The Project Gutenberg eBook of Eclectic Magazine, by William Westall.

Escapes of political and other convicts from Western Siberia are more frequent than is generally supposed, but from Eastern Siberia, though often attempted, they seldom succeed. Save for convicts under sentence of penal servitude, and actually imprisoned, it is easy to elude the vigilance of the police and get away from a convict village or settlement, but it is almost impossible to get out of the country. The immense distances to be traversed, the terrible climate, lack of money, the absolute necessity of keeping to the high roads, prove, except in very few instances, insuperable obstacles to final success. In order to be really free, moreover, it is imperative for a fugitive not alone to pass the frontier of European Russia, but to reach some country where he runs no risk of falling into the clutches of the imperial police. Even in Germany he is liable to be recaptured, and is really safe only in England, France, or Switzerland. Hence, to make good a flight from Eastern Siberia requires a conjuncture of so many favorable and nearly impossible circumstances as to render a complete escape a rare and remarkable event. But the incentives to escape are as great as the obstacles to success. No life can be more horrible than that of a political exile in the far east or far north of Siberia. Even at Irkoutsk the mean temperature is fifty degrees below the freezing-point of Réaumur; for many months of the year the sun in some parts of the country shines but two or three hours in the twenty-four, and for days together darkness covers the face of the land. A man untrained to manual labor, or unacquainted with the arts of trapping and killing wild animals and collecting peltry, turned adrift in the remoter parts of Siberia, runs the risk of perishing of hunger and cold. A Russian refugee, now at Geneva, tells that, during his sojourn in Eastern Siberia, he spent the greater part of the long winter in bed, rising only to swallow some rancid oil, the sole food he could obtain. To escape from such a life as this a man will risk almost anything. Even incarceration in a central prison, or the penal servitude of the mines, can hardly be more terrible. The trouble is, that the way to freedom lies through Western Siberia and Russia in Europe. The road south is barred by the wild tribes that haunt the frontiers of Mongolia and Manchuria, who either kill or give up to the Russians all the fugitives that fall into their hands.

On the other hand, the escape of a prisoner or of a convict under sentence of penal servitude is far more difficult than the flight of an involuntary exile; the latter may leave when he will, the former must either break out of prison or evade his guardians, and being soon missed he runs great risk of being quickly recaptured. How, in one instance at least, by boldness, address, presence of mind, and good luck, the difficulties were overcome, the following narrative, related, as nearly as possible, in Debagorio Mokrievitch's own words, will show. Other fugitives, for instance Nicolas Lopatin, a gentleman now living in Geneva, who escaped from Vercholensk in 1881, may have encountered great hardships, but, being exiles at large, they were neither so soon missed nor so quickly pursued. Debagorio was under sentence of penal servitude, and the flight from Siberia of a man condemned to penal servitude is almost unexampled. Even rarer than an escape is the true account of one, related by the fugitive himself. Imaginary accounts exist in plenty, but, so far as I am aware, no authentic personal narrative of an escape from Eastern Siberia—at any rate in English or French—has ever before been given to the world.

I first heard of Mokrievitch in May, 1881, a few days after his arrival in Geneva, and through the kindness of Prince Krapotkine obtained (and communicated to a London newspaper) a brief sketch of his fellow-exile's adventures; but for certain reasons, that exist no longer, it was not considered expedient to publish the full and complete account which the reader will find in the following pages.

The Arrest.

On the evening of February 11, 1879, several friends of the revolutionary cause, of whom I was one, met at Yvitchevitche's lodgings, in the house Kossarovsky, Yleanski Street, Kieff, the town where I was then living. After a short conversation, Anton, myself, and several others left the house with the intention of passing the rest of the evening with our friend, Madame Babitchev. The inevitable samovar was bubbling on the table, our hospitable hostess gave us a warm welcome, cigarettes were lighted, conversation was joined, and an hour or more passed very pleasantly.

Anton was the first to leave, and he could hardly have reached the street when we were startled by a loud report like the firing of a pistol. We stared at each other in consternation, and Strogov, running into the ante-room, looked through the window and listened at the door, in order to find out what had happened. In a few minutes he came back with satisfactory tidings. Nothing unusual seemed to be stirring in the street; and he attributed the report we had heard to the banging of a door in a neighboring café. So we resumed our conversation and our tea-drinking with quiet minds. But five minutes later we were again disturbed; this time by sounds the character of which there was no mistaking. The trampling of heavy feet in the vestibule, hurried exclamations, words of command, and the rattling of arms, told us only too well with whom we had to do.

Notwithstanding our desire to resist, we knew that we should be compelled to yield without a blow. There was not a weapon amongst us. A few seconds were passed in anxious thought. Then the double-winged doors were thrown violently open, and we saw that the ante-room was occupied by a detachment of soldiers, with bayonets lowered and ready to charge. From the right flank came the words, loud and clear: “Will you surrender, gentlemen? I am the officer in command of the detachment.”

I looked round and recognized in the officer with the gendarme uniform and drawn sword, Soudeikin in person, then a subaltern in the Kieff gendarmerie, later the famous chief of the political police of the capital.

Despite the imposing military array, the haughty bearing of the officer, the glittering bayonets and stern looks of the soldiers, and the unpleasant sense of having fallen into their toils, the whole affair seemed to me just a little amusing, and I could not help smiling, and saying, in answer to Soudeikin's summons, “Are we then a fortress, Mr. Officer, that you call upon us to surrender?”

“No; but your comrades....” the rest of the sentence, owing to the din, I did not catch.

Then he ordered his men to search us, after which we were to be taken to the police office.

The searching over, we were surrounded by thirty or forty soldiers, with arms at the trail, and conducted to the Libed police station. Even before we reached our destination we could see that something unusual had happened. The building was lighted up, and there was an excited crowd about the door. After mounting the staircase we were led into the waiting-room. It was filled with armed men. Pushing my way with some difficulty through the press, I saw on the other side of the room several of our friends. But, my God, what a state they were in! Posen and Steblin Kamensky were bound hand and foot; the cords so tightly drawn that their elbows, forced behind their backs, actually touched. Close to them were Mesdames Arnfeld, Sarandovitch, and Patalizina. It was evident that something extraordinary had befallen in the house of Kossarovsky, shortly after we left. I could not, however, ask our friends any questions, for that would have been taken as proof that we were acquainted. Yet, from a few words dropped here and there, I soon learnt what had come to pass. They had resisted the police, a gendarme had been killed, and all whom we had left at the meeting arrested.

I had hardly made this discovery when a disturbance was heard in the next room—trampling of feet, loud exclamations, and voices in contention, one of which I seemed to know. The next moment a man burst into the reception-room, literally dragging behind him two gendarmes, who tried in vain to stop him. His dishevelled hair, pale face, and flaming eyes, showed that he had been engaged in a struggle beyond his strength.

After a short interval we were called one after another into the next room. I was called the last. On responding to the summons I found myself in the presence of several gendarmes and officers of police, by whom I was searched a second time.

“Have the goodness to state your name,” said Colonel Novitzki, after the operation was completed.

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, colonel,” I answered, giving the military salute.

It would have been useless to deny my identity. My mother, my brother, and my sister were living at Kieff, and I did not want to have them compelled to confront the police and ordered to recognize me.

The Sentence.

We were lodged in the principal prison of Kieff. On April 20, we received copies of the indictment, drawn up by Strelnikoff, prosecuting advocate to the Military Tribunal (he was afterwards killed at Odessa). We were, in all, fourteen prisoners, accused of sedition, of belonging to secret political societies, and of resisting the police. In order to give greater publicity to the trial, we resolved to have ourselves defended by counsel from St. Petersburg and put forward a request to this effect. But after some delay we were informed that if we wanted advocates, we must choose them from among the candidates for judgeships attached to the tribunal of Kieff, and therefore dependent for promotion on the functionary by whom the prosecution was to be conducted. Deeming this a practical denial of justice, we determined to take no active part whatever in the proceedings.

At six o'clock on the morning of April 20, we were taken before the tribunal. Eight of our party were men, six women. The first thing that struck me was the strength of the escort—more than a hundred Cossacks, besides gendarmes and policemen. Officers were running from group to group, giving orders and making arrangements, as if they were preparing for a general action. The women were led off first, after which we men were placed in a large barred carriage, so spacious indeed that we could all seat ourselves comfortably.

Then the procession moved off. At its head rode Gubernet, the chief of the police. After him came the captain of the gendarmerie, Rudov, an old schoolfellow of mine. Our carriage was surrounded by Cossacks, the rear-rank men carrying loaded carbines. All the horses were put to the gallop, and the police, who feared a manifestation in our favor, had cleared the streets of spectators, and ordered a complete suspension of traffic. Not a figure without uniform was to be seen, and strong bodies of troops occupied every street corner.

I need not describe the trial—if trial it can be called: it lasted four days, and ended in the condemnation of three of our number to death; the rest were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. My sentence was fourteen years and ten months' penal servitude.

We were led back to prison with precisely the same precautions as had been observed when we were taken before the tribunal. The people were not allowed by their presence in the street to show even silent sympathy, either with us, or with the cause for which we suffered and so many had perished.

After the verdict and the sentence life became a little easier for us. Instead of being compelled to take exercise one by one, we were now allowed to meet and walk about freely in the prison yard. The police had an object in granting us this indulgence. Before the trial several attempts had been made to take our photographs; but this we had resolutely refused to allow. For those who cherish hopes of regaining their liberty, the possession of their likeness by the police is strongly to be deprecated. We were now informed by the authorities of the gaol that unless we complied with their wishes in this matter our meetings and our walks would be stopped. We enjoyed our social intercourse immensely. It was an unspeakable comfort to us. Three of our little company were under sentence of death, the fate of three others trembled in the balance, and would be made known only at the foot of the scaffold. It was not possible that we could long remain together, and we offered to comply with the wish of our gaolers on condition that we should not be separated until the last. This condition being accepted, our photographs were taken.

The quarters of several of us were in an upper story of the prison, and from our grated windows we could watch the construction of the gallows. The place of execution was a plain about two-thirds of a mile from the prison gates. Those doomed to death, being on a lower story, did not witness these ghastly preparations, and none of us, of course, gave them a hint of what was going on.

At length, and only too swiftly, came the 13th of May. We had been told nothing, but from the completion of the gallows, the behavior of the warders, and from other signs, we thought that the executions were fixed for the following day. The condemned thought so themselves. Although we did our utmost to keep outwardly calm, the farewells that evening were unspeakably sad. Most touching and agonizing of all was the parting of those who were to die on the morrow with those who expected to follow them a little later on to the scaffold and the grave. Two months afterwards Beltchomsky and Anisim Fedorow were hanged on the same gallows.

Five thousand soldiers and gendarmes escorted our doomed friends to the place of execution. On previous occasions the authorities had thought it well to do their hanging early in the morning, while people slept. This time they did it with pomp, circumstance and parade. The cavalcade of death did not leave the prison gates until nearly noon; traffic was suspended, but the streets were crowded with spectators, and when the bodies of our comrades swung in the air, the military band struck up a lively tune, as if they were rejoicing over some great victory.

Sent to Siberia.

From the time of the execution to the date of our departure for Siberia nothing noteworthy came to pass. All sorts of rumors were current touching our destination and our fate. Every day brought a new conjecture or a fresh story. It was said that we were to be confined in one of the dreaded central prisons—that we were to be immured in the casemates of St. Peter and St. Paul—that we were to be sent to Eastern Siberia, to Western Siberia—to the island of Sakhalin—that we were not to be sent anywhere, but to stay where we were.

At length, on May 30, the question was settled. Ten prisoners, of whom I made one, were summoned to the office, and told that we were forthwith to take our departure—whither, our custodians refused to say. The next proceeding was to put two of our friends, who did not belong to the privileged order, in irons and shave their heads. We others, being nobles, were to be spared this indignity until we reached our destination. For the present we were required only to don the ordinary convict costume, consisting of a long gray capote, marked on the back with a yellow ace for those sentenced to simple transportation, and with two aces for those condemned to penal servitude.

“Will you not tell us whither we are going?” asked one of our number of General Gubernet, as we stepped into the van.

Then I knew my fate—fourteen years hard labor—possibly in a region of almost endless night, and as cold as the Polar regions.

The station of Koursk, the cities of Mzensk, Moscow, and Nijni Novgorod are passed in quick succession. At Nijni Novgorod we leave the railway and continue our journey, as far as Perm, by water. It is only here that we begin to realize that we are really on the road to Siberia. We are transferred to little three-horse carriages, with a soldier in front and a gendarme by the side of each prisoner. By leaning a little forward it is possible to see the vast horizon before us, and the forests and mountains that stretch for unknown distances on either side of the road. It is difficult to describe the feelings of a captive who for months, or it may be for years, has been under bolt and bar, and whose views have been limited to the blank walls of a prison, when he once more breathes the free air of heaven, and beholds nature in all her grandeur and her beauty. It is as if the liberty for which his soul has never ceased to yearn were opening to him her arms and bidding him be free.

