, chi non ve la pone?‡
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When Wilkie was in the Escurial looking at Titian's
famous picture of the Last Supper, in the refectory there,
an old Jeronimite said to him, “I have sat daily in sight of
that picture for now nearly threescore years; during that
time my companions have dropped off, one after another, —
all who were my seniors, all who were my contemporaries,
and many, or most of those who were younger than myself;
more than one generation has passed away, and there the
figures in the picture have remained unchanged! I look at
them till I sometimes think that they are the realities, and
we but shadows!”*
I wish I could record the name of the monk by whom
that natural feeling was so feelingly and strikingly expressed.
“The shows of things are better than themselves,”
says the author of the Tragedy of Nero, whose name also
I could wish had been forthcoming; and the classical reader
will remember the lines of Sophocles: —
†
These are reflections which should make us think
Of that same time when no more change shall be,
But steadfast rest of all things, firmly stayd
Upon the pillars of Eternity,
That is contraire to mutability;
For all that moveth doth in change delight:
But thenceforth all shall rest eternally
With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight,
O that great Sabaoth God grant me that sabbath's sight.‡
eaf559n16* This passage was written when Southey was bowing his head
under the sorest and saddest of his many troubles. He thus alludes
to it in a letter to J. W. Warter, dated October 5, 1834.
“On the next leaf is the passage of which I spoke in my letter from
York. It belongs to an early chapter in the third volume; and very
remarkable it is that it should have been written just at that time.”
eaf559n17* Wallius.
eaf559n18† Casimir.
eaf559n19‡ Petrarch.
eaf559n20* See the very beautiful lines of Wordsworth in the “Yarrow
Revisited.” The affecting incident is introduced in “Lines on a
Portrait.”
eaf559n21† Sophocles.
eaf559n22‡ Spenser.
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CHAPTER IX.
A COUNTRY PARISH. SOME WHOLESOME EXTRACTS, SOME TRUE
ANECDOTES, AND SOME USEFUL HINTS, WHICH WILL NOT BE
TAKEN BY THOSE WHO NEED THEM MOST.
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Non è inconveniente, che delle cose delettabili alcune ne sieno utili, cosi come
dell' utili molte ne sono delettabili, et in tutte due alcune si truovano
honeste.
Leone Medico (Hebreo.)
Mr. Bacon s parsonage was as humble a dwelling in all
respects as the cottage in which his friend Daniel was born.
A best kitchen was its best room, and in its furniture an
Observantine Friar would have seen nothing that he could
have condemned as superfluous. His college and later
school books, with a few volumes which had been presented
to him by the more grateful of his pupils, composed his
scanty library: they were either books of needful reference,
or such as upon every fresh perusal might afford new
delight. But he had obtained the use of the Church Library
at Doncaster by a payment of twenty shillings, according
to the terms of the foundation. Folios from that
collection might be kept three months, smaller volumes,
one or two, according to their size; and as there were
many works in it of solid contents as well as sterling value,
he was in no such want of intellectual food, as too many of
his brethren are, even at this time. How much good might
have been done, and how much evil might probably have
been prevented, if Dr. Bray's design for the foundation
of parochial libraries had been everywhere carried into
effect!
The parish contained between five and six hundred souls.
There was no one of higher rank among them than entitled
him, according to the custom of those days, to be styled
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gentleman upon his tombstone. They were plain people,
who had neither manufactories to corrupt, alehouses to
brutalize, nor newspapers to mislead them. At first coming
among them he had won their good-will by his affability
and benign conduct, and he had afterwards gained their
respect and affection in an equal degree.
There were two services at his church, but only one sermon,
which never fell short of fifteen minutes in length, and
seldom extended to half an hour. It was generally abridged
from some good old divine. His own compositions were
few, and only upon points on which he wished carefully
to examine and digest his own thoughts, or which were
peculiarly suited to some or other of his hearers. His whole
stock might be deemed scanty in these days; but there was
not one in it which would not well bear repetition, and the
more observant of his congregation liked that they should be
repeated.
Young ministers are earnestly advised long to refrain
from preaching their own productions, in an excellent little
book addressed by a Father to his Son, preparatory to his
receiving holy orders. Its title is a “Monitor for Young
Ministers,” and every parent who has a son so circumstanced
would do well to put it into his hands. “It is not
possible,” says this judicious writer, “that a young minister
can at first be competent to preach his sermons with effect,
even if his abilities should qualify him to write well. His
very youth and youthful manner, both in his style of writing
and in his delivery, will preclude him from being effective.
Unquestionably it is very rare indeed for a man of his age
to have his mental abilities sufficiently chastened, or his
method sufficiently settled, to be equal to the composition
of a sermon fit for public use, even if it should receive the
advantage of chaste and good delivery. On every account,
therefore, it is wise and prudent to be slow and backward in
venturing to produce his own efforts, or in thinking that
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they are fit for the public ear. There is an abundant field
of the works of others open to him from the wisest and the
best of men, the weight of whose little fingers, in argument
or instruction, will be greater than his own loins even at his
highest maturity. There is clearly no want of new compositions,
excepting on some new or occasional emergencies:
for there is not an open subject in the Christian religion,
which has not been discussed by men of the greatest learning
and piety, who have left behind them numerous works
for our assistance and edification. Many of these are so
neglected that they are become almost new ground for our
generation. To these he may freely resort, — till experience
and a rational and chastened confidence shall warrant
him in believing himself qualified to work upon his own
resources.”
“He that learns of young men,” says Rabbi Jose Bar
Jehudah, “is like a man that eats unripe grapes, or that
drinks wine out of the wine-press; but he that learneth of
the ancient, is like a man that eateth ripe grapes, and drinketh
wine that is old.”*
It was not in pursuance of any judicious advice like this
that Mr. Bacon followed the course here pointed out, but
from his own good sense and natural humility. His only
ambition was to be useful; if a desire may be called ambitious
which orginated in the sincere sense of duty. To
think of distinguishing himself in any other way, would for
him, he well knew, have been worse than an idle dream.
The time expended in composing a sermon as a perfunctory
official business, would have been worse than wasted for
himself, and the time employed in delivering it, no better
than wasted upon his congregation. He was especially
careful never to weary them, and, therefore, never to preach
anything which was not likely to engage their attention,
and make at least some present impression. His own
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sermons effected this, because they were always composed with
some immediate view, or under the influence of some deep
and strong feeling: and in his adopted ones, the different
manner of the different authors produced an awakening
effect. Good sense is as often to be found among the illiterate,
as among those who have enjoyed the opportunities
of education. Many of his hearers who knew but one
meaning of the word style, and had never heard it used in
any other, perceived a difference in the manner of Bishops
Hall and Sanderson and Jeremy Taylor, of Barrow and
South and Scott, without troubling themselves about the
cause, or being in the slightest degree aware of it.
Mr. Bacon neither undervalued his parishioners, nor over-valued
the good which could be wrought among them by
direct instruction of this kind. While he used perspicuous
language, he knew that they who listened to it would be
able to follow the argument; and as he drew always from
the wells of English undefiled, he was safe on that point.
But that all even of the adults would listen, and that all
even of those who did, would do anything more than hear,
he was too well acquainted with human nature to expect.
A woman in humble life was asked one day on the way
back from church, whether she had understood the sermon;
a stranger had preached, and his discourse resembled one of
Mr. Bacon's neither in length nor depth. “Wud I hae the
persumption?” was her simple and contented answer. The
quality of the discourse signified nothing to her; she had
done her duty, as well as she could, in hearing it; and she
went to her house justified rather than some of those who
had attended to it critically; or who had turned to the text
in their Bibles when it was given out.
“Well, Master Jackson,” said his minister, walking homeward
after service with an industrious laborer, who was a
constant attendant; “well, Master Jackson, Sunday must be
a blessed day of rest for you, who work so hard all the
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week! And you make a good use of the day, for you are
always to be seen at church!”—“Ay, sir,” replied Jackson,
“it is indeed a blessed day; I works hard enough all
the week, and then I comes to church o' Sundays, and sets
me down, and lays my legs up, and thinks o' nothing.”
“Let my candle go out in a stink, when I refuse to confess
from whom I have lighted it.”* The author to whose
little book† I am beholden for this true anecdote, after saying,
“Such was the religion of this worthy man,” justly
adds, “and such must be the religion of most men of his station.
Doubtless, it is a wise dispensation that it is so.
For so it has been from the beginning of the world, and
there is no visible reason to suppose that it can ever be
otherwise.”
“In spite,” says this judicious writer, “of all the zealous
wishes and efforts of the most pious and laborious teachers,
the religion of the bulk of the people must and will ever be
little more than mere habit, and confidence in others. This
must of necessity be the case with all men, who, from defect
of nature or education, or from other worldy causes, have
not the power or the disposition to think; and it cannot be
disputed that the far greater number of mankind are of this
class. These facts give peculiar force to those lessons
which teach the importance and efficacy of good example
from those who are blessed with higher qualifications; and
they strongly demonstrate the necessity, that the zeal of
those who wish to impress the people with the deep and
awful mysteries of religion should be tempered by wisdom
and discretion, no less than by patience, forbearance, and
a great latitude of indulgence for uncontrollable circumstances.
They also call upon us most powerfully to do all
we can to provide such teachers, and imbue them with such
principles as shall not endanger the good cause by over
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earnest efforts to effect more than, in the nature of things,
can be done; or disturb the existing good by attempting
more than will be borne, or by producing hypocritical pretences
of more than can be really felt.”
eaf559n23* Lightfoot.
eaf559n24* Fuller.
eaf559n25† Few Words on many Subjects.
CHAPTER X.
SHOWING HOW THE VICAR DEALT WITH THE JUVENILE PART OF
HIS FLOCK; AND HOW HE WAS OF OPINION THAT THE MORE
PLEASANT THE WAY IN WHICH CHILDREN ARE TRAINED UP TO
GO CAN BE MADE FOR THEM, THE LESS LIKELY THEY WILL
BE TO DEPART FROM IT.
Sweet were the sauce would please each kind of taste,
The life, likewise, were pure that never swerved;
For spiteful tongues, in cankered stomachs placed,
Deem worst of things which best, percase, deserved.
But what for that? This medicine may suffice,
To scorn the rest, and seek to please the wise.
Sir Walter Raleigh.
The first thing which Mr. Bacon had done after taking
possession of his vicarage, and obtaining such information
about his parishioners as the more considerate of them
could impart, was to inquire into the state of the children
in every household. He knew that to win the mother's
good-will was the surest way to win that of the family, and
to win the children was a good step toward gaining that
of the mother. In those days reading and writing were
thought as little necessary for the lower class, as the art
of spelling for the class above them, or indeed for any
except the learned. Their ignorance in this respect was
sometimes found to be inconvenient, but by none, perhaps,
except here and there by a conscientious and thoughtful
clergyman, was it felt to be an evil, — an impediment in
the way of that moral and religious instruction, without
which men are in danger of becoming as the beasts that
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perish. Yet the common wish of advancing their children
in the world, made most parents in this station desire to
obtain the advantage of what they called book-learning for
any son, who was supposed to manifest a disposition likely
to profit by it. To make him a scholar was to raise him a
step above themselves.
Qui ha les lettres, ha l'adresse
Au double d'un qui n'en ha point.*
Partly for this reason, and still more that industrious mothers
might be relieved from the care of looking after their
children, there were few villages in which, as in Mr.
Bacon's parish, some poor woman in the decline of life and
of fortune did not obtain day-scholars enough to eke out her
scanty means of subsistence.
The village schoolmistress, such as Shenstone describes
in his admirable poem, and such as Kirke White drew from
the life, is no longer a living character. The new system
of education has taken from this class of women the staff
of their declining age, as the spinning-jennies have silenced
the domestic music of the spinning-wheel. Both changes
have come on unavoidably in the progress of human affairs.
It is well when any change brings with it nothing worse
than some temporary and incidental evil; but if the moral
machinery can counteract the great and growing evils of
the manufacturing system, it will be the greatest moral
miracle that has ever been wrought.
Sunday schools, which make Sunday a day of toil to the
teachers, and the most irksome day of the week to the children,
had not at that time been devised as a palliative for
the profligacy of large towns, and the worsened and worsening
condition of the poor. Mr. Bacon endeavored to make
the parents perform their religious duty toward their children,
either by teaching them what they could themselves
teach, or by sending them where their own want of
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knowledge might be supplied. Whether the children went to
school or not, it was his wish that they should be taught
their prayers, the Creed, and the Commandments, at home.
These he thought were better learned at the mother's knees
than from any other teacher; and he knew also how wholesome
for the mother it was, that the child should receive
from her its first spiritual food, the milk of sound doctrine.
In a purely agricultural parish, there were at that time no
parents in a state of such brutal ignorance as to be unable
to teach these, though they might never have been taught
to read. When the father or mother could read, he expected
that they should also teach their children the
Catechism; in other cases this was left to his humble
coadjutrix, the schoolmistress.
During the summer and part of the autumn, he followed
the good old usage of catechising the children, after the
second lesson in the evening service. His method was to
ask a few questions in succession, and only from those who
he knew were able to answer them; and after each answer
he entered into a brief exposition suited to their capacity.
His manner was so benevolent, and he had made himself
so familiar in his visits, which were at once pastoral and
friendly, that no child felt alarmed at being singled out;
they regarded it as a mark of distinction, and the parents
were proud of seeing them thus distinguished. This practice
was discontinued in winter; because he knew that to
keep a congregation in the cold is not the way either to
quicken or cherish devotional feeling. Once a week during
Lent he examined all the children, on a week-day; the last
examination was in Easter week, after which each was sent
home happy with a homely cake, the gift of a wealthy
parishioner, who by this means contributed not a little to
the good effect of the pastor's diligence.
The foundation was thus laid by teaching the rising generation
their duty towards God and towards their neighbor,
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and so far training them in the way that they should go.
In the course of a few years every household, from the
highest to the lowest, (the degrees were neither great
nor many,) had learned to look upon him as their friend.
There was only one in the parish whose members were
upon a parity with him in manners, none in literary culture;
but in good-will, and in human sympathy, he was
upon a level with them all. Never interfering in the concerns
of any family, unless his interference was solicited, he
was consulted upon all occasions of trouble or importance.
Incipient disputes, which would otherwise have afforded
grist for the lawyer's mill, were adjusted by his mediation;
and anxious parents, when they had cause to apprehend
that their children were going wrong, knew no better
course than to communicate their fears to him, and request
that he would administer some timely admonition.
Whenever he was thus called on, or had of himself perceived
that reproof or warning was required, it was given
in private, or only in presence of the parents, and always
with a gentleness which none but an obdurate disposition
could resist. His influence over the younger part of his
flock was the greater because he was no enemy to any innocent
sports, but, on the contrary, was pleased to see them
dance round the May-pole, encouraged them to dress their
doors with oaken boughs on the day of King Charles's
happy restoration, and to wear an oaken garland in the
hat, or an oak-apple on its sprig in the button-hole; went
to see their bonfire on the 5th of November, and entertained
the morris-dancers when they called upon him in
their Christmas rounds.
Mr. Bacon was in his parish what a moralizing old poet
wished himself to be, in these pleasing stanzas: —
I would I were an excellent divine
That had the Bible at my fingers' ends,
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That men might hear out of this mouth of mine
How God doth make his enemies his friends;
Rather than with a thundering and long prayer
Be led into presumption, or despair.
This would I be, and would none other be
But a religious servant of my God:
And know there is none other God but He
And willingly to suffer Mercy's rod,
Joy in his grace and live but in his love,
And seek my bliss but in the world above.
And I would frame a kind of faithful prayer
For all estates within the state of grace;
That careful love might never know despair,
Nor servile fear might faithful love deface;
And this would I both day and night devise
To make my humble spirits exercise.
And I would read the rules of sacred life,
Persuade the troubled soul to patience,
The husband care, and comfort to the wife,
To child and servant due obedience,
Faith to the friend and to the neighbor peace,
That love might live, and quarrels all might cease;
Pray for the health of all that are diseased,
Confession unto all that are convicted,
And patience unto all that are displeased,
And comfort unto all that are afflicted,
And mercy unto all that have offended,
And grace to all, that all may be amended.*
eaf559n26* Baif.
eaf559n27* N. B., supposed to be Nicholas Breton.
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CHAPTER XI.
SOME ACCOUNT OF A RETIRED TOBACCONIST AND HIS FAMILY.
[figure description] Page 206.[end figure description]
Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem.
Horace.
In all Mr. Bacon's views he was fortunate enough to
have the hearty concurrence of the wealthiest person in the
parish. This was a good man, Allison by name, who, having
realized a respectable fortune in the metropolis as a
tobacconist, and put out his sons in life according to their
respective inclinations, had retired from business at the age
of threescore, and established himself with an unmarried
daughter, and a maiden sister some ten years younger than
himself, in his native village, that he might there, when his
hour should come, be gathered to his fathers.
“The providence of God,” says South, “has so ordered
the course of things, that there is no action, the usefulness
of which has made it the matter of duty and of a profession,
but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it, without
loathing or satiety. The same shop and trade that employs
a man in his youth, employs him also in his age. Every
morning he rises fresh to his hammer and his anvil: custom
has naturalized his labor to him; his shop is his element,
and he cannot, with any enjoyment of himself, live out of
it.” The great preacher contrasts this with the wearisomeness
of an idle life, and the misery of a continual round of
what the world calls pleasure. “But now,” says he, “if
God has interwoven such a contentment with the works
of our ordinary calling, how much superior and more refined
must that be that arises from the survey of a pious
and well-governed life?”
This passage bears upon Mr. Allison's case, partly in the
consolatory fact which it states, and wholly in the
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application which South has made of it. At the age of fourteen
he had been apprenticed to an uncle in Bishopsgate Street
Within; and twenty years after, on that uncle's death, had
succeeded to his old and well-established business. But
though he had lived there prosperously and happily six and
twenty years longer, he had contracted no such love for it
as to overcome the recollections of his childhood. Grateful
as the smell of snuff and tobacco had become to him, he
still remembered that cowslips and violets were sweeter;
and that the breath of a May morning was more exhilarating
than the air of his own shop, impregnated as it was
with the odor of the best Virginia. So having buried his
wife, who was a Londoner, and made over the business to
his eldest son, he returned to his native place, with the
intention of dying there; but he was in sound health of
body and mind, and his green old age seemed to promise,—
as far as anything can promise, — length of days.
Of his two other sons, one had chosen to be a clergyman,
and approved his choice both by his parts and diligence;
for he had gone off from Merchant-Tailors' School to St.
John's, Oxford, and was then a fellow of that college. The
other was a mate in the Merchants' service, and would soon
have the command of a ship in it. The desire of seeing
the world led him to this way of life; and that desire had
been unintentionally implanted by his father, who, in making
himself acquainted with everything relating to the herb out
of which his own fortune was raised, had become fond of
reading voyages and travels. His conversation induced the
lad to read these books, and the books confirmed the inclination
which had already been excited; and, as the boy was
of an adventurous temper, he thought it best to let him
follow the pursuit on which his mind was bent.
The change to a Yorkshire village was not too great for
Mr. Allison, even after residing nearly half a century in
Bishopsgate Street Within. The change in his own household,
indeed, rendered it expedient for him to begin, in this
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sense, a new life. He had lost his mate; the young birds
were full-fledged and had taken flight; and it was time that
he should look out a retreat for himself and the single nestling
that remained under his wing, now that his son and
successor had brought home a wife. The marriage had
been altogether with his approbation; but it altered his
position in the house; and in a still greater degree his
sister's; moreover, the nest would soon be wanted for another
brood. Circumstances thus compelled him to put in
effect what had been the dream of his youth, and the still
remote intention of his middle age.
Miss Allison, like her brother, regarded this removal as a
great and serious change, preparatory to the only greater
one in this world that now remained for both; but, like
him, she regarded it rather seriously than sadly, or sadly
only in the old sober meaning of the word; and there was
a soft, sweet, evening sunshine in their prospect, which both
partook, because both had retained a deep affection for the
scenes of their childhood. To Betsey, her niece, nothing
could be more delightful than the expectation of such a removal.
She, who was then only entering her teens, had
nothing to regret in leaving London; and the place to
which she was going was the very spot which, of all others
in this wide world, from the time in which she was conscious
of forming a wish, she had wished most to see. Her
brother, the sailor, was not more taken with the story of
Pocahontas and Captain Smith, or Dampier's Voyages, than
she was with her aunt's details of the farm and the dairy at
Thaxted Grange, the May-games and the Christmas gambols,
the days that were gone, and the elders who were
departed. To one born and bred in the heart of London,
who had scarcely ever seen a flock of sheep, except when
they were driven through the streets to or from Smithfield,
no fairy tale could present more for the imagination than a
description of green fields and rural life. The charm of
truth heightened it, and the stronger charm of natural
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piety; for the personages of the tale were her near kin,
whose names she had learned to love, and whose living
memory she revered, but whose countenances she never
could behold till she should be welcomed by them in the
everlasting mansions of the righteous.
None of the party were disappointed when they had established
themselves at the Grange. Mr. Allison found full
occupation at first in improving the house, and afterwards
in his fields and garden. Mr. Bacon was just such a clergyman
as he would have chosen for his parish priest, if it had
been in his power to choose, only he would have had him
provided with a better benefice. The single thing on which
there was a want of agreement between them was, that
the Vicar neither smoked nor took snuff; he was not the
worst company on this account, for he had no dislike to
the fragrance of a pipe; but his neighbor lost the pleasure
which he would have had in supplying him with the best
Pig-tail, and with Strasburg or Rappee. Miss Allison fell
into the habits of her new station the more easily, because
they were those which she had witnessed in her early
youth; she distilled waters, dried herbs, and prepared conserves, —
which were at the service of all who needed them
in sickness. Betsey attached herself at first sight to Deborah,
who was about five years elder, and soon became to her as
a sister. The aunt rejoiced in finding so suitable a friend
and companion for her niece; and as this connection was a
pleasure and an advantage to the Allisons, so was it of the
greatest benefit to Deborah.
What of her ensues
I list not prophesy, but let Time's news
Be known, when 't is brought forth. Of this allow
If ever you have spent time worse ere now:
If never yet, the Author then doth say,
He wishes earnestly you never may.*
eaf559n28* Shakespeare.
