Project Gutenberg's Roundabout Papers, by William Makepeace Thackeray

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Title: Roundabout Papers

Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

Release Date: May 21, 2006 [EBook #2608]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUNDABOUT PAPERS ***




Produced by Donald Lainson





ROUNDABOUT PAPERS

By William Makepeace Thackeray




CONTENTS


ROUNDABOUT PAPERS


On a Lazy Idle Boy

On Two Children in Black

On Ribbons

On some late Great Victories

Thorns in the Cushion

On Screens in Dining-Rooms

Tunbridge Toys

De Juventute

On a Joke I once heard from the late Thomas Hood

Round about the Christmas Tree

On a Chalk-Mark on the Door

On being Found Out

On a Hundred Years Hence

Small-Beer Chronicle

Ogres

On Two Roundabout Papers which I intended to Write

A Mississippi Bubble

On Letts's Diary

Notes of a Week's Holiday

Nil Nisi Bonum

On Half a Loaf--A Letter to Messrs. Broadway, Battery and Co., of New
York, Bankers

The Notch on the Axe.--A Story a la Mode. Part I Part II Part III

De Finibus

On a Peal of Bells

On a Pear-Tree

Dessein's

On some Carp at Sans Souci

Autour de mon Chapeau

On Alexandrines--A Letter to some Country Cousins

On a Medal of George the Fourth

"Strange to say, on Club Paper"

The Last Sketch




ROUNDABOUT PAPERS.




ON A LAZY IDLE BOY.


I had occasion to pass a week in the autumn in the little old town
of Coire or Chur, in the Grisons, where lies buried that very ancient
British king, saint, and martyr, Lucius,* who founded the Church of St.
Peter, on Cornhill. Few people note the church now-a-days, and fewer
ever heard of the saint. In the cathedral at Chur, his statue appears
surrounded by other sainted persons of his family. With tight red
breeches, a Roman habit, a curly brown beard, and a neat little gilt
crown and sceptre, he stands, a very comely and cheerful image: and,
from what I may call his peculiar position with regard to Cornhill, I
beheld this figure of St. Lucius with more interest than I should have
bestowed upon personages who, hierarchically, are, I dare say, his
superiors.

     * Stow quotes the inscription, still extant, from the table
     fast chained in St. Peter's Church, Cornhill; and says, "he
     was after some chronicle buried at London, and after some
     chronicle buried at Glowcester"--but, oh! these incorrect
     chroniclers! when Alban Butler, in the "Lives of the
     Saints," v. xii., and Murray's "Handbook," and the Sacristan
     at Chur, all say Lucius was killed there, and I saw his tomb
     with my own eyes!

The pretty little city stands, so to speak, at the end of the world--of
the world of to-day, the world of rapid motion, and rushing railways,
and the commerce and intercourse of men. From the northern gate, the
iron road stretches away to Zurich, to Basle, to Paris, to home. From
the old southern barriers, before which a little river rushes, and
around which stretch the crumbling battlements of the ancient town, the
road bears the slow diligence or lagging vetturino by the shallow Rhine,
through the awful gorges of the Via Mala, and presently over the Splugen
to the shores of Como.

I have seldom seen a place more quaint, pretty, calm, and pastoral, than
this remote little Chur. What need have the inhabitants for walls
and ramparts, except to build summer-houses, to trail vines, and hang
clothes to dry on them? No enemies approach the great mouldering gates:
only at morn and even the cows come lowing past them, the village
maidens chatter merrily round the fountains, and babble like the
ever-voluble stream that flows under the old walls. The schoolboys,
with book and satchel, in smart uniforms, march up to the gymnasium,
and return thence at their stated time. There is one coffee-house in the
town, and I see one old gentleman goes to it. There are shops with no
customers seemingly, and the lazy tradesmen look out of their little
windows at the single stranger sauntering by. There is a stall with
baskets of queer little black grapes and apples, and a pretty brisk
trade with half a dozen urchins standing round. But, beyond this, there
is scarce any talk or movement in the street. There's nobody at the
book-shop. "If you will have the goodness to come again in an hour,"
says the banker, with his mouthful of dinner at one o'clock, "you can
have the money." There is nobody at the hotel, save the good landlady,
the kind waiters, the brisk young cook who ministers to you. Nobody is
in the Protestant church--(oh! strange sight, the two confessions are
here at peace!)--nobody in the Catholic church: until the sacristan,
from his snug abode in the cathedral close, espies the traveller eying
the monsters and pillars before the old shark-toothed arch of his
cathedral, and comes out (with a view to remuneration possibly) and
opens the gate, and shows you the venerable church, and the queer old
relics in the sacristy, and the ancient vestments (a black velvet
cope, amongst other robes, as fresh as yesterday, and presented by that
notorious "pervert," Henry of Navarre and France), and the statue of St.
Lucius who built St. Peter's Church, on Cornhill.

What a quiet, kind, quaint, pleasant, pretty old town! Has it been
asleep these hundreds and hundreds of years, and is the brisk young
Prince of the Sidereal Realms in his screaming car drawn by his snorting
steel elephant coming to waken it? Time was when there must have been
life and bustle and commerce here. Those vast, venerable walls were
not made to keep out cows, but men-at-arms, led by fierce captains, who
prowled about the gates, and robbed the traders as they passed in and
out with their bales, their goods, their pack-horses, and their wains.
Is the place so dead that even the clergy of the different denominations
can't quarrel? Why, seven or eight, or a dozen, or fifteen hundred years
ago (they haven't the register at St. Peter's up to that remote period.
I dare say it was burnt in the fire of London)--a dozen hundred years
ago, when there was some life in the town, St. Lucius was stoned here
on account of theological differences, after founding our church in
Cornhill.

There was a sweet pretty river walk we used to take in the evening
and mark the mountains round glooming with a deeper purple; the shades
creeping up the golden walls; the river brawling, the cattle calling,
the maids and chatter-boxes round the fountains babbling and bawling;
and several times in the course of our sober walks we overtook a lazy
slouching boy, or hobble-dehoy, with a rusty coat, and trousers not too
long, and big feet trailing lazily one after the other, and large lazy
hands dawdling from out the tight sleeves, and in the lazy hands a
little book, which my lad held up to his face, and which I dare say
so charmed and ravished him, that he was blind to the beautiful sights
around him; unmindful, I would venture to lay any wager, of the lessons
he had to learn for to-morrow; forgetful of mother, waiting supper, and
father preparing a scolding;--absorbed utterly and entirely in his book.

What was it that so fascinated the young student, as he stood by the
river shore? Not the Pons Asinorum. What book so delighted him, and
blinded him to all the rest of the world, so that he did not care to see
the apple-woman with her fruit, or (more tempting still to sons of Eve)
the pretty girls with their apple cheeks, who laughed and prattled round
the fountain! What was the book? Do you suppose it was Livy, or the
Greek grammar? No; it was a NOVEL that you were reading, you lazy, not
very clean, good-for-nothing, sensible boy! It was D'Artagnan locking
up General Monk in a box, or almost succeeding in keeping Charles the
First's head on. It was the prisoner of the Chateau d'If cutting himself
out of the sack fifty feet under water (I mention the novels I like best
myself--novels without love or talking, or any of that sort of
nonsense, but containing plenty of fighting, escaping, robbery, and
rescuing)--cutting himself out of the sack, and swimming to the island
of Monte Cristo. O Dumas! O thou brave, kind, gallant old Alexandre! I
hereby offer thee homage, and give thee thanks for many pleasant hours.
I have read thee (being sick in bed) for thirteen hours of a happy day,
and had the ladies of the house fighting for the volumes. Be assured
that lazy boy was reading Dumas (or I will go so far as to let the
reader here pronounce the eulogium, or insert the name of his favorite
author); and as for the anger, or it may be, the reverberations of
his schoolmaster, or the remonstrances of his father, or the tender
pleadings of his mother that he should not let the supper grow cold--I
don't believe the scapegrace cared one fig. No! Figs are sweet, but
fictions are sweeter.

Have you ever seen a score of white-bearded, white-robed warriors, or
grave seniors of the city, seated at the gate of Jaffa or Beyrout, and
listening to the story-teller reciting his marvels out of "Antar" or the
"Arabian Nights?" I was once present when a young gentleman at table put
a tart away from him, and said to his neighbor, the Younger Son (with
rather a fatuous air), "I never eat sweets."

"Not eat sweets! and do you know why?" says T.

"Because I am past that kind of thing," says the young gentleman.

"Because you are a glutton and a sot!" cries the Elder (and Juvenis
winces a little). "All people who have natural, healthy appetites, love
sweets; all children, all women, all Eastern people, whose tastes
are not corrupted by gluttony and strong drink." And a plateful of
raspberries and cream disappeared before the philosopher.

You take the allegory? Novels are sweets. All people with healthy
literary appetites love them--almost all women;--a vast number of
clever, hard-headed men. Why, one of the most learned physicians in
England said to me only yesterday, "I have just read So-and-So for
the second time" (naming one of Jones's exquisite fictions). Judges,
bishops, chancellors, mathematicians, are notorious novel-readers; as
well as young boys and sweet girls, and their kind, tender mothers. Who
has not read about Eldon, and how he cried over novels every night when
he was not at whist?

As for that lazy naughty boy at Chur, I doubt whether HE will like
novels when he is thirty years of age. He is taking too great a glut of
them now. He is eating jelly until he will be sick. He will know most
plots by the time he is twenty, so that HE will never be surprised when
the Stranger turns out to be the rightful earl,--when the old waterman,
throwing off his beggarly gabardine, shows his stars and the collars of
his various orders, and clasping Antonia to his bosom, proves himself
to be the prince, her long-lost father. He will recognize the
novelist's same characters, though they appear in red-heeled pumps and
ailes-de-pigeon, or the garb of the nineteenth century. He will get
weary of sweets, as boys of private schools grow (or used to grow, for
I have done growing some little time myself, and the practice may have
ended too)--as private school-boys used to grow tired of the pudding
before their mutton at dinner.

And pray what is the moral of this apologue? The moral I take to be
this: the appetite for novels extending to the end of the world; far
away in the frozen deep, the sailors reading them to one another during
the endless night;--far away under the Syrian stars, the solemn sheikhs
and elders hearkening to the poet as he recites his tales; far away in
the Indian camps, where the soldiers listen to ----'s tales, or ----'s,
after the hot day's march; far away in little Chur yonder, where the
lazy boy pores over the fond volume, and drinks it in with all his
eyes;--the demand being what we know it is, the merchant must supply it,
as he will supply saddles and pale ale for Bombay or Calcutta.

But as surely as the cadet drinks too much pale ale, it will disagree
with him; and so surely, dear youth, will too much novels cloy on thee.
I wonder, do novel-writers themselves read many novels? If you go into
Gunter's, you don't see those charming young ladies (to whom I present
my most respectful compliments) eating tarts and ices, but at the proper
eventide they have good plain wholesome tea and bread-and-butter. Can
anybody tell me does the author of the "Tale of Two Cities" read novels?
does the author of the "Tower of London" devour romances? does the
dashing "Harry Lorrequer" delight in "Plain or Ringlets" or "Sponge's
Sporting Tour?" Does the veteran, from whose flowing pen we had the
books which delighted our young days, "Darnley," and "Richelieu," and
"Delorme,"* relish the works of Alexandre the Great, and thrill over the
"Three Musqueteers?" Does the accomplished author of the "Caxtons" read
the other tales in Blackwood? (For example, that ghost-story printed
last August, and which for my part, though I read it in the public
reading-room at the "Pavilion Hotel" at Folkestone, I protest frightened
me so that I scarce dared look over my shoulder.) Does "Uncle Tom"
admire "Adam Bede;" and does the author of the "Vicar of Wrexhill" laugh
over the "Warden" and the "The Three Clerks?" Dear youth of ingenuous
countenance and ingenuous pudor! I make no doubt that the eminent
parties above named all partake of novels in moderation--eat
jellies--but mainly nourish themselves upon wholesome roast and boiled.

     * By the way, what a strange fate is that which befell the
     veteran novelist!  He was appointed her Majesty's Consul-
     General in Venice, the only city in Europe where the famous
     "Two Cavaliers" cannot by any possibility be seen riding
     together.

Here, dear youth aforesaid! our Cornhill Magazine owners strive to
provide thee with facts as well as fiction; and though it does not
become them to brag of their Ordinary, at least they invite thee to a
table where thou shalt sit in good company. That story of the "Fox"* was
written by one of the gallant seamen who sought for poor Franklin under
the awful Arctic Night: that account of China** is told by the man
of all the empire most likely to know of what he speaks: those pages
regarding Volunteers*** come from an honored hand that has borne the
sword in a hundred famous fields, and pointed the British guns in the
greatest siege in the world.

     * "The Search for Sir John Franklin.  (From the Private
     Journal of an Officer of the 'Fox.')"

     ** "The Chinese and the Outer Barbarians."  By Sir John
     Bowring.

     *** "Our Volunteers."  By Sir John Burgoyne.

Shall we point out others? We are fellow-travellers, and shall make
acquaintance as the voyage proceeds. In the Atlantic steamers, on the
first day out (and on high-and holy-days subsequently), the jellies set
down on table are richly ornamented; medioque in fonte leporum rise the
American and British flags nobly emblazoned in tin. As the passengers
remark this pleasing phenomenon, the Captain no doubt improves the
occasion by expressing a hope, to his right and left, that the flag
of Mr. Bull and his younger Brother may always float side by side
in friendly emulation. Novels having been previously compared to
jellies--here are two (one perhaps not entirely saccharine, and flavored
with an amari aliquid very distasteful to some palates)--two novels*
under two flags, the one that ancient ensign which has hung before the
well-known booth of "Vanity Fair;" the other that fresh and handsome
standard which has lately been hoisted on "Barchester Towers." Pray,
sir, or madam, to which dish will you be helped?

     * "Lovel the Widower" and "Framley Parsonage."