The country through which we were passing was thinly peopled, and buildings and houses were few and far between. The broad highway was bordered in some places by brushwood, in others by immense forests. All sorts of fancies flitted through my brain. I thought of home—of father, mother and friends—of the cause, of the incidents of my trial, and the dreary future that lay before me: fourteen years' hard labor in Eastern Siberia—a hell hopeless as any conceived in the brain of Dante. And then plans of escape surged through my mind, each wilder and more fantastic than its fellow.

We travel night and day, always with the same soldier and gendarme, though not always with the same driver. On one occasion we change horses at midnight, and shortly afterwards I see that my guards are overcome by sleep. They nod and rouse themselves in turn; their efforts to keep awake are laughable. As for me, my thoughts hinder sleep, but an idea occurs to me, and I nod too, and, drawing myself into my corner, I snore. The stratagem succeeds. A few minutes later my gendarme is snoring loud enough to waken the dead. The soldier who sits before me embraces his rifle with both hands and feet, and sways to and fro with the motion of the tarantass, now and then incoherently muttering in a guttural voice. He is deep in dreamland. I rise softly and look out into the night. A million stars are shining in the clear sky, and I can see that we are passing through a thick forest. A spring, a bound, and I could be among those trees. Once there, my guards can no more find me than the wolf that steals through the covert, for I am fleet of foot and eager for freedom. But dressed in this convict costume, how long should I be able to keep my freedom? To regain Russia, I must follow the highroad, and the first soldier or gendarme I met would arrest me. True, I might throw away my capote, with its double ace, but I had no hat, and a bare-headed man would invite attention even more than one clad in the costume of a felon. Worse still, I had no arms. I could neither defend myself against wild animals nor kill game; and if I am compelled to take to the woods, game may be the only food I shall be able to procure.

No; I must abandon the idea now, and watch for a more favorable opportunity hereafter. As I come reluctantly to this conclusion I remember—it seemed like an inspiration—that the gendarme has a hat on his head and a revolver by his side. Why not take them? He is still fast asleep, snoring, if possible, harder than ever. I shall never have such another chance. I will do it: two minutes more and then—freedom.

Holding my breath, and trying to still the beatings of my heart, I creep close to the sleeping man, and lay my hand gently on the hat. He makes no sign, and the next moment the hat is under my capote. Now the revolver! I lay hold of the butt, and try to draw it from the gendarme's belt. It does not come out easily—I pull again—pull a second time, and am preparing to pull a third time, when the snoring suddenly ceases.

Quick as thought, I shrink into my corner, breathe deeply and pretend to sleep. The gendarme rouses himself, mutters, and passes his hand over his head. Then he searches all about him, and, evidently alarmed by the loss of his hat, he sleeps no more.

“I am afraid I have, sir,” he answers in a puzzled voice, at the same time scratching his head by way, probably, of keeping it warm.

“You see what it is to sleep on the road, my friend! Suppose, now, I had slipped out of the carriage! Nothing would have been easier.”

“Oh, but you never thought of such a thing, and I am sure you would not do it, sir.”

“Because I have done you no harm, and you do not want to get a poor fellow into trouble! You know yourself how severely gendarmes are dealt with who let their prisoners escape.”

“Very well, brother, here is your hat which I found and hid—just to frighten you a bit.”

Just then we reached another station, and the poor fellow as he put on his head-gear thanked me quite pathetically, as much for not running away as for restoring his property.

The Convoy.

At Krasnovarski we were put in prison again, and there remained several weeks, awaiting further orders as to our disposal, for, notwithstanding what we had been told at Kieff, there appeared to be some doubt touching the fate in store for us. At length came the final instructions. We were to march with the chain-gang of common prisoners to Irkoutsk. It was then that, as an expedient for avoiding penal servitude and eventually regaining my liberty, the idea of effecting an exchange first occurred to me. The device is one frequently practised among the outlaws of Siberia. This is the method of it:—Two prisoners make a bargain, whereby one of the contracting parties takes the name and certificate and assumes the crime of the other, and vice versâ. There is, in fact, a complete change of identities, and the one who gains by the exchange settles the difference by a money payment. The result is that the man condemned to hard labor becomes a Siberian settler, and the other takes his place at the mines or in gaol. The bargain may appear an unequal one, but a moneyless man will sometimes do a great deal for a small sum of ready cash—especially if he has a passion for gambling or drink—and there is always the possibility that, when the deceit is discovered, the more extreme penalty may not be enforced. In the meantime, moreover, the supposed political prisoner, who is generally of noble birth, enjoys a consideration and some material advantages which are denied to the common malefactor.

During the long tramp of the chain gang these substitutions are effected without much difficulty. The escort being changed every two days, it is impossible for the members of it, in so short a time, to familiarize themselves with the names and condition of the ten or twelve score prisoners who compose the convoy. They can do no more than count heads, and when the officer in command of the party has delivered to his successor the same number of convicts, in each category, which he received from his predecessor, his task is fully acquitted. Whether they are the same persons he cannot undertake to say, and is never asked.

On August 20, or thereabouts—I am not sure to a day—we were once more en route, this time on foot. From Krasnovarski the distance is 700 English miles, and the journey, it was reckoned, would occupy about two months. I had thus ample time to make the acquaintance of my convict comrades and carry out the substitution.

We were now put under an altogether different régime. Hitherto we had not been able to exchange a word with anybody. I saw about me only my fellow political convicts, and might speak, when occasion required, to none but my guards. Now we were allowed to communicate freely with each other, and with the rather mixed society of which we formed a part. The gang consisted of 170 persons of both sexes and of every class and age; from the babe in its mother's arms to the old man with snow-white hair. Most of them were peasants; yet several among us could claim the privileges of nobility. But the strength of the convoy diminished as we went on, for Krasnovarski is within the limits of Eastern Siberia, and several prisoners were left as colonists at the villages through which we passed.

The escort consisted of an officer and thirty soldiers, armed with old-fashioned muskets. A detachment of three or four marched at the head of the column. The others marched at the side and were supposed to form a military chain. But it was so weak, relatively to its duties, as to be almost worthless, the convoy being increased to a portentous length by the baggage-wagons and the families of the prisoners who were following them into exile. After the baggage-wagons came two carriages occupied by gentlemen malefactors of the nobility, and three in which, when they were footsore, rode the political prisoners.

About six o'clock in the evening the convoy generally reached the “half-stage,” a building in which we pass the night. After a march of two days, or of a full day, we had a day's rest at one of the buildings known as étapes, or stages. On these occasions the prisoners are ranged in front of the building and counted. If the count be right the gates are opened, and with cries of joy the weary wayfarers throw themselves into the court. Then, pushing and hustling, clanking their chains and cursing like demons, they fight their way into the house, struggling desperately for the best places. The first comers take possession of the benches; the others lie where they can. When all are inside the gates are closed, but the doors are not barred until nightfall.

The “stage” is a small wooden barrack—with a large court, formed of palisades, in the rear—divided into several compartments, one of which is assigned to the nobles of the convoy; but like all the others it is far too little for its destined purpose. The prisoners are as closely packed as herrings in a barrel. A few only can find places on the benches. The others have to sleep on the damp and dirty floor. Next to the benches the most desirable spot is under them, for there it is a little cleaner and the sleepers are less likely to be disturbed than on the open floor.

The struggle for places over, the barrack-yard becomes very lively. The prisoners are preparing the evening meal; some laying fires, others putting a few scanty morsels of food into a pot—for our fare is terribly meagre; others bringing water and making tea. After supper we are again counted, driven inside, and left there for the night. No one is allowed to go out for any purpose whatever; but as a substitute for latrines large wooden pails are placed in the corridor. The presence of these abominations among so many people in ill-ventilated rooms renders the air unutterably foul; its odor is something quite peculiar, as all who have had occasion to enter the prisoners' quarters at night, or, still worse, early in the morning, well know.

In the same corridor, but at the other end, is the maidan, a sort of itinerant shop, which serves at the same time as a club and gambling saloon; for the prisoners are much given to play. This maidan is an institution common to every Siberian convoy and gaol. The markitant, or keeper of it, is always a prisoner. The post, which is much coveted and very profitable, is sold to the highest bidder, and the proceeds of the sale, often considerable, are added to the common hoard. For one of the first proceedings of the prisoners is to form themselves into a society, which is a faithful reproduction of the rural mir. They elect a starosta, who also acts as general cashier, and appoint him an assistant. The authorities, on their part, always recognise this system of self-government, and acknowledge the authority of the starosta. All orders are communicated through him, and he makes all payments on behalf of the community. He acts, in short, as general intermediary between the prisoners and their custodians—bribes, when it is necessary, the agents of justice, and pays a regular tribute to the executioner, in consideration whereof that official is good enough, often at the risk of his own back, to wield his whip with all possible consideration for the feelings of his victim.

The scene in the markitant's den on a rest day was very queer, and, well painted, would make a striking picture: the players round the capote-covered table, as excited and as intent over their game as if they were playing for thousands of roubles instead of fractions of kopecs—the shouting and gesticulating onlookers, following with keenest interest the varying fortunes of the game—a ruined gambler bargaining with the markitant for an advance on a coat, a pair of shoes, or an old watch—a convict asleep on the floor—another mending a rent in his clothes—a third hammering at his irons. He is widening the rings that shackle his legs, in order that he may slip them off when he is on the road—walking in irons not being precisely an amusement. The sentries and the officers cannot fail to hear the clang of the hammer, but the custom of removing irons while on the march is so common as to have the force of a recognised regulation, and is seldom, if ever, objected to by the commander of an escort.

Day followed day with unvarying monotony, but every one brought us nearer to our destination, and though I had not yet ventured to effect an exchange, I never wavered in my resolution to escape on the first favorable opportunity. Almost every day we met vagabonds, as runaway convicts are called, making for Russia. Their dress, their closely cropped hair, and their general appearance left no doubt as to their quality. Yet neither the officer of the escort nor the local authorities paid the least attention to them, so common are fugitive convicts on Siberian roads. When they met us they would draw on one side, sometimes saluting the officer. I have known old friends meet in this way.

“Hallo, Ivan Ivanovitch, how goes it?” would call out one of the tramps to a man whom he recognised in the chain gang.

“Ah, is that you, Iliouschka?” would answer the other pleasantly. “What! have you become a vagabond [1] already?”

“Yes, I am on the lookout for cheap lodgings; I dare say I shall soon get accommodated.”

Political prisoners on the march enjoy privileges which are denied to ordinary convicts. They are not fettered; they can, when so disposed, ride in the carriages which accompany the convoy, and they are allowed fifteen kopecs (threepence) a day for food. On the other hand, the orders in our regard given to the officers of the escort were exceedingly stringent; orders, however, which for the most part it was impossible to execute. For instance, they were enjoined to keep us always apart, and not let us on any account mix with the other prisoners. But the weakness of the escort, and, above all, the arrangement of the buildings at the étapes, or halting-places, rendered observance of this injunction so extremely difficult that it was seldom enforced.

The Substitution.

We were within fourteen days of Irkoutsk before I succeeded in effecting an exchange of identities with a convict condemned to simple exile. Many others followed my example. Of the 170 men who composed the convoy, not more than fifty were under sentence of penal servitude, and at least twenty of them obtained substitutes. So far as the prisoners were concerned, this was done quite openly; concealment, in fact, would have been impossible, even if it had been necessary—and it was not necessary; for so long as the convoy held together, and the communistic organisation endured, betrayal was not to be feared. The traitor would have died within a few hours of his treason by the hand of one of his comrades—and this all knew.

My substitute, a peasant by origin and a burglar by profession, agreed to the exchange of identities in consideration of a sum of sixteen shillings in coin, a pair of boots and a flannel blouse. Two days before our arrival at the étape, where it was arranged to carry the agreement into effect, I pretended to have a bad toothache, bound up my face with a pocket-handkerchief, and at the half-way halting-place remained all the time on the bench that served for a bed, as if I were distracted with pain. This I did to hide my features from the soldiers of the escort, one of whom, sharper than his fellows, might otherwise possibly discover the stratagem. The risk was too great, my longing for liberty too intense, to permit me to neglect a single precaution.

Exchanges were most easily effected at the principal halting-places because the escort was changed there. Among the common prisoners the transaction was conducted in the simplest way imaginable. At the roll-call the contracting parties answered respectively to each other's name, took each other's places, and the thing was done. In the case of a political prisoner under special surveillance, just then very stringent, the operation entailed greater risk and demanded more care. I arranged with my substitute that the moment we arrived at the étape in question, he should follow me to an obscure corner of the barrack-yard—to speak plainly, to the latrine. The plan succeeded to admiration. In a few minutes we had exchanged dresses. Pavlov, my burglar friend, was transformed into a political prisoner of the nobility, and I became a common malefactor in irons. Though in face as unlike as possible, we were about the same height and build, and, at a distance, might easily be mistaken one for another.