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CHAPTER XII.
MORE CONCERNING THE AFORESAID TOBACCONIST.
[figure description] Page 210.[end figure description]
I doubt nothing at all but that you shall like the man every day better
than other; for verily I think he lacketh not of those qualities which
should become any honest man to have, over and besides the gift of
nature wherewith God hath above the common rate endued him.
Archbishop Cranmer.
Mr. Allison was as quiet a subject as Peter Hopkins,
but he was not like him a political quietist from indifference,
for he had a warm sense of loyalty, and a well-rooted
attachment to the constitution of his country in church and
state. His ancestors had suffered in the Great Rebellion,
and much the greater part of their never large estates had
been alienated to raise the fines imposed upon them as delinquents.
The uncle, whom he succeeded in Bishopsgate
Street, had, in his early apprenticeship, assisted at burning
the Rump, and in maturer years had joined as heartily in
the rejoicings when the Seven Bishops were released from
the Tower: he subscribed to Walker's “Account of the
Sufferings of the Clergy,” and had heard sermons preached
by the famous Dr. Scott (which were afterwards incorporated
in his great work upon the Christian Life) in the
church of St. Peter-le-Poor (oddly so called, seeing that
there are few districts within the City of London so rich,
insomuch that the last historian of the metropolis believed
the parish to have scarcely a poor family in it), — and in
All-hallows, Lombard Street, where, during the reign of
the Godly, the puritanical vestry passed a resolution, that
if any persons should come to the church “on the day
called Christ's birthday,” they should be compelled to
leave it.
In these principles Mr. Allison had grown up; and without
any profession of extra religion, or ever wearing a
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sanctified face, he had in the evening of his life attained
“the end of the commandment, which is charity, proceeding
from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a faith unfeigned.”
London in his days was a better school for young
men in trade than it ever was before, or has been since.
The civic power had quietly and imperceptibly put an end
to that club-law which once made the apprentices a turbulent
and formidable body, at any moment armed as well
as ready for a riot; and masters exercised a sort of parental
control over the youth intrusted to them, which in later
times it may be feared has not been so conscientiously exerted,
because it is not likely to be so patiently endured.
Trade itself had not then been corrupted by that ruinous
spirit of competition, which, more than any other of the
evils now pressing upon us, deserves to be called the curse
of England in the present age. At all times men have
been to be found, who engaged in hazardous speculations,
gamester like, according to their opportunities, or who, mistaking
the means for the end, devoted themselves with
miserable fidelity to the service of Mammon. But “Live
and let live,” had not yet become a maxim of obsolete morality.
We had our monarchy, or hierarchy, and our aristocracy, —
God be praised for the benefits which have been
derived from all three, and God in his mercy continue them
to us! but we had no plutarchy, no millionnaires, no great
capitalists to break down the honest and industrious trader
with the weight of their overbearing and overwhelming
wealth. They who had enriched themselves in the course
of regular and honorable commerce withdrew from business,
and left the field to others. Feudal tyranny had passed
away, and moneyed tyranny had not yet arisen in its stead,—
a tyranny baser in its origin, not more merciful in its
operations, and with less in its appendages to redeem it.
Trade, in Mr. Allison's days, was a school of thrift and
probity, as much as of profit and loss; such his shop had
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been when he succeeded to it upon his uncle's decease, and
such it continued to be when he transmitted it to his son.
Old Mr. Strahan the printer (the founder of his typarchical
dynasty) said to Dr. Johnson, that “there are few ways in
which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting
money”; and he added, that “the more one thinks of
this the juster it will appear.” Johnson agreed with him;
and though it was a money-maker's observation, and though
the more it is considered now, the more fallacious it will be
found, the general system of trade might have justified it
at that time. The entrance of an exciseman never occasioned
any alarm or apprehension at No. 113 Bishopsgate
Street Within, nor any uncomfortable feeling, unless the
officer happened to be one who, by giving unnecessary
trouble, and by gratuitous incivility in the exercise of
authority, made an equitable law odious in its execution.
They never there mixed weeds with their tobacco, nor
adulterated it in any worse way; and their snuff was never
rendered more pungent by stirring into it a certain proportion
of pounded glass. The duties were honestly paid, with
a clear perception that the impost fell lightly upon all whom
it affected, and affected those only who chose to indulge
themselves in a pleasure which was still cheap, and which,
without any injurious privation, they might forego. Nay,
when our good man expatiated upon the uses of tobacco,
which Mr. Bacon demurred at, and the Doctor sometimes
playfully disputed, he ventured an opinion, that among the
final causes for which so excellent an herb had been created,
the facilities afforded by it towards raising the revenue
in a well-governed country like our own, might be one.
There was a strong family likeness between him and his
sister, both in countenance and disposition. Elizabeth Allison
was a person for whom the best and wisest man might
have thanked Providence if she had been allotted to him for
helpmate. But though she had, in Shakespeare's language,
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“withered on the virgin thorn,” hers had not been a life of
single blessedness: she had been a blessing first to her parents;
then to her brother and her brother's family, where she
relieved an amiable but sickly sister-in-law from those domestic
offices which require activity and forethought; lastly,
after the dispersion of his sons, the transfer of the business
to the eldest, and the breaking-up of his old establishment,
to the widower and his daughter, the only child who cleaved
to him, — not like Ruth to Naomi, by a meritorious act of
duty, for in her case it was in the ordinary course of things,
without either sacrifice or choice; but the effect in endearing
her to him was the same.
In advanced stages of society, and nowhere more than in
England at this time, the tendency of all things is to weaken
the relations between parent and child, and frequently to destroy
them, reducing human nature in this respect nearer to
the level of animal life. Perhaps the greater number of
male children who are “born into the world,” in our part
of it, are put out at as early an age, proportionately, as the
young bird is driven from its nest, or the young beast turned
off by its dam as being capable of feeding and protecting
itself; and in many instances they are as totally lost to the
parent, though not in like manner forgotten. Mr. Allison
never saw all his children together after his removal from
London. The only time when his three sons met at the
Grange was when they came there to attend their father's
funeral; nor would they then have been assembled, if the
Captain's ship had not happened to have recently arrived in
port.
This is a state of things more favorable to the wealth
than to the happiness of nations. It was a natural and pious
custom in patriarchal times that the dead should be gathered
unto their people. “Bury me,” said Jacob, when he
gave his dying charge to his sons, — “bury me with my
fathers in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which
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is before Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham
bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite, for a possession
of a burying-place. There they buried Abraham and
Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebecca his
wife; and there I buried Leah.” Had such a passage
occurred in Homer, or in Dante, all critics would have concurred
in admiring the truth and beauty of the sentiment.
He had buried his beloved Rachel by the way where she
died; but, although he remembered this at his death, the
orders which he gave were, that his own remains should be
laid in the sepulchre of his fathers. The same feeling prevails
among many, or most of those savage tribes who are
not utterly degraded. With them the tree is not left to lie
where it falls. The body of one who dies on an expedition
is interred on the spot, if distance or other circumstances
render it inconvenient to transport the corpse; but, however
long the journey, it is considered as a sacred duty that
the bones should at some time or other be brought home.
In Scotland, where the common rites of sepulture are
performed with less decency than in any other Christian
country, the care with which family burial-grounds in the
remoter parts are preserved, may be referred as much to
natural feeling as to hereditary pride.
But as indigenous flowers are eradicated by the spade and
plough, so this feeling is destroyed in the stirring and bustling
intercourse of commercial life. No room is left for it;
as little of it at this time remains in wide America as in
thickly-peopled England. That to which soldiers and sailors
are reconciled by the spirit of their profession, and the
chances of war and of the seas, the love of adventure and
the desire of advancement cause others to regard with the
same indifference; and these motives are so prevalent, that
the dispersion of families and the consequent disruption of
natural ties, if not occasioned by necessity, would now
in most instances be the effect of choice. Even those
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to whom it is an inevitable evil, and who feel it deeply as
such, look upon it as something in the appointed course of
things, as much as infirmity and age and death.
It is well for us that in early life we never think of the
vicissitudes which lie before us; or look to them only with
pleasurable anticipations as they approach.
Youth
Knows naught of changes: Age hath traced them oft,
Expects and can interpret them.*
The thought of them, when it comes across us in middle
life, brings with it only a transient sadness, like the shadow
of a passing cloud. We turn our eyes from them while
they are in prospect; but when they are in retrospect
many a longing, lingering look is cast behind. So long as
Mr. Allison was in business, he looked to Thaxted Grange
as the place where he hoped one day to enjoy the blessings
of retirement, — that otium cum dignitate, which in a certain
sense the prudent citizen is more likely to attain than the
successful statesman. It was the pleasure of recollection
that gave this hope its zest and its strength. But after the
object which during so many years he had held in view had
been obtained, his day-dreams, if he had allowed them to
take their course, would have recurred more frequently to
Bishopsgate Street than they had ever wandered from
thence to the scenes of his boyhood. They recurred
thither oftener than he wished, although few men have
been more masters of themselves; and then the remembrance
of his wife, whom he had lost by a lingering disease
in middle age; and of the children, those who had died
during their childhood, and those who in reality were almost
as much lost to him in the ways of the world, made him
always turn for comfort to the prospect of that better state
of existence in which they should once more all be gathered
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together, and where there would be neither change nor parting.
His thoughts often fell into this train, when on summer
evenings he was taking a solitary pipe in his arbor,
with the church in sight, and the churchyard wherein, at no
distant time, he was to be laid in his last abode. Such
musings induced a sense of sober piety, — of thankfulness
for former blessings, contentment with the present, and
humble yet sure and certain hope for futurity, which might
vainly have been sought at prayer-meetings or evening lectures,
where indeed little good can ever be obtained without
some deleterious admixture, or alloy of baser feelings.
The happiness which he had found in retirement was of
a different kind from what he had contemplated; for the
shades of evening were gathering when he reached the
place of his long wished for rest, and the picture of it which
had imprinted itself on his imagination was a morning
view. But he had been prepared for this by that slow
change, of which we are not aware during its progress till
we see it reflected in others, and are thus made conscious
of it in ourselves; and he found a satisfaction in the station
which he occupied there, too worthy in its nature to be
called pride, and which had not entered into his anticipations.
It is said to have been a saying of George the
Third, that the happiest condition in which an Englishman
could be placed, was just below that wherein it would
have been necessary for him to act as a Justice of the Peace,
and above that which would have rendered him liable to
parochial duties. This was just Mr. Allison's position;
there was nothing which brought him into rivalry or competition
with the surrounding Squirarchy, and the yeomen
and peasantry respected him for his own character, as well
as for his name's sake. He gave employment to more persons
than when he was engaged in trade, and his indirect
influence over them was greater; that of his sister was still
more. The elders of the village remembered her in her
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youth, and loved her for what she then had been, as well as
for what she now was; the young looked up to her as the
Lady Bountiful, to whom no one that needed advice or
assistance ever applied in vain. She it was who provided
those much approved plum-cakes, not the less savory for
being both homely and wholesome, the thought of which
induced the children to look on to their Lent examination
with hope, and prepare for it with alacrity. Those offices in
a parish which are the province of the Clergyman's wife,
when he has made choice of one who knows her duty, and
has both will and ability to discharge it, Miss Allison performed;
and she rendered Mr. Bacon the farther, and to him
individually the greater, service of imparting to his daughter
those instructions which she had no mother to impart.
Deborah could not have had a better teacher; but as the
present chapter has extended to a sufficient length,
Diremo il resto in quel che vien dipoi,
Per non venire a noja a me e voi.*
eaf559n29* Isaac Comnenus.
eaf559n30* Orlando Innamorato.
CHAPTER XIII.
A FEW PARTICULARS CONCERNING NO. 113 BISHOPSGATE STREET
WITHIN; AND OF THE FAMILY AT THAXTED GRANGE.
Opinion is the rate of things,
From hence our peace doth flow
I have a better fate than kings,
Because I think it so.
Katharine Philips.
The house wherein Mr. Allison realized by fair dealing
and frugality the modest fortune which enabled him to repurchase
the homestead of his fathers, is still a Tobacconist's,
and has continued to be so from “the palmy days”
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of that trade, when King James vainly endeavored, by the
expression of his royal dislike, to discountenance the newly-imported
practice of smoking; and Joshua Sylvester thundered
from Mount Helicon a Volley of Holy Shot, thinking
that thereby “Tobacco” should be “battered, and the Pipes
shattered, about their ears that idly idolize so base and barbarous
a weed, or at least-wise overlove so loathsome vanity.”
* For he said, —
If there be any Herb in any place
Most opposite to God's good Herb of Grace,
'T is doubtless this; and this doth plainly prove it,
That for the most, most graceless men do love it.
Yet it was not long before the dead and unsavory odor of
that weed, to which a Parisian was made to say that “seacoal
smoke seemed a very Portugal perfume,” prevailed as
much in the raiment of the more coarsely clad part of the
community, as the scent of lavender among those who were
clothed in fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and
it had grown so much in fashion, that it was said children
“began to play with broken pipes, instead of corals, to make
way for their teeth.”
Louis XIV. endeavored just as ineffectually to discourage
the use of snuff-taking. His valets de chambre were obliged
to renounce it when they were appointed to their office;
and the Duke of Harcourt was supposed to have died of
apoplexy in consequence of having, to please his Majesty,
left off at once a habit which he had carried to excess.
I know not through what intermediate hands the business
at No. 113 has passed, since the name of Allison was withdrawn
from the firm; nor whether Mr. Evans, by whom it
is now carried on there, is in any way related by descent
with that family. Matters of no greater importance to most
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men have been made the subject of much antiquarian investigation;
and they who busy themselves in such investigations
must not be said to be ill-employed, for they find
harmless amusement in the pursuit, and sometimes put up a
chance truth of which others, soon or late, discover the application.
The house has at this time a more antiquated
appearance than any other in that part of the street, though
it was modernized some forty or fifty years after Mr. Bacon's
friend left it. The first floor then projected several
feet farther over the street than at present, and the second
several feet farther over the first; and the windows, which
still extend the whole breadth of the front, were then composed
of small casement panes. But in the progress of
those improvements which are now carrying on in the city
with as much spirit as at the western end of the metropolis,
and which have almost reached Mr. Evans's door, it cannot
be long before the house will be either wholly removed, or
so altered as no longer to be recognized.
The present race of Londoners little know what the
appearance of the city was a century ago; — their own city,
I was about to have said; but it was the city of their greatgrandfathers,
not theirs, from which the elder Allisons retired
in the year 1746. At that time the kennels (as in
Paris) were in the middle of the street, and there were
no footpaths; spouts projected the rain-water in streams,
against which umbrellas, if umbrellas had been then in use,
could have afforded no defence; and large signs, such as are
now only to be seen at country inns, were suspended before
every shop,* from posts which impeded the way, or from
iron supports strongly fixed into the front of the house.
The swinging of one of these broad signs in a high wind,
and the weight of the iron on which it acted, sometimes
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brought the wall down; and it is recorded that one frontfall
of this kind in Fleet Street maimed several persons,
and killed “two young ladies, a cobbler, and the King's
jeweller.”
The sign at No. 113 was an Indian Chief smoking the
calumet. Mr. Allison had found it there; and when it
became necessary that a new one should be substituted, he
retained the same figure, — though, if he had been to
choose, he would have greatly preferred the head of Sir
Walter Raleigh, by whom, according to the common belief,
he supposed tobacco had been introduced into this country.
The Water-Poet imputed it to the Devil himself, and published
A Proclamation,
Or Approbation,
From the King of Execration
To every Nation,
For Tobacco's propagation.
Mr. Allison used to shake his head at such libellous aspersions.
Raleigh was a great favorite with him, and held,
indeed, in especial respect, though not as the Patron of his
old trade, as St. Crispin is of the Gentle Craft, yet as the
founder of his fortune. He thought it proper, therefore,
that he should possess Sir Walter's History of the World,
though he had never found inclination, or summoned up
resolution, to undertake its perusal.
Common sense has been defined by Sir Egerton Brydges,
“to mean nothing more than an uneducated judgment, arising
from a plain and coarse understanding exercised upon
common concerns, and rendered effective rather by experience,
than by any regular process of the intellectual powers.
If this,” he adds, “be the proper meaning of that quality,
we cannot wonder that books are little fitted for its cultivation.”
Except that there was no coarseness in his nature,
this would apply to Mr Allison. He had been bred up with
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the notion, that it behoved him to attend to his business,
and that reading formed to part of it. Nevertheless he had
acquired some liking for books, by looking casually now and
then over the leaves of those unfortunate volumes with
which the shop was continually supplied for its daily consumption.
Many a load of criticism,
Elaborate products of the midnight toil
Of Belgian brains,*
went there; and many a tome of old law, old physic, and
old divinity; old history as well; books of which many
were at all times rubbish; some which, though little better,
would now sell for more shillings by the page than they
then cost pence by the pound; and others, the real value
of which is perhaps as little known now, as it was then.
Such of these as in latter years caught his attention, he now
and then rescued from the remorseless use to which they
had been condemned. They made a curious assortment
with his wife's books of devotion or amusement wherewith
she had sometimes beguiled, and sometimes soothed,
the weary hours of long and frequent illness. Among
the former were Scott's “Christian Life,” Bishop Bayly's
“Practice of Piety,” Bishop Taylor's “Holy Living and
Dying,” Drelincourt on Death, with De Foe's lying story
of Mrs. Veal's ghost as a puff preliminary, and the Night
Thoughts. Among the latter were Cassandra, the Guardian
and Spectator, Mrs. Rowe's Letters, Richardson's Novels,
and Pomfret's Poems.
Mrs. Allison had been able to do little for her daughter
of that little, which, if her state of health and spirits had
permitted, she might have done; this, therefore, as well as
the more active duties of the household, devolved upon Elizabeth,
who was of a better constitution in mind as well
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as body. Elizabeth, before she went to reside with her
brother, had acquired all the accomplishments which a
domestic education in the country could in those days
impart. Her book of receipts, culinary and medical, might
have vied with the “Queen's Cabinet Unlocked.” The
spelling indeed was such as ladies used in the reign of
Queen Anne, and in the old time before her, when every
one spelt as she thought fit; but it was written in a well-proportioned
Italian hand, with fine down-strokes and broad
up-ones, equally distinct and beautiful. Her speech was
good Yorkshire, that is to say, good provincial English, not
the worse for being provincial, and a little softened by five-and-twenty
years' residence in London. Some sisters, who
in those days kept a boarding-school of the first repute, in
one of the midland counties, used to say, when they spoke
of an old pupil, “her went to school to we.” Miss Allison's
language was not of this kind, — it savored of rusticity, not
of ignorance; and where it was peculiar, as in the metropolis,
it gave raciness to the conversation of an agreeable
woman.
She had been well instructed in ornamental work as well
as ornamental penmanship. Unlike most fashions, this had
continued to be in fashion because it continued to be of use;
though no doubt some of the varieties which Taylor, the
Water-Poet, enumerates in his praise of the Needle, might
have been then as little understood as now: —
Tent-work, Raised-work, Laid-work, Prest-work, Net-work,
Most curious Pearl, or rare Italian Cut-work,
Fine Fern-stitch, Finny-stitch, New-stitch and Chain-stitch,
Brave Bred-stitch, Fisher-stitch, Irish-stitch and Queen-stitch,
The Spanish-stitch, Rosemary-stitch and Maw-stitch,
The smarting Whip-stitch, Back-stitch and the Cross-stitch.
All these are good, and these we must allow;
And these are everywhere in practice now.
There was a book published in the Water-Poet's days,
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with the title of “School House for the Needle”; it consisted
of two volumes in oblong quarto, that form being
suited to its plates “of sundry sorts of patterns and examples”;
and it contained a “Dialogue in Verse between
Diligence and Sloth.” If Betsey Allison had studied in
this “School House,” she could not have been a greater
proficient with the needle than she became under her
Aunt's teaching: nor would she have been more
versed in the arts
Of pies, puddings, and tarts,*
if she had gone through a course of practical lessons in one
of the Pastry Schools which are common in Scotland, but
were tried without success in London, about the middle of
the last century. Deborah partook of these instructions at
her father's desire. In all that related to the delicacies of
a country table, she was glad to be instructed, because it
enabled her to assist her friend; but it appeared strange to
her that Mr. Bacon should wish her to learn ornamental
work, for which she neither had, nor could forsee any use.
But if the employment had been less agreeable than she
found it in such company, she would never have disputed,
nor questioned his will.
For so small a household, a more active or cheerful
one could nowhere have been found than at the Grange.
Ben Jonson reckoned among the happinesses of Sir Robert
Wroth that of being “with unbought provision blest.” This
blessing Mr. Allison enjoyed in as great a degree as his
position in life permitted; he neither killed his own meat
nor grew his own corn; but he had his poultry-yard, his
garden and his orchard; he baked his own bread, brewed
his own beer, and was supplied with milk, cream, and butter
from his own dairy. It is a fact not unworthy of notice,
that the most intelligent farmers in the neighborhood of
London are persons who have taken to farming as a
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business, because of their strong inclination for rural employments;
one of the very best in Middlesex, when the Survey
of that County was published by the Board of Agriculture,
had been a tailor. Mr. Allison did not attempt to manage
the land which he kept in his own hands; but he had a
trusty bailiff, and soon acquired knowledge enough for
superintending what was done. When he retired from
trade he gave over all desire for gain, which indeed he had
never desired for his own sake; he sought now only wholesome
occupation, and those comforts which may be said to
have a moral zest. They might be called luxuries, if that
word could be used in a virtuous sense without something so
to qualify it. It is a curious instance of the modification
which words undergo in different countries, that luxury has
always a sinful acceptation in the southern languages of
Europe, and lust an innocent one in the northern; the
harmless meaning of the latter word, we have retained in
the verb to list.
Every one who looks back upon the scenes of his youth,
has one spot upon which the last light of the evening sunshine
rests. The Grange was that spot in Deborah's retrospect.
eaf559n31* Old Burton's was a modified opinion. See Anatomie of Melancholy,
Part ii. § 2, mem. 2, subs. 2.
eaf559n32* The counting of these signs “from Temple Bar, the furthest
Conduit in Cheapside,” &c., is quoted as a remarkable instance of
Fuller's Memory. Life, &c., p. 76, ed. 1662.
eaf559n33* Akenside.
eaf559n34* T. Warton.