So have I seen my friends Captain Lang and Captain Comstock press their
guests to partake of the fare on that memorable "First day out," when
there is no man, I think, who sits down but asks a blessing on his
voyage, and the good ship dips over the bar, and bounds away into the
blue water.




ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK.


Montaigne and "Howel's Letters" are my bedside books. If I wake at
night, I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again. They
talk about themselves for ever, and don't weary me. I like to hear them
tell their old stories over and over again. I read them in the dozy
hours, and only half remember them. I am informed that both of them tell
coarse stories. I don't heed them. It was the custom of their time, as
it is of Highlanders and Hottentots to dispense with a part of dress
which we all wear in cities. But people can't afford to be shocked
either at Cape Town or at Inverness every time they meet an individual
who wears his national airy raiment. I never knew the "Arabian Nights"
was an improper book until I happened once to read it in a "family
edition." Well, qui s'excuse. . . . Who, pray, has accused me as yet?
Here am I smothering dear good old Mrs. Grundy's objections, before she
has opened her mouth. I love, I say, and scarcely ever tire of hearing,
the artless prattle of those two dear old friends, the Perigourdin
gentleman and the priggish little Clerk of King Charles's Council. Their
egotism in nowise disgusts me. I hope I shall always like to hear men,
in reason, talk about themselves. What subject does a man know better?
If I stamp on a friend's corn, his outcry is genuine--he confounds my
clumsiness in the accents of truth. He is speaking about himself and
expressing his emotion of grief or pain in a manner perfectly authentic
and veracious. I have a story of my own, of a wrong done to me by
somebody, as far back as the year 1838: whenever I think of it and have
had a couple of glasses of wine, I CANNOT help telling it. The toe is
stamped upon; the pain is just as keen as ever: I cry out, and perhaps
utter imprecatory language. I told the story only last Wednesday at
dinner:--

"Mr. Roundabout," says a lady sitting by me, "how comes it that in your
books there is a certain class (it may be of men, or it may be of women,
but that is not the question in point)--how comes it, dear sir, there is
a certain class of persons whom you always attack in your writings, and
savagely rush at, goad, poke, toss up in the air, kick, and trample on?"

I couldn't help myself. I knew I ought not to do it. I told her the
whole story, between the entrees and the roast. The wound began to bleed
again. The horrid pang was there, as keen and as fresh as ever. If I
live half as long as Tithonus,* that crack across my heart can never be
cured. There are wrongs and griefs that CAN'T be mended. It is all very
well of you, my dear Mrs. G., to say that this spirit is unchristian,
and that we ought to forgive and forget, and so forth. How can I forget
at will? How forgive? I can forgive the occasional waiter who broke my
beautiful old decanter at that very dinner. I am not going to do him any
injury. But all the powers on earth can't make that claret-jug whole.

     * "Tithonus," by Tennyson, had appeared in the preceding
     (the 2nd) number of the Cornhill Magazine.

So, you see, I told the lady the inevitable story. I was egotistical. I
was selfish, no doubt; but I was natural, and was telling the truth. You
say you are angry with a man for talking about himself. It is because
you yourself are selfish, that that other person's Self does not
interest you. Be interested by other people and with their affairs.
Let them prattle and talk to you, as I do my dear old egotists just
mentioned. When you have had enough of them, and sudden hazes come over
your eyes, lay down the volume; pop out the candle, and dormez bien.
I should like to write a nightcap book--a book that you can muse over,
that you can smile over, that you can yawn over--a book of which you can
say, "Well, this man is so and so and so and so; but he has a friendly
heart (although some wiseacres have painted him as black as bogey), and
you may trust what he says." I should like to touch you sometimes with a
reminiscence that shall waken your sympathy, and make you say, Io anche
have so thought, felt, smiled, suffered. Now, how is this to be done
except by egotism? Linea recta brevissima. That right line "I" is the
very shortest, simplest, straightforwardest means of communication
between us, and stands for what it is worth and no more. Sometimes
authors say, "The present writer has often remarked;" or "The
undersigned has observed;" or "Mr. Roundabout presents his compliments
to the gentle reader, and begs to state," &c.: but "I" is better and
straighter than all these grimaces of modesty: and although these are
Roundabout Papers, and may wander who knows whither, I shall ask leave
to maintain the upright and simple perpendicular. When this bundle of
egotisms is bound up together, as they may be one day, if no accident
prevents this tongue from wagging, or this ink from running, they will
bore you very likely; so it would to read through "Howel's Letters"
from beginning to end, or to eat up the whole of a ham; but a slice on
occasion may have a relish: a dip into the volume at random and so on
for a page or two: and now and then a smile; and presently a gape; and
the book drops out of your hand; and so, bon soir, and pleasant dreams
to you. I have frequently seen men at clubs asleep over their humble
servant's works, and am always pleased. Even at a lecture I don't mind,
if they don't snore. Only the other day when my friend A. said, "You've
left off that Roundabout business, I see; very glad you have," I joined
in the general roar of laughter at the table. I don't care a fig
whether Archilochus likes the papers or no. You don't like partridge,
Archilochus, or porridge, or what not? Try some other dish. I am not
going to force mine down your throat, or quarrel with you if you refuse
it. Once in America a clever and candid woman said to me, at the
close of a dinner, during which I had been sitting beside her, "Mr.
Roundabout, I was told I should not like you; and I don't." "Well,
ma'am," says I, in a tone of the most unfeigned simplicity, "I don't
care." And we became good friends immediately, and esteemed each other
ever after.

So, my dear Archilochus, if you come upon this paper, and say, "Fudge!"
and pass on to another, I for one shall not be in the least mortified.
If you say, "What does he mean by calling this paper On Two Children
in Black, when there's nothing about people in black at all, unless the
ladies he met (and evidently bored) at dinner, were black women? What
is all this egotistical pother? A plague on his I's!" My dear fellow,
if you read "Montaigne's Essays," you must own that he might call almost
any one by the name of any other, and that an essay on the Moon or an
essay on Green Cheese would be as appropriate a title as one of his on
Coaches, on the Art of Discoursing, or Experience, or what you will.
Besides, if I HAVE a subject (and I have) I claim to approach it in a
roundabout manner.

You remember Balzac's tale of the Peau de Chagrin, and how every time
the possessor used it for the accomplishment of some wish the fairy Peau
shrank a little and the owner's life correspondingly shortened? I have
such a desire to be well with my public that I am actually giving up
my favorite story. I am killing my goose, I know I am. I can't tell
my story of the children in black after this; after printing it, and
sending it through the country. When they are gone to the printer's
these little things become public property. I take their hands. I bless
them. I say, "Good-by, my little dears." I am quite sorry to part with
them: but the fact is, I have told all my friends about them already,
and don't dare to take them about with me any more.

Now every word is true of this little anecdote, and I submit that there
lies in it a most curious and exciting little mystery. I am like a man
who gives you the last bottle of his '25 claret. It is the pride of his
cellar; he knows it, and he has a right to praise it. He takes up the
bottle, fashioned so slenderly--takes it up tenderly, cants it with
care, places it before his friends, declares how good it is, with honest
pride, and wishes he had a hundred dozen bottles more of the same wine
in his cellar. Si quid novisti, &c., I shall be very glad to hear from
you. I protest and vow I am giving you the best I have.

Well, who those little boys in black were, I shall never probably know
to my dying day. They were very pretty little men, with pale faces, and
large, melancholy eyes; and they had beautiful little hands, and little
boots, and the finest little shirts, and black paletots lined with the
richest silk; and they had picture-books in several languages, English,
and French, and German, I remember. Two more aristocratic-looking little
men I never set eyes on. They were travelling with a very handsome, pale
lady in mourning, and a maid-servant dressed in black, too; and on the
lady's face there was the deepest grief. The little boys clambered
and played about the carriage, and she sat watching. It was a
railway-carriage from Frankfort to Heidelberg.

I saw at once that she was the mother of those children, and going to
part from them. Perhaps I have tried parting with my own, and not found
the business very pleasant. Perhaps I recollect driving down (with a
certain trunk and carpet-bag on the box) with my own mother to the end
of the avenue, where we waited--only a few minutes--until the whirring
wheels of that "Defiance" coach were heard rolling towards us as certain
as death. Twang goes the horn; up goes the trunk; down come the steps.
Bah! I see the autumn evening: I hear the wheels now: I smart the cruel
smart again: and, boy or man, have never been able to bear the sight of
people parting from their children.

I thought these little men might be going to school for the first time
in their lives; and mamma might be taking them to the doctor, and would
leave them with many fond charges, and little wistful secrets of love,
bidding the elder to protect his younger brother, and the younger to be
gentle, and to remember to pray to God always for his mother, who would
pray for her boy too. Our party made friends with these young ones
during the little journey; but the poor lady was too sad to talk except
to the boys now and again, and sat in her corner, pale, and silently
looking at them.

The next day, we saw the lady and her maid driving in the direction
of the railway-station, WITHOUT THE BOYS. The parting had taken place,
then. That night they would sleep among strangers. The little beds at
home were vacant, and poor mother might go and look at them. Well, tears
flow, and friends part, and mothers pray every night all over the
world. I dare say we went to see Heidelberg Castle, and admired the vast
shattered walls and quaint gables; and the Neckar running its bright
course through that charming scene of peace and beauty; and ate our
dinner, and drank our wine with relish. The poor mother would eat but
little Abendessen that night; and, as for the children--that first night
at school--hard bed, hard words, strange boys bullying, and laughing,
and jarring you with their hateful merriment--as for the first night at
a strange school, we most of us remember what THAT is. And the first is
not the WORST, my boys, there's the rub. But each man has his share of
troubles, and, I suppose, you must have yours.

From Heidelberg we went to Baden-Baden: and, I dare say, saw Madame de
Schlangenbad and Madame de la Cruchecassee, and Count Punter, and honest
Captain Blackball. And whom should we see in the evening, but our two
little boys, walking on each side of a fierce, yellow-faced, bearded
man! We wanted to renew our acquaintance with them, and they were coming
forward quite pleased to greet us. But the father pulled back one of the
little men by his paletot, gave a grim scowl, and walked away. I can see
the children now looking rather frightened away from us and up into the
father's face, or the cruel uncle's--which was he? I think he was the
father. So this was the end of them. Not school, as I at first had
imagined. The mother was gone, who had given them the heaps of pretty
books, and the pretty studs in the shirts, and the pretty silken
clothes, and the tender--tender cares; and they were handed to this
scowling practitioner of Trente et Quarante. Ah! this is worse than
school. Poor little men! poor mother sitting by the vacant little beds!
We saw the children once or twice after, always in Scowler's company;
but we did not dare to give each other any marks of recognition.

From Baden we went to Basle, and thence to Lucerne, and so over the
St. Gothard into Italy. From Milan we went to Venice; and now comes the
singular part of my story. In Venice there is a little court of which
I forget the name: but in it is an apothecary's shop, whither I went to
buy some remedy for the bites of certain animals which abound in Venice.
Crawling animals, skipping animals, and humming, flying animals; all
three will have at you at once; and one night nearly drove me into a
strait-waistcoat. Well, as I was coming out of the apothecary's with the
bottle of spirits of hartshorn in my hand (it really does do the bites
a great deal of good), whom should I light upon but one of my little
Heidelberg-Baden boys!

I have said how handsomely they were dressed as long as they were with
their mother. When I saw the boy at Venice, who perfectly recognized
me, his only garb was a wretched yellow cotton gown. His little feet,
on which I had admired the little shiny boots, were WITHOUT SHOE OR
STOCKING. He looked at me, ran to an old hag of a woman, who seized his
hand; and with her he disappeared down one of the thronged lanes of the
city.

From Venice we went to Trieste (the Vienna railway at that time was only
opened as far as Laybach, and the magnificent Semmering Pass was not
quite completed). At a station between Laybach and Graetz, one of my
companions alighted for refreshment, and came back to the carriage
saying:--

"There's that horrible man from Baden, with the two little boys."

Of course, we had talked about the appearance of the little boy at
Venice, and his strange altered garb. My companion said they were pale,
wretched-looking and DRESSED QUITE SHABBILY.

I got out at several stations, and looked at all the carriages. I could
not see my little men. From that day to this I have never set eyes on
them. That is all my story. Who were they? What could they be? How can
you explain that mystery of the mother giving them up; of the remarkable
splendor and elegance of their appearance while under her care; of
their barefooted squalor in Venice, a month afterwards; of their shabby
habiliments at Laybach? Had the father gambled away his money, and
sold their clothes? How came they to have passed out of the hands of a
refined lady (as she evidently was, with whom I first saw them) into the
charge of quite a common woman like her with whom I saw one of the boys
at Venice? Here is but one chapter of the story. Can any man write the
next, or that preceding the strange one on which I happened to light?
Who knows? the mystery may have some quite simple solution. I saw two
children, attired like little princes, taken from their mother and
consigned to other care; and a fortnight afterwards, one of them
barefooted and like a beggar. Who will read this riddle of The Two
Children in Black?




ON RIBBONS.


The uncle of the present Sir Louis N. Bonaparte, K.G., &c., inaugurated
his reign as Emperor over the neighboring nation by establishing an
Order, to which all citizens of his country, military, naval, and
civil--all men most distinguished in science, letters, arts, and
commerce--were admitted. The emblem of the Order was but a piece of
ribbon, more or less long or broad, with a toy at the end of it.
The Bourbons had toys and ribbons of their own, blue, black, and
all-colored; and on their return to dominion such good old Tories would
naturally have preferred to restore their good old orders of Saint
Louis, Saint Esprit, and Saint Michel; but France had taken the ribbon
of the Legion of Honor so to her heart that no Bourbon sovereign dared
to pluck it thence.