The delivery of the gang to the new escort went off without difficulty. Pavlov lay on a bench with his face bound up. Nobody took any notice either of him or of me, and when the old escort marched away, we knew we were safe. The moment they were gone, I went into the common room and got myself shaved and my hair cut close to my head, so that my coiffure might resemble that of my new comrades.

I wondered then, and I have often wondered since, at the ease with which my custodians were deceived in the matter of this substitution. On the register I was set down as a former medical student. I had, therefore, been a member of a university; Pavlov, on the other hand, was almost wholly illiterate. He could hardly open his mouth without betraying his origin and showing his ignorance. His appearance, moreover, was little in harmony with his new character. I, as a noble, had worn my hair and beard long, while his head was closely cropped, and he wore no beard at all. How could all this fail to excite suspicion? For three weeks, he acted as my substitute, and it never seems to have occurred either to the officers of the escort or the authorities of Irkoutsk that the soi-disant Debagorio Mokrievitch was not the real Simon Pure. But for the denunciation—of which I shall speak presently—I do not believe the secret ever would have been discovered, always supposing that Pavlov kept the compact, and he really behaved very well. One day an officer of the escort, seeing by the register that I was a medical student, consulted my substitute touching some ailment he had, and Pavlov, with an impudence that bordered on the sublime, gave him the benefit of his advice. He was fortunately not called upon to put his prescription in writing.

It may be asked why I did not profit by the laxity of the escort during the first part of the journey to escape before we reached our destination. Because I should have been missed at the first halting-place, and by means of the telegraph and an active pursuit, immediately recaptured; I could have had only a few hours' start, and I wanted, at the least, several days.

After the substitution, I marched as a common felon on foot, carrying my irons; my allowance was reduced to twopence a-day, while Pavlov had threepence, and could vary the monotony of the way by riding in one of the carriages provided for the political prisoners.

About October 20, 1879, we reached Irkoutsk, where we were to be received and inspected by the higher authorities. Towards eight o'clock in the evening, we entered the central prison and were taken into a large room with three doors and two exits. One of these was open and led into an adjoining room, where the inspection took place. Our starosta standing on the doorstep, called the prisoners one by one, and each, as he was summoned, went into the room, carrying with him his poor belongings, in order that it might be ascertained if he still possessed the articles given him by the Crown. This done, he passed on into a further apartment, where the prisoners were to be quartered for the night.

“Here,” I answered, and, taking up my bag, I enter the audience chamber, and find myself in the presence of several important-looking functionaries, sitting at a big table covered with registers.

“Paul Pavlov?” says the presiding councillor, and then, after favoring me with a fugitive glance, he bends once more over his books.

“Yes, your nobleness,” I reply, doing my best to speak and look like a peasant prisoner.

“Two shirts, two pairs of drawers, woollen trousers, great coat, pelisse, a pair of boots, leg irons?” enumerated the councillor, in a rapid, monotonous voice.

As each article is named, I say, “It is here,” and during the interrogation an obscure personage fumbles in my bag to verify my statement.

This concluded the inspection, and after surrendering my fetters, which I removed without the help of a blacksmith, I passed into the apartment where I was to remain as a prisoner until they took me to the village where I had to be interned as a settler.

I had not long to wait. The fifth day after our arrival, the remaining vagabonds of the gang were sent further east, and there remained only the ordinary exiles and prisoners under sentence of penal servitude. An important consequence of the departure of the vagabonds—old offenders who formed the bulk of the convoy—was the break-up of our communistic organisation, and the subsequent revelation of my secret.

On the following day the involuntary colonists, of whom I was now one, started for our final destination, a village some forty miles from Irkoutsk, and on November 1st, we arrived at Talminsky, the end of our long journey. For the last time we were paraded and counted in the court of the volost. Then, after our effects had been again examined, we received our registers and were handed over to the clerk of the village, who had orders to find us quarters.

The escort went one way, we went another, and we walked through the streets of the great village free men—within the limits assigned to us.

The Flight.

If I meant to escape I had no time to lose. At any moment I was liable to be betrayed. My comrades among the colonists, as also the prisoners we had left at Irkoutsk, all knew who I was. Any of these, by turning traitor, could earn a considerable reward; even a slight indiscretion might reveal the secret, and the disclosure of my identity to the authorities would lead to my immediate arrest. It was therefore necessary to go at once; yet I could not start on so long a journey without money, and I did not possess a kopeck. So I sold my great coat, my woollen trousers, and my gloves, for a rouble and a half. It was not much. After this depletion of my wardrobe, my costume left a good deal to be desired. A regulation pelisse, a fur cap, thin trousers, and ordinary underclothing, did not afford much protection against the intense cold of a Siberian winter. But I dared not hesitate. On November 2d, at ten o'clock, before noon, I set out from the village. The morning though cold was clear and quiet. I made no attempt to hide my quality; it was evident to everybody. My yellow regulation pelisse and closely cropped head showed clearly enough that I was a vagabond. But this gave me little anxiety; I had observed that in Eastern Siberia vagabonds were neither arrested nor questioned. It would be the same with me, I thought, and in this expectation I was not disappointed. My journey as a vagabond lasted about eight days, and I suffered much both from hunger and cold. In the valleys—for the country was hilly—I often experienced a cold so intense that I thought my limbs would freeze as I walked. Sometimes the valley bottoms were filled with a thick fog. Going through one of those fogs was like taking a bath of pins and needles—so keen was the cold—and, though on these occasions I always ran, one of my knees became frost-bitten—my pelisse not being long enough to cover my legs, which were clothed only in light cotton pantaloons.

I generally passed the night in the bath-room of some peasant after the manner of vagabonds, for nobody in Siberia, however poor, is without a vapor bath, the vapor being produced by pouring water on red-hot stones.

One afternoon, just as night was closing in, I reached a village and sought a lodging. I had heard from the experienced vagabonds of the gang that it was always better to ask charity or help from the poor than from the well-to-do. Never, they said, when you are on the tramp, knock at the door of a rich man's house. Go rather to the most wretched cabin you can find.

This rule, based on a wide experience and a profound truth—for the poor naturally receive more sympathy from the poor than from the well-to-do—I deemed it expedient to follow. At the end of the village in question I found a cabin of unprepossessing aspect, and, concluding that it was exactly what I wanted, I went in, making, as I entered, the sign of the cross before the picture of a saint, as is the custom in Russia. Then I greeted my hosts.

“Good day, my boy,” answered the peasant, an old man with a long white beard, in a kindly voice.

“Could you sell me a bit of bread?” I asked; for though I travelled as a vagabond I did not like to beg after the manner of vagabonds, and always tendered a piece of money for what I received.

“I fear that is impossible, my boy. You are a vagabond, aren't you? They are very severe just now about vagabonds, the police are. If you take in a man without a passport you may get fined. Where do you come from, my boy?”

I answered with a supplicatory gesture, and I dare say I looked cold enough and wretched enough to move the compassion of a harder-hearted man than this good old peasant.

“You fellows generally sleep in the baths, don't you?” he said, after a pause. “Well, go into mine if you like; I can put you nowhere else. And I have heated it to-day; you will be warm.”

So picking up my loaf, and laying on the table a few kopecks—nobody ever thinks of bargaining with a wanderer—I leave the house. The bath is hard by, and on going in I find that it is quite warm, as the old man had said. The heat is so great, indeed, that I can dispense with my pelisse.

These peasants' bath-rooms are seldom supplied with a chimney. The stones are heated in the middle of the room, and the smoke, after blackening the rafters, finds its way out as best it can. There were no windows, and, in order to look round, I had to light one of the tallow candles which I carried in my bag. They were very useful for rubbing my feet with after a long march. I was in no hurry to sleep, and before lying down on the wooden bench which was to be my couch I had a little operation to perform. My yellow pelisse proclaimed my quality a long way off. That was an inconvenience, and in certain easily conceivable circumstances, might lead to awkward consequences. I meant to change its color. This I did by smearing the garment with a mixture composed of tallow from my candles and soot from the wall. It was not a very fast black perhaps, but it answered the purpose. Henceforth, nobody, without a pretty close inspection, would perceive that I was a vagabond on the tramp.

This done, I lay down on the bench and was soon fast asleep. I must have slept an hour or two when I was wakened by the creaking of the door, and I heard the heavy steps of a man entering the room. As it was pitch dark I could not see him, and I did not think it worth while to strike a light. The newcomer seemed to be of the same opinion, for, without speaking a word, he groped his way towards my bench and laid down beside me. Though he touched my body he made no remark, and a few moments later I could tell by his regular breathing that he was fast asleep. Then I slept again, and did not open my eyes until I was wakened by the cold—for the bath-room had lost all its warmth, and the temperature was far below freezing-point. So I rose from my couch, donned my pelisse, and, though the sun had not yet risen, I left my snoring bed-fellow, whom I never saw, to his slumbers and resumed my journey.

My plan was to reach the house of a friend about 150 miles from the village where I had been interned. To traverse a region as large as Europe without money was quite out of the question, and even if I had succeeded in doing so it would have been impossible, without papers, either to cross the frontier or leave the country. It is hardly necessary to say that I took care never to ask my way. That would have been a great imprudence. And there was little need, for the roads in Siberia are so few that it is scarcely possible to go wrong. According to my reckoning I was still about thirty miles from my destination. Shortly after leaving the village I saw, near a little cabin by the road-side, a man who eyed me keenly. From his short hair and stubby beard I guessed that he was a recently arrived colonist who had come into the country with a chain gang.

“Won't you come in, brother,” he said, “and rest yourself and take a cup of tea?”

I accepted the invitation with pleasure, for I had not broken my fast. We entered the cabin together. It was very small, and on a brick hearth was sitting a woman, probably the exile's wife. My host asked me to take a seat and began to prepare the samovar, an appliance which is found in every Siberian cottage. As we drank we talked.

“You are quite right,” returned the exile bitterly. “The country is abominable. I shall do the same thing myself in a month or two. Which way do you go—by the Angara road?”

“I know all these places well,” observed my host. “But do you know you will have to be prudent. The authorities hereabouts are very vicious just now. They arrest every wayfarer they see. You must look out, my brother, or they will arrest you.”

“What would you advise me to do, then,” I asked, greatly alarmed at this news.

And then he gave me very valuable information; described the villages through or near which I should have to pass, indicating at the same time those that were dangerous and the footpaths by which I might avoid them. He gave me the names and described the dwellings of the peasants with whom I might lodge, and, in a word, told me everything which it imported a wandering outlaw to know.

“But why,” I asked, “are the police so active just now? I thought this road was one of the safest for vagabonds in the whole country.”

“God knows. Perhaps they have found a body somewhere and are looking for the murderer.”

I made no remark, but I thought it was much more likely that they had discovered my flight and were looking for me. And so it proved.

After finishing the tea we talked a little longer, and as I took my leave I thanked my host warmly for his hospitality and information.

When I reached the last village before that at which lived my friend, I was quite overcome with fatigue, and faint with hunger and cold; but I counted on a long and quiet rest in the cottage of a peasant woman whose address had been given me by the friendly exile. It was at the extremity of the village, and to get thither I had to pass the headquarters of the communal authorities. In the light of the exile's warning, and my own fears, this seemed a sufficiently dangerous enterprise. Albeit I put on an air of indifference and took care not to increase my pace, yet I could not avoid an occasional backward glance to see if I was being followed. No one, however, seemed to notice me, and I reached my destination without receiving any unpleasant attentions. The peasant woman welcomed me kindly, if not very effusively. But she was a dear good soul, gave me of her best, and let me lie on a bench and pass the night in her house.

About two hours before sunrise my hostess came into the kitchen and began to busy herself with preparations for breakfast. But I remained stretched on my bench; the cottage was warm. I felt very comfortable, and I saw no reason for hurry. The day was before me, and I had not far to go. So I turned round on my wooden couch and was just sinking into a second slumber when I heard the sound of bells, such as post-chaises and mail-carts in Russia invariably carry.

“No,” answered the peasant, “we have no mail-coach here; it is probably a private carriage which is passing through the village.”

Meanwhile the bells came nearer; then the sound suddenly ceased, as it seemed not far from the cottage. I did not like this at all. What could it mean?

“Would you mind going to see what or whose carriage it is?” I said. She went, and as the door closed behind her, I jumped off my bench and put on my clothes.

In a few minutes she was back with the news that the carriage belonged to the gendarmes, and that they were questioning the starosta and the clerk.

“From Irkoutsk. It is the coachman himself who told me. He thinks they are after a political runaway.”