CHAPTER XIV.
A REMARKABLE EXAMPLE, SHOWING THAT A WISE MAN, WHEN HE
RISES IN THE MORNING, LITTLE KNOWS WHAT HE MAY DO BEFORE
NIGHT.
Now I love,
And so as in so short a time I may,
Yet so as time shall never break that so,
And therefore so accept of Elinor.
Robert Greene.
One summer evening the Doctor, on his way back from a
visit in that direction, stopped, as on such opportunities he
usually did, at Mr. Bacon's wicket, and looked in at the
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open casement to see if his friends were within. Mr. Bacon
was sitting there alone, with a book open on the table before
him; and looking round when he heard the horse stop,
“Come in, Doctor,” said he, “if you have a few minutes to
spare. You were never more welcome.”
The Doctor replied, “I hope nothing ails either Deborah
or yourself?”
“No,” said Mr. Bacon, “God be thanked! but something
has occurred which concerns both.”
When the Doctor entered the room, he perceived that the
wonted serenity of his friend's countenance was overcast by
a shade of melancholy thought. “Nothing,” said he, “I
hope, has happened to distress you?”
“Only to disturb us,” was the reply. “Most people would
probably think that we ought to consider it a piece of good
fortune. One who would be thought a good match for her,
has proposed to marry Deborah.”
“Indeed!” said the Doctor; “and who is he?” feeling,
as he asked the question, an unusual warmth in his face.
“Joseph Hebblethwaite, of the Willows. He broke his
mind to me this morning, saying that he thought it best to
speak with me before he made any advances himself to the
young woman: indeed he had had no opportunity of so
doing, for he had seen little of her; but he had heard enough
of her character to believe that she would make him a good
wife; and this, he said, was all he looked for, for he was
well to do in the world.”
“And what answer did you make to this matter-of-fact
way of proceeding?”
“I told him that I commended the very proper course he
had taken, and that I was obliged to him for the good opinion
of my daughter which he was pleased to entertain: that
marriage was an affair in which I should never attempt to
direct her inclinations, being confident that she would never
give me cause to oppose them; and that I would talk with
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her upon the proposal, and let him know the result. As
soon as I mentioned it to Deborah, she colored up to her
eyes; and with an angry look, of which I did not think those
eyes had been capable, she desired me to tell him that he
had better lose no time in looking elsewhere, for his thinking
of her was of no use. `Do you know any ill of him?' said
I. `No,' she replied, `but I never heard any good, and
that's ill enough. And I do not like his looks.'”
“Well said, Deborah!” cried the Doctor: clapping his
hands so as to produce a sonorous token of satisfaction.
“`Surely, my child,' said I, `he is not an ill-looking person?
' `Father,' she replied, `you know he looks as if he
had not one idea in his head to keep company with another.
'”
“Well said, Deborah!” repeated the Doctor.
“Why, Doctor, do you know any ill of him?
“None. But, as Deborah says, I know no good; and if
there had been any good to be known, it must have come
within my knowledge. I cannot help knowing who the persons
are to whom the peasantry in my rounds look with respect
and good-will, and whom they consider their friends
as well as their betters. And, in like manner, I know who
they are from whom they never expect either courtesy or
kindness.”
“You are right, my friend; and Deborah is right. Her
answer came from a wise heart; and I was not sorry that
her determination was so promptly made, and so resolutely
pronounced. But I wish, if it had pleased God, the offer
had been one which she could have accepted with her own
willing consent, and with my full approbation.”
“Yet,” said the Doctor, “I have often thought how sad
a thing it would be for you ever to part with her.”
“Far more sad will it be for me to leave her unprotected,
as it is but too likely that, in the ordinary course of nature
I one day shall; and as any day in that same ordinary
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course, I so possibly may! Our best intentions, even when
they have been most prudentially formed, fail often in their
issue. I meant to train up Deborah in the way she should
go, by fitting her for that state of life in which it had pleased
God to place her; so that she might have made a good wife
for some honest man in the humbler walks of life, and have
been happy with him.”
“And how was it possible,” replied the Doctor, “that you
could have succeeded better? Is she not qualified to be a
good man's wife in any rank? Her manner would not do
discredit to a mansion; her management would make a farm
prosperous, or a cottage comfortable; and for her principles,
and temper and cheerfulness, they would render any home
a happy one.”
“You have not spoken too highly in her praise, Doctor.
But as she has from her childhood been all in all to me,
there is a danger that I may have become too much so to
her; and that, while her habits have properly been made
conformable to our poor means and her poor prospects, she
has been accustomed to a way of thinking, and a kind of
conversation, which have given her a distaste for those
whose talk is only of sheep and of oxen, and whose thoughts
never get beyond the range of their every day employments.
In her present circle, I do not think there is one man with
whom she might otherwise have had a chance of settling in
life, to whom she would not have the same intellectual objections
as to Joseph Hebblethwaite: though I am glad that
the moral objection was that which first instinctively occurred
to her.
“I wish it were otherwise, both for her sake and my
own: for hers, because the present separation would have
more than enough to compensate it, and would in its consequences
mitigate the evil of the final one, whenever that
may be; for my own, because I should then have no cause
whatever to render the prospect of dissolution otherwise
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than welcome, but be as willing to die as to sleep. It is
not owing to any distrust in Providence, that I am not thus
willing now, — God forbid! But if I gave heed to my own
feelings, I should think that I am not long for this world;
and surely it were wise to remove, if possible, the only cause
that makes me fear to think so.”
“Are you sensible of any symptons that can lead to such
an apprehension?” said the Doctor.
“Of nothing that can be called a sympton. I am to all
appearance in good health, of sound body and mind; and
you know how unlikely my habits are to occasion any disturbance
in either. But I have indefinable impressions, —
sensations they might almost be called, — which, as I cannot
but feel them, so I cannot but regard them.”
“Can you not describe these sensations?”
“No better than by saying, that they hardly amount to
sensations, and are indescribable.”
“Do not,” said the Doctor, “I entreat you, give way to
any feelings of this kind. They may lead to consequences
which, without shortening or endangering life, would render
it anxious and burdensome, and destroy both your usefulness
and your comfort.”
“I have this feeling, Doctor; and you shall prescribe for
it, if you think it requires either regimen or physic. But at
present you will do me more good by assisting me to procure
for Deborah such a situation as she must necessarily
look for on the event of my death. What I have laid by,
even if it should be most advantageously disposed of, would
afford her only a bare subsistence; it is a resource in case
of sickness, but while in health, it would never be her wish
to eat the bread of idleness. You may have opportunities
of learning whether any lady within the circle of your practice
wants a young person in whom she might confide, either
as an attendant upon herself, or to assist in the management
of her children, or her household. You may be sure this is
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not the first time that I have thought upon the subject; but
the circumstance which has this day occurred, and the feeling
of which I have spoken, have pressed it upon my consideration.
And the inquiry may better be made, and the
step taken while it is a matter of foresight, than when it has
become one of necessity.”
“Let me feel your pulse!”
“You will detect no other disorder there,” said Mr. Bacon,
holding out his arm as he spake, “than what has been caused
by this conversation, and the declaration of a purpose, which,
though for some time perpended, I had never till now fully
acknowledged to myself.”
“You have never then mentioned it to Deborah?”
“In no other way than by sometimes incidentally speaking
of the way of life which would be open to her, in case
of her being unmarried at my death.”
“And you have made up your mind to part with
her?”
“Upon a clear conviction that I ought to do so; that it is
best for herself and me.”
“Well, then, you will allow me to converse with her
first upon a different subject. — You will permit me to see
whether I can speak more successfully for myself, than you
have done for Joseph Hebblethwaite. — Have I your consent?”
Mr. Bacon rose in great emotion, and taking his friend's
hand, pressed it fervently and tremulously. Presently they
heard the wicket open, and Deborah came in.
“I dare say, Deborah,” said her father, composing himself,
“you have been telling Betsey Allison of the advantageous
offer that you have this day refused.”
“Yes,” replied Deborah; “and what do you think she
said? That little as she likes him, rather than that I
should be thrown away upon such a man, she could almost
make up her mind to marry him herself.”
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“And I,” said the Doctor, “rather than such a man should
have you, would marry you myself.”
“Was not I right in refusing him, Doctor?”
“So right, that you never pleased me so well before; and
never can please me better, — unless you will accept of me
in his stead.”
She gave a little start, and looked at him half incredulously,
and half angrily withal; as if what he had said was
too light in its manner to be serious, and yet too serious in
its import to be spoken in jest. But when he took her by
the hand, and said, “Will you, dear Deborah?” with a pressure,
and in a tone that left no doubt of his earnest meaning,
she cried, “Father, what am I to say? speak for me!” —
“Take her, my friend!” said Mr. Bacon. “My blessing be
upon you both. And, if it be not presumptuous to use the
words, — let me say for myself, `Lord, now lettest thou thy
servant depart in peace!'”
CHAPTER XV.
THE WEDDING PEAL AT ST. GEORGE'S, AND THE BRIDE'S
APPEARANCE AT CHURCH.
In the month of April, 1761, the Doctor brought home
his bride to Doncaster. Many eyes were turned upon her
when she made her appearance at St. George's Church.
The novelty of the place made her less regardful of this
than she might otherwise have been. Hollis Pigot, who
held the vicarage of Doncaster thirty years, and was then
in the last year of his incumbency and his life, performed
the service that day. I know not among what description
of preachers he was to be classed; whether with those who
obtain attention, and command respect, and win confidence,
and strengthen belief, and inspire hope, or with the far more
numerous race of Spintexts and of Martexts. But if he
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had preached that morning with the tongue of an angel,
the bride would have had no ears for him. Her thoughts
were neither upon those who on their way from church
would talk over her instead of the sermon, nor of the service,
nor of her husband, nor of herself in her new character,
but of her father, — and with a feeling which might
almost be called funereal, that she had passed from under
his pastoral as well as his paternal care.
CHAPTER XVI.
SOMETHING SERIOUS.
If thou hast read all this book, and art never the better, yet catch this
flower before thou go out of the garden, and peradventure the scent
thereof will bring thee back to smell the rest.
Henry Smith.
Deborah found no one in Doncaster to supply the place
of Betty Allison in the daily intercourse of familiar and
perfect friendship. That indeed was impossible; no aftermath
has the fragrance and the sweetness of the first crop.
But why do I call her Deborah? She had never been
known by that name to her new neighbors; and to her very
father she was now spoken of as Mrs. Dove. Even the
Allisons called her so in courteous and customary usage, but
not without a melancholy reflection, that when Deborah
Bacon became Mrs. Dove, she was in a great measure lost
to them.
Friendship, although it ceases not
In marriage, is yet at less command
Than when a single freedom can dispose it.*
Doncaster has less of the Rus in Urbe now than it had in
those days, and than Bath had when those words were
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placed over the door of a lodging-house, on the North
Parade. And the house to which the Doctor brought home
his bride, had less of it than when Peter Hopkins set up
the gilt pestle and mortar there as the cognizance of his
vocation. It had no longer that air of quiet respectability
which belongs to such a dwelling in the best street of a
small country town. The Mansion House, by which it was
dwarfed and inconvenienced in many ways, occasioned a
stir and bustle about it, unlike the cheerful business of a market
day. The back windows, however, still looked to the
fields, and there was still a garden. But neither fields nor
garden could prevail over the odor of the shop, in which, like
Hot, cold, moist and dry, four champions fierce,
in Milton's Chaos, rhubarb and peppermint, and valerian, and
assafœtida, “strove for mastery,” and to battle brought their
atoms. Happy was the day when peppermint predominated;
though it always reminded Mrs. Dove of Thaxted
Grange, and the delight with which she used to assist Miss
Allison in her distillations. There is an Arabian proverb
which says, “The remembrance of youth is a sigh.”
Southey has taken it for the text of one of those juvenile
poems in which he dwells with thoughtful forefeeling upon
the condition of declining life.
Miss Allison had been to her, not indeed as a mother, but
as what a stepmother is, who is led by natural benevolence,
and a religious sense of duty, to perform as far as possible
a mother's part to her husband's children. There are more
such stepmothers than the world is willing to believe, and
they have their reward here as well as hereafter. It was
impossible that any new friend could fill up her place in
Mrs. Dove's affections, — impossible that she could ever feel
for another woman the respect, and reverence, and gratitude,
which blended with her love for this excellent person.
Though she was born within four miles of Doncaster, and
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had lived till her marriage in the humble vicarage in which
she was born, she had never passed four-and-twenty hours
in that town before she went to reside there; nor had she
the slightest acquaintance with any of its inhabitants, except
the few shopkeepers with whom her little dealings had lain,
and the occasional visitants whom she had met at the
Grange.
An Irish officer in the army, happening to be passenger
in an armed vessel during the last war, used frequently to
wish that they might fall in with an enemy's ship, because
he said, he had been in many land battles, and there was
nothing in the world which he desired more than to see
what sort of a thing a sea-fight was. He had his wish,
and when after a smart action, in which he bore his part
bravely, an enemy of superior force had been beaten off,
he declared with the customary emphasis of an Hibernian
adjuration, that a sea-fight was a mighty sairious sort of
thing.
The Doctor and Deborah, as soon as they were betrothed,
had come to just the same conclusion upon a very
different subject. Till the day of their engagement, nay,
till the hour of proposal on his part, and the very instant
of acceptance on hers, each had looked upon marriage,
when the thought of it occurred, as a distant possibility,
more or less desirable, according to the circumstances which
introduced the thought, and the mood in which it was entertained.
And when it was spoken of sportively, as might
happen, in relation to either the one or the other, it was
lightly treated as a subject in which they had no concern.
But from the time of their engagement, it seemed to both
the most serious event of their lives.
In the Dutch village of Broek, concerning which, singular
as the habits of the inhabitants are, travellers have related
more peculiarities than ever prevailed there, one
remarkable custom shows with how serious a mind some of
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the Hollanders regard marriage. The great house-door is
never opened but when the master of the house brings
home his bride from the altar, and when husband and
wife are borne out to the grave. Dr. Dove had seen that
village of great baby-houses; but though much attached
to Holland, and to the Dutch as a people, and disposed to
think that we might learn many useful lessons from our
prudent and thrifty neighbors, he thought this to be as preposterous,
if not as shocking a custom, as it would be to
have the bell toll at a marriage, and to wear a winding-sheet
for a wedding garment.
We look with wonder at the transformations that take
place in insects, and yet their physical metamorphoses are
not greater than the changes which we ourselves undergo
morally and intellectually, both in our relations to others
and in our individual nature. Chaque individu, considéré
separément, differe encore de lui-même par l'effet du tems;
il devient un autre, en quelque manière, aux diverses époques
de sa vie. L'enfant, l'homme rait, le vieillard, sont comme
autant d'étrangers unis dans une seule personne par le lien
mystérieux du souvenir.* Of all changes in life, marriage is
certainly the greatest, and though less change in every respect
can very rarely be produced by it in any persons
than in the Doctor and his wife, it was very great to
both. On his part it was altogether an increase of happiness;
or rather, from having been contented in his station
he became happy in it, so happy as to be experimentally
convinced that there can be no “single blessedness”
for man. There were some drawbacks on her
part, — in the removal from a quiet vicarage to a busy
street; in the obstacle which four miles opposed to that
daily and intimate intercourse with her friends at the
Grange, which had been the chief delight of her maiden
life; and above all, in the separation from her father, — for
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even at a distance which may appear so inconsiderable, such
it was; but there was the consolatory reflection, that those
dear friends and that dear father concurred in approving
her marriage, and in rejoicing in it for her sake; and the
experience of every day and every year made her more and
more thankful for her lot. In the full liturgic sense of the
word, he worshipped her, that is, he loved and cherished and
respected and honored her; and she would have obeyed
him cheerfully as well as dutifully, if obedience could have
been shown where there was ever but one will.
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eaf559n35* Ford.
eaf559n36* Necker.
THE MYSTIC SUMMER. By BAYARD TAYLOR.
'T IS not the dropping of the flower,
The blush of fruit upon the tree,
Though Summer ripens, hour by hour,
The garden's sweet maternity:
'T is not that birds have ceased to build,
And wait their brood with tender care;
That corn is golden in the field,
And clover balm is in the air; —
Not these the season's splendor bring,
And crowd with life the happy year,
Nor yet, where yonder fountains sing,
The blaze of sunshine, hot and clear.
In thy full womb, O Summer! lies
A secret hope, a joy unsung,
Held in the hush of these calm skies,
And trembling on the forest's tongue.
The lands of harvest throb anew
In shining pulses, far away;
The Night distils a dearer dew,
And sweeter eyelids has the Day.
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And not in vain the peony burns
In bursting globes, her crimson fire,
Her incense-dropping ivory urns
The lily lifts in many a spire:
And not in vain the tulips clash
In revelry the cups they hold
Of fiery wine, until they dash
With ruby streaks the splendid gold!
Send down your roots the mystic charm
That warms and flushes all your flowers,
And with the summer's touch disarm
The thraldom of the under powers,
Until, in caverns, buried deep,
Strange fragrance reach the diamond's home,
And murmurs of the garden sweep
The houses of the frighted gnome!
For, piercing through their black repose,
And shooting up beyond the sun,
I see that Tree of Life, which rose
Before the eyes of Solomon:
Its boughs, that, in the light of God,
Their bright, innumerous leaves display, —
Whose hum of life is borne abroad
By winds that shake the dead away.
And, trembling on a branch afar,
The topmost nursling of the skies,
I see my bud, the fairest star
That ever dawned for watching eyes.
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Unnoticed on the boundless tree,
Its fragrant promise fills the air;
Its little bell expands, for me,
A tent of silver, lily-fair.
All life to that one centre tends;
All joy and beauty thence outflow;
Her sweetest gifts the summer spends,
To teach that sweeter bud to blow.
So, compassed by the vision's gleam,
In trembling hope, from day to day,
As in some bright, bewildering dream,
The mystic summer wanes away.
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TWO OF THE OLD MASTERS. By MRS. JAMESON.
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WITHIN a short period of about thirty years, that
is, between 1490 and 1520, the greatest painters
whom the world has yet seen were living and working
together. On looking back, we cannot but feel that the
excellence they attained was the result of the efforts and
aspirations of a preceding age; and yet these men were so
great in their vocation, and so individual in their greatness,
that, losing sight of the linked chain of progress, they
seemed at first to have had no precursors, as they have
since had no peers. Though living at the same time, and
most of them in personal relation with each other, the direction
of each mind was different — was peculiar; though
exercising in some sort a reciprocal influence, this influence
never interfered with the most decided originality. These
wonderful artists, who would have been remarkable men in
their time, though they had never touched a pencil, were
Lionardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Correggio,
Giorgione, Titian, in Italy; and in Germany, Albert Durer.
Of these men, we might say, as of Homer and Shakespeare,
that they belong to no particular age or country, but to all
time, and to the universe. That they flourished together
within one brief and brilliant period, and that each carried
out to the highest degree of perfection his own peculiar
aims, was no casualty; nor are we to seek for the causes of
this surpassing excellence merely in the history of the art as
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such. The causes lay far deeper, and must be referred to the
history of human culture. The fermenting activity of the
fifteenth century found its results in the extraordinary development
of human intelligence in the commencement of the
sixteenth century. We often hear in these days of “the
spirit of the age”; but in that wonderful age three mighty
spirits were stirring society to its depths: — the spirit of
bold investigation into truths of all kinds, which led to the
Reformation; the spirit of daring adventure, which led men
in search of new worlds beyond the eastern and the western
oceans; and the spirit of art, through which men soared even
to the “seventh heaven of invention.”
LIONARDO DA VINCI.
Lionardo da Vinci seems to present in his own person a
résumé of all the characteristics of the age in which he lived.
He was the miracle of that age of miracles. Ardent and
versatile as youth; patient and persevering as age; a most
profound and original thinker; the greatest mathematician
and most ingenious mechanic of his time; architect, chemist,
engineer, musician, poet, painter! — we are not only astounded
by the variety of his natural gifts and acquired knowledge,
but by the practical direction of his amazing powers.
The extracts which have been published from MSS. now
existing in his own handwriting show him to have anticipated,
by the force of his own intellect, some of the greatest
discoveries made since his time. These fragments, says Mr.
Hallam, “are, according to our common estimate of the age
in which he lived, more like revelations of physical truths
vouchsafed to a single mind, than the superstructure of its
reasoning upon any established basis. The discoveries which
made Galileo, Kepler, Castelli, and other names illustrious—
the system of Copernicus — the very theories of recent
geologists, are anticipated by Da Vinci within the compass
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of a few pages, not perhaps in the most precise language,
or on the most conclusive reasoning, but so as to strike us
with something like the awe of preternatural knowledge.
In an age of so much dogmatism, he first laid down the
grand principle of Bacon, that experiment and observation
must be the guides to just theory in the investigation of
nature. If any doubt could be harbored, not as to the right
of Lionardo da Vinci to stand as the first name of the fifteenth
century, which is beyond all doubt, but as to his
originality in so many discoveries which probably no one
man, especially in such circumstances, has ever made, it
must be by an hypothesis not very untenable, that some parts
of physical science had already attained a height which
mere books do not record.”
It seems at first sight almost incomprehensible that, thus
endowed as a philosopher, mechanic, inventor, discoverer,
the fame of Lionardo should now rest on the works he has
left as a painter. We cannot, within these limits, attempt
to explain why and how it is that as the man of science he
has been naturally and necessarily left behind by the onward
march of intellectual progress, while as the poet-painter he
still survives as a presence and a power. We must proceed
at once to give some account of him in the character in
which he exists to us and for us, — that of the great artist.
Lionardo was born at Vinci, near Florence, in the Lower
Val d' Arno, on the borders of the territory of Pistoia.