In England, until very late days, we have been accustomed rather to
pooh-pooh national Orders, to vote ribbons and crosses tinsel gewgaws,
foolish foreign ornaments, and so forth. It is known how the Great
Duke (the breast of whose own coat was plastered with some half-hundred
decorations) was averse to the wearing of ribbons, medals, clasps,
and the like, by his army. We have all of us read how uncommonly
distinguished Lord Castlereagh looked at Vienna, where he was the only
gentleman present without any decoration whatever. And the Great Duke's
theory was, that clasps and ribbons, stars and garters, were good
and proper ornaments for himself, for the chief officers of his
distinguished army, and for gentlemen of high birth, who might naturally
claim to wear a band of garter blue across their waistcoats; but that
for common people your plain coat, without stars and ribbons, was the
most sensible wear.

And no doubt you and I are as happy, as free, as comfortable; we can
walk and dine as well; we can keep the winter's cold out as well,
without a star on our coats, as without a feather in our hats. How often
we have laughed at the absurd mania of the Americans for dubbing their
senators, members of Congress, and States' representatives, Honorable.
We have a right to call OUR Privy Councillors Right Honorable, our
Lords' sons Honorable, and so forth; but for a nation as numerous, well
educated, strong, rich, civilized, free as our own, to dare to give its
distinguished citizens titles of honor--monstrous assumption of low-bred
arrogance and parvenu vanity! Our titles are respectable, but theirs
absurd. Mr. Jones, of London, a Chancellor's son, and a tailor's
grandson, is justly Honorable, and entitled to be Lord Jones at his
noble father's decease: but Mr. Brown, the senator from New York, is a
silly upstart for tacking Honorable to his name, and our sturdy British
good sense laughs at him. Who has not laughed (I have myself) at
Honorable Nahum Dodge, Honorable Zeno Scudder, Honorable Hiram Boake,
and the rest? A score of such queer names and titles I have smiled at in
America. And, mutato nomine? I meet a born idiot, who is a peer and born
legislator. This drivelling noodle and his descendants through life are
your natural superiors and mine--your and my children's superiors. I
read of an alderman kneeling and knighted at court: I see a gold-stick
waddling backwards before Majesty in a procession, and if we laugh,
don't you suppose the Americans laugh too?

Yes, stars, garters, orders, knighthoods, and the like, are folly. Yes,
Bobus, citizen and soap-boiler, is a good man, and no one laughs at him
or good Mrs. Bobus, as they have their dinner at one o'clock. But
who will not jeer at Sir Thomas on a melting day, and Lady Bobus, at
Margate, eating shrimps in a donkey-chaise? Yes, knighthood is absurd:
and chivalry an idiotic superstition: and Sir Walter Manny was a zany:
and Nelson, with his flaming stars and cordons, splendent upon a day
of battle, was a madman: and Murat, with his crosses and orders, at the
head of his squadrons charging victorious, was only a crazy mountebank,
who had been a tavern-waiter, and was puffed up with absurd vanity about
his dress and legs. And the men of the French line at Fontenoy, who
told Messieurs de la Garde to fire first, were smirking French
dancing-masters; and the Black Prince, waiting upon his royal prisoner,
was acting an inane masquerade: and Chivalry is naught; and honor is
humbug; and Gentlemanhood is an extinct folly; and Ambition is madness;
and desire of distinction is criminal vanity; and glory is bosh; and
fair fame is idleness; and nothing is true but two and two; and the
color of all the world is drab; and all men are equal; and one man is
as tall as another; and one man is as good as another--and a great dale
betther, as the Irish philosopher said.

Is this so? Titles and badges of honor are vanity; and in the American
Revolution you have his Excellency General Washington sending back, and
with proper spirit sending back, a letter in which he is not addressed
as Excellency and General. Titles are abolished; and the American
Republic swarms with men claiming and bearing them. You have the French
soldier cheered and happy in his dying agony, and kissing with frantic
joy the chief's hand who lays the little cross on the bleeding bosom. At
home you have the Dukes and Earls jobbing and intriguing for the Garter;
the Military Knights grumbling at the Civil Knights of the bath; the
little ribbon eager for the collar; the soldiers and seamen from India
and the Crimea marching in procession before the Queen, and receiving
from her hands the cross bearing her royal name. And, remember, there
are not only the cross wearers, but all the fathers and friends; all the
women who have prayed for their absent heroes; Harry's wife, and Tom's
mother, and Jack's daughter, and Frank's sweetheart, each of whom wears
in her heart of hearts afterwards the badge which son, father, lover,
has won by his merit; each of whom is made happy and proud, and is bound
to the country by that little bit of ribbon.

I have heard, in a lecture about George the Third, that, at his
accession, the King had a mind to establish an order for literary men.
It was to have been called the Order of Minerva--I suppose with an Owl
for a badge. The knights were to have worn a star of sixteen points, and
a yellow ribbon; and good old Samuel Johnson was talked of as President,
or Grand Cross, or Grand Owl, of the society. Now about such an order
as this there certainly may be doubts. Consider the claimants, the
difficulty of settling their claims, the rows and squabbles amongst the
candidates, and the subsequent decision of posterity! Dr. Beattie would
have ranked as first poet, and twenty years after the sublime Mr. Hayley
would, no doubt, have claimed the Grand Cross. Mr. Gibbon would not have
been eligible, on account of his dangerous freethinking opinions; and
her sex, as well as her republican sentiments, might have interfered
with the knighthood of the immortal Mrs. Catharine Macaulay. How
Goldsmith would have paraded the ribbon at Madame Cornelys's, or the
Academy dinner! How Peter Pindar would have railed at it! Fifty years
later, the noble Scott would have worn the Grand Cross and deserved it;
but Gifford would have had it; and Byron, and Shelley, and Hazlitt, and
Hunt would have been without it; and had Keats been proposed as officer,
how the Tory prints would have yelled with rage and scorn! Had the star
of Minerva lasted to our present time--but I pause, not because the idea
is dazzling, but too awful. Fancy the claimants, and the row about their
precedence! Which philosopher shall have the grand cordon?--which the
collar?--which the little scrap no bigger than a buttercup? Of the
historians--A, say,--and C, and F, and G, and S, and T,--which shall be
Companion and which Grand Owl? Of the poets, who wears, or claims, the
largest and brightest star? Of the novelists, there is A, and B and C D;
and E (star of first magnitude, newly discovered), and F (a magazine of
wit), and fair G, and H, and I, and brave old J, and charming K, and
L, and M, and N, and O (fair twinklers), and I am puzzled between three
P's--Peacock, Miss Pardoe, and Paul Pry--and Queechy, and R, and S, and
T, mere et fils, and very likely U, O gentle reader, for who has not
written his novel now-a-days?--who has not a claim to the star and
straw-colored ribbon?--and who shall have the biggest and largest? Fancy
the struggle! Fancy the squabble! Fancy the distribution of prizes!

Who shall decide on them? Shall it be the sovereign? shall it be the
Minister for the time being? and has Lord Palmerston made a deep study
of novels? In this matter the late Ministry,* to be sure, was better
qualified; but even then, grumblers who had not got their canary
cordons, would have hinted at professional jealousies entering the
Cabinet; and, the ribbons being awarded, Jack would have scowled at his
because Dick had a broader one; Ned been indignant because Bob's was as
large: Tom would have thrust his into the drawer, and scorned to wear it
at all. No--no: the so-called literary world was well rid of Minerva
and her yellow ribbon. The great poets would have been indifferent, the
little poets jealous, the funny men furious, the philosophers satirical,
the historians supercilious, and, finally, the jobs without end.
Say, ingenuity and cleverness are to be rewarded by State tokens and
prizes--and take for granted the Order of Minerva is established--who
shall have it? A great philosopher? no doubt we cordially salute him
G.C.M. A great historian? G.C.M. of course. A great engineer? G.C.M.
A great poet? received with acclamation G.C.M. A great painter? oh!
certainly, G.C.M. If a great painter, why not a great novelist?
Well, pass, great novelist, G.C.M. But if a poetic, a pictorial, a
story-telling or music-composing artist, why not a singing artist?
Why not a basso-profondo? Why not a primo tenore? And if a singer, why
should not a ballet-dancer come bounding on the stage with his cordon,
and cut capers to the music of a row of decorated fiddlers? A chemist
puts in his claim for having invented a new color; an apothecary for
a new pill; the cook for a new sauce; the tailor for a new cut of
trousers. We have brought the star of Minerva down from the breast to
the pantaloons. Stars and garters! can we go any farther; or shall we
give the shoe maker the yellow ribbon of the order for his shoetie?

     * That of Lord Derby, in 1859, which included Mr. Disraeli
     and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.

When I began this present Roundabout excursion, I think I had not quite
made up my mind whether we would have an Order of all the Talents or
not: perhaps I rather had a hankering for a rich ribbon and gorgeous
star, in which my family might like to see me at parties in my best
waistcoat. But then the door opens, and there come in, and by the same
right too, Sir Alexis Soyer! Sir Alessandro Tamburini! Sir Agostino
Velluti! Sir Antonio Paganini (violinist)! Sir Sandy McGuffog (piper to
the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh)! Sir Alcide Flicflac (premier
danseur of H. M. Theatre)! Sir Harley Quin and Sir Joseph Grimaldi (from
Covent Garden)! They have all the yellow ribbon. They are all honorable,
and clever, and distinguished artists. Let us elbow through the rooms,
make a bow to the lady of the house, give a nod to Sir George Thrum,
who is leading the orchestra, and go and get some champagne and
seltzer-water from Sir Richard Gunter, who is presiding at the buffet.
A national decoration might be well and good: a token awarded by the
country to all its benemerentibus: but most gentlemen with Minerva stars
would, I think, be inclined to wear very wide breast-collars to their
coats. Suppose yourself, brother penman, decorated with this ribbon, and
looking in the glass, would you not laugh? Would not wife and daughters
laugh at that canary-colored emblem?

But suppose a man, old or young, of figure ever so stout, thin, stumpy,
homely, indulging in looking-glass reflections with that hideous ribbon
and cross called V. C. on his coat, would he not be proud? and his
family, would they not be prouder? For your nobleman there is the famous
old blue garter and star, and welcome. If I were a marquis--if I had
thirty--forty thousand a year (settle the sum, my dear Alnaschar,
according to your liking), I should consider myself entitled to my seat
in Parliament and to my garter. The garter belongs to the Ornamental
Classes. Have you seen the new magnificent Pavo Spicifer at the
Zoological Gardens, and do you grudge him his jewelled coronet and the
azure splendor of his waistcoat? I like my Lord Mayor to have a gilt
coach; my magnificent monarch to be surrounded by magnificent nobles:
I huzzay respectfully when they pass in procession. It is good for Mr.
Briefless (50, Pump Court, fourth floor) that there should be a Lord
Chancellor, with a gold robe and fifteen thousand a year. It is good
for a poor curate that there should be splendid bishops at Fulham and
Lambeth: their lordships were poor curates once, and have won, so
to speak, their ribbon. Is a man who puts into a lottery to be sulky
because he does not win the twenty thousand pounds prize? Am I to fall
into a rage, and bully my family when I come home, after going to see
Chatsworth or Windsor, because we have only two little drawing-rooms?
Welcome to your garter, my lord, and shame upon him qui mal y pense!

So I arrive in my roundabout way near the point towards which I have
been trotting ever since we set out.

In a voyage to America, some nine years since, on the seventh or eighth
day out from Liverpool, Captain L---- came to dinner at eight bells as
usual, talked a little to the persons right and left of him, and helped
the soup with his accustomed politeness. Then he went on deck, and was
back in a minute, and operated on the fish, looking rather grave the
while.

Then he went on deck again; and this time was absent, it may be, three
or five minutes, during which the fish disappeared, and the entrees
arrived, and the roast beef. Say ten minutes passed--I can't tell after
nine years.

Then L---- came down with a pleased and happy countenance this time, and
began carving the sirloin: "We have seen the light," he said. "Madam,
may I help you to a little gravy, or a little horse-radish?" or what
not?

I forget the name of the light; nor does it matter. It was a point
off Newfoundland for which he was on the look-out, and so well did the
"Canada" know where she was, that, between soup and beef, the captain
had sighted the headland by which his course was lying.

And so through storm and darkness, through fog and midnight, the ship
had pursued her steady way over the pathless ocean and roaring seas, so
surely that the officers who sailed her knew her place within a minute
or two, and guided us with a wonderful providence safe on our way. Since
the noble Cunard Company has run its ships, but one accident, and that
through the error of a pilot, has happened on the line.

By this little incident (hourly of course repeated, and trivial to all
sea-going people) I own I was immensely moved, and never can think of
it but with a heart full of thanks and awe. We trust our lives to these
seamen, and how nobly they fulfil their trust! They are, under heaven,
as a providence for us. Whilst we sleep, their untiring watchfulness
keeps guard over us. All night through that bell sounds at its season,
and tells how our sentinels defend us. It rang when the "Amazon" was
on fire, and chimed its heroic signal of duty, and courage, and honor.
Think of the dangers these seamen undergo for us: the hourly peril and
watch; the familiar storm; the dreadful iceberg; the long winter nights
when the decks are as glass, and the sailor has to climb through icicles
to bend the stiff sail on the yard! Think of their courage and their
kindnesses in cold, in tempest, in hunger, in wreck! "The women and
children to the boats," says the captain of the "Birkenhead," and, with
the troops formed on the deck, and the crew obedient to the word of
glorious command, the immortal ship goes down. Read the story of the
"Sarah Sands:"--


"SARAH SANDS.

"The screw steamship 'Sarah Sands,' 1,330 registered tons, was chartered
by the East India Company in the autumn of 1858, for the conveyance of
troops to India. She was commanded by John Squire Castle. She took out a
part of the 54th Regiment, upwards of 350 persons, besides the wives and
children of some of the men, and the families of some of the officers.
All went well till the 11th November, when the ship had reached lat. 14
S., long. 56 E., upwards of 400 miles from the Mauritius.