“In that case, I had better be going,” I said, laughing. “They may perhaps think I am the man. Now look here—if they ask you any questions, know nothing. If you do it may be worse for you; they may make you pay a fine. Good-by” (putting the last of my kopecks on the table).

“Good-by,” answered my hostess; “don't be uneasy. I shall not say a word.” She was a worthy woman, and a friend in need, that old peasant.

I went out. It was still dark, and I might creep through the village without being seen. The last of the houses passed, I ran at the top of my speed, for I felt sure that the pursuers were at my heels, and the possibility of being retaken enraged me almost past endurance. I had been denounced shortly after leaving the settlement, of that there could be no doubt. But how had the police managed to trace me so soon? I had been very careful, neglected no conceivable precaution, given misleading answers to all who questioned me about my past movements and future plans. I had made long detours to avoid the larger villages, and during the latter part of my journey put up only with the most trusted friends of vagabond wanderers. Yet the gendarmes had followed me step by step to my very last resting-place, and but for the friendly warning of the bells I should certainly have been recaptured, for I could not have left the village by daylight without being seen. Even now I was in imminent danger; my safety absolutely depended on my reaching my friend's house at once, and lying a long time in hiding. Though I had never been there, I knew the place so well by description—its situation and appearance were so vividly impressed on my mind—that I could find it, even in the dark, without asking a question. It was only about seven miles from the village I had just left. But how could I get thither unperceived? For if I was seen by a single person entering my friend's house, it might be the ruin of us both. Something must be decided on the instant. Day was dawning, the gendarmes were behind me, and by the barking of the dogs I reckoned that the village where dwelt my friend could not be more than two miles away. I looked round. On one side of the road were open fields; on the other thick brushwood grew. As yet, I had not met a soul,—nobody could tell the gendarmes in which direction I had gone—but it was now no longer dark, and if I went on, I might encounter a peasant or a wayfarer any moment. Only one thing could be done; I must hide somewhere—even at the risk of being frozen stiff—and remain hidden until sundown, when I might perchance gain my friend's house unperceived. Among the bushes! Yes, that was the place, I could lie perdu there all day. But just as I was about to put this plan into execution, another thought came to trouble me. How about my footsteps? Fresh snow had fallen in the night, and the police could follow me to my hiding-place as easily as a hound tracks a deer to its lair. And then I bethought me of an ingenious artifice, about which I had read in some romance. Turning my face to the road I walked backward toward the bushes, taking care at every step to make a distinct impression on the snow. It was now quite daylight, and a little way off I could see two summer cabins of the Buriats—in winter always empty. Thither I went, always backward, and entering one of the cabins remained there the whole day and far into the night. When I thought all the peasants would be indoors, I stole quietly out, and going stealthily and with many precautions to my friend's house, knocked in fear and misgiving at his door.

“I should not have recognised you, if I had not just heard all your history,” he said, after we had exchanged greetings.

“I am very curious to see myself,” I returned, approaching a mirror which hung on the wall. “I have not seen a looking-glass since my arrest.”

I was so much altered that I hardly knew myself. I saw before me the reflection of a wild, strange, haggard face, and I could almost have believed I was somebody else.

“To-day. There has been quite an inquest here. The gendarmes questioned everybody and searched every house. They followed you step by step to the last village. They found out where you passed the night, and then they seem to have lost the scent entirely. Where have you been?”

“Good. All the same, you must not stay here an hour longer than we can help. It would be too dangerous. The police are baffled; but they have by no means given up the quest, and as likely as not will be here again to-morrow. You must not sleep here.”

As he spoke, my friend in need opened a cupboard, and took therefrom some garments in which, when I had arrayed myself and had a good wash, I looked and felt like a new man.

“About twenty-five versts (fifteen miles), in the depth of the forest, far from any highway. Hunting parties from Irkoutsk visit us there sometimes. Your coming will, therefore, be no surprise for the servants. It is true your hair is just a little short (looking at my head); but that is nothing. You have had typhoid fever, and are going to recruit your strength in the forest. You look haggard enough to have had three fevers.”

An hour later we were en route, my friend, who had lived many years in the country, himself taking the reins, and he contrived matters so well that nobody in the house knew either of my coming or my going. The police were thrown completely off the scent.

Liberty.

As I learnt subsequently, my identity and my stratagem were revealed to the authorities by one of my comrades of the convoy shortly after I left Irkoutsk. But when the gendarmes went to the village of Talminsky, I had already vanished. Every effort was, however, made to retake me, the quest being kept up night and day for six weeks. Then it was rumored that a body found in the forest had been identified as mine, and that I had perished of hunger. According to another story, I had been arrested at Nijni Oudinsk, and was being brought back to Irkoutsk. Among the vagabonds who at this time were captured right and left on the high roads throughout the province, were several whom it pleased to call themselves by my name. The deceit was naturally soon detected, but while it lasted the deceivers enjoyed certain advantages, which helped to render their detention tolerable. Instead of walking they rode in carriages, and were accompanied by an escort, and being regarded as important prisoners, they were both better fed and better treated than common malefactors, while their audacity rendered them highly popular with their vagabond and convict comrades. There were at one time no fewer than four false Debagorio Mokrievitches in the jail of Irkoutsk. The police sought me with great diligence among the political exiles of the province; a most stupid proceeding on their part, for to take refuge with the politicals would have been putting my head in the lion's mouth.

Three other men who about the same time attempted to escape were all recaptured.

I stayed in Siberia a year, making during that time several journeys to the eastward of Irkoutsk. At length the police having abandoned all hope of finding me, I resolved to leave the country. A passport being absolutely necessary, I borrowed the name and obtained the papers of a gentleman recently deceased—Ivan Alexandrovitch Selivanoff. It was in the winter of 1880 that I set out on my long journey of 3,600 miles. I travelled post, by way of Irkoutsk, Krasnoiarsk and Tomsk—towns through which, a twelvemonth before, I had passed as a prisoner. Rather a bold undertaking in the circumstances; but as I possessed an itinerary-card signed by the governor of the province, giving me the right to relays of horses, I ran no great danger, and left the home of my hospitable friend with an easy mind.

During the journey I met from time to time gangs of prisoners on the way from Russia to Irkoutsk. The clanking of the irons, the yellow pelisses, the worn faces, the weary walk, and the shorn heads of these unfortunates—how familiar they all were, and how the sight of them thrilled me to the soul! And behind the chain gang came the wagons of the political prisoners, among whom, more than once, I recognized the face of a dear friend. But instead of jumping from my carriage and folding the poor fellows in my arms, I had to look the other way!

All went well with me, but once I had a terribly narrow escape of falling a second time into the toils. It so chanced that I passed through the province of Tobolsk in company with a tchinovnik (government employé), whose acquaintance I had made on the road, a big-paunched, rosy-cheeked fellow, with merry eyes and a mellow voice; and, being on his way home after a long absence, in high good humor and full of fun. Once at the end of a long day's journey, we arrived about midnight at a town in the neighborhood of Tobolsk, and, being tired and sleepy, resolved to pass the rest of the night there. So we went into the travellers' room, ordered tea, and handed our itinerary cards to the starosta of the station, in order that he might make the necessary entries in the travellers' book. Before going to the sleeping room we requested that the horses might be ready at seven o'clock next morning.

“Are the horses ready?” I asked. “And be good enough to bring hither our itinerary-cards.”

“The station-master will himself bring your itinerary-cards, and as for the horses they are already yoked up.”

Half-an-hour later the station-master (otherwise director), came into our room, holding in his hand the itinerary-cards.

“I am sorry to trouble you,” he said politely; “but I should like to know which of you young gentlemen is Ivan Alexandrovitch Selivanoff?”

The station-master looked at me with a ludicrous expression of bewilderment and surprise.

“A thousand pardons,” he said at length, with a low bow. “But really—I don't quite understand. The fact is, I knew Mr. Selivanoff, and here I see the same surname and Christian name; the name of the father is also the same, the tchin (rank) likewise! Yet I was told he had died—more than a year ago—but when I saw his name on the card I thought the news must be false, and I came to assure myself. I see that I am mistaken. A thousand pardons, sir, a thousand pardons,” and again he saluted me still more profoundly than before.

I felt as if the ground were opening under my feet, and was thinking how on earth I should get out of the scrape, when my companion came—without knowing it—to the rescue.

“What a capital joke!” he shouted, clapping me on the back, and laughing so that he could hardly speak. “One might suppose that the worthy director takes you for an escaped prisoner with a dead man's passport. Ha, ha, ha, what a capital joke to be sure!”

And holding his big belly with both hands, he balanced himself first on one foot and then the other, laughing the while, until he could hardly stand.

“You are quite right,” I said, also laughing, though with considerable effort. “It is really an excellent joke. But seriously (turning to the station-master), the thing is easily explained. In the part I come from the Selivanoffs are as plentiful as blackberries. The late Ivan Alexandrovitch, your friend, and I were kinsmen, and had a great affection for each other; the name is so common in the province that I could introduce you to a dozen of my namesakes any day.”

The station-master seemed satisfied with this explanation. At any rate, he made no objection to our departure, and shortly afterwards we were once more en route. But my companion, the tchinovnik did not cease laughing for a long time. “To take you for a fugitive convict with a false passport!” he would say “it is really too good,” and whenever he remembered the incident he would laugh as if he never meant to stop. I remembered it, as may be supposed, with very different feelings. The escape was a very narrow one, and showed me how much I was still at the mercy of the slightest mishap. But this proved to be my last adventure and my last peril. In May, 1881, I reached Geneva, and felt that I was at last really free.

As most stories of Russian revolutionary life have necessarily, if they be true, a tragical termination, readers of the foregoing narrative may be pleased to know that M. Mokrievitch is still in a land where he feels really free. Though one of the heroes of Russian liberty he has not yet become one of its martyrs. But the time may come when he, as many other fugitives have done, will return to the volcanic soil of his native country, there to take part in the struggle to death which, though unseen, goes always on, and must continue without truce and without surcease until the sun of Freedom shall dawn in the Empire of the Night.—Contemporary Review.

COLERIDGE AS A SPIRITUAL THINKER.

Mr. Traill's recent volume has recalled the poet-philosopher who died just fifty years ago, leaving a strongly marked but indefinite impression upon the mind of his time. The volume has done something to renew and vivify the impression both in respect of Coleridge's poetry and criticism. His work as a critic has never, perhaps, been better or more completely exhibited. It is recognised generously in all its largeness and profundity, as well as delicacy and subtlety; and justice is especially done to his Shakesperian commentary, which in its richness, variety, felicity, combined with depth and acuteness, is absolutely unrivalled. But Mr. Traill cannot be said to have even attempted any estimate of Coleridge as a spiritual thinker. It may be questioned how far he has recognised that there is a spiritual side to all his thought, without which neither his poetry nor his criticism can be fully understood, cleverly as they may be judged.

It is not only out of date, but outside of all intelligent judgment to quote at this time of day Mr. Carlyle's well-known caricature from his Life of Sterling, and put readers off with this as a “famous criticism.” We now know how to value utterances of this kind, and the unhappy spirit of detraction which lay beneath such wild and grotesque humors. Carlyle will always remain an artist in epithets—but few will turn to him for an intelligent or comprehensive estimate of any great name of his own or of recent time.

We propose to look at Coleridge for a little as a religious thinker, and to ask what is the meaning and value of his work in this respect now that we can calmly and fully judge it. If Coleridge was anything, he was not only in his own view, as Mr. Traill admits, but in the view of his generation, a religious philosopher. It is not only the testimony of men like Hare, or Sterling, or Maurice, or even Cardinal Newman, but of John Stuart Mill, that his teaching awakened and freshened all contemporary thought. He was recognised with all his faults as a truly great thinker, who raised the mind of the time and gave it new and wide impulses. This judgment we feel sure will yet verify itself. If English literature ever regains the higher tone of our earlier national life—the tone of Hooker and Milton and Jeremy Taylor—Coleridge will be again acknowledged, in Julius Hare's words, as “a true sovereign of English thought.” He will take rank in the same line of spiritual genius. He has the same elevation of feeling, the same profound grasp of moral and spiritual ideas, the same wide range of vision. He has, in short, the same love of wisdom, the same insight, the same largeness—never despising nature or art, or literature, for the sake of religion, still less ever despising religion for the sake of culture. In reading over Coleridge's prose works again, returning to them after a long past familiarity, I am particularly struck by their massive and large intellectuality, akin to our older Elizabethan literature. There is everywhere the play of great power—of imagination as well as reason—of spiritual perception as well as logical subtlety.