His father, Piero da Vinci, was an advocate of Florence, —
not rich, but in independent circumstances, and possessed of
estates in land. The singular talents of his son induced
Piero to give him, from an early age, the advantage of the
best instructors. As a child, he distinguished himself by
his proficiency in arithmetic and mathematics. Music he
studied early, as a science as well as an art. He invented
a species of lyre for himself, and sung his own poetical compositions
to his own music, — both being frequently
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extemporaneous. But his favorite pursuit was the art of design in all
its branches; he modelled in clay or wax, or attempted to
draw every object which struck his fancy. His father sent
him to study under Andrea Verrocchio, famous as a sculptor,
chaser in metal, and painter. Andrea, who was an excellent
and correct designer, but a bad and hard colorist,
was soon after engaged to paint a picture of the Baptism of
our Saviour. He employed Lionardo, then a youth, to execute
one of the angles. This he did with so much softness
and richness of color that it far surpassed the rest of the picture;
and Verrocchio from that time threw away his palette,
and confined himself wholly to his works in sculpture and
design; “enraged,” says Vasari, “that a child should thus
excel him.”
The youth of Lionardo thus passed away in the pursuit of
science and of art. Sometimes he was deeply engaged in
astronomical calculations and investigations; sometimes ardent
in the study of natural history, botany, and anatomy;
sometimes intent on new effects of color, light, shadow, or
expression, in representing objects animate or inanimate.
Versatile, yet persevering, he varied his pursuits, but he
never abandoned any. He was quite a young man when he
conceived and demonstrated the practicability of two magnificent
projects. One was, to lift the whole of the Church of
San Lorenzo, by means of immense levers, some feet higher
than it now stands, and thus supply the deficient elevation;
the other project was, to form the Arno into a navigable
canal, as far as Pisa, which would have added greatly to the
commercial advantages of Florence.
It happened about this time that a peasant on the estate
of Piero da Vinci brought him a circular piece of wood, cut
horizontally from the trunk of a very large old fig-tree,
which had been lately felled, and begged to have something
painted on it as an ornament for his cottage. The man
being an especial favorite, Piero desired his son Lionardo
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to gratify his request; and Lionardo, inspired by that wildness
of fancy which was one of his characteristics, took the
panel into his own room, and resolved to astonish his father
by a most unlooked-for proof of his art. He determined to
compose something which should have an effect similar to
that of the Medusa on the shield of Perseus, and almost
petrify beholders. Aided by his recent studies in natural
history, he collected together from the neighboring swamps
and the river-mud all kinds of hideous reptiles, as adders,
lizards, toads, serpents; insects, as moths, locusts; and other
crawling and flying, obscene and obnoxious things; and out
of these he compounded a sort of monster, or chimera, which
he represented as about to issue from the shield, with eyes
flashing fire, and of an aspect so fearful and abominable that
it seemed to infect the very air around. When finished, he
led his father into the room in which it was placed, and the
terror and horror of Piero proved the success of his attempt.
This production, afterwards known as the Rotello
del Fico, from the material on which it was painted, was sold
by Piero secretly for one hundred ducats, to a merchant,
who carried it to Milan, and sold it to the duke for three
hundred. To the poor peasant thus cheated of his Rotello,
Piero gave a wooden shield, on which was painted a heart
transfixed by a dart; a device better suited to his taste and
comprehension. In the subsequent troubles of Milan, Lionardo's
picture disappeared, and was probably destroyed, as an
object of horror, by those who did not understand its value
as a work of art.
The anomalous monster represented on the Rotello was
wholly different from the Medusa, afterwards painted by
Lionardo, and now existing in the Florence Gallery. It
represents the severed head of Medusa, seen foreshortened,
lying on a fragment of rock. The features are beautiful
and regular; the hair already metamorphosed into serpents,
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“which curl and flow,
And their long tangles in each other lock,
And with unending involutions show
Their mailéd radiance.”
Those who have once seen this terrible and fascinating picture
can never forget it. The ghastly head seems to expire,
and the serpents to crawl into glittering life, as we look
upon it.
During this first period of his life, which was wholly
passed in Florence and its neighborhood, Lionardo painted
several other pictures, of a very different character, and designed
some beautiful cartoons of sacred and mythological
subjects, which showed that his sense of the beautiful, the
elevated, and the graceful, was not less a part of his mind,
than that eccentricity and almost perversion of fancy which
made him delight in sketching ugly, exaggerated caricatures,
and representing the deformed and the terrible.
Lionardo da Vinci was now about thirty years old, in the
prime of his life and talents. His taste for pleasure and
expense was, however, equal to his genius and indefatigable
industry; and, anxious to secure a certain provision for the
future, as well as a wider field for the exercise of his various
talents, he accepted the invitation of Ludovico Sforza il
Moro, then regent, afterwards Duke of Milan, to reside in
his court, and to execute a colossal equestrian statue of his
ancestor Francesco Sforza. Here begins the second period
of his artistic career, which includes his sojourn at Milan,
that is, from 1483 to 1499.
Vasari says that Lionardo was invited to the court of
Milan for the Duke Ludovico's amusement, “as a musician
and performer on the lyre, and as the greatest singer and
improvisatore of his time”; but this is improbable. Lionardo,
in his long letter to that prince, in which he recites
his own qualifications for employment, dwells chiefly on his
skill in engineering and fortification, and sums up his
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pretensions as an artist in these few brief words: “I understand
the different modes of sculpture in marble, bronze,
and terra-cotta. In painting, also, I may esteem myself
equal to any one, let him be who he may.” Of his musical
talents he makes no mention whatever, though undoubtedly
these, as well as his other social accomplishments, his handsome
person, his winning address, his wit and eloquence,
recommended him to the notice of the prince, by whom he
was greatly beloved, and in whose service he remained for
about seventeen years. It is not necessary, nor would it be
possible here, to give a particular account of all the works
in which Lionardo was engaged for his patron, nor of the
great political events in which he was involved, more by his
position than by his inclination; for instance, the invasion
of Italy by Charles VIII. of France, and the subsequent invasion
of Milan by Louis XII., which ended in the destruction
of the Duke Ludovico. We shall only mention a few
of the pictures he executed. One of these, the portrait of
Lucrezia Crivelli, is now in the Louvre (No. 1091). Another
was the Nativity of our Saviour, in the imperial
collection at Vienna; but the greatest work of all, and by
far the grandest picture which, up to that time, had been
executed in Italy, was the Last Supper, painted on the wall
of the refectory, or dining-room, of the Dominican convent
of the Madonna delle Grazie. It occupied the painter about
two years. Of this magnificent creation of art only the
mouldering remains are now visible. It has been so often
repaired, that almost every vestige of the original painting
is annihilated; but, from the multiplicity of descriptions,
engravings, and copies that exist, no picture is more universally
known and celebrated.
The moment selected by the painter is described in the
twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew, twenty-first and
twenty-second verses: “And as they did eat, he said,
Verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me:
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and they were exceedingly sorrowful, and began every one
of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?” The knowledge
of character displayed in the heads of the different apostles
is even more wonderful than the skilful arrangement of the
figures and the amazing beauty of the workmanship. The
space occupied by the picture is a wall twenty-eight feet in
length, and the figures are larger than life. The best judgment
we can now form of its merits is from the fine copy
executed by one of Lionardo's best pupils, Marco Uggione,
for the Certosa at Pavia, and now in London, in the collection
of the Royal Academy. Eleven other copies, by
various pupils of Lionardo, painted either during his lifetime
or within a few years after his death, while the picture
was in perfect preservation, exist in different churches and
collections.
Of the grand equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, Lionardo
never finished more than the model in clay, which
was considered a masterpiece. Some years afterwards, (in
1499,) when Milan was invaded by the French, it was used
as a target by the Gascon bowmen, and completely destroyed.
The profound anatomical studies which Lionardo made for
this work still exist.
In the year 1500, the French being in possession of
Milan, his patron Ludovico in captivity, and the affairs of
the state in utter confusion, Lionardo returned to his native
Florence, where he hoped to re-establish his broken fortunes,
and to find employment. Here begins the third
period of his artistic life, from 1500 to 1513, that is, from
his forty-eighth to his sixtieth year. He found the Medici
family in exile, but was received by Pietro Soderini (who
governed the city as “Gonfaloniere perpetuo”) with great
distinction, and a pension was assigned to him as painter in
the service of the republic.
Then began the rivalry between Lionardo and Michael
Angelo, which lasted during the remainder of Lionardo's
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life. The difference of age (for Michael Angelo was twenty-two
years younger) ought to have prevented all unseemly
jealousy. But Michael Angelo was haughty, and impatient
of all superiority, or even equality; Lionardo, sensitive,
capricious, and naturally disinclined to admit the pretensions
of a rival, to whom he could say, and did say, “I was famous
before you were born!” With all their admiration of each
other's genius, their mutual frailties prevented any real
good-will on either side. The two painters competed for
the honor of painting in fresco one side of the great Council-hall
in the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. Each prepared
his cartoon; each, emulous of the fame and conscious of the
abilities of his rival, threw all his best powers into his work.
Lionardo chose for his subject the Defeat of the Milanese
general, Niccolò Piccinino, by the Florentine army in 1440.
One of the finest groups represented a combat of cavalry
disputing the possession of a standard. “It was so wonderfully
executed, that the horses themselves seemed animated
by the same fury as their riders; nor is it possible to describe
the variety of attitudes, the splendor of the dresses
and armor of the warriors, nor the incredible skill displayed
in the forms and actions of the horses.”
Michael Angelo chose for his subject the moment before
the same battle, when a party of Florentine soldiers bathing
in the Arno are surprised by the sound of the trumpet calling
them to arms. Of this cartoon we shall have more to
say in treating of his life. The preference was given to
Lionardo da Vinci. But, as Vasari relates, he spent so
much time in trying experiments, and in preparing the wall
to receive oil painting, which he preferred to fresco, that in
the interval some changes in the government intervened,
and the design was abandoned. The two cartoons remained
for several years open to the public, and artists flocked from
every part of Italy to study them. Subsequently they were
cut up into separate parts, dispersed, and lost. It is curious
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that of Michael Angelo's composition only one small copy
exists; of Lionardo's, not one. From a fragment which existed
in his time, but which has since disappeared, Rubens
made a fine drawing, which was engraved by Edelinck, and
is known as the Battle of the Standard.
It was a reproach against Lionardo, in his own time, that
he began many things and finished few; that his magnificent
designs and projects, whether it art or mechanics, were seldom
completed. This may be a subject of regret, but it is
unjust to make it a reproach. It was in the nature of the
man. The grasp of his mind was so nearly superhuman,
that he never, in anything he effected, satisfied himself or
realized his own vast conceptions. The most exquisitely
finished of his works, those that in the perfection of the execution
have excited the wonder and despair of succeeding
artists, were put aside by him as unfinished sketches. Most
of the pictures now attributed to him were wholly or in
part painted by his scholars and imitators from his cartoons.
One of the most famous of these was designed for the altar-piece
of the church of the convent called the Nunziata. It
represented the Virgin Mary seated in the lap of her
mother, St. Anna, having in her arms the infant Christ,
while St. John is playing with a lamb at their feet; St.
Anna, looking on with a tender smile, rejoices in her divine
offspring. The figures were drawn with such skill, and the
various expressions proper to each conveyed with such inimitable
truth and grace, that, when exhibited in a chamber of
the convent, the inhabitants of the city flocked to see it, and
for two days the streets were crowded with people, “as if it
had been some solemn festival”; but the picture was never
painted, and the monks of the Nunziata, after waiting long
and in vain for their altar-piece, were obliged to employ
other artists. The cartoon, or a very fine repetition of it,
is now in the possession of the Royal Academy, and it must
not be confounded with the St. Anna in the Louvre, a more
fantastic and apparently an earlier composition.
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Lionardo, during his stay at Florence, painted the portrait
of Ginevra Benci, already mentioned, in the memoir of
Ghirlandajo, as the reigning beauty of her time; and also
the portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo, sometimes called
La Joconde. On this last picture he worked at intervals
for four years, but was still unsatisfied. It was purchased
by Francis I. for four thousand golden crowns, and is now
in the Louvre. We find Lionardo also engaged by Cæsar
Borgia to visit and report on the fortifications of his territories,
and in this office he was employed for two years. In
1514 he was invited to Rome by Leo X., but more in his
character of philosopher, mechanic, and alchemist, than as a
painter. Here he found Raphael at the height of his fame,
and then engaged in his greatest works, — the frescos of
the Vatican. Two pictures which Lionardo painted while
at Rome — the Madonna of St. Onofrio, and the Holy Family,
painted for Filiberta of Savoy, the Pope's sister-in-law
(which is now at St. Petersburg) — show that even this
veteran in art felt the irresistible influence of the genius of
his young rival. They were both Raffaellesque in the subject
and treatment.
It appears that Lionardo was ill-satisfied with his sojourn
at Rome. He had long been accustomed to hold the first
rank as an artist wherever he resided; whereas at Rome he
found himself only one among many who, if they acknowledged
his greatness, affected to consider his day as past.
He was conscious that many of the improvements in the
arts which were now brought into use, and which enabled
the painters of the day to produce such extraordinary effects,
were invented or introduced by himself. If he could no
longer assert that measureless superiority over all others
which he had done in his younger days, it was because he
himself had opened to them new paths to excellence. The
arrival of his old competitor Michael Angelo, and some
slight on the part of Leo X., who was annoyed by his
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speculative and dilatory habits in executing the works intrusted
to him, all added to his irritation and disgust. He left
Rome, and set out for Pavia, where the French king Francis
I. then held his court. He was received by the young
monarch with every mark of respect, loaded with favors,
and a pension of seven hundred gold crowns settled on him
for life. At the famous conference between Francis I. and
Leo X. at Bologna, Lionardo attended his new patron, and
was of essential service to him on that occasion. In the following
year, 1516, he returned with Francis I. to France,
and was attached to the French court as principal painter.
It appears, however, that during his residence in France he
did not paint a single picture. His health had begun to
decline from the time he left Italy; and, feeling his end
approach, he prepared himself for it by religious meditation,
by acts of charity, and by a most conscientious distribution
by will of all his worldly possessions to his relatives and
friends. At length, after protracted suffering, this great
and most extraordinary man died at Cloux, near Amboise,
on the 2d of May, 1519, being then in his sixty-seventh
year. It is to be regretted that we cannot wholly credit
the beautiful story of his dying in the arms of Francis I.,
who, as it is said, had come to visit him on his death-bed. It
would, indeed, have been, as Fuseli expressed it, “an honor
to the king, by which Destiny would have atoned to that
monarch for his future disaster at Pavia,” had the incident
really happened, as it has been so often related by biographers,
celebrated by poets, represented with a just pride by
painters, and willingly believed by all the world; but the
well-authenticated fact that the court was on that day at St.
Germain-en-Laye, whence the royal ordinances are dated,
renders the story, unhappily, very doubtful.
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TITIAN.
Tiziano Vecelli was born at Cadore in the Friuli, a
district to the north of Venice, where the ancient family of
the Vecelli had been long settled. There is something very
amusing and characteristic in the first indication of his love
of art; for while it is recorded of other young artists that
they took a piece of charcoal or a piece of slate to trace the
images in their fancy, we are told that the infant Titian,
with an instinctive feeling prophetic of his future excellence
as a colorist, used the expressed juice of certain flowers to
paint a figure of a Madonna. When he was a boy of nine
years old his father, Gregorio, carried him to Venice and
placed him under the tuition of Sebastian Zuccato, a
painter and worker in mosaic. He left this school for
that of the Bellini, where the friendship and fellowship of
Giorgione seems early to have awakened his mind to new
ideas of art and color. Albert Durer, who was at Venice
in 1494, and again in 1507, also influenced him. At this
time, when Titian and Giorgione were youths of eighteen
and nineteen, they lived and worked together. It has been
related that they were employed in painting the frescos of
the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. The preference being given to
Titian's performance, which represented the story of Judith,
caused such a jealousy between the two friends, that they
ceased to reside together; but at this time, and for some
years afterwards, the influence of Giorgione on the mind
and the style of Titian was such that it became difficult to
distinguish their works; and on the death of Giorgione,
Titian was required to complete his unfinished pictures.
This great loss to Venice and the world left him in the
prime of youth without a rival. We find him for a few
years chiefly employed in decorating the palaces of the
Venetian nobles, both in the city and on the mainland.
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The first of his historical compositions which is celebrated
by his biographers is the Presentation of the Virgin in
the Temple, a large picture, now in the Academy of
Arts at Venice; and the first portrait recorded is that of
Catherine, Queen of Cyprus, of which numerous repetitions
and copies were scattered over all Italy. There is
a fine original in the Dresden Gallery. This unhappy
Catherine Cornaro, the “daughter of St. Mark,” having
been forced to abdicate her crown in favor of the Venetian
state, was at this time living in a sort of honorable captivity
at Venice. She had been a widow for forty years, and he
has represented her in deep mourning, holding a rosary in
her hand, — the face still bearing traces of that beauty for
which she was celebrated.
It appears that Titian was married about 1512, but of his
wife we do not hear anything more. It is said that her
name was Lucia, and we know that she bore him three children, —
two sons, and a daughter called Lavinia. It seems
probable, on a comparison of dates, that she died about the
year 1530.
One of the earliest works on which Titian was engaged
was the decoration of the convent of St. Antony, at Padua,
in which he executed a series of frescos from the life of St.
Antony. He was next summoned to Ferrara by the Duke
Alphonso I., and was employed in his service for at least
two years. He painted for this prince the beautiful picture
of Bacchus and Ariadne, which is now in the National Gallery,
and which represents on a small scale an epitome of
all the beauties which characterize Titian, in the rich, picturesque,
animated composition, in the ardor of Bacchus, who
flings himself from his car to pursue Ariadne; the dancing
bacchanals, the frantic grace of the bacchante, and the little
joyous satyr in front, trailing the head of the sacrifice. He
painted for the same prince two other festive subjects: one
in which a nymph and two men are dancing, while another
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nymph lies asleep; and a third, in which a number of children
and cupids are sporting round a statue of Venus.
There are here upwards of sixty figures in every variety
of attitude, some fluttering in the air, some climbing the
fruit-trees, some shooting arrows, or embracing each other.
This picture is known as the Sacrifice to the Goddess of
Fertility. While it remained in Italy, it was a study for
the first painters, — for Poussin, the Carracci, Albano, and
Fiamingo the sculptor, so famous for his models of children.
At Ferrara, Titian also painted the portrait of the first wife
of Alphonso, the famous and infamous Lucrezia Borgia;
and here also he formed a friendship with the poet Ariosto,
whose portrait he painted.
At this time he was invited to Rome by Leo X., for
whom Raphael, then in the zenith of his powers, was executing
some of his finest works. It is curious to speculate
what influence these two distinguished men might have
exercised on each other had they met; but it was not so
decreed. Titian was strongly attached to his home and his
friends at Venice; and to his birthplace, the little town of
Cadore, he paid an annual summer visit. His long absence
at Ferrara had wearied him of courts and princes; and,
instead of going to Rome to swell the luxurious state of Leo
X., he returned to Venice and remained there stationary for
the next few years, enriching its palaces and churches with
his magnificent works. These were so numerous that it
would be in vain to attempt to give an account even of those
considered as the finest among them. Two, however, must be
pointed out as pre-eminent in beauty and celebrity. First,
the Assumption of the Virgin, painted for the Church of
Santa Maria de' Frari, and now in the Academy of the
Fine Arts at Venice, and well known from the magnificent
engraving of Schiavone — the Virgin is soaring to heaven
amid groups of angels, while the apostles gaze upwards;
and, secondly, the Death of St. Peter Martyr when attacked
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by assassins at the entrance of a wood; the resignation of
the prostrate victim and the ferocity of the murderer, the
attendant flying “in the agonies of cowardice,” with the trees
waving their distracted boughs amid the violence of the tempest,
have rendered this picture famous as a piece of scenic
poetry as well as of dramatic expression.
The next event of Titian's life was his journey to Bologna
in 1530. In that year the Emperor Charles V. and Pope
Clement VII. met at Bologna, each surrounded by a brilliant
retinue of the most distinguished soldiers, statesmen,
and scholars, of Germany and Italy. Through the influence
of his friend Aretino, Titian was recommended to the Cardinal
Ippolito de' Medici, the Pope's nephew, through whose
patronage he was introduced to the two potentates who sat
to him. One of the portraits of Clement VII., painted at
this time, is now in the Bridgewater Gallery. Charles V.
was so satisfied with his portrait, that he became the zealous
friend and patron of the painter. It is not precisely known
which of several portraits of the Emperor painted by Titian
was the one executed at Bologna on this memorable occasion,
but it is supposed to be that which represents him on
horseback charging with his lance, now in the Royal Gallery
at Madrid, and of which Mr. Rogers possesses the original
study. The two portraits of Ippolito de' Medici in the Pitti
Palace and the Louvre were also painted at this period.
After a sojourn of some months at Bologna, Titian returned
to Venice loaded with honors and rewards. There
was no potentate, prince, or poet, or reigning beauty, who
did not covet the honor of being immortalized by his pencil.
He had, up to this time, managed his worldly affairs with
great economy; but now he purchased for himself a house
opposite to Murano, and lived splendidly, combining with
the most indefatigable industry the liveliest enjoyment of
existence; his favorite companions were the architect Sansovino
and the witty profligate Pietro Aretino. Titian has
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often been reproached with his friendship for Aretino, and
nothing can be said in his excuse, except that the proudest
princes in Europe condescended to flatter and caress this
unprincipled literary ruffian, who was pleased to designate
himself as the “friend of Titian, and the scourge of princes.”
One of the finest of Titian's portraits is that of Aretino, in
the Munich Gallery.
Thus in the practice of his art, in the society of his
friends, and in the enjoyment of the pleasures of life, did
Titian pass several years. The only painter of his time
who was deemed worthy of competing with him was Licinio
Regillo, better known as Pordenone. Between Titian and
Pordenone there existed not merely rivalry, but a personal
hatred, so bitter that Pordenone affected to think his life in
danger, and when at Venice painted with his shield and
poniard lying beside him. As long as Pordenone lived,
Titian had a spur to exertion, to emulation. All the other
good painters of the time, Palma, Bonifazio, Tintoretto,
were his pupils or his creatures; Pordenone would never
owe anything to him; and the picture called the St. Justina,
at Vienna, shows that he could equal Titian on his own
ground.