"Between three and four P. M. on that day a very strong smell of fire
was perceived arising from the after-deck, and upon going below into
the hold, Captain Castle found it to be on fire, and immense volumes
of smoke arising from it. Endeavors were made to reach the seat of the
fire, but in vain; the smoke and heat were too much for the men.
There was, however, no confusion. Every order was obeyed with the same
coolness and courage with which it was given. The engine was immediately
stopped. All sail was taken in, and the ship brought to the wind, so as
to drive the smoke and fire, which was in the after-part of the ship,
astern. Others were, at the same time, getting fire-hoses fitted
and passed to the scene of the fire. The fire, however, continued to
increase, and attention was directed to the ammunition contained in
the powder-magazines, which were situated one on each side the ship
immediately above the fire. The star-board magazine was soon cleared.
But by this time the whole of the after-part of the ship was so much
enveloped in smoke that it was scarcely possible to stand, and great
fears were entertained on account of the port magazine. Volunteers were
called for, and came immediately, and, under the guidance of Lieutenant
Hughes, attempted to clear the port magazine, which they succeeded in
doing, with the exception, as was supposed, of one or two barrels. It
was most dangerous work. The men became overpowered with the smoke and
heat, and fell; and several, while thus engaged, were dragged up by
ropes, senseless.

"The flames soon burst up through the deck, and running rapidly along
the various cabins, set the greater part on fire.

"In the meantime Captain Castle took steps for lowering the boats. There
was a heavy gale at the time, but they were launched without the least
accident. The soldiers were mustered on deck;--there was no rush to the
boats; and the men obeyed the word of command as if on parade. The men
were informed that Captain Castle did not despair of saving the ship,
but that they must be prepared to leave her if necessary. The women and
children were lowered into the port lifeboat, under the charge of Mr.
Very, third officer, who had orders to keep clear of the ship until
recalled.

"Captain Castle then commenced constructing rafts of spare spars. In a
short time, three were put together, which would have been capable of
saving a great number of those on board. Two were launched overboard,
and safely moored alongside, and then a third was left across the deck
forward, ready to be launched.

"In the meantime the fire had made great progress. The whole of the
cabins were one body of fire, and at about 8.30 P. M. flames burst
through the upper deck, and shortly after the mizzen rigging caught
fire. Fears were entertained of the ship paying off, in which case the
flames would have been swept forwards by the wind; but fortunately the
after-braces were burnt through, and the main-yard swung round, which
kept the ship's head to wind. About nine P. M., a fearful explosion
took place in the port magazine, arising, no doubt, from the one or two
barrels of powder which it had been impossible to remove. By this time
the ship was one body of flame, from the stern to the main rigging, and
thinking it scarcely possible to save her, Captain Castle called Major
Brett (then in command of the troops, for the Colonel was in one of
the boats) forward, and, telling him that he feared the ship was lost,
requested him to endeavor to keep order amongst the troops till the
last, but, at the same time, to use every exertion to check the
fire. Providentially, the iron bulkhead in the after-part of the
ship withstood the action of the flames, and here all efforts were
concentrated to keep it cool.

"'No person,' says the captain, 'can describe the manner in which the
men worked to keep the fire back; one party were below, keeping the
bulkhead cool, and when several were dragged up senseless, fresh
volunteers took their places, who were, however, soon in the same state.
At about ten P. M., the maintopsail-yard took fire. Mr. Welch, one
quartermaster, and four or five soldiers, went aloft with wet blankets,
and succeeded in extinguishing it, but not until the yard and mast were
nearly burnt through. The work of fighting the fire below continued for
hours, and about midnight it appeared that some impression was made; and
after that, the men drove it back, inch by inch, until daylight, when
they had completely got it under. The ship was now in a frightful
plight. The after-part was literally burnt out--merely the shell
remaining--the port quarter blown out by the explosion: fifteen feet of
water in the hold.'

"The gale still prevailed, and the ship was rolling and pitching in a
heavy sea, and taking in large quantities of water abaft: the tanks,
too, were rolling from side to side in the hold.

"As soon as the smoke was partially cleared away, Captain Castle got
spare sails and blankets aft to stop the leak, passing two hawsers round
the stern, and setting them up. The troops were employed baling and
pumping. This continued during the whole morning.

"In the course of the day the ladies joined the ship. The boats were
ordered alongside, but they found the sea too heavy to remain there. The
gig had been abandoned during the night, and the crew, under Mr. Wood,
fourth officer, had got into another of the boats. The troops were
employed the remainder of the day baling and pumping, and the crew
securing the stern. All hands were employed during the following
night baling and pumping, the boats being moored alongside, where they
received some damage. At daylight, on the 13th, the crew were employed
hoisting time boats, the troops were working manfully baling and
pumping. Latitude at noon, 13 deg. 12 min. south. At five P. M., the
foresail and foretopsail were set, the rafts were cut away, and the ship
bore for the Mauritius. On Thursday, the 19th, she sighted the Island of
Rodrigues, and arrived at Mauritius on Monday the 23rd."


The Nile and Trafalgar are not more glorious to our country, are not
greater victories than these won by our merchant-seamen. And if you look
in the Captain's reports of any maritime register, you will see similar
acts recorded every day. I have such a volume for last year, now
lying before me. In the second number, as I open it at hazard, Captain
Roberts, master of the ship "Empire," from Shields to London, reports
how on the 14th ult. (the 14th December, 1859), he, "being off Whitby,
discovered the ship to be on fire between the main hold and boilers: got
the hose from the engine laid on, and succeeded in subduing the fire;
but only apparently; for at seven the next morning, the 'Dudgeon'
bearing S.S.E. seven miles' distance, the fire again broke out, causing
the ship to be enveloped in flames on both sides of midships: got the
hose again into play and all hands to work with buckets to combat with
the fire. Did not succeed in stopping it till four P. M., to effect
which, were obliged to cut away the deck and top sides, and throw
overboard part of the cargo. The vessel was very much damaged and leaky:
determined to make for the Humber. Ship was run on shore, on the
mud, near Grimsby harbor, with five feet of water in her hold. The
donkey-engine broke down. The water increased so fast as to put out
the furnace fires and render the ship almost unmanageable. On the tide
flowing, a tug towed the ship off the mud, and got her into Grimsby to
repair."

On the 2nd of November, Captain Strickland, of the "Purchase"
brigantine, from Liverpool to Yarmouth, U. S., "encountered heavy gales
from W.N.W. to W.S.W., in lat. 43 deg. N., long. 34 deg. W., in which
we lost jib, foretopmast, staysail, topsail, and carried away the
foretopmast stays, bobstays and bowsprit, headsails, cut-water and
stern, also started the wood ends, which caused the vessel to leak. Put
her before the wind and sea, and hove about twenty-five tons of cargo
overboard to lighten the ship forward. Slung myself in a bowline, and by
means of thrusting 2 1/2-inch rope in the opening, contrived to stop a
great portion of the leak.

"December 16th.--The crew continuing night and day at the pumps, could
not keep the ship free; deemed it prudent for the benefit of those
concerned to bear up for the nearest port. On arriving in lat. 48 deg.
45' N., long. 23 deg. W., observed a vessel with a signal of distress
flying. Made towards her, when she proved to be the barque 'Carleton,'
water-logged. The captain and crew asked to be taken off. Hove to, and
received them on board, consisting of thirteen men: and their ship was
abandoned. We then proceeded on our course, the crew of the abandoned
vessel assisting all they could to keep my ship afloat. We arrived at
Cork harbor on the 27th ult."

Captain Coulson, master of the brig "Othello," reports that his brig
foundered off Portland, December 27;--encountering a strong gale,
and shipping two heavy seas in succession, which hove the ship on her
beam-ends. "Observing no chance of saving the ship, took to the long
boat, and within ten minutes of leaving her saw the brig founder. We
were picked up the same morning by the French ship 'Commerce de Paris,'
Captain Tombarel."

Here, in a single column of a newspaper, what strange, touching pictures
do we find of seamen's dangers, vicissitudes, gallantry, generosity! The
ship on fire--the captain in the gale slinging himself in a bowline to
stop the leak--the Frenchman in the hour of danger coming to his British
comrade's rescue--the brigantine almost a wreck, working up to the
barque with the signal of distress flying, and taking off her crew
of thirteen men. "We then proceeded on our course, THE CREW OF THE
ABANDONED VESSEL ASSISTING ALL THEY COULD TO KEEP MY SHIP AFLOAT." What
noble, simple words! What courage, devotedness, brotherly love! Do they
not cause the heart to beat, and the eyes to fill?

This is what seamen do daily, and for one another. One lights
occasionally upon different stories. It happened, not very long since,
that the passengers by one of the great ocean steamers were wrecked,
and, after undergoing the most severe hardships, were left, destitute
and helpless, at a miserable coaling port. Amongst them were old men,
ladies, and children. When the next steamer arrived, the passengers by
that steamer took alarm at the haggard and miserable appearance of
their unfortunate predecessors, and actually REMONSTRATED WITH THEIR OWN
CAPTAIN, URGING HIM NOT TO TAKE THE POOR CREATURES ON BOARD. There
was every excuse, of course. The last-arrived steamer was already
dangerously full: the cabins were crowded; there were sick and delicate
people on board--sick and delicate people who had paid a large price
to the company for room, food, comfort, already not too sufficient.
If fourteen of us are in an omnibus, will we see three or four women
outside and say "Come in, because this is the last 'bus, and it rains?"
Of course not: but think of that remonstrance, and of that Samaritan
master of the "Purchase" brigantine!

In the winter of '53, I went from Marseilles to Civita Vecchia, in one
of the magnificent P. and O. ships, the "Valetta," the master of which
subsequently did distinguished service in the Crimea. This was his first
Mediterranean voyage, and he sailed his ship by the charts alone, going
into each port as surely as any pilot. I remember walking the deck at
night with this most skilful, gallant, well-bred, and well-educated
gentleman, and the glow of eager enthusiasm with which he assented, when
I asked him whether he did not think a RIBBON or ORDER would be welcome
or useful in his service.

Why is there not an ORDER OF BRITANNIA for British seamen? In the
Merchant and the Royal Navy alike, occur almost daily instances and
occasions for the display of science, skill, bravery, fortitude in
trying circumstances, resource in danger. In the first number of the
Cornhill Magazine, a friend contributed a most touching story of the
M'Clintock expedition, in the dangers and dreadful glories of which he
shared; and the writer was a merchant captain. How many more are there
(and, for the honor of England, may there be many like him!)--gallant,
accomplished, high-spirited, enterprising masters of their noble
profession! Can our fountain of Honor not be brought to such men? It
plays upon captains and colonels in seemly profusion. It pours forth
not illiberal rewards upon doctors and judges. It sprinkles mayors and
aldermen. It bedews a painter now and again. It has spirited a baronetcy
upon two, and bestowed a coronet upon one noble man of letters.
Diplomatists take their Bath in it as of right; and it flings out a
profusion of glittering stars upon the nobility of the three kingdoms.
Cannot Britannia find a ribbon for her sailors? The Navy, royal or
mercantile, is a Service. The command of a ship, or the conduct of her,
implies danger, honor, science, skill, subordination, good faith. It may
be a victory, such as that of the "Sarah Sands;" it may be discovery,
such as that of the "Fox;" it may be heroic disaster, such as that of
the "Birkenhead;" and in such events merchant seamen, as well as royal
seamen, take their share.

Why is there not, then, an Order of Britannia? One day a young officer
of the "Euryalus"* may win it; and, having just read the memoirs of
LORD DUNDONALD, I know who ought to have the first Grand Cross.

     * Prince Alfred was serving on board the frigate "Euryalus"
     when this was written.




ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES.


On the 18th day of April last I went to see a friend in a neighboring
Crescent, and on the steps of the next house beheld a group something
like that here depicted. A newsboy had stopped in his walk, and was
reading aloud the journal which it was his duty to deliver; a pretty
orange-girl, with a heap of blazing fruit, rendered more brilliant
by one of those great blue papers in which oranges are now artfully
wrapped, leant over the railing and listened; and opposite the nympham
discentem there was a capering and acute-eared young satirist of a
crossing-sweeper, who had left his neighboring professional avocation
and chance of profit, in order to listen to the tale of the little
newsboy.

That intelligent reader, with his hand following the line as he read
it out to his audience, was saying:--"And--now--Tom--coming up
smiling--after his fall--dee--delivered a rattling clinker upon
the Benicia Boy's--potato-trap--but was met by a--punisher on the
nose--which," &c. &c.; or words to that effect. Betty at 52 let me
in, while the boy was reading his lecture and, having been some twenty
minutes or so in the house and paid my visit, I took leave.

The little lecturer was still at work on the 51 doorstep, and his
audience had scarcely changed their position. Having read every word of
the battle myself in the morning, I did not stay to listen further;
but if the gentleman who expected his paper at the usual hour that day
experienced delay and a little disappointment I shall not be surprised.

I am not going to expatiate on the battle. I have read in the
correspondent's letter of a Northern newspaper, that in the midst of the
company assembled the reader's humble servant was present, and in a very
polite society, too, of "poets, clergymen, men of letters, and members
of both Houses of Parliament." If so, I must have walked to the station
in my sleep, paid three guineas in a profound fit of mental abstraction,
and returned to bed unconscious, for I certainly woke there about the
time when history relates that the fight was over. I do not know whose
colors I wore--the Benician's, or those of the Irish champion; nor
remember where the fight took place, which, indeed, no somnambulist is
bound to recollect. Ought Mr. Sayers to be honored for being brave, or
punished for being naughty? By the shade of Brutus the elder, I don't
know.