To speak of Coleridge in this manner as a great spiritual power, an eminently healthy writer in the higher regions of thought, may seem absurd to some who think mainly of his life, and of the fatal failure which characterised it. It is the shadow of this failure of manliness in his conduct, as in that of his life-long friend, Charles Lamb, which no doubt prompted the great genius who carried manliness, if little sweetness, from his Annandale home, to paint both the one and the other in such darkened colors. We have not a word to say on behalf of the failings of either. They were deplorable and unworthy; but it is the fact, notwithstanding, that the mind of both retained a serenity and a certain touch of respectfulness which are lacking in their great Scottish contemporary. They were both finer-edged than Carlyle. They inherited a more delicate and polite personal culture; and delicacy can never be far distant from true manliness. Neither of them could have written of the treasures of old religion as Carlyle did in his Life of Sterling. Whether they accepted for themselves those treasures or not, they would have spared the tender faith of others and respected an ancient ideal. And this is the higher attitude. Nothing which has ever deeply interested humanity or profoundly moved it, is treated with contempt by a good and wise man. It may call for and deserve rejection, but never insult. Unhappily this attitude of mind, reserved, as well as critical, reverent as well as bold, has been conspicuously absent in some of the most powerful and best known writers of our era.

There is a striking contrast between the career of Coleridge and that of his friend Wordsworth. Fellows in the opening of their poetic course, they soon diverged widely. With a true instinct, Wordsworth devoted himself, in quietness and seclusion, to the cultivation of his poetic faculty. He left aside the world of politics and of religious thought, strongly moved as he had been by the interests of both. It may be said that Wordsworth continued a religious thinker as well as poet all his life. And to some extent this is true. The “Wanderer” is a preacher and not only a singer. He goes to the heart of religion, and lays again its foundations in the natural instincts of man. But while Wordsworth's poetry was instinct with a new life of religious feeling, and may be said to have given a new radiancy to its central principles,2 it did not initiate any movement in Christian thought. In religious opinion Wordsworth soon fell back upon, if he ever consciously departed from, the old line of Anglican traditions. The vague Pantheism of the Excursion implies rather a lack of distinctive dogma than any fresh insight into religious problems or capacity of co-ordinating them in a new manner. And so soon as definite religious conceptions came to the poet, the Church in her customary theology became a satisfactory refuge. The Ecclesiastical Sonnets mark this definite stage in his spiritual development. Wordsworth did for the religious thought of his time something more and better perhaps than giving it any definite impulse. While leaving it in the old channels, he gave it a richer and deeper volume. He showed with what vital affinity religion cleaves to humanity, in all its true and simple phases, when uncontaminated by conceit or frivolity. Nature and man alike were to him essentially religious, or only conceivable as the outcome of a Spirit of life, “the Soul of all the worlds.”3 Wordsworth, in short, remained as he began, a poet of a deeply religious spirit. But he did not enter the domain of theological speculation or attempt to give any new direction to it.

In all this Coleridge is his counterpart. He may be said to have abandoned poetry just when Wordsworth in his retirement at Grasmere (1799) was consecrating his life to it. Whether it be true, according to De Quincey, that Coleridge's poetical power was killed by the habit of opium-eating, it is certainly true that the harp of Quantock4 was never again struck save for a brief moment. The poet Coleridge passed into the lecturer and the poetical and literary critic, and then, during the final period of his life, from 1816 to 1834, into the philosopher and theologian. It is to this latter period of his life in the main that his higher prose writings belong, and especially the well-known Aids to Reflection which—disparaged as it is by Mr. Traill—may be said to contain, as his disciples have always held to contain, all the finer substance of his spiritual thought. It is true that it is defective as a literary composition. We are even disposed to allow that it has “less charm of thought, less beauty of style,” and in some respects even less “power of effective statement,”5 than is common with Coleridge; but withal it is his highest work. These very defects only serve to bring out the more its strong points, when we consider the wonderful hold the book has taken of many minds, and how it has been the subject of elaborate commentary.6 It is a book, we may at the same time say, which none but a thinker on divine things will ever like. All such thinkers have prized it greatly. To many such it has given a new force of religious insight; for its time, beyond all doubt, it created a real epoch in Christian thought. It had life in it; and the living seed, scattered and desultory as it was, brought forth fruit in many minds.

What, then, were its main contributions to religious thought, and in what respects generally is Coleridge to be reckoned a spiritual power?

(1.) First, and chiefly, in the Aids to Reflection, Coleridge may be said to have transformed and renewed the current ideas of his time about religion. He was, we know, a man of many ambitions never realised; but of all his ambitions, the most persistent was that of laying anew the foundations of spiritual philosophy. This was “the great work” to which he frequently alluded as having given “the preparation of more than twenty years of his life.”7 Like other great tasks projected by him, it was very imperfectly accomplished; and there will always be those in consequence who fail to understand his influence as a leader of thought. We are certainly not bound to take Coleridge at his own value, nor to attach the same importance as he did to some of his speculations. No one, indeed, knew better than Coleridge himself that there was nothing new in his Platonic Realism. It was merely a restoration of the old religious metaphysic which had preceded “the mechanical systems,” that became dominant in the reign of Charles the Second. He himself constantly claims to do nothing more than re-assert the principles of Hooker, of Henry More, of John Smith, and Leighton, all of whom he speaks of as “Platonizing divines!” But the religious teaching of Coleridge came upon his generation as a new breath, not merely or mainly because he revived these ancient principles, but because he vitalised anew their application to Christianity, so as to transform it from a mere creed, or collection of articles, into a living mode of thought, embracing all human activity. Coleridge was no mere metaphysician. He was a great interpreter of spiritual facts—a student of spiritual life, quickened by a peculiarly vivid and painful experience; and he saw in Christianity, rightly conceived, at once the true explanation of the facts of our spiritual being and the true remedy for their disorder. He brought human nature, not merely on one side, but all sides, once more near to Christianity, so as to find in it not merely a means of salvation in any limited evangelical sense, but the highest Truth and Health—a perfect philosophy. His main power lies in this subjective direction, just as here it was that his age was most needing stimulus and guidance.

The Evangelical School, with all its merits, had conceived of Christianity rather as something superadded the highest life of humanity than as the perfect development of that life; as a scheme for human salvation authenticated by miracles, and, so to speak, interpolated into human history rather than a divine philosophy, witnessing to itself from the beginning in all the higher phases of that history. And so Philosophy, and no less Literature, and Art, and Science, were conceived apart from religion. The world and the Church were not only antagonistic in the Biblical sense, as the embodiments of the Carnal and the Divine Spirit—which they must ever be; but they were, so to speak, severed portions of life divided by outward signs and badges: and those who joined the one or the other were supposed to be clearly marked off. All who know the writings of the Evangelical School of the eighteenth and earlier part of the nineteenth century, from the poetry of Cowper and the letters of his friend Newton, to the writings of Romaine, John Forster, and Wilberforce, and even Chalmers, will know how such commonplaces everywhere reappear in them. That they were associated with the most devout and beautiful lives, that they even served to foster a peculiar ardor of Christian feeling and love of God, cannot be disputed. But they were essentially narrow and false. They destroyed the largeness and unity of human experience. They not merely separated religion from art and philosophy, but they tended to separate it from morality.

Coleridge's most distinctive work was to restore the broken harmony between reason and religion, by enlarging the conception of both, but of the latter especially,—by showing how man is essentially a religious being having a definite spiritual constitution, apart from which the very idea of religion becomes impossible. Religion is not, therefore, something brought to man, it is his highest education. Religion, he says, was designed “to improve the nature and the faculties of man, in order to the right governing of our actions, to the securing the peace and progress, eternal and internal, of individuals and communities.” Christianity is in the highest degree adapted to this end; and nothing can be a part of it that is not duly proportioned thereto. In thus vindicating the rationality of religion, Coleridge had a twofold task before him, as every such thinker has. He had to assert against the Epicurean and Empirical School the spiritual constitution of human nature, and against the fanatical or hyper-evangelical school the reasonable working of spiritual influence. He had to maintain, on the one hand, the essential divinity of man, that “there is more in him than can be rationally referred to the life of nature and the mechanism of organisation,” and on the other hand to show that this higher life of the spirit is throughout rational—that it is superstition and not true religion which professes to resolve “men's faith and practice” into the illumination of such a spirit as they can give no account of,—such as does not enlighten their reason or enable them to render their doctrine intelligible to others. He fights, in short, alike against materialistic negation and credulous enthusiasm.

The former he meets with the assertion of “a spirituality in man,” a self-power or Will at the root of all his being. “If there be aught spiritual in man, the will must be such. If there be a will, there must be a spirituality in man.” He assumes both positions, seeing clearly—what all who radically deal with such a question must see—that it becomes in the end an alternative postulate on one side and the other. The theologian cannot prove his case, because the very terms in which it must be proved are already denied ab initio by the materialist. But no more can the materialist, for the same reason, refute the spiritual thinker. There can be no argument where no common premiss is granted. Coleridge was quite alive to this, yet he validly appeals to common experience. “I assume,” he says, “a something the proof which no man can give to another, yet every man may find for himself. If any man assert that he has no such experience, I am bound to disbelieve him, I cannot do otherwise without unsettling the foundation of my own moral nature. For I either find it as an essential of the humanity common to him and to me, or I have not found it at all.... All the significant objections of the materialist and necessitarian,” he adds, “are contained in the term morality, and all the objections of the infidel in the term religion. These very terms imply something granted, which the objector in each case supposes not granted. A moral philosophy is only such because it assumes a principle of morality, a will in man, and so a Christian philosophy or theology has its own assumptions resting on three ultimate facts, namely, the reality of the law of conscience; the existence of a responsible will as the subject of that law; and lastly, the existence of God.... The first is a fact of consciousness; the second, a fact of reason necessarily concluded from the first; and the third, a fact of history interpreted by both.”

These were the radical data of the religious philosophy of Coleridge. They imply a general conception of religion which was revolutionary for his age, simple and ancient as the principles are. The evangelical tradition brought religion to man from the outside. It took no concern of man's spiritual constitution beyond the fact that he was a sinner and in danger of hell. Coleridge started from a similar but larger experience, including not only sin, but the whole spiritual basis on which sin rests. “I profess a deep conviction,” he says, “that man is a fallen creature,” “not by accident of bodily constitution or any other cause, but as diseased in his will—in that will which is the true and only strict synonyme of the word I, or the intelligent Self.” This “intelligent Self” is a fundamental conception lying at the root of his system of thought. Sin is an attribute of it, and cannot be conceived apart for it, and conscience, or the original sense of right and wrong governing the will. Apart from these internal realities there is no religion, and the function of the Christian Revelation is to build up the spiritual life out of these realities—to remedy the evil, to enlighten the conscience, to educate the will. This effective power of religion comes directly from God in Christ. Here Coleridge joins the Evangelical School, as indeed every school of living Christian Faith. This was the element of Truth he found in the doctrine of Election as handled “practically, morally, humanly,” by Leighton. Every true Christian, he argues, must attribute his distinction not in any degree to himself—“his own resolves and strivings,” “his own will and understanding,” still less to “his own comparative excellence,”—but to God, “the being in whom the promise of life originated, and on whom its fulfilment depends.” Election so far is a truth of experience. “This the conscience requires; this the highest interests of morality demand.” So far it is a question of facts with which the speculative reason has nothing to do. But when the theological reasoner abandons the ground of fact and “the safe circle of religion and practical reason for the shifting sand-wastes and mirages of speculative theology,” then he uses words without meaning. He can have no insight into the workings or plans of a Being who is neither an object of his senses nor a part of his self-consciousness.

Nothing can show better than this brief exposition how closely Coleridge in his theology clung to a base of spiritual experience, and sought to measure even the most abstruse Christian mysteries by facts. The same thing may be shown by referring to his doctrine of the Trinity, which has been supposed the most transcendental and, so to speak, “Neo-Platonist” of all his doctrines. But truly speaking his Trinitarianism, like his doctrine of Election, is a moral rather than a speculative truth. The Trinitarian idea was, indeed, true to him notionally. The full analysis of the notion “God” seemed to him to involve it. “I find a certain notion in my mind, and say that is what I understand by the term God. From books and conversation I find that the learned generally connect the same notion with the same word. I then apply the rules laid down by the masters of logic for the involution and evolution of terms, and prove (to as many as agree with my premisses) that the notion 'God' involves the notion 'Trinity,'” So he argued, and many times recurred to the same Transcendental analysis. But the truer and more urgent spiritual basis of the doctrine of the Trinity, even to his own mind, was not its notional but its moral necessity. Christ could only be a Saviour as being Divine. Salvation is a Divine work. “The idea of redemption involves belief in the Divinity of our Lord. And our Lord's Divinity again involves the Trinitarian idea, because in and through this idea alone the Divinity of Christ can be received without breach of faith in the Unity of the Godhead.” In other words, the best evidence of the doctrine of the Trinity, is the compulsion of the spiritual conscience which demands a Divine Saviour; and only in and through the great idea of Trinity in Unity does this demand become consistent with Christian Monotheism.8

These doctrines are merely used in illustration, as they are by Coleridge himself in his Aids to Reflection. But nothing can show in a stronger light the general character of the change which he wrought in the conception of Christianity. From being a mere traditional creed, with Anglican and Evangelical, and it may be added Unitarian alike, it became a living expression of the spiritual consciousness. In a sense, of course, it had always been so. The Evangelical made much of its living power, but only in a practical and not in a rational sense. It is the distinction of Coleridge to have once more in his age made Christian doctrine alive to the reason as well as the conscience—tenable as a philosophy as well as an evangel. And this he did by interpreting Christianity in the light of our moral and spiritual life. There are aspects of Christian truth beyond us—Exeunt in mysteria. But all Christian truth must have vital touch with our spiritual being, and be so far at least capable of being rendered in its terms, or, in other words, be conformable to reason.