After the death of Pordenone at Ferrara, in 1539, Titian
was left without a rival. Everywhere in Italy art was on
the decline: Lionardo, Raphael, Correggio, had all passed
away. Titian himself, at the age of sixty, was no longer
young, but he still retained all the vigor and the freshness
of youth; neither eye nor hand, nor creative energy of mind
had failed him yet. He was again invited to Ferrara, and
painted there the portrait of the old Pope Paul III. He
then visited Urbino, where he painted for the Duke the famous
Venus which hangs in the Tribune of the Florence Gallery,
and many other pictures. He again, by order of Charles
V., repaired to Bologna, and painted the Emperor, standing,
and by his side a favorite Irish wolf-dog. This picture was
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given by Philip IV. to Charles I. of England, but after his
death was sold into Spain, and is now at Madrid.
Pope Paul III. invited him to Rome, whither he repaired
in 1548. There he painted that wonderful picture of the
old Pope with his two nephews, the Duke Ottavio and Cardinal
Farnese, which is now at Vienna. The head of the
Pope is a miracle of character and expression. A keen-visaged,
thin little man, with meagre fingers like birds' claws,
and an eager cunning look, riveting the gazer like the eye of
a snake, — nature itself! — and the Pope had either so little
or so much vanity as to be perfectly satisfied. He rewarded
the painter munificently; he even offered to make his son
Pomponio Bishop of Ceneda, which Titian had the good
sense to refuse. While at Rome he painted several pictures
for the Farnese family, among them the Venus and
Adonis, of which a repetition is in the National Gallery,
and a Danaë which excited the admiration of Michael Angelo.
At this time Titian was seventy-two.
He next, by command of Charles V., repaired to Augsburg,
where the Emperor held his court: eighteen years
had elapsed since he first sat to Titian, and he was now
broken by the cares of government, — far older at fifty than
the painter at seventy-two. It was at Augsburg that the
incident occurred which has been so often related: Titian
dropped his pencil, and Charles, taking it up and presenting
it, replied to the artist's excuses that “Titian was worthy of
being served by Cæsar.” This pretty anecdote is not without
its parallel in modern times. When Sir Thomas Lawrence
was painting at Aix-la-Chapelle, as he stooped to place
a picture on his easel, the Emperor of Russia anticipated him,
and, taking it up, adjusted it himself; but we do not hear
that he made any speech on the occasion. When at Augsburg,
Titian was ennobled and created a count of the empire,
with a pension of two hundred gold ducats, and his son
Pomponio was appointed canon of the cathedral of Milan.
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After the abdication and death of Charles V., Titian continued
in great favor with his successor Philip II., for whom
he painted several pictures. It is not true, however, that
Titian visited Spain. The assertion that he did so rests on
the sole authority of Palomino, a Spanish writer on art, and,
though wholly unsupported by evidence, has been copied
from one book into another. Later researches have proved
that Titian returned from Augsburg to Venice; and an
uninterrupted series of letters and documents, with dates of
time and place, remain to show that, with the exception of
this visit to Augsburg and another to Vienna, he resided
constantly in Italy, and principally at Venice, from 1530 to
his death. Notwithstanding the compliments and patronage
and nominal rewards he received from the Spanish court,
Titian was worse off under Philip II. than he had been
under Charles V.: his pension was constantly in arrears;
the payments for his pictures evaded by the officials; and
we find the great painter constantly presenting petitions
and complaints in moving terms, which always obtained gracious
but illusive answers. Philip II., who commanded the
riches of the Indies, was for many years a debtor to Titian
for at least two thousand gold crowns; and his accounts
were not settled at the time of his death. For Queen
Mary of England, who wished to patronize one favored by
her husband, Titian painted several pictures, some of which
were in the possession of Charles I.; others had been carried
to Spain after the death of Mary, and are now in the
Royal Gallery at Madrid.
Besides the pictures painted by command for royal and
noble patrons, Titian, who was unceasingly occupied, had
always a great number of pictures in his house which he
presented to his friends, or to the officers and attendants of
the court, as a means of procuring their favor. There is
extant a letter of Aretino, in which he describes the scene
which took place when the Emperor summoned his favorite
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painter to attend the court at Augsburg. “It was,” he
says, “the most flattering testimony to his excellence to
behold, as soon as it was known that the divine painter was
sent for, the crowds of people running to obtain, if possible,
the productions of his art; and how they endeavored to
purchase the pictures, great and small, and everything that
was in the house, at any price; for everybody seems assured
that his august majesty will so treat his Apelles that he
will no longer condescend to exercise his pencil except to
oblige him.”
Years passed on, and seemed to have no power to quench
the ardor of this wonderful old man. He was eighty-one
when he painted the Martyrdom of St. Laurence, one of
his largest and grandest compositions. The Magdalen, the
half-length figure with uplifted streaming eyes, which he
sent to Philip II., was executed even later; and it was not
till he was approaching his ninetieth year that he showed
in his works symptoms of enfeebled powers; and then it
seemed as if sorrow rather than time had reached him and
conquered him at last. The death of many friends, the
companions of his convivial hours, left him “alone in his
glory.” He found in his beloved art the only refuge from
grief. His son Pomponio was still the same worthless
profligate in age that he had been in youth. His son Orazio
attended upon him with truly filial duty and affection, and
under his father's tuition had become an accomplished artist;
but as they always worked together, and on the same canvas,
his works are not to be distinguished from his father's.
Titian was likewise surrounded by painters who, without
being precisely his scholars, had assembled from every part
of Europe to profit by his instructions. The early morning
and the evening hour found him at his easel; or lingering
in his little garden (where he had feasted with Aretino and
Sansovino, and Bembo and Ariosto, and “the most gracious
Virginia,” and “the most beautiful Violante”), and gazing
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on the setting sun, with a thought perhaps of his own long
and bright career fast hastening to its close; — not that such
anticipations clouded his cheerful spirit, — buoyant to the
last! In 1574, when he was in his ninety-seventh year,
Henry III. of France landed at Venice on his way from
Poland, and was magnificently entertained by the Republic.
On this occasion the King visited Titian at his own house,
attended by a numerous suite of princes and nobles. Titian
entertained them with splendid hospitality; and when the
King asked the price of some pictures which pleased him,
he presented them as a gift to his Majesty, and every one
praised his easy and noble manners and his generous
bearing.
Two years more passed away, and the hand did not yet
tremble nor was the eye dim. When the plague broke
out in Venice, the nature of the distemper was at first mistaken,
and the most common precautions neglected; the
contagion spread, and Titian and his son were among those
who perished. Every one had fled, and before life was
extinct some ruffians entered his chamber and carried off,
before his eyes, his money, jewels, and some of his pictures.
His death took place on the 9th of September, 1575. A
law had been made during the plague that none should be
buried in the churches, but that all the dead bodies should
be carried beyond the precincts of the city; an exception,
however, even in that hour of terror and anguish, was made
in favor of Titian. His remains were borne with honor to
the tomb, and deposited in the Church of Santa Maria de'
Frari, for which he had painted his famous Assumption.
There he lies beneath a plain black marble slab, on which
is simply inscribed,
“TIZIANO VECELLIO.”
In the year 1794 the citizens of Venice resolved to erect
a noble and befitting monument to his memory. Canova
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made the design; — but the troubles which intervened, and
the extinction of the Republic, prevented the execution of
this project. Canova's magnificent model was appropriated
to another purpose, and now forms the cenotaph of the
Archduchess Christina, in the Church of the Augustines
at Vienna.
This was the life and death of the famous Titian. He
was pre-eminently the painter of nature; but to him nature
was clothed in a perpetual garb of beauty, or rather to him
nature and beauty were one. In historical compositions
and sacred subjects he has been rivalled and surpassed,
but as a portrait painter never; and his portraits of celebrated
persons have at once the truth and the dignity of
history.
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THE POET'S HEART. By FREDERICK TENNYSON.
I.
WHEN the Poet's heart is dead,
That with fragrance, light, and sound,
Like a Summer-day was fed,
Where, O, where shall it be found, —
In Sea, or Air, or underground?
II.
It shall be a sunny place;
An urn of odors; a still well,
Upon whose undisturbed face
The lights of Heaven shall love to dwell,
And its far depths make visible.
III.
It shall be a crimson flower
That in Fairyland hath thriven;
For dew a gentle Sprite shall pour
Tears of Angels down from Heaven,
And hush the winds at morn and even.
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IV.
It shall be on some fair morn
A swift and many-voiced wind,
Singing down the skies of June,
And with its breath and gladsome tune
Send joy into the heart and mind.
V.
It shall be a fountain springing,
Far up into the happy light,
With a silver carol ringing,
With a magic motion flinging
Its jocund waters, starry-bright.
VI.
It shall be a tiny thing
Whose breath is in it for a day,
To fold at Eve its weary wing,
And at the dewfall die away
On some pure air, or golden ray,
VII.
Falling in a violet-bloom;
Tombed in a sphere of pearly rain;
Its blissful ghost a wild perfume
To come forth with the Morn again,
And wander through an infant's brain;
VIII.
And the pictures it should set
In that temple of Delight
Would make the tearless cherub fret
With its first longing for a sight
Of things beyond the Day and Night.
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IX.
But one moment of its span
Should thicker grow with blissful things
Than any days of mortal Man,
Or his years of Sorrow can,
Though beggars should be crowned kings.
X.
It shall be a tuneful voice
Falling on a Lover's ear,
Enough to make his heart rejoice
For evermore, or far, or near,
In dreams that swallow hope and fear.
XI.
It shall be a chord divine
By Mercy out of Heaven hung forth,
Along whose trembling, airy line
A dying Saint shall hear on earth
Triumphant songs, and harped mirth!
XII.
It shall be a wave forlorn
That o 'er the vast and fearful Sea
In troubled pride and beauty borne
From winged storms shall vainly flee
And seek for rest where none shall be.
XIII.
It shall be a mountain Tree,
Thro' whose great arms the winds shall blow
Louder than the roaring Sea,
And toss its plumed head to and fro;
But a thousand flowers shall live below.
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XIV.
It shall be a kingly Star
That o'er a thousand Suns shall burn
Where the high Sabaoth are,
And round its glory flung afar
A mighty host shall swiftly turn.
XV.
All things of beauty it shall be —
All things of power — of joy — of fear;
But out of bliss and agony
It shall come forth more pure and free,
And sing a song more sweet to hear.
XVI.
For methinks, when it hath passed
Thro' wondrous Nature's world-wide reign,
Perchance it may come home at last,
And the old Earth may hear again
Its lofty voice of Joy and Pain.
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Gloria in Excelsis Deo.
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CHARACTER OF FRA ANGELICO. By GIORGIO VASARI.
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FRA ANGELICO was a man of the utmost simplicity
of intention, and was most holy in every act of his
life. It is related of him, and it is a good evidence of his
simple earnestness of purpose, that being one morning invited
to breakfeast by Pope Nicholas V., he had scruples of conscience
as to eating meat without the permission of his prior,
not considering that the authority of the pontiff was super-seding
that of the prior. He disregarded all earthly advantages;
and, living in pure holiness, was as much the friend
of the poor in life as I believe his soul now is in heaven.
He labored continually at his paintings, but would do nothing
that was not connected with things holy. He might
have been rich, but for riches he took no care; on the contrary
he was accustomed to say, that the only true riches
was contentment with little. He might have commanded
many, but would not do so, declaring that there was less
fatigue and less danger of error in obeying others, than in
commanding others. It was at his option to hold places of
dignity in the brotherhood of his order, and also in the
world; but he regarded them not, affirming that he sought
no dignity and took no care but that of escaping hell and
drawing near to Paradise. And of a truth what dignity
can be compared to that which should be most coveted by
all Churchmen, nay, by every man living, that, namely,
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which is found in God alone, and in a life of virtuous
labor?
Fra Angelico was kindly to all, and moderate in all his
habits, living temperately, and holding himself entirely apart
from the snares of the world. He used frequently to say,
that he who practised the art of painting had need of quiet,
and should live without cares or anxious thoughts; adding,
that he who would do the work of Christ should perpetually
remain with Christ. He was never seen to display anger
among the brethren of his order; a thing which appears to
me most extraordinary, nay, almost incredible; if he admonished
his friends, it was with gentleness and a quiet smile;
and to those who sought his works, he would reply with the
utmost cordiality, that they had but to obtain the assent of
the prior, when he would assuredly not fail to do what they
desired. In fine, this never sufficiently to be lauded father
was most humble, modest, and excellent in all his words
and works; in his painting he gave evidence of piety and
devotion, as well as of ability, and the saints that he painted
have more of the air and expression of sanctity than have
those of any other master.
It was the custom of Fra Angelico to abstain from retouching
or improving any painting once finished. He
altered nothing, but left all as it was done the first time,
believing, as he said, that such was the will of God. It is
also affirmed that he would never take the pencil in hand
until he had first offered a prayer. He is said never to
have painted a Crucifix without tears streaming from his
eyes, and in the countenances and attitudes of his figures it
is easy to perceive proof of his sincerity, his goodness, and
the depth of his devotion to the religion of Christ.
He died in 1455, at the age of sixty-eight.
-- -- p559-332
SONGS. By WILLIAM BLAKE.
I give you the end of a golden string
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate,
Built in Jerusalem wall.
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I.
MY SILKS AND FINE ARRAY:
MY silks and fine array,
My smiles and languished air,
By love are driven away.
And mournful, lean Despair
Brings me yew to deck my grave:
Such end true lovers have.
His face is fair as heaven
When springing buds unfold;
O, why to him was 't given,
Whose heart is wintry cold?
His breast is Love's all-worshipped tomb
Where all love's pilgrims come.
Bring me an axe and spade,
Bring me a winding-sheet;
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When I my grave have made,
Let winds and tempests beat:
Then down I 'll lie, as cold as clay.
True love doth pass away!
II.
THE FIRST SONG OF INNOCENCE.
Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he, laughing, said to me:
“Pipe a song about a Lamb!”
So I piped with merry cheer
“Piper, pipe that song again”;
So I piped: he wept to hear
“Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe:
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!”
So I sang the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.
“Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read.”
So he vanished from my sight,
And I plucked a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.
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III.
THE LITTLE BLACK BOY.
My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O, my soul is white.
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.
My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And, sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissèd me,
And, pointing to the East, began to say:
“Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives this light, and gives His heat away;
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.
“And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love;
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
“For when our souls have learned the heat to bear,
The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
Saying, `Come out from the grove, my love and care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.'”
Thus did my mother say, and kissèd me,
And thus I say to little English boy:
When I from black, and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy;
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I 'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
And then I 'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.
IV.
THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER.
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry, “Weep! weep! weep! weep!”
So your chimneys I sweep and in soot I sleep.
There 's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said,
“Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head 's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.”
And so he was quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight;
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.
And by came an angel, who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he 'd be a good boy,
He 'd have God for his father, and never want joy.
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And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work:
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:
So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
V.
THE DIVINE IMAGE.
To mercy, pity, peace, and love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
For mercy, pity, peace, and love,
Is God our Father dear;
And mercy, pity, peace, and love,
Is man, His child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart;
Pity, a human face;
And Love, the human form divine;
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine:
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where mercy, love, and pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too.
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VI.
ON ANOTHER'S SORROW.
Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No! no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
And can He, who smiles on all,
Hear the wren, with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird's grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear?
And not sit beside the nest,
Pouring Pity in their breast?
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant's tear?
And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
O, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
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He doth give his joy to all:
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too.
Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.
O, He gives to us his joy,
That our griefs He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled and gone,
He doth sit by us and moan.
VII.
THE TIGER.
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Framed thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burned that fire within thine eyes?
On what wings dared he aspire?
What the hand dared seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
When thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand formed thy dread feet?
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What the hammer, what the chain,
Knit thy strength and forged thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dared thy deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
VIII.
A LITTLE BOY LOST.
“Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know.
“And, Father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.”
The Priest sat by and heard the child;
In trembling zeal he seized his hair,
He led him by his little coat,
And all admired the priestly care
And standing on the altar high,
“Lo! what a fiend is here,” said he,
“One who sets reason up for judge
Of our most holy Mystery.”
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The weeping child could not be heard,
The weeping parents wept in vain,
They stripped him to his little shirt,
And bound him in an iron chain,
And burned him in a holy place
Where many had been burned before;
The weeping parents wept in vain.
Are such things done on Albion's shore?
IX
SMILE AND FROWN.
There is a smile of Love,
And there is a smile of Deceit,
And there is a smile of smiles
In which the two smiles meet.
And there is a frown of Hate,
And there is a frown of Disdain,
And there is a frown of frowns
Which you strive to forget in vain;
For it sticks in the heart's deep core,
And it sticks in the deep backbone.
And no smile ever was smiled
But only one smile alone.
(And betwixt the cradle and grave
It only once smiled can be,)
That when it once is smiled
There 's an end to all misery.
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X.
OPPORTUNITY.
He who bends to himself a joy
Does the wingèd life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.
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UPON GROWING OLD. By J. HAIN FRISWELL.
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JOHN FOSTER, (he who sprung into celebrity from
one essay, Popular Ignorance,) had a diseased feeling
against growing old, which seems to us to be very prevalent.
He was sorry to lose every parting hour. “I have seen a
fearful sight to-day,” he would say, — “I have seen a buttercup.”
To others the sight would only give visions of the
coming spring and future summer; to him it told of the
past year, the last Christmas, the days which would never
come again, — the so many days nearer the grave. Thackeray
continually expressed the same feeling. He reverts
to the merry old time when George the Third was king.
He looks back with a regretful mind to his own youth.
The black Care constantly rides behind his chariot. “Ah,
my friends,” he says, “how beautiful was youth! We are
growing old. Spring-time and summer are past. We near
the winter of our days. We shall never feel as we have
felt. We approach the inevitable grave.” Few men, indeed,
know how to grow old gracefully as Madame de Staël
very truly observed. There is an unmanly sadness at leaving
off the old follies and the old games. We all hate fogeyism.
Dr. Johnson, great and good as he was, had a touch
of this regret, and we may pardon him for the feeling. A
youth spent in poverty and neglect, a manhood consumed
in unceasing struggle, are not preparatives to growing old in
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peace. We fancy that, after a stormy morning and a lowering
day, the evening should have a sunset glow, and, when
the night sets in, look back with regret at the “gusty, babbling,
and remorseless day”; but if we do so, we miss the
supporting faith of the Christian and the manly cheerfulness
of the heathen. To grow old is quite natural; being
natural, it is beautiful; and if we grumble at it, we miss
the lesson, and lose all the beauty.
Half of our life is spent in vain regrets. When we are
boys we ardently wish to be men; when men we wish as
ardently to be boys. We sing sad songs of the lapse of
time. We talk of “auld lang syne,” of the days when we
were young, of gathering shells on the sea-shore and throwing
them carelessly away. We never cease to be sentimental
upon past youth and lost manhood and beauty. Yet
there are no regrets so false, and few half so silly. Perhaps
the saddest sight in the world is to see an old lady,
wrinkled and withered, dressing, talking, and acting like a
very young one, and forgetting all the time, as she clings to
the feeble remnant of the past, that there is no sham so
transparent as her own, and that people, instead of feeling
with her, are laughing at her. Old boys disguise their foibles
a little better; but they are equally ridiculous. The
feeble protests which they make against the flying chariot
of Time are equally futile. The great Mower enters the
field, and all must come down. To stay him would be impossible.
We might as well try with a finger to stop
Ixion's wheel, or to dam up the current of the Thames with
a child's foot.
Since the matter is inevitable, we may as well sit down
and reason it out. Is it so dreadful to grow old? Does old
age need its apologies and its defenders? Is it a benefit or
a calamity? Why should it be odious and ridiculous? An
old tree is picturesque, an old castle venerable, an old cathedral
inspires awe, — why should man be worse than his
works?
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Let us, in the first place, see what youth is. Is it so
blessed and happy and flourishing as it seems to us?
Schoolboys do not think so. They always wish to be
older. You cannot insult one of them more than by telling
him that he is a year or two younger than he is. He
fires up at once: “Twelve, did you say, sir? No, I 'm
fourteen.” But men and women who have reached twenty-eight
do not thus add to their years. Amongst schoolboys,
notwithstanding the general tenor of those romancists who
see that everything young bears a rose-colored blush, misery
is prevalent enough. Emerson, Coleridge, Wordsworth,
were each and all unhappy boys. They all had their rebuffs,
and bitter, bitter troubles; all the more bitter because
their sensitiveness was so acute. Suicide is not unknown
amongst the young; fears prey upon them and terrify them;
ignorances and follies surround them. Arriving at manhood,
we are little better off. If we are poor, we mark the difference
between the rich and us; we see position gains all the
day. If we are as clever as Hamlet, we grow just as philosophically
disappointed. If we love, we can only be sure of
a brief pleasure, — an April day. Love has its bitterness.
“It is,” says Ovid, an adept in the matter, “full of anxious
fear.” We fret and fume at the authority of the wise
heads; we have an intense idea of our own talent. We
believe calves of our own age to be as big and as valuable
as full-grown bulls; we envy whilst we jest at the old.
We cry, with the puffed-up hero of the Patrician's Daughter —
“It may be by the calendar of years
You are the elder man; but 't is the sun
Of knowledge on the mind's dial shining bright,
And chronicling deeds and thoughts, that makes true time.”
And yet life is withal very unhappy, whether we live
amongst the grumbling captains of the clubs, who are ever
seeking and not finding promotion; amongst ths
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struggling authors and rising artists who never rise; or among
the young men who are full of riches, titles, places, and
honor, who have every wish fulfilled, and are miserable
because they have nothing to wish for. Thus the young
Romans killed themselves after the death of their emperor,
not for grief, not for affection, not even for the fashion of
suicide, which grew afterwards prevalent enough, but from
the simple weariness of doing everything over and over
again. Old age has passed such stages as these, landed on
a safer shore, and matriculated in a higher college, in a
purer air. We do not sigh for impossibilities; we cry
not —
“Bring these anew, and set me once again
In the delusion of life's infancy;
I was not happy, but I knew not then
That happy I was never doomed to be.”