In George II.'s time, there was a turbulent navy lieutenant (Handsome
Smith he was called--his picture is at Greenwich now, in brown velvet,
and gold and scarlet; his coat handsome, his waistcoat exceedingly
handsome; but his face by no means the beauty)--there was, I say, a
turbulent young lieutenant who was broke on a complaint of the French
ambassador, for obliging a French ship of war to lower her topsails to
his ship at Spithead. But, by the King's orders, Tom was next day made
Captain Smith. Well, if I were absolute king, I would send Tom Sayers
to the mill for a month, and make him Sir Thomas on coming out of
Clerkenwell. You are a naughty boy, Tom! but then, you know, we ought
to love our brethren, though ever so naughty. We are moralists, and
reprimand you; and you are hereby reprimanded accordingly. But in case
England should ever have need of a few score thousand champions, who
laugh at danger; who cope with giants; who, stricken to the ground, jump
up and gayly rally, and fall, and rise again, and strike, and die rather
than yield--in case the country should need such men, and you should
know them, be pleased to send lists of the misguided persons to the
principal police stations, where means may some day be found to utilize
their wretched powers, and give their deplorable energies a right
direction. Suppose, Tom, that you and your friends are pitted against an
immense invader--suppose you are bent on holding the ground, and dying
there, if need be--suppose it is life, freedom, honor, home, you are
fighting for, and there is a death--dealing sword or rifle in your hand,
with which you are going to resist some tremendous enemy who challenges
your championship on your native shore? Then, Sir Thomas, resist him to
the death, and it is all right: kill him, and heaven bless you. Drive
him into the sea, and there destroy, smash, and drown him; and let
us sing Laudamus. In these national cases, you see, we override the
indisputable first laws of morals. Loving your neighbor is very well,
but suppose your neighbor comes over from Calais and Boulogne to rob you
of your laws, your liberties, your newspapers, your parliament (all of
which SOME dear neighbors of ours have given up in the most self-denying
manner): suppose any neighbor were to cross the water and propose this
kind of thing to us? Should we not be justified in humbly trying to
pitch him into the water? If it were the King of Belgium himself we must
do so. I mean that fighting, of course, is wrong; but that there are
occasions when, &c.--I suppose I mean that that one-handed fight of
Sayers is one of the most spirit-stirring little stories ever told and,
with every love and respect for Morality--my spirit says to her,
"Do, for goodness' sake, my dear madam, keep your true, and pure, and
womanly, and gentle remarks for another day. Have the great kindness to
stand a LEETLE aside, and just let us see one or two more rounds between
the men. That little man with the one hand powerless on his breast
facing yonder giant for hours, and felling him, too, every now and then!
It is the little 'Java' and the 'Constitution' over again."

I think it is a most fortunate event for the brave Heenan, who has acted
and written since the battle with a true warrior's courtesy, and with
a great deal of good logic too, that the battle was a drawn one. The
advantage was all on Mr. Sayers's side. Say a young lad of sixteen
insults me in the street, and I try and thrash him, and do it. Well, I
have thrashed a young lad. You great, big tyrant, couldn't you hit one
of your own size? But say the lad thrashes me? In either case I walk
away discomfited: but in the latter, I am positively put to shame. Now,
when the ropes were cut from that death-grip, and Sir Thomas released,
the gentleman of Benicia was confessedly blind of one eye, and speedily
afterwards was blind of both. Could Mr. Savers have held out for three
minutes, for five minutes, for ten minutes more? He says he could. So
we say WE could have held out, and did, and had beaten off the enemy
at Waterloo, even if the Prussians hadn't come up. The opinions differ
pretty much according to the nature of the opinants. I say the Duke and
Tom could have held out, that they meant to hold out, that they did hold
out, and that there has been fistifying enough. That crowd which came
in and stopped the fight ought to be considered like one of those divine
clouds which the gods send in Homer:

                           "Apollo shrouds
          The godlike Trojan in a veil of clouds."

It is the best way of getting the godlike Trojan out of the scrape,
don't you see? The nodus is cut; Tom is out of chancery; the Benicia Boy
not a bit the worse, nay, better than if he had beaten the little man.
He has not the humiliation of conquest. He is greater, and will be loved
more hereafter by the gentle sex. Suppose he had overcome the godlike
Trojan? Suppose he had tied Tom's corpse to his cab-wheels, and driven
to Farnham, smoking the pipe of triumph? Faugh! the great hulking
conqueror! Why did you not hold your hand from yonder hero? Everybody,
I say, was relieved by that opportune appearance of the British gods,
protectors of native valor, who interfered, and "withdrew" their
champion.

Now, suppose six-feet-two conqueror, and five-feet-eight beaten; would
Sayers have been a whit the less gallant and meritorious? If Sancho had
been allowed REALLY to reign in Barataria, I make no doubt that, with
his good sense and kindness of heart, he would have devised some means
of rewarding the brave vanquished, as well as the brave victors in the
Baratarian army, and that a champion who had fought a good fight would
have been a knight of King Don Sancho's orders, whatever the upshot of
the combat had been. Suppose Wellington overwhelmed on the plateau
of Mont St. John; suppose Washington attacked and beaten at Valley
Forge--and either supposition is quite easy--and what becomes of the
heroes? They would have been as brave, honest, heroic, wise; but their
glory, where would it have been? Should we have had their portraits
hanging in our chambers? have been familiar with their histories? have
pondered over their letters, common lives, and daily sayings? There is
not only merit, but luck which goes to making a hero out of a gentleman.
Mind, please you, I am not saying that the hero is after all not so very
heroic; and have not the least desire to grudge him his merit because of
his good fortune.

Have you any idea whither this Roundabout Essay on some late great
victories is tending? Do you suppose that by those words I mean Trenton,
Brandywine, Salamanca, Vittoria, and so forth? By a great victory I
can't mean that affair at Farnham, for it was a drawn fight. Where,
then, are the victories, pray, and when are we coming to them?

My good sir, you will perceive that in this Nicaean discourse I have
only as yet advanced as far as this--that a hero, whether he wins
or loses, is a hero; and that if a fellow will but be honest and
courageous, and do his best, we are for paying all honor to him.
Furthermore, it has been asserted that Fortune has a good deal to do
with the making of heroes; and thus hinted for the consolation of those
who don't happen to be engaged in any stupendous victories, that, had
opportunity so served, they might have been heroes too. If you are not,
friend, it is not your fault, whilst I don't wish to detract from
any gentleman's reputation who is. There. My worst enemy can't take
objection to that. The point might have been put more briefly perhaps;
but, if you please, we will not argue that question.

Well, then. The victories which I wish especially to commemorate in
this paper, are the six great, complete, prodigious, and undeniable
victories, achieved by the corps which the editor of the Cornhill
Magazine has the honor to command. When I seemed to speak disparagingly
but now of generals, it was that chief I had in my I (if you will
permit me the expression). I wished him not to be elated by too much
prosperity; I warned him against assuming heroic imperatorial airs, and
cocking his laurels too jauntily over his ear. I was his conscience,
and stood on the splash-board of his triumph-car, whispering, "Hominem
memento te." As we rolled along the way, and passed the weathercocks on
the temples, I saluted the symbol of the goddess Fortune with a reverent
awe. "We have done our little endeavor," I said, bowing my head, "and
mortals can do no more. But we might have fought bravely and not won. We
might have cast the coin, calling, 'Head,' and lo! Tail might have come
uppermost." O thou Ruler of Victories!--thou Awarder of Fame!--thou
Giver of Crowns (and shillings)--if thou hast smiled upon us, shall we
not be thankful? There is a Saturnine philosopher, standing at the
door of his book-shop, who, I fancy, has a pooh-pooh expression as the
triumph passes. (I can't see quite clearly for the laurels, which
have fallen down over my nose.) One hand is reining in the two white
elephants that draw the car; I raise the other hand up to--to the
laurels, and pass on, waving him a graceful recognition. Up the Hill
of Ludgate--around the Pauline Square--by the side of Chepe--until it
reaches our own Hill of Corn--the procession passes. The Imperator is
bowing to the people; the captains of the legions are riding round the
car, their gallant minds struck by the thought, "Have we not fought as
well as yonder fellow, swaggering in the chariot, and are we not as good
as he?" Granted, with all my heart, my dear lads. When your consulship
arrives, may you be as fortunate. When these hands, now growing old,
shall lay down sword and truncheon, may you mount the car, and ride
to the temple of Jupiter. Be yours the laurel then. Neque me myrtus
dedecet, looking cosily down from the arbor where I sit under the arched
vine.

I fancy the Imperator standing on the steps of the temple (erected
by Titus) on the Mons Frumentarius, and addressing the citizens:
"Quirites!" he says, "in our campaign of six months, we have been
engaged six times, and in each action have taken near upon a HUNDRED
THOUSAND PRISONERS. Go to! What are other magazines compared to
our magazine? (Sound, trumpeter!) What banner is there like that of
Cornhill? You, philosopher yonder!" (he shirks under his mantle.)
"Do you know what it is to have a hundred and ten thousand readers?
A hundred thousand readers? a hundred thousand BUYERS!" (Cries of
"No!"--"Pooh!" "Yes, upon my honor!" "Oh, come!" and murmurs of applause
and derision)--"I say more than a hundred thousand purchasers--and I
believe AS MUCH AS A MILLION readers!" (Immense sensation.) "To these
have we said an unkind word? We have enemies; have we hit them an unkind
blow? Have we sought to pursue party aims, to forward private jobs,
to advance selfish schemes? The only persons to whom wittingly we have
given pain are some who have volunteered for our corps--and of these
volunteers we have had THOUSANDS." (Murmurs and grumbles.) "What
commander, citizens, could place all these men!--could make officers of
all these men?" (cries of "No--no!" and laughter)--"could say, 'I accept
this recruit, though he is too short for our standard, because he is
poor, and has a mother at home who wants bread?' could enroll this
other, who is too weak to bear arms, because he says, 'Look, sir, I
shall be stronger anon.' The leader of such an army as ours must select
his men, not because they are good and virtuous, but because they are
strong and capable. To these our ranks are ever open, and in addition to
the warriors who surround me"--(the generals look proudly conscious)--"I
tell you, citizens, that I am in treaty with other and most tremendous
champions, who will march by the side of our veterans to the achievement
of fresh victories. Now, blow, trumpets! Bang, ye gongs! and drummers,
drub the thundering skins! Generals and chiefs, we go to sacrifice to
the gods."

Crowned with flowers, the captains enter the temple, the other Magazines
walking modestly behind them. The people huzza; and, in some instances,
kneel and kiss the fringes of the robes of the warriors. The Philosopher
puts up his shutters, and retires into his shop, deeply moved. In
ancient times, Pliny (apud Smith) relates it was the custom of the
Imperator "to paint his whole body a bright red;" and, also, on
ascending the Hill, to have some of the hostile chiefs led aside "to the
adjoining prison, and put to death." We propose to dispense with both
these ceremonies.




THORNS IN THE CUSHION.


In the Essay with which this volume commences, the Cornhill Magazine was
likened to a ship sailing forth on her voyage, and the captain uttered
a very sincere prayer for her prosperity. The dangers of storm and
rock, the vast outlay upon ship and cargo, and the certain risk of the
venture, gave the chief officer a feeling of no small anxiety; for who
could say from what quarter danger might arise, and how his owner's
property might be imperilled? After a six months' voyage, we with very
thankful hearts could acknowledge our good fortune: and, taking up the
apologue in the Roundabout manner, we composed a triumphal procession
in honor of the Magazine, and imagined the Imperator thereof riding in
a sublime car to return thanks in the Temple of Victory. Cornhill is
accustomed to grandeur and greatness, and has witnessed, every ninth
of November, for I don't know how many centuries, a prodigious annual
pageant, chariot, progress, and flourish of trumpetry; and being so very
near the Mansion House, I am sure the reader will understand how
the idea of pageant and procession came naturally to my mind. The
imagination easily supplied a gold coach, eight cream-colored horses
of your true Pegasus breed, huzzaing multitudes, running footmen, and
clanking knights in armor, a chaplain and a sword-bearer with a muff
on his head, scowling out of the coach-window, and a Lord Mayor all
crimson, fur, gold chain, and white ribbons, solemnly occupying the
place of state. A playful fancy could have carried the matter farther,
could have depicted the feast in the Egyptian Hall, the Ministers, Chief
Justices, and right reverend prelates taking their seats round about his
lordship, the turtle and other delicious viands, and Mr. Toole behind
the central throne, bawling out to the assembled guests and dignitaries:
"My Lord So-and-so, my Lord What-d'ye-call-'im, my Lord Etcaetera, the
Lord Mayor pledges you all in a loving-cup." Then the noble proceedings
come to an end; Lord Simper proposes the ladies; the company rises from
table, and adjourns to coffee and muffins. The carriages of the nobility
and guests roll back to the West. The Egyptian Hall, so bright just now,
appears in a twilight glimmer, in which waiters are seen ransacking the
dessert, and rescuing the spoons. His lordship and the Lady Mayoress
go into their private apartments. The robes are doffed, the collar and
white ribbons are removed. The Mayor becomes a man, and is pretty surely
in a fluster about the speeches which he has just uttered; remembering
too well now, wretched creature, the principal points which he DIDN'T
make when he rose to speak. He goes to bed to headache, to care,
to repentance, and, I dare say, to a dose of something which his
body-physician has prescribed for him. And there are ever so many men in
the city who fancy that man happy!

Now, suppose that all through that 9th of November his lordship has
had a racking rheumatism, or a toothache, let us say, during all
dinner-time--through which he has been obliged to grin and mumble his
poor old speeches. Is he enviable? Would you like to change with his
lordship? Suppose that bumper which his golden footman brings him,
instead i'fackins of ypocras or canary, contains some abomination of
senna? Away! Remove the golden goblet, insidious cupbearer! You now
begin to perceive the gloomy moral which I am about to draw.

Last month we sang the song of glorification, and rode in the chariot of
triumph. It was all very well. It was right to huzza, and be thankful,
and cry, Bravo, our side! and besides, you know, there was the enjoyment
of thinking how pleased Brown, and Jones, and Robinson (our dear
friends) would be at this announcement of success. But now that the
performance is over, my good sir, just step into my private room, and
see that it is not all pleasure--this winning of successes. Cast your
eye over those newspapers, over those letters. See what the critics say
of your harmless jokes, neat little trim sentences, and pet waggeries!
Why, you are no better than an idiot; you are drivelling; your powers
have left you; this always overrated writer is rapidly sinking to, &c.