There was nothing absolutely new in this luminous conception, but it marked a revolution of religious thought in the earlier part of our century. The great principle of the Evangelical theology was that theological dogmas were true or false without any reference to a subjective standard of judgment. They were true as pure data of revelation, or as the propositions of an authorised creed settled long ago. Reason had, so far, nothing to do with them. Christian truth, it was supposed, lay at had in the Bible, an appeal to which settled everything. Coleridge did not undervalue the Bible. He gave it an intelligent reverence. But he no less reverenced the spiritual consciousness or divine light in man; and to put out this light, as the Evangelical had gone far to do, was to destroy all reasonable faith. This must rest not merely on objective data, but on internal experience. It must have not merely authority without, but rationale within. It must answer to the highest aspiration of human reason, as well as the most urgent necessities of human life. It must interpret reason and find expression in the voice of our higher humanity, and so enlarge itself as to meet all its needs.

If we turn for a moment to the special exposition of the doctrines of sin and redemption which Coleridge has given in the Aids to Reflection, it is still mainly with the view of bringing out more clearly his general conception of Christianity as a living movement of thought rather than a mere series of articles or a traditionary creed.

In dealing first with the question of sin, he shows how its very idea is only tenable on the ground of such a spiritual constitution in man as he has already asserted. It is only the recognition of a true will in man—a spirit or supernatural in man, although “not necessarily miraculous”—which renders sin possible. “These views of the spirit and of the will as spiritual,” he says more than once, “are the groundwork of my scheme.” There was nothing more significant or fundamental in all his theology. If there is not always a supernatural element in man in the shape of spirit and will, no miracles or anything else can ever authenticate the supernatural to him. A mere formal orthodoxy, therefore, hanging upon the evidence of miracles, is a suspension bridge without any real support. So all questions between infidelity and Christianity are questions here, at the root, and not what are called “critical” questions as to whether this or that view of the Bible be right, or this or that traditionary dogma be true. Such questions are, truly speaking, inter-Christian questions, the freest views of which all Churches must learn to tolerate. The really vital question is whether there is a divine root in man at all—a spiritual centre, answering to a higher spiritual centre in the universe. All controversies of any importance come back to this. Coleridge would have been a great Christian thinker if for no other reason than this, that he brought all theological problems back to this living centre, and showed how they diverged from it. Apart from this postulate, sin was inconceivable to him; and in the same manner all sin was to him sin of origin or “original sin.” It is the essential property of the will that it can originate. The phrase original sin is therefore “a pleonasm.” If sin was not original, or from within the will itself, it would not deserve the name. “A state or act that has not its origin in the will may be a calamity, deformity, disease, or mischief, but a sin it cannot be.”

Again he says: “That there is an evil common to all is a fact, and this evil must, therefore, have a common ground. Now this evil ground cannot originate in the Divine will; it must, therefore, be referred to the will of man. And this evil ground we call original sin. It is a mystery, that is, a fact which we see, but cannot explain; and the doctrine a truth which we apprehend, but can neither comprehend nor communicate. And such by the quality of the subject (namely, a responsible will) it must be, if it be truth at all.”

This inwardness is no less characteristic of Coleridge's treatment of the doctrine of atonement or redemption. It is intelligible so far as it comes within the range of spiritual experience. So far its nature and effects are amply described or figured in the New Testament, especially by St. Paul. And the apostle's language, as might be expected, “takes its predominant colors from his own experience, and the experience of those whom he addressed.” “His figures, images, analogies, and references,” are all more or less borrowed from this source. He describes the Atonement of Christ under four principal metaphors: 1. Sin-offering, sacrificial expiation. 2. Reconciliation, atonement, καταλλάγη. 3. Redemption, or ransom from slavery. 4. Satisfaction, payment of a debt. These phrases are not designed to convey to us all the Divine meaning of the atonement, for no phrases or figures can do this; but they set forth its general aspect and design. One and all they have an intelligible relation to our spiritual life, and so clothe the doctrine for us with a concrete living and practical meaning. But there are other relations and aspects of the doctrine of atonement that transcend experience, and consequently our powers of understanding. And all that can be said here is, “exit in mysteria.” The rationalism of Coleridge is at least a modest and self-limiting rationalism. It clears the ground within the range of spiritual experience, and floods this ground with the light of reason. There is no true doctrine can contradict this light, or shelter itself from its penetration. But there are aspects of Christian doctrine that outreach all grasp of reason, and before which reason must simply be silent. For example, the Divine act in redemption is “a causative act—a spiritual and transcendent mystery that passeth all understanding. 'Who knoweth the mind of the Lord, or being his councillor who hath instructed him?' Factum est.” This is all that can be said of the mystery of redemption, or of the doctrine of atonement on its Divine side.

And here emerges another important principle of the Coleridgian theology. While so great an advocate of the rights of reason in theology, of the necessity, in other words, of moulding all its facts in a synthesis intelligible to the higher reason he recognises strongly that there is a province of Divine truth beyond all such construction. We can never understand the fulness of Divine mystery, and it is hopeless to attempt to do so. While no mind was less agnostic in the modern sense of the term, he was yet with all his vivid and large intuition, a Christian agnostic. Just because Christianity was Divine, a revelation, and not a mere human tradition, all its higher doctrines ended in a region beyond our clear knowledge. As he himself said, “If the doctrine is more than a hyperbolical phrase it must do so.” There was great pregnancy in this as in his other conceptions; and probably no more significant change awaits the theology of the future, than the determination of this province of the unknown, and the cessation of controversy, as to matters which come within it, and therefore admit of no dogmatic settlement.

(2.) But it is more than time to turn to the second aspect, in which Coleridge appears as a religious leader of the thought of the nineteenth century. The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit was not published till six years after his death, in 1840; and it is curious to notice their accidental connection with the Confessions of a Beautiful Soul, which had been translated by Carlyle some years before.9 These Confessions, in the shape of seven letters to a friend, gather together all that is valuable in the Biblical criticism of the author scattered through his various writings; and although it may be doubtful whether the volume has ever attained the circulation of the Aids to Reflection, it is eminently deserving—small as it is, nay, because of its very brevity—of a place beside the larger work. It is eminently readable, terse and nervous, as well as eloquent in style. In none of his writings does Coleridge appear to greater advantage, or touch a more elevating strain, rising at times into solemn music.

The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit were of course merely one indication of the rise of a true spirit of criticism in English theology. Arnold, Whately, Thirlwall, and others, it will be seen, were all astir in the same direction, even before the Confessions were published. The notion of verbal inspiration, or the infallible dictation of Holy Scripture, could not possibly continue after the modern spirit of historical inquiry had begun. As soon as men plainly recognised the organic growth of all great facts, literary as well as others, it was inevitable that they should see the Scriptures in a new light, as a product of many phases of thought in course of more or less perfect development. A larger and more intelligent sense of the conditions attending the origin and progress of all civilisation, and of the immaturities through which religious as well as moral and social ideas advance, necessarily carried with it a changed perception of the characteristics of Scriptural revelation. The old Rabbinical notion of an infallible text was sure to disappear. The new critical method besides is, in Coleridge's hands, rather an idea—a happy and germinant thought—than a well-evolved system. Still to him belongs the honor of having first plainly and boldly announced that the Scriptures were to be read and studied, like any other literature, in the light of their continuous growth, and the adaptation of their parts to one another.

The divinity of Scripture appears all the more brightly, when thus freely handled. “I take up the work,” he says, “with the purpose to read it as I should read any other work—so far as I can or dare. For I neither can nor dare throw off a strong and awful prepossession in its favor, certain as I am that a large part of the light and life in and by which I see, love, and embrace the truths and the strengths organised into a living body of faith and knowledge have been directly or indirectly derived to me from the sacred volume.” All the more reason why we should not make a fetish of the Bible, as the Turk does of the Koran. Poor as reason may be in comparison with “the power and splendor of the Scriptures,” yet it is and must be for him a true light. “While there is a Light higher than all, even the Word that was in the beginning;—the Light of which light itself is but the Schechinah and cloudy tabernacle;—there is also a 'Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world;' and the spirit of man is declared to be 'the candle of the Lord,'” “If between this Word,” he says, “and the written letter I shall anywhere seem to myself to find a discrepance, I will not conclude that such there actually is. Nor, on the other hand, will I fall under the condemnation of those that would lie for God, but, seek as I may, be thankful for what I have and wait.”

Such is the keynote of the volume. The supremacy of the Bible as a divinely inspired literature is plainly recognised from the first. Obviously it is a book above all other books in which deep answers to deep, and our inmost thoughts and most hidden griefs find not merely response, but guidance and assuagement. And whatever there finds us “bears witness for itself that it has proceeded from the Holy Spirit.” “In the Bible,” he says again, “there is more that finds me than I have experienced in all other books put together; the words of the Bible find me at greater depths of my being, and whatever finds me brings with it an irresistible evidence of its having proceeded from the Holy Spirit.”

But there is much in the Bible that not only does not find us in the Coleridgian sense, but that seems full of contradictions, both moral and historical; the psalms in which David curses his enemies; the obviously exaggerated ages attributed to the patriarchs; and the incredible number of the armies said to be collected by Abijah and Jeroboam (2 Chron. xiii. 3), and other incidents familiar to all students of Scripture. What is to be made of such features of the Bible? According to the old notion of its infallibility such parts of Scripture, no less than its most elevating utterances of “lovely hymn and choral song and accepted prayer of saint and prophet,” were to be received as dictated by the Holy Spirit. They were stamped with the same Divine authority. Coleridge rightly enough emphasises this view as that of the fathers and reformers alike; but he no less rightly points out that not one of them is consistent in holding to their general doctrine. Their treatment of the Scriptures in detail constantly implies the fallacy of the Rabbinical tradition to which they yet clung. He no less forcibly points out that the Scriptures themselves make no such pretension to infallibility, “explicitly or by implication.” “On the contrary, they refer to older documents, and on all points express themselves as sober-minded and veracious writers under ordinary circumstances are known to do.” The usual texts quoted, such as 2 Tim. iii. 16, have no real bearing on the subject. The little we know as to the origin and history of many of the books of the Bible, of “the time of the formation and closing of the canon,” of its selectors and compilers, is all opposed to such a theory. Moreover, the very nature of the claim stultifies itself when examined. For “how can infallible truth be infallibly conveyed in defective and fallible expression?”

But if the tenet of verbal inspiration has been so long received and acted on “by Jew and Christian, Greek, Roman, and Protestant, why can it not now be received?” “For every reason,” answered Coleridge, “that makes me prize and revere these Scriptures;—prize them, love them, revere them beyond all other books.” Because such a tenet “falsifies at once the whole body of holy writ, with all its harmonious and symmetrical gradations.” It turns “the breathing organism into a colossal Memnon's head, a hollow passage for a voice,” which no man hath uttered, and no human heart hath conceived. It evacuates of all sense and efficacy the fact that the Bible is a Divine literature of many books, “composed in different and widely distant ages under the greatest diversity of circumstances and degrees of light and information.” So he argues in language I have partly quoted and partly summarised. And then he breaks forth into a magnificent passage about the song of Deborah, a passage of rare eloquence with all its desultoriness, but which will hardly bear separation from the context. The wail of the Jewish heroine's maternal and patriotic love is heard under all her cursing and individualism—mercy rejoicing against judgment. In the very intensity of her primary affections is found the rare strength of her womanhood; and sweetness lies near to fierceness. Such passages probably give us a far better idea of the occasional glory of the old man's talk as “he sat on the brow of Highgate Hill,” than any poor fragments of it that have been preserved. Direct and to the point it may never have been, but at times it rose into an organ swell with snatches of unutterable melody and power.