We know that we are not happy. We know that life
perhaps was not given us to be continuously comfortable
and happy. We have been behind the scenes, and know
all the illusions; but when we are old we are far too wise to
throw life away for mere ennui. With Dandolo, refusing a
crown at ninety-six, winning battles at ninety-four; with
Wellington, planning and superintending fortifications at
eighty; with Bacon and Humboldt, students to the last
gasp; with wise old Montaigne, shrewd in his gray-beard
wisdom and loving life, even in the midst of his fits of gout
and colic, — Age knows far too much to act like a sulky
child. It knows too well the results and the value of
things to care about them; that the ache will subside, the
pain be lulled, the estate we coveted be worth little; the
titles, ribbons, gewgaws, honors, be all more or less worthless.
“Who has honor? He that died o' Wednesday!”
Such a one passed us in the race, and gained it but to fall.
We are still up and doing; we may be frosty and shrewd,
but kindly. We can wish all men well; like them, too, so
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far as they may be liked, and smile at the fuss, bother, hurry,
and turmoil, which they make about matters which to us are
worthless dross. The greatest prize in the whole market —
in any and in every market — success, is to the old man
nothing. He little cares who is up and who is down; the
present he lives in and delights in. Thus, in one of those
admirable comedies in which Robson acted, we find the son
a wanderer, the mother's heart nearly broken, the father
torn and broken by a suspicion of his son's dishonesty, but
the grandfather all the while concerned only about his gruel
and his handkerchief. Even the pains and troubles incident
to his state visit the old man lightly. Because Southey sat
for months in his library, unable to read or touch the books
he loved, we are not to infer that he was unhappy. If the
stage darkens as the curtain falls, certain it also is that the
senses grow duller and more blunted. “Don't cry for me,
my dear,” said an old lady undergoing an operation; “I do
not feel it.”
It seems to us, therefore, that a great deal of unnecessary
pity has been thrown away upon old age. We begin at
school reading Cicero's treatise, hearing him talk with Scipio
and Lælius; we hear much about poor old men; we are
taught to admire the vigor, quickness, and capacity of youth
and manhood. We lose sight of the wisdom which age
brings even to the most foolish. We think that a circumscribed
sphere must necessarily be an unhappy one. It is
not always so. What one abandons in growing old is perhaps
after all not worth having. The chief part of youth is
but excitement; often both unwise and unhealthy. The
same pen which has written, with a morbid feeling, that
“there is a class of beings who do grow old in their youth
and die ere middle age,” tells us also that “the best of life is
but intoxication.” That passes away. The man who has
grown old does not care about it. The author at that period
has no feverish excitement about seeing himself in print;
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he does not hunt newspapers for reviews and notices. He
is content to wait; he knows what fame is worth. The
obscure man of science, who has been wishing to make the
world better and wiser; the struggling curate, the poor and
hard-tried man of God; the enthusiastic reformer, who has
watched the sadly slow dawning of progress and liberty;
the artist, whose dream of beauty slowly fades before his
dim eyes — all lay down their feverish wishes as they
advance in life, forget the bright ideal which they cannot
reach, and embrace the more imperfect real. We speak not
here of the assured Christian. He, from the noblest pinnacle
of faith, beholds a promised land, and is eager to reach
it; he prays “to be delivered from the body of this death”;
but we write of those humbler, perhaps more human souls,
with whom increasing age each day treads down an illusion.
All feverish wishes, raw and inconclusive desires,
have died down, and a calm beauty and peace survive;
passions are dead, temptations weakened or conquered;
experience has been won; selfish interests are widened
into universal ones; vain, idle hopes, have merged into a
firmer faith or a complete knowledge; and more light
has broken in upon the soul's dark cottage, battered and
decayed, “through chinks which Time has made.”
Again, old men are valuable, not only as relics of the
past, but as guides and prophets for the future. They know
the pattern of every turn of life's kaleidoscope. The colors
merely fall into new shapes; the groundwork is just the
same. The good which a calm, kind, and cheerful old man
can do is incalculable. And whilst he does good to others,
he enjoys himself. He looks not unnaturally to that which
should accompany old age — honor, love, obedience, troops
of friends; and he plays his part in the comedy or tragedy
of life with as much gusto as any one else. Old Montague
or Capulet, and old Polonius, that wise maxim-man, enjoy
themselves quite as well as the moody Hamlet, the perturbed
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Laertes, or even gallant Mercutio or love-sick Romeo.
Friar Lawrence, who is a good old man, is perhaps the
happiest of all in the dramatis personæ, — unless we take
the gossiping, garrulous old nurse, with her sunny recollections
of maturity and youth. The great thing is to have
the mind well employed, to work whilst it is yet day. The
precise Duke of Wellington, answering every letter with
“F. M. presents his compliments”; the wondrous worker
Humboldt, with his orders of knighthood, stars, and ribbons,
lying dusty in his drawer, still contemplating Cosmos, and
answering his thirty letters a day, — were both men in exceedingly
enviable, happy positions; they had reached the
top of the hill, and could look back quietly over the rough
road which they had travelled. We are not all Humboldts
or Wellingtons; but we can all be busy and good. Experience
must teach us all a great deal; and if it only teaches
us not to fear the future, not to cast a maundering regret
over the past, we can be as happy in old age — ay, and far
more so — than we were in youth. We are no longer the
fools of time and error. We are leaving by slow degrees
the old world; we stand upon the threshold of the new;
not without hope, but without fear, in an exceedingly natural
position, with nothing strange or dreadful about it; with
our domain drawn within a narrow circle, but equal to our
power. Muscular strength, organic instincts, are all gone;
but what then? We do not want them; we are getting
ready for the great change, one which is just as necessary
as it was to be born; and to a little child perhaps one is not
a whit more painful, — perhaps not so painful as the other.
The wheels of Time have brought us to the goal; we are
about to rest while others labor, to stay at home while
others wander. We touch at last the mysterious door, —
are we to be pitied or to be envied?
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THE TITMOUSE. By R. W. EMERSON.
YOU shall not be over-bold
When you deal with arctic cold,
As late I found my lukewarm blood
Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood.
How should I fight? my foeman fine
Has million arms to one of mine.
East, west, for aid I looked in vain;
East, west, north, south, are his domain.
Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home;
Must borrow his winds who there would come.
Up and away for life! be fleet!
The frost-king ties my fumbling feet,
Sings in my ears, my hands are stones,
Curdles the blood to the marble bones,
Tugs at the heartstrings, numbs the sense,
Hems in the life with narrowing fence.
Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,
The punctual stars will vigil keep,
Enbalmed by purifying cold,
The winds shall sing their dead-march old,
The snow is no ignoble shroud,
The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.
Softly, — but this way fate was pointing,
'T was coming fast to such anointing,
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When piped a tiny voice hard by,
Gay and polite, a cheerful cry,
“Chic-chic-a-dee-dee!” saucy note,
Out of sound heart and merry throat,
As if it said, “Good day, good sir!
Fine afternoon, old passenger!
Happy to meet you in these places,
Where January brings few men's faces.”
This poet, though he live apart,
Moved by a hospitable heart,
Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort,
To do the honors of his court,
As fits a feathered lord of land,
Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand,
Hopped on the bough, then, darting low,
Prints his small impress on the snow,
Shows feats of his gymnastic play,
Head downward, clinging to the spray.
Here was this atom in full breath
Hurling defiance at vast death,
This scrap of valor just for play
Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray,
As if to shame my weak behavior.
I greeted loud my little saviour:
“Thou pet! what dost here? and what for?
In these woods, thy small Labrador
At this pinch, wee San Salvador!
What fire burns in that little chest,
So frolic, stout, and self-possest?
Didst steal the glow that lights the West?
Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine:
Ashes and black all hues outshine.
Why are not diamonds black and gray,
To ape thy dare-devil array?
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And I affirm the spacious North
Exists to draw thy virtue forth.
I think no virtue goes with size:
The reason of all cowardice
Is, that men are overgrown,
And, to be valiant, must come down
To the titmouse dimension.”
'T is good-will makes intelligence,
And I began to catch the sense
Of my bird's song: “Live out of doors,
In the great woods, and prairie floors.
I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea,
I, too, have a hole in a hollow tree.
And I like less when summer beats
With stifling beams on these retreats
Than noontide twilight which snow makes
With tempest of the blinding flakes:
For well the soul, if stout within,
Can arm impregnably the skin;
And polar frost my frame defied,
Made of the air that blows outside.”
With glad remembrance of my debt,
I homeward turn. Farewell, my pet!
When here again thy pilgrim comes,
He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs.
Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant
O'er all that mass and minster vaunt:
For men mishear thy call in spring,
As 't would accost some frivolous wing,
Crying out of the hazel copse, “Phe—be!”
And in winter “Chic-a-dee-dee!”
I think old Cæsar must have heard
In Northern Gaul my dauntless bird,
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And, echoed in some frosty wold,
Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold.
And I shall write our annals new,
And thank thee for a better clew:
I, who dreamed not, when I came here,
To find the antidote of fear,
Now hear thee say in Roman key,
“Pæan! Ve-ni, Vi-di, Vi-ci.”
-- -- p559-357
LITTLE PANSIE. A FRAGMENT. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
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DOCTOR DOLLIVER, a worthy personage of extreme
antiquity, was aroused rather prematurely, one
summer morning, by the shouts of the child Pansie, in an
adjoining chamber, summoning Old Martha (who performed
the duties of nurse, housekeeper, and kitchen-maid, in the
Doctor's establishment) to take up her little ladyship and
dress her. The old gentleman woke with more than his customary
alacrity, and, after taking a moment to gather his
wits about him, pulled aside the faded moreen curtains of
his ancient bed, and thurst his head into a beam of sunshine
that caused him to wink and withdraw it again. This transitory
glimpse of good Dr. Dolliver showed a flannel night-cap,
fringed round with stray locks of silvery white hair,
and surmounting a meagre and duskily yellow visage, which
was crossed and criss-crossed with a record of his long life
in wrinkles, faithfully written, no doubt, but with such
cramped chirography of Father Time that the purport was
illegible. It seemed hardly worth while for the patriarch
to get out of bed any more, and bring his forlorn shadow
into the summer day that was made for younger folks. The
Doctor, however, was by no means of that opinion, being considerably
encouraged towards the toil of living twenty-four
hours longer by the comparative ease with which he found
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himself going through the usually painful process of bestirring
his rusty joints, (stiffened by the very rest and sleep that
should have made them pliable,) and putting them in a
condition to bear his weight upon the floor. Nor was he
absolutely disheartened by the idea of those tonsorial, ablutionary,
and personally decorative labors which are apt to
become so intolerably irksome to an old gentleman, after
performing them daily and daily for fifty, sixty, or seventy
years, and finding them still as immitigably recurrent as at
first. Dr. Dolliver could nowise account for this happy
condition of his spirits and physical energies, until he
remembered taking an experimental sip of a certain cordial
which was long ago prepared by his grandson and carefully
sealed up in a bottle, and had been reposited in a dark closet
among a parcel of effete medicines ever since that gifted
young man's death.
“It may have wrought effect upon me,” thought the Doctor,
shaking his head as he lifted it again from the pillow.
“It may be so; for poor Cornelius oftentimes instilled a
strange efficacy into his perilous drugs. But I will rather
believe it to be the operation of God's mercy, which may
have temporarily invigorated my feeble age for little Pansie's
sake.”
A twinge of his familiar rheumatism, as he put his foot
out of bed, taught him that he must not reckon too confidently
upon even a day's respite from the intrusive family
of aches and infirmities which, with their proverbial fidelity
to attachments once formed, had long been the closest acquaintances
that the poor old gentleman had in the world.
Nevertheless, he fancied the twinge a little less poignant
than those of yesterday; and, moreover, after stinging him
pretty smartly, it passed gradually off with a thrill, which,
in its latter stages, grew to be almost agreeable. Pain is
but pleasure too strongly emphasized. With cautious movements,
and only a groan or two, the good Doctor transferred
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himself from the bed to the floor, where he stood awhile,
gazing from one piece of quaint furniture to another, (such
as stiff-backed Mayflower chairs, an oaken chest-of-drawers
carved cunningly with shapes of animals and wreaths of
foliage, a table with multitudinous legs, a family-record in
faded embroidery, a shelf of black-bound books, a dirty
heap of gallipots and phials in a dim corner,) — gazing at
these things and steadying himself by the bedpost, while
his inert brain, still partially benumbed with sleep, came
slowly into accordance with the realities about him. The
object which most helped to bring Dr. Dolliver completely
to his waking perceptions was one that common observers
might suppose to have been snatched bodily out of his
dreams. The same sunbeam that had dazzled the Doctor
between the bed-curtains gleamed on the weather-beaten
gilding which had once adorned this mysterious symbol, and
showed it to be an enormous serpent, twining round a wooden
post, and reaching quite from the floor of the chamber to
its ceiling.
It was evidently a thing that could boast of considerable
antiquity, the dry-rot having eaten out its eyes and gnawed
away the tip of its tail; and it must have stood long exposed
to the atmosphere, for a kind of gray moss had partially
overspread its tarnished gilt surface, and a swallow, or
other familiar little bird, in some by-gone summer, seemed
to have built its nest in the yawning and exaggerated
mouth. It looked like a kind of Manichean idol, which
might have been elevated on a pedestal for a century or so,
enjoying the worship of its votaries in the open air, until
the impious sect perished from among men, — all save old
Dr. Dolliver, who had set up the monster in his bedchamber
for the convenience of private devotion. But we are unpardonable
in suggesting such a fantasy to the prejudice of
our venerable friend, knowing him to have been as pious
and upright a Christian, and with as little of the serpent in
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his character, as ever came of Puritan lineage. Not to
make a further mystery about a very simple matter, this
bedimmed and rotten reptile was once the medical emblem
or apothecary's sign of the famous Dr. Swinnerton, who
practised physic in the earlier days of New England, when a
head of Æsculapius or Hippocrates would have vexed the
souls of the righteous as savoring of heathendom. The
ancient dispenser of drugs had therefore set up an image of
the Brazen Serpent, and followed his business for many
years, with great credit under this Scriptural device; and
Dr. Dolliver, being the apprentice, pupil, and humble friend
of the learned Swinnerton's old age, had inherited the symbolic
snake, and much other valuable property, by his bequest.
While the patriarch was putting on his small-clothes, he
took care to stand in the parallelogram of bright sunshine
that fell upon the uncarpeted floor. The summer warmth
was very genial to his system, and yet made him shiver;
his wintry veins rejoiced at it, though the reviving blood
tingled through them with a half painful and only half
pleasurable titillation. For the first few moments after
creeping out of bed, he kept his back to the sunny window
and seemed mysteriously shy of glancing thitherward; but
as the June fervor pervaded him more and more thoroughly,
he turned bravely about, and looked forth at a burial-ground
on the corner of which he dwelt. There lay many an old
acquaintance, who had gone to sleep with the flavor of Dr.
Dolliver's tinctures and powders upon his tongue; it was
the patient's final bitter taste of this world, and perhaps
doomed to be a recollected nauseousness in the next. Yesterday,
in the chill of his forlorn old age, the Doctor expected
soon to stretch out his weary bones among that quiet
community, and might scarcely have shrunk from the prospect
on his own account, except, indeed, that he dreamily
mixed up the infirmities of his present condition with the
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repose of the approaching one, being haunted by a notion
that the damp earth, under the grass and dandelions, must
needs be pernicious for his cough and his rheumatism. But,
this morning, the cheerful sunbeams, or the mere taste of
his grandson's cordial that he had taken at bedtime, or the
fitful vigor that often sports irreverently with aged people,
had caused an unfrozen drop of youthfulness, somewhere
within him, to expand.
“Hem! ahem!” quoth the Doctor, hoping with one effort
to clear his throat of the dregs of a ten years' cough.
“Matters are not so far gone with me as I thought. I
have known mighty sensible men, when only a little age-stricken
or otherwise out of sorts, to die of mere faintheartedness,
a great deal sooner than they need.”
He shook his silvery head at his own image in the looking-glass,
as if to impress the apophthegm on that shadowy
representative of himself; and for his part, he determined
to pluck up a spirit and live as long as he possibly could, if
it were only for the sake of little Pansie, who stood as close
to one extremity of human life as her great-grandfather to
the other. This child of three years old occupied all the
unfossilized portion of good Dr. Dolliver's heart. Every
other interest that he formerly had, and the entire confraternity
of persons whom he once loved, had long ago
departed, and the poor Doctor could not follow them, because
the grasp of Pansie's baby-fingers held him back.
So he crammed a great silver watch into his fob, and
drew on a patchwork morning-gown of an ancient fashion.
Its original material was said to have been the embroidered
front of his own wedding-waistcoat and the silken skirt of
his wife's bridal attire, which his eldest granddaughter had
taken from the carved chest-of-drawers, after poor Bessie,
the beloved of his youth, had been half a century in the
grave. Throughout many of the intervening years, as the
garment got ragged, the spinsters of the old man's family
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had quilted their duty and affection into it in the shape of
patches upon patches, rose-color, crimson, blue, violet, and
green, and then (as their hopes faded, and their life kept
growing shadier, and their attire took a sombre hue) sober
gray and great fragments of funereal black, until the Doctor
could revive the memory of most things that had befallen
him by looking at his patchwork-gown, as it hung upon a
chair. And now it was ragged again, and all the fingers
that should have mended it were cold. It had an Eastern
fragrance, too, a smell of drugs, strong-scented herbs, and
spicy gums, gathered from the many potent infusions that
had from time to time been spilt over it; so that, snuffing
him afar off, you might have taken Dr. Dolliver for a mummy,
and could hardly have been undeceived by his shrunken
and torpid aspect, as he crept nearer.
Wrapt in his odorous and many-colored robe, he took
staff in hand and moved pretty vigorously to the head of
the staircase. As it was somewhat steep, and but dimly
lighted, he began cautiously to descend, putting his left hand
on the banister, and poking down his long stick to assist him
in making sure of the successive steps; and thus he became
a living illustration of the accuracy of Scripture, where it
describes the aged as being “afraid of that which is high,”—
a truth that is often found to have a sadder purport than
its external one. Half-way to the bottom, however, the
Doctor heard the impatient and authoritative tones of little
Pansie, — Queen Pansie, as she might fairly have been
styled, in reference to her position in the household, — calling
amain for grandpapa and breakfast. He was startled
into such perilous activity by the summons, that his heels
slid on the stairs, the slippers were shuffled off his feet, and
he saved himself from a tumble only by quickening his
pace, and coming down at almost a run.
“Mercy on my poor old bones!” mentally exclaimed the
Doctor, fancying himself fractured in fifty places. “Some
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of them are broken, surely, and methinks my heart has
leaped out of my mouth! What! all right? Well, well!
but Providence is kinder to me than I deserve, prancing
down this steep staircase like a kid of three months old!”
He bent stiffly to gather up his slippers and fallen staff;
and meanwhile Pansie had heard the tumult of her greatgrandfather's
descent, and was pounding against the door
of the breakfast-room in her haste to come at him. The
Doctor opened it, and there she stood, a rather pale and
large-eyed little thing, quaint in her aspect, as might well
be the case with a motherless child, dwelling in an uncheerful
house, with no other playmates than a decrepit old man
and a kitten, and no better atmosphere within-doors than
the odor of decayed apothecary's stuff, nor gayer neighborhood
than that of the adjacent burial-ground, where all her
relatives, from her great-grandmother downward, lay calling
to her, “Pansie, Pansie, it is bedtime!” even in the prime of
the summer morning. For those dead women-folk, especially
her mother and the whole row of maiden aunts and
grand-aunts, could not but be anxious about the child, knowing
that little Pansie would be far safer under a tuft of
dandelions than if left alone, as she soon must be, in this
difficult and deceitful world.
Yet, in spite of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks,
she seemed a healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity
of energetic movement in the impulsive capers with
which she welcomed her venerable progenitor. She shouted
out her satisfaction, moreover, (as her custom was, having
never had any over-sensitive auditors about her to tame
down her voice,) till even the Doctor's dull ears were full
of the clamor.
“Pansie, darling,” said Dr. Dolliver cheerily, patting her
brown hair with his tremulous fingers, “thou hast put some
of thine own friskiness into poor old grandfather, this fine
morning! Dost know, child, that he came near breaking his
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neck down-stairs at the sound of thy voice? What wouldst
thou have done then, little Pansie?”
“Kiss poor grandpapa and make him well!” answered
the child, remembering the Doctor's own mode of cure in
similar mishaps to herself. “It shall do poor grandpapa
good!” she added, putting up her mouth to apply the
remedy.
“Ah, little one, thou hast greater faith in thy medicines
than ever I had in my drugs,” replied the patriarch with a
giggle, surprised and delighted at his own readiness of
response. “But the kiss is good for my feeble old heart,
Pansie, though it might do little to mend a broken neck; so
give grandpapa another dose, and let us to breakfast.”
In this merry humor they sat down to the table, great-grandpapa
and Pansie side by side, and the kitten, as soon
appeared, making a third in the party. First, she showed
her mottled head out of Pansie's lap, delicately sipping milk
from the child's basin without rebuke; then she took post
on the old gentleman's shoulder, purring like a spinning-wheel,
trying her claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown,
and still more impressively reminding him of her
presence by putting out a paw to intercept a warmed-over
morsel of yesterday's chicken on its way to the Doctor's
mouth. After skilfully achieving this feat, she scrambled
down upon the breakfast-table and began to wash her face
and hands. Evidently, these companions were all three on
intimate terms, as was natural enough, since a great many
childish impulses were softly creeping back on the simpleminded
old man; insomuch that, if no worldly necessities
nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his remnant of life
might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the
early playtime of the kitten and the child. Old Dr. Dolliver
and his great-granddaughter (a ponderous title, which
seemed quite to overwhelm the tiny figure of Pansie) had
met one another at the two extremities of the life-circle:
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her sunrise served him for a sunset, illuminating his locks
of silver and hers of golden brown with a homogeneous
shimmer of twinkling light.