This is not pleasant; but neither is this the point. It may be the
critic is right, and the author wrong. It may be that the archbishop's
sermon is not so fine as some of those discourses twenty years ago
which used to delight the faithful in Granada. Or it may be (pleasing
thought!) that the critic is a dullard, and does not understand what
he is writing about. Everybody who has been to an exhibition has heard
visitors discoursing about the pictures before their faces. One says,
"This is very well;" another says, "This is stuff and rubbish;" another
cries, "Bravo! this is a masterpiece:" and each has a right to his
opinion. For example, one of the pictures I admired most at the Royal
Academy is by a gentleman on whom I never, to my knowledge, set eyes.
This picture is No. 346, "Moses," by Mr. S. Solomon. I thought it had
a great intention, I thought it finely drawn and composed. It nobly
represented, to my mind, the dark children of the Egyptian bondage, and
suggested the touching story. My newspaper says: "Two ludicrously ugly
women, looking at a dingy baby, do not form a pleasing object;" and so
good-by, Mr. Solomon. Are not most of our babies served so in life?
and doesn't Mr. Robinson consider Mr. Brown's cherub an ugly, squalling
little brat? So cheer up, Mr. S. S. It may be the critic who discoursed
on your baby is a bad judge of babies. When Pharaoh's kind daughter
found the child, and cherished and loved it, and took it home, and found
a nurse for it, too, I dare say there were grim, brick-dust colored
chamberlains, or some of the tough, old, meagre, yellow princesses at
court, who never had children themselves, who cried out, "Faugh! the
horrid little squalling wretch!" and knew he would never come to good;
and said, "Didn't I tell you so?" when he assaulted the Egyptian.

Never mind then, Mr. S. Solomon, I say, because a critic pooh-poohs
your work of art--your Moses--your child--your foundling. Why, did not
a wiseacre in Blackwood's Magazine lately fall foul of "Tom Jones?"
O hypercritic! So, to be sure, did good old Mr. Richardson, who could
write novels himself--but you, and I, and Mr. Gibbon, my dear sir, agree
in giving our respect, and wonder, and admiration, to the brave old
master.

In these last words I am supposing the respected reader to be endowed
with a sense of humor, which he may or may not possess; indeed, don't
we know many an honest man who can no more comprehend a joke than he can
turn a tune. But I take for granted, my dear sir, that you are brimming
over with fun--you mayn't make jokes, but you could if you would--you
know you could: and in your quiet way you enjoy them extremely. Now many
people neither make them, nor understand them when made, nor like them
when understood, and are suspicious, testy, and angry with jokers. Have
you ever watched an elderly male or female--an elderly "party," so to
speak, who begins to find out that some young wag of the company is
"chaffing" him? Have you ever tried the sarcastic or Socratic method
with a child? Little simple he or she, in the innocence of the simple
heart, plays some silly freak, or makes some absurd remark, which you
turn to ridicule. The little creature dimly perceives that you
are making fun of him, writhes, blushes, grows uneasy, bursts into
tears,--upon my word it is not fair to try the weapon of ridicule
upon that innocent young victim. The awful objurgatory practice he is
accustomed to. Point out his fault, and lay bare the dire consequences
thereof: expose it roundly, and give him a proper, solemn, moral
whipping--but do not attempt to castigare ridendo. Do not laugh at him
writhing, and cause all the other boys in the school to laugh. Remember
your own young days at school, my friend--the tingling cheeks, burning
ears, bursting heart, and passion of desperate tears, with which you
looked up, after having performed some blunder, whilst the doctor held
you to public scorn before the class, and cracked his great clumsy jokes
upon you--helpless, and a prisoner! Better the block itself, and the
lictors, with their fasces of birch-twigs, than the maddening torture of
those jokes!

Now with respect to jokes--and the present company of course
excepted--many people, perhaps most people, are as infants. They have
little sense of humor. They don't like jokes. Raillery in writing annoys
and offends them. The coarseness apart, I think I have met very, very
few women who liked the banter of Swift and Fielding. Their simple,
tender natures revolt at laughter. Is the satyr always a wicked brute
at heart, and are they rightly shocked at his grin, his leer, his horns,
hoofs, and ears? Fi donc, le vilain monstre, with his shrieks, and his
capering crooked legs! Let him go and get a pair of well-wadded black
silk stockings, and pull them over those horrid shanks; put a large gown
and bands over beard and hide; and pour a dozen of lavender-water into
his lawn handkerchief, and cry, and never make a joke again. It shall
all be highly-distilled poesy, and perfumed sentiment, and gushing
eloquence; and the foot SHAN'T peep out, and a plague take it. Cover it
up with the surplice. Out with your cambric, dear ladies, and let us all
whimper together.

Now, then, hand on heart, we declare that it is not the fire of adverse
critics which afflicts or frightens the editorial bosom. They may
be right; they may be rogues who have a personal spite; they may be
dullards who kick and bray as their nature is to do, and prefer thistles
to pineapples; they may be conscientious, acute, deeply learned,
delightful judges, who see your joke in a moment, and the profound
wisdom lying underneath. Wise or dull, laudatory or otherwise, we put
their opinions aside. If they applaud, we are pleased: if they shake
their quick pens, and fly off with a hiss, we resign their favors and
put on all the fortitude we can muster. I would rather have the lowest
man's good word than his bad one, to be sure; but as for coaxing a
compliment, or wheedling him into good-humor, or stopping his angry
mouth with a good dinner, or accepting his contributions for a certain
Magazine, for fear of his barking or snapping elsewhere--allons donc!
These shall not be our acts. Bow-wow, Cerberus! Here shall be no sop for
thee, unless--unless Cerberus is an uncommonly good dog, when we shall
bear no malice because he flew at us from our neighbor's gate.

What, then, is the main grief you spoke of as annoying you--the
toothache in the Lord Mayor's jaw, the thorn in the cushion of the
editorial chair? It is there. Ah! it stings me now as I write. It comes
with almost every morning's post. At night I come home and take my
letters up to bed (not daring to open them), and in the morning I find
one, two, three thorns on my pillow. Three I extracted yesterday; two I
found this morning. They don't sting quite so sharply as they did; but a
skin is a skin, and they bite, after all, most wickedly. It is all very
fine to advertise on the Magazine, "Contributions are only to be sent
to Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., and not to the Editor's private
residence." My dear sir, how little you know man- or woman-kind, if you
fancy they will take that sort of warning! How am I to know, (though, to
be sure, I begin to know now,) as I take the letters off the tray, which
of those envelopes contains a real bona fide letter, and which a thorn?
One of the best invitations this year I mistook for a thorn-letter, and
kept it without opening. This is what I call a thorn-letter:--


"CAMBERWELL, June 4.

"SIR--May I hope, may I entreat, that you will favor me by perusing the
enclosed lines, and that they may be found worthy of insertion in the
Cornhill Magazine. We have known better days, sir. I have a sick and
widowed mother to maintain, and little brothers and sisters who look to
me. I do my utmost as a governess to support them. I toil at night when
they are at rest, and my own hand and brain are alike tired. If I could
add but a LITTLE to our means by my pen, many of my poor invalid's wants
might be supplied, and I could procure for her comforts to which she is
now a stranger. Heaven knows it is not for want of WILL or for want
of ENERGY on my part, that she is now in ill-health, and our little
household almost without bread. Do--do cast a kind glance over my poem,
and if you can help us, the widow, the orphans will bless you! I remain,
sir, in anxious expectancy,

"Your faithful servant,

"S. S. S."


And enclosed is a little poem or two, and an envelope with its penny
stamp--heaven help us!--and the writer's name and address.

Now you see what I mean by a thorn. Here is the case put with true
female logic. "I am poor; I am good; I am ill; I work hard; I have a
sick mother and hungry brothers and sisters dependent on me. You can
help us if you will." And then I look at the paper, with the thousandth
part of a faint hope that it may be suitable, and I find it won't do:
and I knew it wouldn't do: and why is this poor lady to appeal to my
pity and bring her poor little ones kneeling to my bedside, and calling
for bread which I can give them if I choose? No day passes but that
argument ad misericordiam is used. Day and night that sad voice is
crying out for help. Thrice it appealed to me yesterday. Twice this
morning it cried to me: and I have no doubt when I go to get my hat,
I shall find it with its piteous face and its pale family about it,
waiting for me in the hall. One of the immense advantages which women
have over our sex is, that they actually like to read these letters.
Like letters? O mercy on us! Before I was an editor I did not like the
postman much:--but now!

A very common way with these petitioners is to begin with a fine
flummery about the merits and eminent genius of the person whom they are
addressing. But this artifice, I state publicly, is of no avail. When
I see THAT kind of herb, I know the snake within it, and fling it away
before it has time to sting. Away, reptile, to the waste-paper basket,
and thence to the flames!

But of these disappointed people, some take their disappointment and
meekly bear it. Some hate and hold you their enemy because you could not
be their friend. Some, furious and envious, say: "Who is this man who
refuses what I offer, and how dares he, the conceited coxcomb, to deny
my merit?"

Sometimes my letters contain not mere thorns, but bludgeons. How are
two choice slips from that noble Irish oak, which has more than once
supplied alpeens for this meek and unoffending skull:--


"THEATRE ROYAL, DONNYBROOK.

"SIR,--I have just finished reading the first portion of your Tale,
Lovel the Widower, and am much surprised at the unwarrantable strictures
you pass therein on the corps de ballet.

"I have been for more than ten years connected with the theatrical
profession, and I beg to assure you that the majority of the corps de
ballet are virtuous, well-conducted girls, and, consequently, that snug
cottages are not taken for them in the Regent's Park.

"I also have to inform you that theatrical managers are in the habit of
speaking good English, possibly better English than authors.

"You either know nothing of the subject in question, or you assert a
wilful falsehood.

"I am happy to say that the characters of the corps de ballet, as
also those of actors and actresses, are superior to the snarlings
of dyspeptic libellers, or the spiteful attacks and brutum fulmen of
ephemeral authors.

"I am, sir, your obedient servant,

"A. B. C."

The Editor of the Cornhill Magazine.


"THEATRE ROYAL, DONNYBROOK.

"SIR,--I have just read in the Cornhill Magazine for January, the first
portion of a Tale written by you, and entitled Lovel the Widower.

"In the production in question you employ all your malicious spite (and
you have great capabilities that way) in trying to degrade the character
of the corps de ballet. When you imply that the majority of ballet-girls
have villas taken for them in the Regent's Park, I SAY YOU TELL A
DELIBERATE FALSEHOOD.

"Haveing been brought up to the stage from infancy, and though now an
actress, haveing been seven years principal dancer at the opera, I am
competent to speak on the subject. I am only surprised that so vile a
libeller as yourself should be allowed to preside at the Dramatic Fund
dinner on the 22nd instant. I think it would be much better if you
were to reform your own life, instead of telling lies of those who are
immeasurably your superiors.

"Yours in supreme disgust,

"A. D."


The signatures of the respected writers are altered, and for the site
of their Theatre Royal an adjacent place is named, which (as I may
have been falsely informed) used to be famous for quarrels, thumps, and
broken heads. But, I say, is this an easy chair to sit on, when you are
liable to have a pair of such shillelaghs flung at it? And, prithee,
what was all the quarrel about? In the little history of "Lovel the
Widower" I described, and brought to condign punishment, a certain
wretch of a ballet-dancer, who lived splendidly for a while on
ill-gotten gains, had an accident, and lost her beauty, and died poor,
deserted, ugly, and every way odious. In the same page, other little
ballet-dancers are described, wearing homely clothing, doing their duty,
and carrying their humble savings to the family at home. But nothing
will content my dear correspondents but to have me declare that the
majority of ballet-dancers have villas in the Regent's Park, and to
convict me of "deliberate falsehood." Suppose, for instance, I had
chosen to introduce a red-haired washerwoman into a story? I might get
an expostulatory letter saying, "Sir, in stating that the majority of
washerwomen are red-haired, you are a liar! and you had best not
speak of ladies who are immeasurably your superiors." Or suppose I had
ventured to describe an illiterate haberdasher? One of the craft might
write to me, "Sir, in describing haberdashers as illiterate, you utter a
wilful falsehood. Haberdashers use much better English than authors." It
is a mistake, to be sure. I have never said what my correspondents say
I say. There is the text under their noses, but what if they choose to
read it their own way? "Hurroo, lads! here's for a fight. There's a
bald head peeping out of the hut. There's a bald head! It must be Tim
Malone's." And whack! come down both the bludgeons at once.

Ah me! we wound where we never intended to strike; we create anger where
we never meant harm; and these thoughts are the thorns in our Cushion.
Out of mere malignity, I suppose, there is no man who would like to make
enemies. But here, in this editorial business, you can't do otherwise:
and a queer, sad, strange, bitter thought it is, that must cross the
mind of many a public man: "Do what I will, be innocent or spiteful, be
generous or cruel, there are A and B, and C and D, who will hate me
to the end of the chapter--to the chapter's end--to the Finis of the
page--when hate, and envy, and fortune, and disappointment shall be
over."




ON SCREENS IN DINING-ROOMS.