(3.) But Coleridge contributed still another factor to the impulsion of religious thought in his time. He did much to revive the historic idea of the Church as an intellectual as well as a spiritual commonwealth. Like many other ideas of our older national life this had been depressed and lost sight of during the eighteenth century. The Evangelical party, deficient in learning generally, was especially deficient in breadth of historical knowledge. Milner's History, if nothing else, serves to point this conclusion. The idea of the Church as the mother of philosophy and arts and learning, as well as the nurse of faith and piety, was unknown. It was a part of the Evangelical creed, moreover, to leave aside as far as possible mere political and intellectual interests. These belonged to the world, and the main business of the religious man was with religion as a personal affair, of vast moment, but outside all other affairs. Coleridge helped once more to bring the Church as he did the gospel into larger room as a great spiritual power of manifold influence.

This volume On the Constitution of Church and State according to the idea of each was published in 1830, and was the last volume which the author himself published. The Catholic Emancipation question had greatly excited the public mind, and some friend had appealed to Coleridge expressing astonishment that he should be in opposition to the proposed measure. He replied that he is by no means unfriendly to Catholic emancipation, while yet “scrupling the means proposed for its attainment.” And in order to explain his difficulties he composed a long letter to his friend which is really an essay or treatise, beginning with the fundamental principles of his philosophy and ending with a description of antichrist. The essay is one of the least satisfactory of his compositions from a mere literary point of view, and is not even mentioned by Mr. Traill in his recent monograph. But amidst all its involutions and ramblings it is stimulating and full of thought on a subject which almost more than any other is liable to be degraded by unworthy and sectarian treatment. Here, as everywhere in Coleridge's writings, we are brought in contact with certain large conceptions which far more than cover the immediate subject in hand.

It has been sometimes supposed that Coleridge's theory of the Church merely revived the old theory of the Elizabethan age so powerfully advocated by Hooker and specially espoused by Dr. Arnold in later times. According to this theory the Church and State are really identical, the Church being merely the State in its educational and religious aspect and organisation. But Coleridge's special theory is different from this, although allied to it. He distinguishes the Christian Church as such from any national church. The former is spiritual and catholic, the latter institutional and local. The former is opposed to the “world,” the latter is an estate of the realm. The former has nothing to do with states and kingdoms. It is in this respect identical with the “spiritual and invisible church known only to the Father of Spirits,” and the compensating counterpoise of all that is of the world. It is, in short, the Divine aggregate of what is really Divine in all Christian communities, and more or less ideally represented “in every true church.” A national church again is the incorporation of all the learning and knowledge—intellectual and spiritual—in a country. Every nation in order to its true health and civilisation requires not only a land-owning or permanent class along with a commercial, industrial, and progressive class, but moreover, an educative class to represent all higher knowledge, “to guard the treasures of past civilisation,” to bind the national life together in its past, present, and future, and to communicate to all citizens a clear understanding of their rights and duties. This third estate of the realm Coleridge denominated the “Clerisy,” and included not merely the clergy, but, in his own language, “the learned of all denominations.” The knowledge, which it was their function to cultivate and diffuse, embraced not only theology, although this pre-eminently as the head of all other knowledge, but law, music, mathematics, the physical sciences, “all the so-called liberal arts and sciences, the possession and cultivation of which constitute the civilisation of a country.”

This is at any rate a large conception of a national church. It is put forth by its author with all earnestness, although he admitted that it had never been anywhere realised. But it was his object “to present the Idea of a national church as the only safe criterion by which we can judge of existing things.” It was only when “we are in full and clear possession of the ultimate aim of an institution” that we can ascertain how far “this aim has ever been attained in other ways.”

These, very briefly explained, are the main lines along which Coleridge moved the national mind in the third decade of this century. They may seem to some rather impalpable lines, and hardly calculated to touch the general mind. But they were influential, as the course of Christian literature has since proved. Like his own genius, they were diffusive rather than concentrative. The Coleridgian ideas permeated the general intellectual atmosphere, modifying old conceptions in criticism as well as theology, deepening if not always clarifying the channels of thought in many directions, but especially in the direction of Christian philosophy. They acted in this way as a new circulation of spiritual air all around, rather than in conveying any new body of truth. The very ridicule of Carlyle testifies to the influence which they exercised over aspiring and younger minds. The very emphasis with which he repudiates the Coleridgian metaphysic probably indicates that he had felt some echo of it in his own heart.—Fortnightly Review.

THE PORTRAIT.
A Story of the Seen and the Unseen.

At the period when the following incidents occurred I was living with my father at The Grove, a large old house in the immediate neighborhood of a little town. This had been his home for a number of years; and I believe I was born in it. It was a kind of house which, notwithstanding all the red and white architecture, known at present by the name of Queen Anne, builders nowadays have forgotten how to build. It was straggling and irregular, with wide passages, wide staircases, broad landings; the rooms large but not very lofty; the arrangements leaving much to be desired, with no economy of space; a house belonging to a period when land was cheap, and, so far as that was concerned, there was no occasion to economise. Though it was so near the town, the clump of trees in which it was environed was a veritable grove. In the grounds in spring the primroses grew as thickly as in the forest. We had a few fields for the cows, and an excellent walled garden. The place is being pulled down at this moment to make room for more streets of mean little houses,—the kind of thing, and not a dull house of faded gentry, which perhaps the neighborhood requires. The house was dull, and so were we, its last inhabitants; and the furniture was faded, even a little dingy,—nothing to brag of. I do not, however, intend to convey a suggestion that we were faded gentry, for that was not the case. My father, indeed, was rich, and had no need to spare any expense in making his life and his house bright if he pleased; but he did not please, and I had not been long enough at home to exercise any special influence of my own. It was the only home I had ever known; but except in my earliest childhood, and in my holidays as a schoolboy, I had in reality known but little of it. My mother had died at my birth, or shortly after, and I had grown up in the gravity and silence of a house without women. In my infancy, I believe, a sister of my father's had lived with us, and taken charge of the household and of me; but she, too, had died long, long ago, my mourning for her being one of the first things I could recollect. And she had no successor. There was, indeed, a housekeeper and some maids,—the latter of whom I only saw disappearing at the end of a passage, or whisking out of a room when one of “the gentlemen” appeared. Mrs. Weir, indeed, I saw nearly every day; but a curtsey, a smile, a pair of nice round arms which she caressed while folding them across her ample waist, and a large white apron, were all I knew of her. This was the only female influence in the house. The drawing-room I was aware of only as a place of deadly good order, into which nobody ever entered. It had three long windows opening on the lawn, and communicated at the upper end, which was rounded like a great bay, with the conservatory. Sometimes I gazed into it as a child from without, wondering at the needlework on the chairs, the screens, the looking-glasses which never reflected any living face. My father did not like the room, which probably was not wonderful, though it never occurred to me in those early days to inquire why.

I may say here, though it will probably be disappointing to those who form a sentimental idea of the capabilities of children, that it did not occur to me either, in these early days, to make any inquiry about my mother. There was no room in life, as I knew it, for any such person; nothing suggested to my mind either the fact that she must have existed, or that there was need of her in the house. I accepted, as I believe most children do, the facts of existence, on the basis with which I had first made acquaintance with them, without question or remark. As a matter of fact, I was aware that it was rather dull at home; but neither by comparison with the books I read, nor by the communications received from my school-fellows, did this seem to me anything remarkable. And I was possibly somewhat dull too by nature, for I did not mind. I was fond of reading, and for that there was unbounded opportunity. I had a little ambition in respect to work, and that too could be prosecuted undisturbed. When I went to the university, my society lay almost entirely among men; but by that time and afterwards, matters had of course greatly changed with me, and though I recognised women as part of the economy of nature, and did not indeed by any means dislike or avoid them, yet the idea of connecting them at all with my own home never entered into my head. That continued to be as it had always been, when at intervals I descended upon the cool, grave, colorless place, in the midst of my traffic with the world; always very still, well-ordered, serious—the cooking very good, the comfort perfect—old Morphew, the butler, a little older (but very little older, perhaps on the whole less old, since in my childhood I had thought him a kind of Methuselah), and Mrs. Weir, less active, covering up her arms in sleeves, but folding and caressing them just as always. I remember looking in from the lawn through the windows upon that deadly-orderly drawing-room, with a humorous recollection of my childish admiration and wonder, and feeling that it must be kept so forever and ever, and that to go into it would break some sort of amusing mock mystery, some pleasantly ridiculous spell.

But it was only at rare intervals that I went home. In the long vacation, as in my school holidays, my father often went abroad with me, so that we had gone over a great deal of the Continent together very pleasantly. He was old in proportion to the age of his son, being a man of sixty when I was twenty, but that did not disturb the pleasure of the relations between us. I don't know that they were ever very confidential. On my side there was but little to communicate, for I did not get into scrapes nor fall in love, the two predicaments which demand sympathy and confidences. And as for my father himself, I was never aware what there could be to communicate on his side. I knew his life exactly—what he did almost at every hour of the day; under what circumstances of the temperature he would ride and when walk; how often and with what guests he would indulge in the occasional break of a dinner-party, a serious pleasure—perhaps, indeed, less a pleasure than a duty. All this I knew as well as he did, and also his views on public matters, his political opinions, which naturally were different from mine. What ground, then, remained for confidence? I did not know any. We were both of us of a reserved nature, not apt to enter into our religious feelings, for instance. There are many people who think reticence on such subjects a sign of the most reverential way of contemplating them. Of this I am far from being sure; but, at all events, it was the practice most congenial to my own mind.

And then I was for a long time absent, making my own way in the world. I did not make it very successfully. I accomplished the natural fate of an Englishman, and went out to the Colonies; then to India in a semi-diplomatic position; but returned home after seven or eight years, invalided, in bad health and not much better spirits, tired and disappointed with my first trial of life. I had, as people say, “no occasion” to insist on making my way. My father was rich, and had never given me the slightest reason to believe that he did not intend me to be his heir. His allowance to me was not illiberal, and though he did not oppose the carrying out of my own plans, he by no means urged me to exertion. When I came home he received me very affectionately, and expressed his satisfaction in my return. “Of course,” he said, “I am not glad that you are disappointed, Philip, or that your health is broken; but otherwise it is an ill wind, you know, that blows nobody good—and I am very glad to have you at home. I am growing an old man—”

“I don't see any difference, sir,” said I; “everything here seems exactly the same as when I went away—”

He smiled, and shook his head. “It is true enough,” he said, “after we have reached a certain age we seem to go on for a long time on a plane, and feel no great difference from year to year; but it is an inclined plane—and the longer we go on, the more sudden will be the fall at the end. But at all events it will be a great comfort to me to have you here.”

“If I had known that,” I said, “and that you wanted me, I should have come in any circumstances. As there are only two of us in the world—”

“Yes,” he said, “there are only two of us in the world; but still I should not have sent for you, Phil, to interrupt your career.”

“It is as well, then, that it has interrupted itself,” I said, rather bitterly; for disappointment is hard to hear.

He patted me on the shoulder and repeated, “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good,” with a look of real pleasure which gave me a certain gratification too; for, after all, he was an old man, and the only one in all the world to whom I owed any duty. I had not been without dreams of warmer affections, but they had come to nothing—not tragically, but in the ordinary way. I might perhaps have had love which I did not want, but not that which I did want,—which was not a thing to make any unmanly moan about, but in the ordinary course of events. Such disappointments happen every day; indeed, they are more common than anything else, and sometimes it is apparent afterward that it is better it was so.

However, here I was at thirty stranded—yet wanting for nothing, in a position to call forth rather envy than pity from the greater part of my contemporaries,—for I had an assured and comfortable existence, as much money as I wanted, and the prospect of an excellent fortune for the future. On the other hand, my health was still low, and I had no occupation. The neighborhood of the town was a drawback rather than an advantage. I felt myself tempted, instead of taking the long walk into the country which my doctor recommended, to take a much shorter one through the High Street, across the river, and back again, which was not a walk but a lounge. The country was silent and full of thoughts—thoughts not always very agreeable—whereas there were always the humors of the little urban population to glance at, the news to be heard, all those petty matters which so often make up life in a very impoverished version for the idle man. I did not like it, but I felt myself yielding to it, not having energy enough to make a stand. The rector and the leading lawyer of the place asked me to dinner. I might have glided into the society, such as it was, had I been disposed for that—everything about me began to close over me as if I had been fifty, and fully contented with my lot.

It was possibly my own want of occupation which made me observe with surprise, after a while, how much occupied my father was. He had expressed himself glad of my return; but now that I had returned, I saw very little of him. Most of his time was spent in his library, as had always been the case. But on the few visits I paid him there, I could not but perceive that the aspect of the library was much changed. It had acquired the look of a business-room, almost an office. There were large business-like books on the table, which I could not associate with anything he could naturally have to do; and his correspondence was very large. I thought he closed one of those books hurriedly as I came in, and pushed it away, as if he did not wish me to see it. This surprised me at the moment, without arousing any other feeling; but afterward I remembered it with a clearer sense of what it meant. He was more absorbed altogether than I had been used to see him. He was visited by men sometimes not of very prepossessing appearance. Surprise grew in my mind without any very distinct idea of the reason of it; and it was not till after a chance conversation with Morphew that my vague uneasiness began to take definite shape. It was begun without any special intention on my part. Morphew had informed me that master was very busy, on some occasion when I wanted to see him. And I was a little annoyed to be thus put off. “It appears to me that my father is always busy,” I said, hastily. Morphew then began very oracularly to nod his head in assent.