Little Pansie was the one earthly creature that inherited
a drop of the Dolliver blood. The Doctor's only child, poor
Bessie's offspring, had died the better part of a hundred
years before, and his grandchildren, a numerous and dimly
remembered brood, had vanished along his weary track in
their youth, maturity, or incipient age, till, hardly knowing
how it had all happened, he found himself tottering onward
with an infant's small fingers in his nerveless grasp. So
mistily did his dead progeny come and go in the patriarch's
decayed recollection, that this solitary child represented for
him the successive babyhoods of the many that had gone
before. The emotions of his early paternity came back to
him. She seemed the baby of a past age oftener than she
seemed Pansie. A whole family of grand-aunts, (one of
whom had perished in her cradle, never so mature as Pansie
now, another in her virgin bloom, another in autumnal maidenhood,
yellow and shrivelled, with vinegar in her blood,
and still another, a forlorn widow, whose grief outlasted
even its vitality, and grew to be merely a torpid habit, and
was saddest then,) — all their hitherto forgotten features
peeped through the face of the great-grandchild, and their
long inaudible voices sobbed, shouted, or laughed, in her
familiar tones. But it often happened to Dr. Dolliver, while
frolicking amid this throng of ghosts, where the one reality
looked no more vivid than its shadowy sisters, — it often
happened that his eyes filled with tears at a sudden perception
of what a sad and poverty-stricken old man he was,
already remote from his own generation, and bound to
stray farther onward as the sole playmate and protector of a
child!
As Dr. Dolliver, in spite of his advanced epoch of life, is
likely to remain a considerable time longer upon our hands,
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we deem it expedient to give a brief sketch of his position,
in order that the story may get onward with the greater
freedom when he rises from the breakfast-table. Deeming
it a matter of courtesy, we have allowed him the honorary
title of Doctor, as did all his townspeople and contemporaries,
except, perhaps, one or two formal old physicians,
stingy of civil phrases and over-jealous of their own professional
dignity. Nevertheless, these crusty graduates were
technically right in excluding Dr. Dolliver from their fraternity.
He had never received the degree of any medical
school, nor (save it might be for the cure of a toothache, or
a child's rash, or a whitlow on a seamstress's finger, or some
such trifling malady) had he ever been even a practitioner
of the awful science with which his popular designation connected
him. Our old friend, in short, even at his highest
social elevation, claimed to be nothing more than an apothecary,
and, in these later and far less prosperous days, scarcely
so much. Since the death of his last surviving grandson,
(Pansie's father, whom he had instructed in all the mysteries
of his science, and who, being distinguished by an experimental
and inventive tendency, was generally believed to
have poisoned himself with an infallible panacea of his own
distillation,) — since that final bereavement, Dr. Dolliver's
once pretty flourishing business had lamentably declined.
After a few months of unavailing struggle, he found it expedient
to take down the Brazen Serpent from the position
to which Dr. Swinnerton had originally elevated it, in front
of his shop in the main street, and to retire to his private
dwelling, situated in a by-lane and on the edge of a burial-ground.
This house, as well as the Brazen Serpent, some old medical
books, and a drawer full of manuscripts, had come to
him by the legacy of Dr. Swinnerton. The dreariness of the
locality had been of small importance to our friend in his
young manhood, when he first led his fair wife over the
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threshold, and so long as neither of them had any kinship
with the human dust that rose into little hillocks, and still
kept accumulating beneath their window. But, too soon
afterwards, when poor Bessie herself had gone early to rest
there, it is probable that an influence from her grave may
have prematurely calmed and depressed her widowed husband,
taking away much of the energy from what should
have been the most active portion of his life. Thus he
never grew rich. His thrifty townsmen used to tell him,
that, in any other man's hands, Dr. Swinnerton's Brazen
Serpent (meaning, I presume, the inherited credit and good-will
of that old worthy's trade) would need but ten years'
time to transmute its brass into gold. In Dr. Dolliver's
keeping, as we have seen, the inauspicious symbol lost the
greater part of what superficial gilding it originally had.
Matters had not mended with him in more advanced life,
after he had deposited a further and further portion of his
heart and its affections in each successive one of a long row
of kindred graves; and as he stood over the last of them,
holding Pansie by the hand and looking down upon the
coffin of his grandson, it is no wonder that the old man
wept, partly for those gone before, but not so bitterly as for
the little one that stayed behind. Why had not God taken
her with the rest? And then, so hopeless as he was, so
destitute of possibilities of good, his weary frame, his decrepit
bones, his dried-up heart, might have crumbled into
dust at once, and have been scattered by the next wind over
all the heaps of earth that were akin to him.
This intensity of desolation, however, was of too positive
a character to be long sustained by a person of Dr. Dolliver's
original gentleness and simplicity, and now so completely
tamed by age and misfortune. Even before he
turned away from the grave, he grew conscious of a slightly
cheering and invigorating effect from the tight grasp of the
child's warm little hand. Feeble as he was, she seemed to
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adopt him willingly for her protector. And the Doctor
never afterwards shrank from his duty nor quailed beneath
it, but bore himself like a man, striving, amid the sloth of
age and the breaking-up of intellect, to earn the competency
which he had failed to accumulate even in his most vigorous
days.
To the extent of securing a present subsistence for Pansie
and himself, he was successful. After his son's death, when
the Brazen Serpent fell into popular disrepute, a small share
of tenacious patronage followed the old man into his retirement.
In his prime, he had been allowed to possess more
skill than usually fell to the share of a Colonial apothecary,
having been regularly apprenticed to Dr. Swinnerton, who,
throughout his long practice, was accustomed personally to
concoct the medicines which he prescribed and dispensed.
It was believed, indeed, that the ancient physician had
learned the art at the world-famous drug-manufactory of
Apothecary's Hall, in London, and, as some people half-malignly
whispered, had perfected himself under masters
more subtle than were to be found even there. Unquestionably,
in many critical cases he was known to have employed
remedies of mysterious composition and dangerous
potency, which in less skilful hands would have been more
likely to kill than cure. He would willingly, it is said, have
taught his apprentice the secrets of these prescriptions, but
the latter, being of a timid character and delicate conscience,
had shrunk from acquaintance with them. It was probably
as the result of the same scrupulosity that Dr. Dolliver had
always declined to enter the medical profession, in which
his old instructor had set him such heroic examples of
adventurous dealing with matters of life and death. Nevertheless,
the aromatic fragrance, so to speak, of the learned
Swinnerton's reputation had clung to our friend through
life; and there were elaborate preparations in the pharmacop
œia of that day, requiring such minute skill and
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conscientious fidelity in the concocter that the physicians were still
glad to confide them to one in whom these qualities were so
evident.
Moreover, the grandmothers of the community were kind
to him, and mindful of his perfumes, his rose-water, his
cosmetics, tooth-powders, pomanders, and pomades, the scented
memory of which lingered about their toilet-tables, or
came faintly back from the days when they were beautiful.
Among this class of customers there was still a demand for
certain comfortable little nostrums, (delicately sweet and
pungent to the taste, cheering to the spirits, and fragrant in
the breath.) the proper distillation of which was the airiest
secret that the mystic Swinnerton had left behind him.
And, besides, these old ladies had always liked the manners
of Dr. Dolliver, and used to speak of his gentle courtesy behind
the counter as having positively been something to admire;
though, of later years, an unrefined, an almost rustic
simplicity, such as belonged to his humble ancestors, appeared
to have taken possession of him, as it often does of prettily
mannered men in their late decay.
But it resulted from all these favorable circumstances that
the Doctor's marble mortar, though worn with long service
and considerably damaged by a crack that pervaded it, continued
to keep up an occasional intimacy with the pestle;
and he still weighed drachms and scruples in his delicate
scales, though it seemed impossible, dealing with such minute
quantities, that his tremulous fingers should not put in
too little or too much, leaving out life with the deficiency or
spilling in death with the surplus. To say the truth, his
stanchest friends were beginning to think that Dr. Dolliver's
fits of absence (when his mind appeared absolutely to depart
from him, while his frail old body worked on mechanically)
rendered him not quite trustworthy without a close supervision
of his proceedings. It was impossible, however, to
convince the aged apothecary of the necessity for such
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vigilance; and if anything could stir up his gentle temper to
wrath, or, as oftener happened, to tears, it was the attempt
(which he was marvellously quick to detect) thus to interfere
with his long-familiar business.
The public, meanwhile, ceasing to regard Dr. Dolliver in
his professional aspect, had begun to take an interest in him
as perhaps their oldest fellow-citizen. It was he that remembered
the Great Fire and the Great Snow, and that had
been a grown-up stripling at the terrible epoch of Witch-Times,
and a child just breeched at the breaking-out of King
Philip's Indian War. He, too, in his school-boy days, had
received a benediction from the patriarchal Governor Bradstreet,
and thus could boast (somewhat as Bishops do of
their unbroken succession from the Apostles) of a transmitted
blessing from the whole company of sainted Pilgrims,
among whom the venerable magistrate had been an honored
companion. Viewing their townsman in this aspect, the
people revoked the courteous Doctorate with which they
had heretofore decorated him, and now knew him most
familiarly as Grandsir Dolliver. His white head, his Puritan
band, his threadbare garb, (the fashion of which he had
ceased to change, half a century ago,) his gold-headed staff,
that had been Dr. Swinnerton's, his shrunken, frosty figure,
and its feeble movement, — all these characteristics had a
wholeness and permanence in the public recognition, like
the meeting-house steeple or the town-pump. All the
younger portion of the inhabitants unconsciously ascribed
a sort of aged immortality to Grandsir Dolliver's infirm and
reverend presence. They fancied that he had been born
old, (at least, I remember entertaining some such notions
about age-stricken people, when I myself was young.) and
that he could the better tolerate his aches and incommodities,
his dull ears and dim eyes, his remoteness from human intercourse
within the crust of indurated years, the cold temperature
that kept him always shivering and sad, the heavy
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burden that invisibly bent down his shoulders, — that all
these intolerable things might bring a kind of enjoyment to
Grandsir Dolliver, as the life-long conditions of his peculiar
existence.
But, alas! it was a terrible mistake. This weight of
years had a perennial novelty for the poor sufferer. He
never grew accustomed to it, but, long as he had now borne
the fretful torpor of his waning life, and patient as he
seemed, he still retained an inward consciousness that these
stiffened shoulders, these quailing knees, this cloudiness of
sight and brain, this confused forgetfulness of men and
affairs, were troublesome accidents that did not really belong
to him. He possibly cherished a half-recognized idea that
they might pass away. Youth, however eclipsed for a
season, is undoubtedly the proper, permanent, and genuine
condition of man; and if we look closely into this dreary
delusion of growing old, we shall find that it never absolutely
succeeds in laying hold of our innermost convictions.
A sombre garment, woven of life's unrealities, has muffled
us from our true self, but within it smiles the young man
whom we knew; the ashes of many perishable things have
fallen upon our youthful fire, but beneath them lurk the
seeds of inextinguishable flame. So powerful is this instinctive
faith that men of simple modes of character are
prone to antedate its consummation. And thus it happened
with poor Grandsir Dolliver, who often awoke from an old
man's fitful sleep with a sense that his senile predicament
was but a dream of the past night; and hobbling hastily
across the cold floor to the looking-glass, he would be grievously
disappointed at beholding the white hair, the wrinkles
and furrows, the ashen visage and bent form, the melancholy
mask of Age, in which, as he now remembered, some strange
and sad enchantment had involved him for years gone by!
To other eyes than his own, however, the shrivelled old
gentleman looked as if there were little hope of his
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throwing off this too artfully wrought disguise, until, at no distant
day, his stooping figure should be straightened out, his hoary
locks be smoothed over his brows, and his much enduring
bones be laid safely away, with a green coverlet spread over
them, beside his Bessie, who doubtless would recognize her
youthful companion in spite of his ugly garniture of decay.
He longed to be gazed at by the loving eyes now closed;
he shrank from the hard stare of them that loved him not.
Walking the streets seldom and reluctantly, he felt a dreary
impulse to elude the people's observation, as if with a sense
that he had gone irrevocably out of fashion, and broken his
connecting links with the network of human life; or else it
was that nightmare-feeling which we sometimes have in
dreams, when we seem to find ourselves wandering through
a crowded avenue, with the noonday sun upon us, in some
wild extravagance of dress or nudity. He was conscious of
estrangement from his towns-people, but did not always
know how nor wherefore, nor why he should be thus groping
through the twilight mist in solitude. If they spoke
loudly to him, with cheery voices, the greeting translated
itself faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they shook him
by the hand, it was as if a thick, insensible glove absorbed
the kindly pressure and the warmth. When little Pansie
was the companion of his walk, her childish gayety and
freedom did not avail to bring him into closer relationship
with men, but seemed to follow him into that region of indefinable
remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy,
into which old Grandsir Dolliver had so strangely crept
away.
Yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed,
when the great-grandpapa would suddenly take stronger
hues of life. It was as if his faded figure had been colored
over anew, or at least, as he and Pansie moved along
the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him, instead
of the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled
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sensibilities had probably been touched and quickened by the
warm contiguity of his little companion through the medium
of her hand, as it stirred within his own, or some inflection
of her voice that set his memory ringing and chiming with
forgotten sounds. While that music lasted, the old man
was alive and happy. And there were seasons, it might be,
happier than even these, when Pansie had been kissed and put
to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside gazing in
among the massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those
cavernous abysses with which all men communicate. Hence
come angels or fiends into our twilight musings, according
as we may have peopled them in by-gone years. Over
our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-gleam, stole
an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as
beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child
Pansie on her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were
watching him beheld a calm surprise draw slowly over his
features and brighten into joy, yet not so vividly as to break
his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had been kindly
left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a glimpse
within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious
of an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses
of an old man's slumber, and would awake, at early dawn,
with a faint thrilling of the heartstrings, as if there had
been music just now wandering over them.
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PALINGENESIS. By H. W. LONGFELLOW.
I LAY upon the headland-height, and listened
To the incessant sobbing of the sea
In caverns under me,
And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened,
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst
Melted away in mist.
Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started;
For round about me all the sunny capes
Seemed peopled with the shapes
Of those whom I had known in days departed,
Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams
On faces seen in dreams.
A moment only, and the light and glory
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore
Stood lonely as before;
And the wild roses of the promontory
Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed
Their petals of pale red.
There was an old belief that in the embers
Of all things their primordial form exists,
And cunning alchemists
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Could recreate the rose with all its members
From its own ashes, but without the bloom,
Without the lost perfume.
Ah, me! what wonder-working, occult science
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more
The rose of youth restore?
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance
To time and change, and for a single hour
Renew this phantom-flower?
“Oh, give me back,” I cried, “the vanished splendors,
The breath of morn, and the exultant strife,
When the swift stream of life
Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders
The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap
Into the unknown deep!”
And the sea answered, with a lamentation,
Like some old prophet wailing, and it said,
“Alas! thy youth is dead!
It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation,
In the dark places with the dead of old
It lies forever cold!”
Then said I, “From its consecrated cerements
I will not drag this sacred dust again,
Only to give me pain;
But, still remembering all the lost endearments,
Go on thy way, like one who looks before,
And turns to weep no more.”
Into what land of harvests, what plantations
Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow
Of sunsets burning low;
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Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations
Light up the spacious avenues between
This world and the unseen!
Amid what friendly greetings and caresses,
What households, though not alien, yet not mine,
What bowers of rest divine;
To what temptations in lone wildernesses,
What famine of the heart, what pain and loss,
The bearing of what cross!
I do not know; nor will I vainly question
Those pages of the mystic book which hold
The story still untold,
But without rash conjecture or suggestion
Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,
Until “The End” I read.
-- -- p559-385
MY CHILDHOOD. By SIR WALTER SCOTT.
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IT was at Sandy-Knowe, in the residence of my paternal
grandfather, that I had the first consciousness of existence;
and I recollect distinctly that my situation and
appearance were a little whimsical. Among the odd remedies
recurred to to aid my lameness, some one had recommended
that so often as a sheep was killed for the use of the
family, I should be stripped, and swathed up in the skin,
warm as it was flayed from the carcass of the animal. In
this Tartar-like habiliment I well remember lying upon the
floor of the little parlor in the farm-house, while my grandfather,
a venerable old man with white hair, used every
excitement to make me try to crawl. I also distinctly remember
the late Sir George MacDougal of Makerstoun,
father of the present Sir Henry Hay MacDougal, joining in
this kindly attempt. He was, God knows how, a relation of
ours, and I still recollect him in his old-fashioned military
habit (he had been colonel of the Greys), with a small
cocked hat, deeply laced, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat,
and a light-colored coat, with milk-white locks tied in a military
fashion, kneeling on the ground before me, and dragging
his watch along the carpet to induce me to follow it. The
benevolent old soldier and the infant wrapped in his sheepskin
would have afforded an odd group to uninterested spectators.
This must have happened about my third year, for
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Walter Scott aged 6, 1777
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Sir George MacDougal and my grandfather both died
shortly after that period.
My grandmother continued for some years to take charge
of the farm, assisted by my father's second brother, Mr.
Thomas Scott, who resided at Crailing, as factor or landsteward
for Mr. Scott of Danesfield, then proprietor of that
estate. This was during the heat of the American war, and
I remember being as anxious on my uncle's weekly visits
(for we heard news at no other time) to hear of the defeat
of Washington, as if I had had some deep and personal cause
of antipathy to him. I know not how this was combined
with a very strong prejudice in favor of the Stuart family,
which I had originally imbibed from the songs and tales of
the Jacobites. This latter political propensity was deeply
confirmed by the stories told in my hearing of the cruelties
exercised in the executions at Carlisle, and in the Highlands,
after the battle of Culloden. One or two of our own distant
relations had fallen on that occasion, and I remember of detesting
the name of Cumberland with more than infant hatred.
Mr. Curle, farmer at Yetbyre, husband of one of my
aunts, had been present at their execution; and it was probably
from him that I first heard these tragic tales which
made so great an impression on me. The local information,
which I conceive had some share in forming my future taste
and pursuits, I derived from the old songs and tales which
then formed the amusement of a retired country family.
My grandmother, in whose youth the old Border depredations
were matter of recent tradition, used to tell me many
a tale of Watt of Harden, Wight Willie of Aikwood, Jamie
Telfer of the fair Dodhead, and other heroes,— merrymen
all of the persuasion and calling of Robin Hood and Little
John. A more recent hero, but not of less note, was the
celebrated Diel of Littledean, whom she well remembered,
as he had married her mother's sister. Of this extraordinary
person I learned many a story, grave and gay, comic
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and warlike. Two or three old books which lay in the
window-seat were explored for my amusement in the tedious
winter-days. Automathes, and Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany,
were my favorites, although at a later period an odd
volume of Josephus's Wars of the Jews divided my partiality.
My kind and affectionate aunt, Miss Janet Scott, whose
memory will ever be dear to me, used to read these works
to me with admirable patience, until I could repeat long passages
by heart. The ballad of Hardyknute I was early
master of, to the great annoyance of almost our only visiter,
the worthy clergyman of the parish, Dr. Duncan, who had
not patience to have a sober chat interrupted by my shouting
forth this ditty. Methinks I now see his tall thin
emaciated figure, his legs cased in clasped gambadoes, and
his face of a length that would have rivalled the Knight of
La Mancha's, and hear him exclaiming, “One may as well
speak in the mouth of a cannon as where that child is.”
With this little acidity, which was natural to him, he was a
most excellent and benevolent man, a gentleman in every
feeling, and altogether different from those of his order who
cringe at the tables of the gentry, or domineer and riot at
those of the yeomanry. In his youth he had been chaplain
in the family of Lord Marchmont — had seen Pope — and
could talk familiarly of many characters who had survived
the Augustan age of Queen Anne. Though valetudinary,
he lived to be nearly ninety, and to welcome to Scotland his
son, Colonel William Duncan, who, with the highest character
for military and civil merit, had made a considerable fortune
in India. In [1795], a few days before his death, I
paid him a visit, to inquire after his health. I found him
emaciated to the last degree, wrapped in a tartan night-gown,
and employed with all the activity of health and youth in
correcting a history of the Revolution, which he intended
should be given to the public when he was no more. He
read me several passages with a voice naturally strong, and
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which the feelings of an author then raised above the depression
of age and declining health. I begged him to spare
this fatigue, which could not but injure his health. His answer
was remarkable. “I know,” he said, “that I cannot
survive a fortnight — and what signifies an exertion that can
at worst only accelerate my death a few days?” I marvelled
at the composure of this reply, for his appearance
sufficiently vouched the truth of his prophecy, and rode
home to my uncle's (then my abode), musing what there
could be in the spirit of authorship that could inspire its
votaries with the courage of martyrs. He died within less
than the period he assigned, — with which event I close my
digression.
I was in my fourth year when my father was advised that
the Bath waters might be of some advantage to my lameness.
My affectionate aunt, although such a journey promised
to a person of her retired habits anything but pleasure
or amusement, undertook as readily to accompany me to the
wells of Bladud, as if she had expected all the delight that
ever the prospect of a watering-place held out to its most
impatient visitants. My health was by this time a good
deal confirmed by the country air, and the influence of that
imperceptible and unfatiguing exercise to which the good
sense of my grandfather had subjected me; for when the
day was fine, I was usually carried out and laid down beside
the old shepherd, among the crags or rocks round which he
fed his sheep. The impatience of a child soon inclined me
to struggle with my infirmity, and I began by degrees to
stand, to walk, and to run. Although the limb affected was
much shrunk and contracted, my general health, which was
of more importance, was much strengthened by being frequently
in the open air, and, in a word, I who in a city had
probably been condemned to hopeless and helpless decrepitude,
was now a healthy, high-spirited, and, my lameness
apart, a sturdy child,— non sine diis animosus infans.
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We went to London by sea, and it may gratify the curiosity
of minute biographers to learn, that our voyage was
performed in the Duchess of Buccleuch, Captain Beatson,
master. At London we made a short stay, and saw some
of the common shows exhibited to strangers. When, twenty-five
years afterwards, I visited the Tower of London and
Westminster Abbey, I was astonished to find how accurate
my recollections of these celebrated places of visitation
proved to be, and I have ever since trusted more implicitly
to my juvenile reminiscences. At Bath, where I lived about
a year, I went through all the usual discipline of the pumproom
and baths, but I believe without the least advantage
to my lameness. During my residence at Bath, I acquired
the rudiments of reading at a day-school, kept by an old
dame near our lodgings, and I had never a more regular
teacher, although I think I did not attend her a quarter of a
year. An occasional lesson from my aunt supplied the rest.