A grandson of the late Rev. Dr. Primrose (of Wakefield, vicar) wrote me
a little note from his country living this morning, and the kind fellow
had the precaution to write "No thorn" upon the envelope, so that, ere I
broke the seal, my mind might be relieved of any anxiety lest the letter
should contain one of those lurking stabs which are so painful to the
present gentle writer. Your epigraph, my dear P., shows your kind and
artless nature; but don't you see it is of no use? People who are bent
upon assassinating you in the manner mentioned will write "No thorn"
upon their envelopes too; and you open the case, and presently out flies
a poisoned stiletto, which springs into a man's bosom, and makes the
wretch howl with anguish. When the bailiffs are after a man, they adopt
all sorts of disguises, pop out on him from all conceivable corners, and
tap his miserable shoulders. His wife is taken ill; his sweetheart,
who remarked his brilliant, too brilliant appearance at the Hyde Park
review, will meet him at Cremorne, or where you will. The old friend who
has owed him that money these five years will meet him at so-and-so and
pay. By one bait or other the victim is hooked, netted, landed, and down
goes the basket-lid. It is not your wife, your sweetheart, your friend
who is going to pay you. It is Mr. Nab the bailiff. YOU know--you are
caught. You are off in a cab to Chancery Lane.

You know, I say? WHY should you know? I make no manner of doubt you
never were taken by a bailiff in your life. I never was. I have been in
two or three debtors' prisons, but not on my own account. Goodness be
praised! I mean you can't escape your lot; and Nab only stands here
metaphorically as the watchful, certain, and untiring officer of Mr.
Sheriff Fate. Why, my dear Primrose, this morning along with your letter
comes another, bearing the well-known superscription of another old
friend, which I open without the least suspicion, and what do I find? A
few lines from my friend Johnson, it is true, but they are written on
a page covered with feminine handwriting. "Dear Mr. Johnson," says the
writer, "I have just been perusing with delight a most charming tale
by the Archbishop of Cambray. It is called 'Telemachus;' and I think
it would be admirably suited to the Cornhill Magazine. As you know
the Editor, will you have the great kindness, dear Mr. Johnson, to
communicate with him PERSONALLY (as that is much better than writing in
a roundabout way to the Publishers, and waiting goodness knows how long
for an answer), and state my readiness to translate this excellent
and instructive story. I do not wish to breathe A WORD against 'Lovel
Parsonage,' 'Framley the Widower,' or any of the novels which have
appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, but I AM SURE 'Telemachus' is as good
as new to English readers, and in point of interest and morality far,"
&c. &c. &c.

There it is. I am stabbed through Johnson. He has lent himself to this
attack on me. He is weak about women. Other strong men are. He submits
to the common lot, poor fellow. In my reply I do not use a word of
unkindness. I write him back gently, that I fear "Telemachus" won't suit
us. He can send the letter on to his fair correspondent. But however
soft the answer, I question whether the wrath will be turned away. Will
there not be a coolness between him and the lady? and is it not possible
that henceforth her fine eyes will look with darkling glances upon the
pretty orange cover of our Magazine?

Certain writers, they say, have a bad opinion of women. Now am I very
whimsical in supposing that this disappointed candidate will be hurt at
her rejection, and angry or cast down according to her nature? "Angry,
indeed!" says Juno, gathering up her purple robes and royal raiment.
"Sorry, indeed!" cries Minerva, lacing on her corselet again, and
scowling under her helmet. (I imagine the well-known Apple case has just
been argued and decided.) "Hurt, forsooth! Do you suppose WE care for
the opinion of that hobnailed lout of a Paris? Do you suppose that I,
the Goddess of Wisdom, can't make allowances for mortal ignorance,
and am so base as to bear malice against a poor creature who knows no
better? You little know the goddess nature when you dare to insinuate
that our divine minds are actuated by motives so base. A love of justice
influences US. We are above mean revenge. We are too magnanimous to be
angry at the award of such a judge in favor of such a creature." And
rustling out their skirts, the ladies walk away together. This is
all very well. You are bound to believe them. They are actuated by no
hostility: not they. They bear no malice--of course not. But when the
Trojan war occurs presently, which side will they take? Many brave
souls will be sent to Hades. Hector will perish. Poor old Priam's bald
numskull will be cracked, and Troy town will burn, because Paris prefers
golden-haired Venus to ox-eyed Juno and gray-eyed Minerva.

The last Essay of this Roundabout Series, describing the griefs and
miseries of the editorial chair, was written, as the kind reader will
acknowledge, in a mild and gentle, not in a warlike or satirical spirit.
I showed how cudgels were applied; but surely, the meek object of
persecution hit no blows in return. The beating did not hurt much, and
the person assaulted could afford to keep his good-humor; indeed, I
admired that brave though illogical little actress, of the T. R. D-bl-n,
for her fiery vindication of her profession's honor. I assure her I
had no intention to tell l--s--well, let us say monosyllables--about my
superiors: and I wish her nothing but well, and when Macmahon (or shall
it be Mulligan?) Roi d'Irlande ascends his throne, I hope she may be
appointed professor of English to the princesses of the royal house.
Nuper--in former days--I too have militated; sometimes, as I now think,
unjustly; but always, I vow, without personal rancor. Which of us has
not idle words to recall, flippant jokes to regret? Have you never
committed an imprudence? Have you never had a dispute, and found out
that you were wrong? So much the worse for you. Woe be to the man qui
croit toujours avoir raison. His anger is not a brief madness, but
a permanent mania. His rage is not a fever-fit, but a black poison
inflaming him, distorting his judgment, disturbing his rest, embittering
his cup, gnawing at his pleasures, causing him more cruel suffering than
ever he can inflict on his enemy. O la belle morale! As I write it,
I think about one or two little affairs of my own. There is old Dr.
Squaretoso (he certainly was very rude to me, and that's the fact);
there is Madame Pomposa (and certainly her ladyship's behavior was
about as cool as cool could be). Never mind, old Squaretoso: never mind,
Madame Pomposa! Here is a hand. Let us be friends as we once were, and
have no more of this rancor.

I had hardly sent that last Roundabout Paper to the printer (which, I
submit, was written in a pacable and not unchristian frame of mind),
when Saturday came, and with it, of course, my Saturday Review. I
remember at New York coming down to breakfast at the hotel one morning,
after a criticism had appeared in the New York Herald, in which an Irish
writer had given me a dressing for a certain lecture on Swift. Ah my
dear little enemy of the T. R, D., what were the cudgels in YOUR little
billet-doux compared to those noble New York shillelaghs? All through
the Union, the literary sons of Erin have marched alpeen-stock in hand,
and in every city of the States they call each other and everybody else
the finest names. Having come to breakfast, then, in the public room, I
sit down, and see--that the nine people opposite have all got New York
Heralds in their hands. One dear little lady, whom I knew, and who
sat opposite, gave a pretty blush, and popped her paper under the
tablecloth. I told her I had had my whipping already in my own private
room, and begged her to continue her reading. I may have undergone
agonies, you see, but every man who has been bred at an English public
school comes away from a private interview with Dr. Birch with a calm,
even a smiling face. And this is not impossible, when you are prepared.
You screw your courage up--you go through the business. You come
back and take your seat on the form, showing not the least symptom of
uneasiness or of previous unpleasantries. But to be caught suddenly up,
and whipped in the bosom of your family--to sit down to breakfast, and
cast your innocent eye on a paper, and find, before you are aware, that
the Saturday Monitor or Black Monday Instructor has hoisted you and is
laying on--that is indeed a trial. Or perhaps the family has looked at
the dreadful paper beforehand, and weakly tries to hide it. "Where is
the Instructor, or the Monitor?" say you. "Where is that paper?" says
mamma to one of the young ladies. Lucy hasn't it. Fanny hasn't seen it.
Emily thinks that the governess has it. At last, out it is brought,
that awful paper! Papa is amazingly tickled with the article on Thomson;
thinks that show up of Johnson is very lively; and now--heaven be good
to us!--he has come to the critique on himself:--"Of all the rubbish
which we have had from Mr. Tomkins, we do protest and vow that this
last cartload is" &c. Ah, poor Tomkins!--but most of all, ah! poor Mrs.
Tomkins, and poor Emily, and Fanny, and Lucy, who have to sit by and see
paterfamilias put to the torture!

Now, on this eventful Saturday, I did not cry, because it was not
so much the Editor as the Publisher of the Cornhill Magazine who was
brought out for a dressing; and it is wonderful how gallantly one bears
the misfortunes of one's friends. That a writer should be taken to task
about his books, is fair, and he must abide the praise or the censure.
But that a publisher should be criticised for his dinners, and for the
conversation which did NOT take place there,--is this tolerable press
practice, legitimate joking, or honorable warfare? I have not the honor
to know my next-door neighbor, but I make no doubt that he receives his
friends at dinner; I see his wife and children pass constantly; I even
know the carriages of some of the people who call upon him, and could
tell their names. Now, suppose his servants were to tell mine what the
doings are next door, who comes to dinner, what is eaten and said, and I
were to publish an account of these transactions in a newspaper, I could
assuredly get money for the report; but ought I to write it, and what
would you think of me for doing so?

And suppose, Mr. Saturday Reviewer--you censor morum, you who pique
yourself (and justly and honorably in the main) upon your character of
gentleman, as well as of writer, suppose, not that you yourself invent
and indite absurd twaddle about gentlemen's private meetings and
transactions, but pick this wretched garbage out of a New York street,
and hold it up for your readers' amusement--don't you think, my friend,
that you might have been better employed? Here, in my Saturday Review,
and in an American paper subsequently sent to me, I light, astonished,
on an account of the dinners of my friend and publisher, which are
described as "tremendously heavy," of the conversation (which does not
take place), and of the guests assembled at the table. I am informed
that the proprietor of the Cornhill, and the host on these occasions, is
"a very good man, but totally unread;" and that on my asking him whether
Dr. Johnson was dining behind the screen, he said, "God bless my soul,
my dear sir, there's no person by the name of Johnson here, nor any
one behind the screen," and that a roar of laughter cut him short. I
am informed by the same New York correspondent that I have touched up a
contributor's article; that I once said to a literary gentleman, who was
proudly pointing to an anonymous article as his writing, "Ah! I thought
I recognized YOUR HOOF in it." I am told by the same authority that the
Cornhill Magazine "shows symptoms of being on the wane," and having sold
nearly a hundred thousand copies, he (the correspondent) "should think
forty thousand was now about the mark." Then the graceful writer passes
on to the dinners, at which it appears the Editor of the Magazine "is
the great gun, and comes out with all the geniality in his power."

Now suppose this charming intelligence is untrue? Suppose the publisher
(to recall the words of my friend the Dublin actor of last month) is a
gentleman to the full as well informed as those whom he invites to his
table? Suppose he never made the remark, beginning--"God bless my soul,
my dear sir," nor anything resembling it? Suppose nobody roared with
laughing? Suppose the Editor of the Cornhill Magazine never "touched
up" one single line of the contribution which bears "marks of his hand?"
Suppose he never said to any literary gentleman, "I recognized YOUR
HOOF" in any periodical whatever? Suppose the 40,000 subscribers, which
the writer to New York "considered to be about the mark," should be
between 90,000 and 100,000 (and as he will have figures, there they
are)? Suppose this back-door gossip should be utterly blundering and
untrue, would any one wonder? Ah! if we had only enjoyed the happiness
to number this writer among the contributors to our Magazine, what
a cheerfulness and easy confidence his presence would impart to our
meetings! He would find that "poor Mr. Smith" had heard that recondite
anecdote of Dr. Johnson behind the screen; and as for "the great gun of
those banquets," with what geniality should not I "come out" if I had an
amiable companion close by me, dotting down my conversation for the New
York Times!

Attack our books, Mr. Correspondent, and welcome. They are fair subjects
for just censure or praise. But woe be to you, if you allow private
rancors or animosities to influence you in the discharge of your public
duty. In the little court where you are paid to sit as judge, as critic,
you owe it to your employers, to your conscience, to the honor of your
calling, to deliver just sentences; and you shall have to answer to
heaven for your dealings, as surely as my Lord Chief Justice on the
Bench. The dignity of letters, the honor of the literary calling, the
slights put by haughty and unthinking people upon literary men,--don't
we hear outcries upon these subjects raised daily? As dear Sam Johnson
sits behind the screen, too proud to show his threadbare coat and
patches among the more prosperous brethren of his trade, there is no
want of dignity in HIM, in that homely image of labor ill-rewarded,
genius as yet unrecognized, independence sturdy and uncomplaining. But
Mr. Nameless, behind the publisher's screen uninvited, peering at the
company and the meal, catching up scraps of the jokes, and noting down
the guests' behavior and conversation,--what a figure his is! Allons,
Mr. Nameless! Put up your note-book; walk out of the hall; and leave
gentlemen alone who would be private, and wish you no harm.




TUNBRIDGE TOYS.


I wonder whether those little silver pencil-cases with a movable almanac
at the butt-end are still favorite implements with boys, and whether
pedlers still hawk them about the country? Are there pedlers and hawkers
still, or are rustics and children grown too sharp to deal with them?
Those pencil-cases, as far as my memory serves me, were not of much use.
The screw, upon which the movable almanac turned, was constantly getting
loose. The 1 of the table would work from its moorings, under Tuesday
or Wednesday, as the case might be, and you would find, on examination,
that Th. or W. was the 23 1/2 of the month (which was absurd on the
face of the thing), and in a word your cherished pencil-case an utterly
unreliable time-keeper. Nor was this a matter of wonder. Consider the
position of a pencil-case in a boy's pocket. You had hard-bake in it;
marbles, kept in your purse when the money was all gone; your mother's
purse, knitted so fondly and supplied with a little bit of gold, long
since--prodigal little son!--scattered amongst the swine--I mean
amongst brandy-balls, open tarts, three-cornered puffs, and similar
abominations. You had a top and string; a knife; a piece of cobbler's
wax; two or three bullets; a Little Warbler; and I, for my part,
remember, for a considerable period, a brass-barrelled pocket-pistol
(which would fire beautifully, for with it I shot off a button from Butt
Major's jacket);--with all these things, and ever so many more, clinking
and rattling in your pockets, and your hands, of course, keeping them in
perpetual movement, how could you expect your movable almanac not to
be twisted out of its place now and again--your pencil-case to be
bent--your liquorice water not to leak out of your bottle over the
cobbler's wax, your bull's-eyes not to ram up the lock and barrel of
your pistol, and so forth.