Afterwards, when grown a big boy, I had a few lessons from
Mr. Stalker of Edinburgh, and finally from the Rev. Mr.
Cleeve. But I never acquired a just pronunciation, nor
could I read with much propriety.
In other respects my residence at Bath is marked by
very pleasing recollections. The venerable John Home,
author of Douglas, was then at the watering-place, and paid
much attention to my aunt and to me. His wife, who has
survived him, was then an invalid, and used to take the air
in her carriage on the Downs, when I was often invited to
accompany her. But the most delightful recollections of
Bath are dated after the arrival of my uncle, Captain Robert
Scott, who introduced me to all the little amusements which
suited my age, and above all, to the theatre. The play was
As You Like It; and the witchery of the whole scene is
alive in my mind at this moment. I made, I believe, noise
more than enough, and remember being so much scandalized
at the quarrel between Orlando and his brother in the first
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scene, that I screamed out, “Ain't they brothers?” A few
weeks' residence at home convinced me, who had till then
been an only child in the house of my grandfather, that a
quarrel between brothers was a very natural event.
The other circumstances I recollect of my residence in
Bath are but trifling, yet I never recall them without a feeling
of pleasure. The beauties of the parade (which of them
I know not), with the river Avon winding around it, and the
lowing of the cattle from the opposite hills, are warm in my
recollection, and are only rivalled by the splendors of a toy-shop
somewhere near the Orange Grove. I had acquired, I
know not by what means, a kind of superstitious terror for
statuary of all kinds. No ancient Iconoclast or modern Calvinist
could have looked on the outside of the Abbey church
(if I mistake not, the principal church at Bath is so called)
with more horror than the image of Jacob's Ladder, with all
its anges, presented to my infant eye. My uncle effectually
combated my terrors, and formally introduced me to a statue
of Neptune, which perhaps still keeps guard at the side of
the Avon, where a pleasure-boat crosses to Spring Gardens.
After being a year at Bath, I returned first to Edinburgh,
and afterwards for a season to Sandy-Knowe; — and thus
the time whiled away till about my eighth year, when it was
thought sea-bathing might be of service to my lameness.
For this purpose, still under my aunt's protection, I remained
some weeks at Prestonpans, a circumstance not
worth mentioning, excepting to record my juvenile intimacy
with an old military veteran, Dalgetty by name, who had
pitched his tent in that little village, after all his campaigns,
subsisting upon an ensign's half-pay, though called by courtesy
a Captain. As this old gentleman, who had been in all
the German wars, found very few to listen to his tales of
military feats, he formed a sort of alliance with me, and I
used invariably to attend him for the pleasure of hearing
those communications. Sometimes our conversation turned
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on the American war, which was then raging. It was about
the time of Burgoyne's unfortunate expedition, to which my
Captain and I augured different conclusions. Somebody had
showed me a map of North America, and, struck with the
rugged appearance of the country, and the quantity of lakes,
I expressed some doubts on the subject of the General's arriving
safely at the end of his journey, which were very
indignantly refuted by the Captain. The news of the Saratoga
disaster, while it gave me a little triumph, rather shook
my intimacy with the veteran.
From Prestonpans, I was transported back to my father's
house in George's Square, which continued to be my most
established place of residence, until my marriage in 1797.
I felt the change from being a single indulged brat, to becoming
a member of a large family, very severely; for under
the gentle government of my kind grandmother, who was
meekness itself, and of my aunt, who, though of a higher
temper, was exceedingly attached to me, I had acquired a
degree of license which could not be permitted in a large
family. I had sense enough, however, to bend my temper
to my new circumstances; but such was the agony which I
internally experienced, that I have guarded against nothing
more in the education of my own family, than against their
acquiring habits of self-willed caprice and domination. I
found much consolation during this period of mortification,
in the partiality of my mother. She joined to a light and
happy temper of mind, a strong turn to study poetry and
works of imagination. She was sincerely devout, but her
religion was, as became her sex, of a cast less austere than
my father's. Still, the discipline of the Presbyterian Sabbath
was severely strict, and I think injudiciousy so. Although
Bunyan's Pilgrim, Gesner's Death of Abel, Rowe's
Letters, and one or two other books, which, for that reason,
I still have a favor for, were admitted to relieve the gloom
of one dull sermon succeeding to another, — there was far
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too much tedium annexed to the duties of the day; and in
the end it did none of us any good.
My week-day tasks were more agreeable. My lameness
and my solitary habits had made me a tolerable reader, and
my hours of leisure were usually spent in reading aloud to
my mother Pope's translation of Homer, which, excepting a
few traditionary ballads, and the songs in Allan Ramsay's
Evergreen, was the first poetry which I perused. My
mother had good natural taste and great feeling; she used
to make me pause upon those passages which expressed generous
and worthy sentiments, and if she could not divert me
from those which were descriptive of battle and tumult, she
contrived at least to divide my attention between them.
My own enthusiasm, however, was chiefly awakened by the
wonderful and the terrible, — the common taste of children,
but in which I have remained a child even unto this day.
I got by heart, not as a task, but almost without intending
it, the passages with which I was most pleased, and used to
recite them aloud, both when alone and to others, — more
willingly, however, in my hours of solitude, for I had observed
some auditors smile, and I dreaded ridicule at that
time of life more than I have ever done since.
In [1778] I was sent to the second class of the Grammar
School, or High School of Edinburgh, then taught by Mr.
Luke Fraser, a good Latin scholar and a very worthy man.
Though I had received, with my brothers, in private, lessons
of Latin from Mr. James French, now a minister of the
Kirk of Scotland, I was nevertheless rather behind the class
in which I was placed both in years and in progress. This
was a real disadvantage, and one to which a boy of lively
temper and talents ought to be as little exposed as one who
might be less expected to make up his lee-way, as it is called.
The situation has the unfortunate effect of reconciling a boy
of the former character (which in a posthumous work I may
claim for my own) to holding a subordinate station among
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his class-fellows,— to which he would otherwise affix disgrace.
There is also, from the constitution of the High
School, a certain danger not sufficiently attended to. The
boys take precedence in their places, as they are called, according
to their merit, and it requires a long while, in general,
before even a clever boy, if he falls behind the class, or
is put into one for which he is not quite ready, can force his
way to the situation which his abilities really entitle him to
hold. But, in the meanwhile, he is necessarily led to be
the associate and companion of those inferior spirits with
whom he is placed; for the system of precedence, though it
does not limit the general intercourse among the boys, has
nevertheless the effect of throwing them into clubs and
coteries, according to the vicinity of the seats they hold. A
boy of good talents, therefore, placed even for a time among
his inferiors, especially if they be also his elders, learns to
participate in their pursuits and objects of ambition, which
are usually very distinct from the acquisition of learning;
and it will be well if he does not also imitate them in that
indifference which is contented with bustling over a lesson
so as to avoid punishment, without affecting superiority or
aiming at reward. It was probably owing to this circumstance,
that, although at a more advanced period of life I
have enjoyed considerable facility in acquiring languages, I
did not make any great figure at the High School, — or, at
least, any exertions which I made were desultory and little
to be depended on.
Our class contained some very excellent scholars. The
first Dux was James Buchan, who retained his honored
place, almost without a day's interval, all the while we
were at the High School. He was afterwards at the head
of the medical staff in Egypt, and in exposing himself to
the plague infection, by attending the hospitals there, displayed
the same well-regulated and gentle, yet determined
perseverance, which placed him most worthily at the head
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of his school-fellows, while many lads of livelier parts and
dispositions held an inferior station. The next best scholars
(sed longo intervallo) were my friend David Douglas, the
heir and élève of the celebrated Adam Smith, and James
Hope, now a Writer to the Signet, both since well known
and distinguished in their departments of the law. As for
myself, I glanced like a meteor from one end of the class
to the other, and commonly disgusted my kind master as
much by negligence and frivolity, as I occasionally pleased
him by flashes of intellect and talent. Among my companions,
my good-nature and a flow of ready imagination
rendered me very popular. Boys are uncommonly just in
their feelings, and at least equally generous. My lameness,
and the efforts which I made to supply that disadvantage,
by making up in address what I wanted in activity, engaged
the latter principle in my favor; and in the winter play
hours, when hard exercise was impossible, my tales used to
assemble an admiring audience round Lucky Brown's fireside,
and happy was he that could sit next to the inexhaustible
narrator. I was also, though often negligent of my
own task, always ready to assist my friends, and hence I
had a little party of stanch partisans and adherents, stout
of hand and heart, though somewhat dull of head, — the
very tools for raising a hero to eminence. So, on the whole,
I made a brighter figure in the yards than in the class.
My father did not trust our education solely to our High
School lessons. We had a tutor at home, a young man of
an excellent disposition, and a laborious student. He was
bred to the Kirk, but unfortunately took such a very strong
turn to fanaticism that he afterwards resigned an excellent
living in a seaport town, merely because he could not persuade
the mariners of the guilt of setting sail of a Sabbath,—
in which, by the by, he was less likely to be successful,
as, cæteris paribus, sailors, from an opinion that it is a fortunate
omen, always choose to weigh anchor on that day.
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The calibre of this young man's understanding may be
judged of by this anecdote; but in other respects, he was a
faithful and active instructor; and from him chiefly I learned
writing and arithmetic. I repeated to him my French lessons,
and studied with him my themes in the classics, but not
classically. I also acquired, by disputing with him, (for this
he readily permitted,) some knowledge of school-divinity
and church-history, and a great acquaintance in particular
with the old books describing the early history of the Church
of Scotland, the wars and sufferings of the Covenanters,
and so forth. I, with a head on fire for chivalry, was a Cavalier;
my friend was a Roundhead: I was a Tory, and he
was a Whig. I hated Presbyterians, and admired Montrose
with his victorious Highlanders; he liked the Presbyterian
Ulysses, the dark and politic Argyle: so that we never
wanted subjects of dispute; but our disputes were always
amicable. In all these tenets there was no real conviction
on my part, arising out of acquaintance with the views or
principles of either party; nor had my antagonist address
enough to turn the debate on such topics. I took up my
politics at that period, as King Charles II. did his religion,
from an idea that the Cavalier creed was the more gentlemanlike
persuasion of the two.
After having been three years under Mr. Fraser, our
class was, in the usual routine of the school, turned over to
Dr. Adam, the Rector. It was from this respectable man
that I first learned the value of the knowledge I had hitherto
considered only as a burdensome task. It was the fashion
to remain two years at his class, where we read Cæsar, and
Livy, and Sallust, in prose; Virgil, Horace, and Terence,
in verse. I had by this time mastered, in some degree, the
difficulties of the language, and began to be sensible of its
beauties. This was really gathering grapes from thistles;
nor shall I soon forget the swelling of my little pride when
the Rector pronounced, that though many of my
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school-fellows understood the Latin better, Gualterus Scott was
behind few in following and enjoying the author's meaning.
Thus encouraged, I distinguished myself by some attempts
at poetical versions from Horace and Virgil. Dr. Adam
used to invite his scholars to such essays, but never made
them tasks. I gained some distinction upon these occasions,
and the Rector in future took much notice of me; and his
judicious mixture of censure and praise went far to counterbalance
my habits of indolence and inattention. I saw I
was expected to do well, and I was piqued in honor to vindicate
my master's favorable opinion. I climbed, therefore,
to the first form; and, though I never made a first-rate
Latinist, my school-fellows, and what was of more consequence,
I myself, considered that I had a character for learning
to maintain. Dr. Adam, to whom I owed so much,
never failed to remind me of my obligations when I had
made some figure in the literary world. He was, indeed,
deeply imbued with that fortunate vanity which alone could
induce a man who has arms to pare and burn a muir, to submit
to the yet more toilsome task of cultivating youth. As
Catholics confide in the imputed righteousness of their saints,
so did the good old Doctor plume himself upon the success
of his scholars in life, all of which he never failed (and
often justly) to claim as the creation, or at least the fruits,
of his early instructions. He remembered the fate of every
boy at his school during the fifty years he had superintended
it, and always traced their success or misfortunes entirely
to their attention or negligence when under his care. His
“noisy mansion,” which to others would have been a melancholy
bedlam, was the pride of his heart; and the only
fatigues he felt, amidst din and tumult, and the necessity of
reading themes, hearing lessons, and maintaining some degree
of order at the same time, were relieved by comparing
himself to Cæsar, who could dictate to three secretaries
at once; — so ready is vanity to lighten the labors of duty.
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It is a pity that a man so learned, so admirably adapted
for his station, so useful, so simple, so easily contented,
should have had other subjects of mortification. But the
magistrates of Edinburgh, not knowing the treasure they
possessed in Dr. Adam, encouraged a savage fellow, called
Nicol, one of the undermasters, in insulting his person and
authority. This man was an excellent classical scholar, and
an admirable convivial humorist (which latter quality recommended
him to the friendship of Burns); but worthless,
drunken, and inhumanly cruel to the boys under his charge.
He carried his feud against the Rector within an inch of
assassination, for he waylaid and knocked him down in the
dark. The favor which this worthless rival obtained in the
town-council led to other consequences, which for some
time clouded poor Adam's happiness and fair fame. When
the French Revolution broke out, and parties ran high in
approving or condemning it, the Doctor incautiously joined
the former. This was very natural, for as all his ideas of
existing governments were derived from his experience of
the town-council of Edinburgh, it must be admitted they
scarce brooked comparison with the free states of Rome
and Greece, from which he borrowed his opinions concerning
republics. His want of caution in speaking on the
political topics of the day lost him the respect of the boys,
most of whom were accustomed to hear very different opinions
on those matters in the bosom of their families. This,
however (which was long after my time), passed away with
other heats of the period, and the Doctor continued his
labors till about a year since, when he was struck with
palsy while teaching his class. He survived a few days,
but becoming delirious before his dissolution, conceived he
was still in school, and after some expressions of applause
or censure, he said, “But it grows dark, — the boys may
dismiss,” — and instantly expired.
From Dr. Adam's class I should, according to the usual
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routine, have proceeded immediately to college. But, fortunately,
I was not yet to lose, by a total dismission from
constraint, the acquaintance with the Latin which I had
acquired. My health had become rather delicate from rapid
growth, and my father was easily persuaded to allow me to
spend half a year at Kelso with my kind aunt, Miss Janet
Scott, whose inmate I again became. It was hardly worth
mentioning that I had frequently visited her during our
short vacations.
At this time she resided in a small house, situated very
pleasantly in a large garden, to the eastward of the church-yard
of Kelso, which extended down to the Tweed. It was
then my father's property, from whom it was afterwards
purchased by my uncle. My grandmother was now dead,
and my aunt's only companion, besides an old maid-servant,
was my cousin, Miss Barbara Scott, now Mrs. Meik. My
time was here left entirely to my own disposal, excepting
for about four hours in the day, when I was expected to attend
the Grammar School of the village. The teacher, at
that time, was Mr. Lancelot Whale, an excellent classical
scholar, a humorist, and a worthy man. He had a supreme
antipathy to the puns which his very uncommon name frequently
gave rise to; insomuch, that he made his son spell
the word Wale, which only occasioned the young man being
nicknamed the Prince of Wales by the military mess to which
he belonged. As for Whale, senior, the least allusion to
Jonah, or the terming him an odd fish, or any similar quibble,
was sure to put him beside himself. In point of knowledge
and taste, he was far too good for the situation he held,
which only required that he should give his scholars a rough
foundation in the Latin language. My time with him,
though short, was spent greatly to my advantage and his
gratification. He was glad to escape to Persius and Tacitus
from the eternal Rudiments and Cornelius Nepos; and
as perusing these authors with one who began to understand
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them was to him a labor of love, I made considerable progress
under his instructions. I suspect, indeed, that some of
the time dedicated to me was withdrawn from the instruction
of his more regular scholars; but I was as grateful as I
could. I acted as usher, and heard the inferior classes, and
I spouted the speech of Galgacus at the public examination,
which did not make the less impression on the audience that
few of them probably understood one word of it.
In the mean while my acquaintance with English literature
was gradually extending itself. In the intervals of my
school hours I had always perused with avidity such books
of history or poetry or voyages and travels as chance presented
to me — not forgetting the usual, or rather ten times
the usual, quantity of fairy tales, eastern stories, romances,
&c. These studies were totally unregulated and undirected.
My tutor thought it almost a sin to open a profane
play or poem; and my mother, besides that she might be in
some degree trammelled by the religious scruples which he
suggested, had no longer the opportunity to hear me read
poetry as formerly. I found, however, in her dressing-room
(where I slept at one time) some odd volumes of Shakespeare,
nor can I easily forget the rapture with which I sat
up in my shirt reading them by the light of a fire in her
apartment, until the bustle of the family rising from supper
warned me it was time to creep back to my bed, where I
was supposed to have been safely deposited since nine
o'clock. Chance, however, threw in my way a poetical preceptor.
This was no other than the excellent and benevolent
Dr. Blacklock, well known at that time as a literary
character. I know not how I attracted his attention, and
that of some of the young men who boarded in his family;
but so it was that I became a frequent and favored guest.
The kind old man opened to me the stores of his library,
and through his recommendation I became intimate with
Ossian and Spenser. I was delighted with both, yet I think
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chiefly with the latter poet. The tawdry repetitions of the
Ossianic phraseology disgusted me rather sooner than might
have been expected from my age. But Spenser I could
have read forever. Too young to trouble myself about the
allegory, I considered all the knights and ladies and dragons
and giants in their outward and exoteric sense, and God
only knows how delighted I was to find myself in such society.
As I had always a wonderful facility in retaining in
my memory whatever verses pleased me, the quantity of
Spenser's stanzas which I could repeat was really marvellous.
But this memory of mine was a very fickle ally, and
has through my whole life acted merely upon its own capricious
motion, and might have enabled me to adopt old Beattie
of Meikledale's answer, when complimented by a certain
reverend divine on the strength of the same faculty: —
“No, sir,” answered the old Borderer, “I have no command
of my memory. It only retains what hits my fancy; and
probably, sir, if you were to preach to me for two hours, I
would not be able when you finished to remember a word
you had been saying.” My memory was precisely of the
same kind: it seldom failed to preserve most tenaciously a
favorite passage of poetry, a play-house ditty, or, above all,
a Border-raid ballad; but names, dates, and the other technicalities
of history, escaped me in a most melancholy degree.
The philosophy of history, a much more important subject,
was also a sealed book at this period of my life; but I gradually
assembled much of what was striking and picturesque
in historical narrative; and when, in riper years, I attended
more to the deduction of general principles, I was furnished
with a powerful host of examples in illustration of them. I
was, in short, like an ignorant gamester, who kept up a good
hand until he knew how to play it.
I left the High School, therefore, with a great quantity
of general information, ill arranged, indeed, and collected
without system, yet deeply impressed upon my mind;
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readily assorted by my power of connection and memory, and
gilded, if I may be permitted to say so, by a vivid and
active imagination. If my studies were not under any direction
at Edinburgh, in the country, it may be well imagined,
they were less so. A respectable subscription library, a circulating
library of ancient standing, and some private bookshelves,
were open to my random perusal, and I waded into
the stream like a blind man into a ford, without the power
of searching my way, unless by groping for it. My appetite
for books was as ample and indiscriminating as it was
indefatigable, and I since have had too frequently reason to
repent that few ever read so much, and to so little purpose.
Among the valuable acquisitions I made about this time,
was an acquaintance with Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered,
through the flat medium of Mr. Hoole's translation. But
above all, I then first became acquainted with Bishop
Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry. As I had been
from infancy devoted to legendary lore of this nature, and
only reluctantly withdrew my attention, from the scarcity
of materials and the rudeness of those which I possessed,
it may be imagined, but cannot be described, with what
delight I saw pieces of the same kind which had amused my
childhood, and still continued in secret the Delilahs of my
imagination, considered as the subject of sober research,
grave commentary, and apt illustration, by an editor who
showed his poetical genius was capable of emulating the best
qualities of what his pious labor preserved. I remember
well the spot where I read these volumes for the first time.
It was beneath a huge platanus-tree, in the ruins of what
had been intended for an old-fashioned arbor in the garden
I have mentioned. The summer-day sped onward so fast,
that notwithstanding the sharp appetite of thirteen, I forgot
the hour of dinner, was sought for with anxiety, and was
still found entranced in my intellectual banquet. To read
and to remember was in this instance the same thing, and
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henceforth I overwhelmed my school-fellows, and all who
would hearken to me, with tragical recitations from the ballads
of Bishop Percy. The first time, too, I could scrape a
few shillings together, which were not common occurrences
with me, I bought unto myself a copy of these beloved volumes;
nor do I believe I ever read a book half so frequently,
or with half the enthusiasm. About this period
also I became acquainted with the works of Richardson, and
those of Mackenzie (whom in later years I became entitled
to call my friend), — with Fielding, Smollett, and some
others of our best novelists.
To this period also I can trace distinctly the awaking
of that delightful feeling for the beauties of natural objects
which has never since deserted me. The neighborhood of
Kelso, the most beautiful, if not the most romantic village
in Scotland, is eminently calculated to awaken these ideas.
It presents objects, not only grand in themselves, but venerable
from their association. The meeting of two superb
rivers, the Tweed and the Teviot, both renowned in song, —
the ruins of an ancient Abbey, — the more distant vestiges
of Roxburgh Castle, — the modern mansion of Fleurs, which
is so situated as to combine the ideas of ancient baronial
grandeur with those of modern taste, — are in themselves
objects of the first class; yet are so mixed, united, and
melted among a thousand other beauties of a less prominent
description, that they harmonize into one general picture,
and please rather by unison than by concord. I believe I
have written unintelligibly upon this subject, but it is fitter
for the pencil than the pen. The romantic feelings which
I have described as predominating in my mind naturally
rested upon and associated themselves with these grand features
of the landscape around me; and the historical incidents,
or traditional legends connected with many of them,
gave to my admiration a sort of intense impression of
reverence, which at times made my heart feel too big for its
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bosom. From this time the love of natural beauty, more
especially when combined with ancient ruins or remains of
our fathers' piety or splendor, became with me an insatiable
passion, which, if circumstances had permitted, I would willingly
have gratified by travelling over half the globe.
THE END.
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Fields, James Thomas, 1817-1881 [1866], Good company for every day in the year (Ticknor and Fields, Boston) [word count] [eaf559T].