In the month of June, thirty-seven years ago, I bought one of those
pencil-cases from a boy whom I shall call Hawker, and who was in my
form. Is he dead? Is he a millionnaire? Is he a bankrupt now? He was an
immense screw at school, and I believe to this day that the value of the
thing for which I owed and eventually paid three-and-sixpence, was in
reality not one-and-nine.

I certainly enjoyed the case at first a good deal, and amused myself
with twiddling round the movable calendar. But this pleasure wore off.
The jewel, as I said, was not paid for, and Hawker, a large and violent
boy, was exceedingly unpleasant as a creditor. His constant remark was,
"When are you going to pay me that three-and-sixpence? What sneaks your
relations must be? They come to see you. You go out to them on Saturdays
and Sundays, and they never give you anything! Don't tell ME, you little
humbug!" and so forth. The truth is that my relations were respectable;
but my parents were making a tour in Scotland; and my friends in London,
whom I used to go and see, were most kind to me, certainly, but somehow
never tipped me. That term, of May to August, 1823, passed in agonies
then, in consequence of my debt to Hawker. What was the pleasure of a
calendar pencil-case in comparison with the doubt and torture of mind
occasioned by the sense of the debt, and the constant reproach of that
fellow's scowling eyes and gloomy, coarse reminders? How was I to pay
off such a debt out of sixpence a week? ludicrous! Why did not some
one come to see me, and tip me? Ah! my dear sir, if you have any little
friends at school, go and see them, and do the natural thing by them.
You won't miss the sovereign. You don't know what a blessing it will be
to them. Don't fancy they are too old--try 'em. And they will remember
you, and bless you in future days; and their gratitude shall accompany
your dreary after life; and they shall meet you kindly when thanks for
kindness are scant. O mercy! shall I ever forget that sovereign you gave
me, Captain Bob? or the agonies of being in debt to Hawker? In that very
term, a relation of mine was going to India. I actually was fetched from
school in order to take leave of him. I am afraid I told Hawker of this
circumstance. I own I speculated upon my friend's giving me a pound. A
pound? Pooh! A relation going to India, and deeply affected at parting
from his darling kinsman, might give five pounds to the dear fellow!
. . . There was Hawker when I came back--of course there he was. As
he looked in my scared face, his turned livid with rage. He muttered
curses, terrible from the lips of so young a boy. My relation, about
to cross the ocean to fill a lucrative appointment, asked me with much
interest about my progress at school, heard me construe a passage of
Eutropius, the pleasing Latin work on which I was then engaged; gave
me a God bless you, and sent me back to school; upon my word of honor,
without so much as a half-crown! It is all very well, my dear sir, to
say that boys contract habits of expecting tips from their parents'
friends, that they become avaricious, and so forth. Avaricious! fudge!
Boys contract habits of tart and toffee eating, which they do not carry
into after life. On the contrary, I wish I DID like 'em. What raptures
of pleasure one could have now for five shillings, if one could but pick
it off the pastry-cook's tray! No. If you have any little friends at
school, out with your half-crowns, my friend, and impart to those little
ones the little fleeting joys of their age.

Well, then. At the beginning of August, 1823, Bartlemy-tide holidays
came, and I was to go to my parents, who were at Tunbridge Wells. My
place in the coach was taken by my tutor's servants--"Bolt-in-Tun,"
Fleet Street, seven o'clock in the morning, was the word. My Tutor, the
Rev. Edward P----, to whom I hereby present my best compliments, had a
parting interview with me: gave me my little account for my governor:
the remaining part of the coach-hire; five shillings for my own
expenses; and some five-and-twenty shillings on an old account which had
been overpaid, and was to be restored to my family.

Away I ran and paid Hawker his three-and-six. Ouf! what a weight it
was off my mind! (He was a Norfolk boy, and used to go home from Mrs.
Nelson's "Bell Inn," Aldgate--but that is not to the point.) The next
morning, of course, we were an hour before the time. I and another
boy shared a hackney-coach; two-and-six: porter for putting luggage on
coach, threepence. I had no more money of my own left. Rasherwell,
my companion, went into the "Bolt-in-Tun" coffee-room, and had a good
breakfast. I couldn't; because, though I had five-and-twenty shillings
of my parents' money, I had none of my own, you see.

I certainly intended to go without breakfast, and still remember how
strongly I had that resolution in my mind. But there was that hour to
wait. A beautiful August morning--I am very hungry. There is Rasherwell
"tucking" away in the coffee-room. I pace the street, as sadly almost as
if I had been coming to school, not going thence. I turn into a court by
mere chance--I vow it was by mere chance--and there I see a coffee-shop
with a placard in the window, Coffee, Twopence. Round of buttered
toast, Twopence. And here am I, hungry, penniless, with five-and-twenty
shillings of my parents' money in my pocket.

What would you have done? You see I had had my money, and spent it in
that pencil-case affair. The five-and-twenty shillings were a trust--by
me to be handed over.

But then would my parents wish their only child to be actually without
breakfast? Having this money, and being so hungry, so VERY hungry,
mightn't I take ever so little? Mightn't I at home eat as much as I
chose?

Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent fourpence. I remember
the taste of the coffee and toast to this day--a peculiar, muddy,
not-sweet-enough, most fragrant coffee--a rich, rancid, yet
not-buttered-enough delicious toast. The waiter had nothing. At any
rate, fourpence I know was the sum I spent. And the hunger appeased, I
got on the coach a guilty being.

At the last stage,--what is its name? I have forgotten in
seven-and-thirty years,--there is an inn with a little green and
trees before it; and by the trees there is an open carriage. It is our
carriage. Yes, there are Prince and Blucher, the horses; and my parents
in the carriage. Oh! how I had been counting the days until this one
came! Oh! how happy had I been to see them yesterday! But there was that
fourpence. All the journey down the toast had choked me, and the coffee
poisoned me.

I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence, that I forgot the
maternal joy and caresses, the tender paternal voice. I pull out the
twenty-four shillings and eightpence with a trembling hand.

"Here's your money," I gasp out, "which Mr. P---- owes you, all but
fourpence. I owed three-and-sixpence to Hawker out of my money for a
pencil-case, and I had none left, and I took fourpence of yours, and had
some coffee at a shop."

I suppose I must have been choking whilst uttering this confession.

"My dear boy," says the governor, "why didn't you go and breakfast at
the hotel?"

"He must be starved," says my mother.

I had confessed; I had been a prodigal; I had been taken back to my
parents' arms again. It was not a very great crime as yet, or a very
long career of prodigality; but don't we know that a boy who takes a pin
which is not his own, will take a thousand pounds when occasion serves,
bring his parents' gray heads with sorrow to the grave, and carry his
own to the gallows? Witness the career of Dick Idle, upon whom our
friend Mr. Sala has been discoursing. Dick only began by playing
pitch-and-toss on a tombstone: playing fair, for what we know: and
even for that sin he was promptly caned by the beadle. The bamboo
was ineffectual to cane that reprobate's bad courses out of him. From
pitch-and-toss he proceeded to manslaughter if necessary: to highway
robbery; to Tyburn and the rope there. Ah! heaven be thanked, my
parents' heads are still above the grass, and mine still out of the
noose.

As I look up from my desk, I see Tunbridge Wells Common and the rocks,
the strange familiar place which I remember forty years ago. Boys
saunter over the green with stumps and cricket-bats. Other boys gallop
by on the riding-master's hacks. I protest it is Cramp, Riding master,
as it used to be in the reign of George IV., and that Centaur Cramp must
be at least a hundred years old. Yonder comes a footman with a bundle
of novels from the library. Are they as good as OUR novels? Oh! how
delightful they were! Shades of Valancour, awful ghost of Manfroni, how
I shudder at your appearance! Sweet image of Thaddeus of Warsaw, how
often has this almost infantile hand tried to depict you in a Polish cap
and richly embroidered tights! And as for Corinthian Tom in light blue
pantaloons and Hessians, and Jerry Hawthorn from the country, can all
the fashion, can all the splendor of real life which these eyes have
subsequently beheld, can all the wit I have heard or read in later
times, compare with your fashion, with your brilliancy, with your
delightful grace, and sparkling vivacious rattle?

Who knows? They MAY have kept those very books at the library still--at
the well-remembered library on the Pantiles, where they sell that
delightful, useful Tunbridge ware. I will go and see. I went my way
to the Pantiles, the queer little old-world Pantiles, where, a hundred
years since, so much good company came to take its pleasure. Is it
possible, that in the past century, gentlefolks of the first rank (as
I read lately in a lecture on George II. in the Cornhill Magazine)
assembled here and entertained each other with gaming, dancing,
fiddling, and tea? There are fiddlers, harpers, and trumpeters
performing at this moment in a weak little old balcony, but where is the
fine company? Where are the earls, duchesses, bishops, and magnificent
embroidered gamesters? A half-dozen of children and their nurses are
listening to the musicians; an old lady or two in a poke bonnet passes,
and for the rest, I see but an uninteresting population of native
tradesmen. As for the library, its window is full of pictures of burly
theologians, and their works, sermons, apologues, and so forth. Can I
go in and ask the young ladies at the counters for "Manfroni, or the
One-Handed Monk," and "Life in London, or the Adventures of Corinthian
Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, Esq., and their friend Bob Logic?"--absurd.
I turn away abashed from the casement--from the Pantiles--no longer
Pantiles, but Parade. I stroll over the Common and survey the beautiful
purple hills around, twinkling with a thousand bright villas, which
have sprung up over this charming ground since first I saw it. What an
admirable scene of peace and plenty! What a delicious air breathes over
the heath, blows the cloud shadows across it, and murmurs through
the full-clad trees! Can the world show a land fairer, richer, more
cheerful? I see a portion of it when I look up from the window at
which I write. But fair scene, green woods, bright terraces gleaming
in sunshine, and purple clouds swollen with summer rain--nay, the very
pages over which my head bends--disappear from before my eyes. They are
looking backwards, back into forty years off, into a dark room, into a
little house hard by on the Common here, in the Bartlemy-tide holidays.
The parents have gone to town for two days: the house is all his own,
his own and a grim old maid-servant's, and a little boy is seated
at night in the lonely drawing-room, poring over "Manfroni, or the
One-Handed Monk," so frightened that he scarcely dares to turn round.




DE JUVENTUTE.


Our last paper of this veracious and roundabout series related to a
period which can only be historical to a great number of readers of this
Magazine. Four I saw at the station to-day with orange-covered books in
their hands, who can but have known George IV. by books, and statues,
and pictures. Elderly gentlemen were in their prime, old men in their
middle age, when he reigned over us. His image remains on coins; on
a picture or two hanging here and there in a Club or old-fashioned
dining-room; on horseback, as at Trafalgar Square, for example, where
I defy any monarch to look more uncomfortable. He turns up in sundry
memoirs and histories which have been published of late days; in Mr.
Massey's "History;" in the "Buckingham and Grenville Correspondence;"
and gentlemen who have accused a certain writer of disloyalty are
referred to those volumes to see whether the picture drawn of George is
overcharged. Charon has paddled him off; he has mingled with the crowded
republic of the dead. His effigy smiles from a canvas or two. Breechless
he bestrides his steed in Trafalgar Square. I believe he still wears his
robes at Madame Tussaud's (Madame herself having quitted Baker Street
and life, and found him she modelled t'other side the Stygian stream).
On the head of a five-shilling piece we still occasionally come upon
him, with St. George, the dragon-slayer, on the other side of the
coin. Ah me! did this George slay many dragons? Was he a brave, heroic
champion, and rescuer of virgins? Well! well! have you and I overcome
all the dragons that assail US? come alive and victorious out of all the
caverns which we have entered in life, and succored, at risk of life
and limb, all poor distressed persons in whose naked limbs the dragon
Poverty is about to fasten his fangs, whom the dragon Crime is poisoning
with his horrible breath, and about to crunch up and devour? O my royal
liege! O my gracious prince and warrior! YOU a champion to fight that
monster? Your feeble spear ever pierce that slimy paunch or plated back?
See how the flames come gurgling out of his red-hot brazen throat! What
a roar! Nearer and nearer he trails, with eyes flaming like the lamps of
a railroad engine. How he squeals, rushing out through the darkness
of his tunnel! Now he is near. Now he is HERE. And now--what?--lance,
shield, knight, feathers, horse and all? O horror, horror! Next day,
round the monster's cave, there lie a few bones more. You, who wish to
keep yours in your skins, be thankful that you are not called upon to go
out and fight dragons. Be grateful that they don't sally out and swallow
you. Keep a wise distance from their caves, lest you pay too dearly for
approaching them. Remember that years passed, and whole districts were
ravaged, before the warrior came who was able to cope with the devouring
monster. When that knight DOES make his appearance, with all my heart
let us go out and welcome him with our best songs, huzzas, and laurel
wreaths, and eagerly recognize his valor and victory. But he comes only
seldom. Countless knights were slain before St. George won the battle.
In the battle of life are we all going to try for the honors of
championship? If we can do our duty, if we can keep our place pretty
honorably through the combat, let us say, Laus Deo! at the end of it, as
the firing ceases, and the night falls over the field.

The old were middle-aged, the elderly were in their prime, then, thirty
years since, when yon royal George was still fighting the dragon. As for
you, my pretty lass, with your saucy hat and golden tresses tumbled in
your net, and you, my spruce young gentleman in your mandarin's cap (the
young folks at the country-place where I am staying are so attired),
your parents were unknown to each other, and wore short frocks and short
jackets, at the date of this five-shilling piece. Only to-day I met a
dog-cart crammed with children--children with moustaches and mandarin
caps--children with saucy hats and hair-nets--children in short frocks
and knickerbockers (surely the prettiest boy's dress that has appeared
these hundred years)--children from twenty years of age to six; and
father, with mother by his side, driving in front--an