This startled me much, and I asked hurriedly, “What do you mean?” without reflecting that to ask for private information from a servant about my father's habits was as bad as investigating into a stranger's affairs. It did not strike me in the same light.

“Mr. Philip,” said Morphew, “a thing 'as 'appened as 'appens more often than it ought to. Master has got awful keen about money in his old age.”

“No, sir, begging your pardon, it ain't a new thing. He was once broke of it, and that wasn't easy done; but it's come back, if you'll excuse me saying so. And I don't know as he'll ever be broke of it again at his age.”

I felt more disposed to be angry than disturbed by this. “You must be making some ridiculous mistake,” I said. “And if you were not so old a friend as you are, Morphew, I should not have allowed my father to be so spoken of to me.”

The old man gave me a half-astonished, half-contemptuous look. “He's been my master a deal longer than he's been your father,” he said, turning on his heel. The assumption was so comical that my anger could not stand in face of it. I went out, having been on my way to the door when this conversation occurred, and took my usual lounge about, which was not a satisfactory sort of amusement. Its vanity and emptiness appeared to be more evident than usual to-day. I met half a dozen people I knew, and had as many pieces of news confided to me. I went up and down the length of the High Street. I made a small purchase or two. And then I turned homeward—despising myself, yet finding no alternative within my reach. Would a long country walk have been more virtuous?—it would at least have been more wholesome—but that was all that could be said. My mind did not dwell on Morphew's communication. It seemed without sense or meaning to me; and after the excellent joke about his superior interest in his master to mine in my father, was dismissed lightly enough from my mind. I tried to invent some way of telling this to my father without letting him perceive that Morphew had been finding faults in him, or I listening; for it seemed a pity to lose so good a joke. However, as I returned home, something happened which put the joke entirely out of my head. It is curious when a new subject of trouble or anxiety has been suggested to the mind in an unexpected way, how often a second advertisement follows immediately after the first, and gives to that a potency which in itself it had not possessed.

I was approaching our own door, wondering whether my father had gone, and whether, on my return, I should find him at leisure—for I had several little things to say to him—when I noticed a poor woman lingering about the closed gates. She had a baby sleeping in her arms. It was a spring night, the stars shining in the twilight, and everything soft and dim; and the woman's figure was like a shadow, flitting about, now here, now there, on one side or another of the gate. She stopped when she saw me approaching, and hesitated for a moment, then seemed to take a sudden resolution. I watched her without knowing, with a prevision that she was going to address me, though with no sort of idea as to the subject of her address. She came up to me doubtfully, it seemed, yet certainly, as I felt, and when she was close to me, dropped a sort of hesitating curtsey, and said, “It's Mr. Philip?” in a low voice.

Then she poured forth suddenly, without warning or preparation, her long speech—a flood of words which must have been all ready and waiting at the doors of her lips for utterance. “Oh, sir, I want to speak to you! I can't believe you'll be so hard, for you're young; and I can't believe he'll be so hard if so be as his own son, as I've always heard he had but one, 'll speak up for us. Oh, gentleman, it is easy for the likes of you, that, if you ain't comfortable in one room, can just walk into another; but if one room is all you have, and every bit of furniture you have taken out of it, and nothing but the four walls left—not so much as the cradle for the child, or a chair for your man to sit down upon when he comes from his work, or a saucepan to cook him his supper—”

“My good woman,” I said, “who can have taken all that from you? surely nobody can be so cruel?”

“You say it's cruel!” she cried with a sort of triumph. “Oh, I knowed you would, or any true gentleman that don't hold with screwing poor folks. Just go and say that to him inside there, for the love of God. Tell him to think what he's doing, driving poor creatures to despair. Summer's coming, the Lord be praised, but yet it's bitter cold at night with your counterpane gone; and when you've been working hard all day, and nothing but four bare walls to come home to, and all your poor little sticks of furniture that you've saved up for, and got together one by one, all gone—and you no better than when you started, or rather worse, for then you was young. Oh, sir!” the woman's voice rose into a sort of passionate wail. And then she added, beseechingly, recovering herself—“Oh, speak for us—he'll not refuse his own son—”

The woman hesitated again, looking keenly in my face—then repeated with a slight faltering, “It's Mr. Philip?” as if that made everything right.

“Yes; I am Philip Canning,” I said; “but what have I to do with this? and to whom am I to speak?”

She began to whimper, crying and stopping herself. “Oh, please, sir! it's Mr. Canning as owns all the house property about—it's him that our court and the lane and everything belongs to. And he's taken the bed from under us, and the baby's cradle, although it's said in the Bible as you're not to take poor folks's bed.”

“My father!” I cried in spite of myself—“then it must be some agent, some one else in his name. You may be sure he knows nothing of it. Of course I shall speak to him at once.”

“Oh, God bless you, sir,” said the woman. But then she added, in a lower tone—“It's no agent. It's one as never knows trouble. It's him that lives in that grand house.” But this was said under her breath, evidently not for me to hear.

Morphew's words flashed through my mind as she spoke. What was this? Did it afford an explanation of the much occupied hours, the big books, the strange visitors? I took the poor woman's name, and gave her something to procure a few comforts for the night, and went indoors disturbed and troubled. It was impossible to believe that my father himself would have acted thus; but he was not a man to brook interference, and I did not see how to introduce the subject, what to say. I could but hope that, at the moment of broaching it, words would be put into my mouth, which often happens in moments of necessity, one knows not how, even when one's theme is not so all-important as that for which such help has been promised. As usual, I did not see my father till dinner. I have said that our dinners were very good, luxurious in a simple way, everything excellent in its kind, well cooked, well served, the perfection of comfort without show—which is a combination very dear to the English heart. I said nothing till Morphew, with his solemn attention to everything that was going, had retired—and then it was with some strain of courage that I began.

“I was stopped outside the gate to-day by a curious sort of petitioner—a poor woman, who seems to be one of your tenants, sir, but whom your agent must have been rather too hard upon.”

“I don't know his name, and I doubt his competence. The poor creature seems to have had everything taken from her—her bed, her child's cradle.”

“You take it coolly,” said my father, with an upward glance, half-amused, not in the least shocked by my statement. “But when a man, or a woman either, takes a house, I suppose you will allow that they ought to pay rent for it.”

“I don't allow the reservation,” he said. But he was not angry, which I had feared he would be.

“I think,” I continued, “that your agent must be too severe. And this emboldens me to say something which has been in my mind for some time”—(these were the words, no doubt, which I had hoped would be put into my mouth; they were the suggestion of the moment, and yet as I said them it was with the most complete conviction of their truth)—“and that is this: I am doing nothing; my time hangs heavy on my hands. Make me your agent. I will see for myself, and save you from such mistakes; and it will be an occupation—”

“Mistakes? What warrant have you for saying these are mistakes?” he said testily; then after a moment: “This is a strange proposal from you, Phil. Do you know what it is you are offering?—to be a collector of rents, going about from door to door, from week to week; to look after wretched little bits of repairs, drains, etc.; to get paid, which, after all, is the chief thing, and not to be taken in by tales of poverty.”

He gave me a strange glance, which I did not very well understand, and said, abruptly, a thing which, so far as I remember, he had never in my life said before, “You've become a little like your mother, Phil—”

“My mother!” The reference was so unusual—nay, so unprecedented—that I was greatly startled. It seemed to me like the sudden introduction of a quite new element in the stagnant atmosphere, as well as a new party to our conversation. My father looked across the table, as if with some astonishment at my tone of surprise.

“No; of course it is not extraordinary that I should resemble my mother. Only—I have heard very little of her—almost nothing.”

“That is true.” He got up and placed himself before the fire, which was very low, as the night was not cold—had not been cold heretofore at least; but it seemed to me now that a little chill came into the dim and faded room. Perhaps it looked more dull from the suggestion of a something brighter, warmer, that might have been. “Talking of mistakes,” he said, “perhaps that was one: to sever you entirely from her side of the house. But I did not care for the connection. You will understand how it is that I speak of it now when I tell you—” He stopped here, however, said nothing more for a minute or so, and then rang the bell. Morphew came, as he always did, very deliberately, so that some time elapsed in silence, during which my surprise grew. When the old man appeared at the door—“Have you put the lights in the drawing-room, as I told you?” my father said.

“Yes, sir; and opened the box, sir; and it's a—it's a speaking likeness—”

This the old man got out in a great hurry, as if afraid that his master would stop him. My father did so with a wave of his hand.

The door closed upon us, and there was again a pause. My subject had floated away altogether like a mist, though I had been so concerned about it. I tried to resume, but could not. Something seemed to arrest my very breathing: and yet in this dull respectable house of ours, where everything breathed good character and integrity, it was certain that there could be no shameful mystery to reveal. It was some time before my father spoke, not from any purpose that I could see, but apparently because his mind was busy with probably unaccustomed thoughts.

“Very little. I have never seen it used. I have a little awe of it, to tell the truth.”

“That should not be. There is no reason for that. But a man by himself, as I have been for the greater part of my life, has no occasion for a drawing-room. I always, as a matter of preference, sat among my books; however, I ought to have thought of the impression on you.”

“Oh, it is not important,” I said; “the awe was childish. I have not thought of it since I came home.”

“It never was anything very splendid at the best,” said he. He lifted the lamp from the table with a sort of abstraction, not remarking even my offer to take it from him, and led the way. He was on the verge of seventy, and looked his age; but it was a vigorous age, with no symptoms of giving way. The circle of light from the lamp lit up his white hair, and keen blue eyes, and clear complexion; his forehead was like old ivory, his cheek warmly colored: an old man, yet a man in full strength. He was taller than I was, and still almost as strong. As he stood for a moment with the lamp in his hand, he looked like a tower in his great height and bulk. I reflected as I looked at him that I knew him intimately, more intimately than any other creature in the world,—I was familiar with every detail of his outward life; could it be that in reality I did not know him at all?

The drawing-room was already lighted with a flickering array of candles upon the mantelpiece and along the walls, producing the pretty starry effect which candles give without very much light. As I had not the smallest idea what I was about to see, for Morphew's “speaking likeness” was very hurriedly said, and only half comprehensible in the bewilderment of my faculties, my first glance was at this very unusual illumination, for which I could assign no reason. The next showed me a large full-length portrait, still in the box in which apparently it had travelled, placed upright, supported against a table in the centre of the room. My father walked straight up to it, motioned to me to place a smaller table close to the picture on the left side, and put his lamp upon that. Then he waved his hand towards it, and stood aside that I might see.

It was a full-length portrait of a very young woman—I might say, a girl, scarcely twenty—in a white dress, made in a very simple old fashion, though I was too little accustomed to female costume to be able to fix the date. It might have been a hundred years old, or twenty, for aught I knew. The face had an expression of youth, candor, and simplicity more than any face I had ever seen—or so, at least, in my surprise, I thought. The eyes were a little wistful, with something which was almost anxiety—which at least was not content—in them; a faint, almost imperceptible, curve in the lids. The complexion was of a dazzling fairness, the hair light, but the eyes dark, which gave individuality to the face. It would have been as lovely had the eyes been blue—probably more so—but their darkness gave a touch of character, a slight discord, which made the harmony finer. It was not, perhaps, beautiful in the highest sense of the word. The girl must have been too young, too slight, too little developed for actual beauty; but a face which so invited love and confidence I never saw. One smiled at it with instinctive affection. “What a sweet face!” I said. “What a lovely girl! Who is she? Is this one of the relations you were speaking of on the other side?”

My father made me no reply. He stood aside, looking at it as if he knew it too well to require to look,—as if the picture was already in his eyes. “Yes,” he said, after an interval, with a long-drawn breath, “she was a lovely girl, as you say.”

“Was?—then she is dead. What a pity!” I said; “what a pity! so young and so sweet!”

We stood gazing at her thus, in her beautiful stillness and calm—two men, the younger of us full grown and conscious of many experiences, the other an old man—before this impersonation of tender youth. At length he said, with a slight tremulousness in his voice, “Does nothing suggest to you who she is, Phil?”

I turned round to look at him with profound astonishment, but he turned away from my look. A sort of quiver passed over his face. “That is your mother,” he said, and walked suddenly away, leaving me there.

I stood for a moment in a kind of consternation before the white-robed innocent creature, to me no more than a child; then a sudden laugh broke from me, without any will of mine: something ludicrous, as well as something awful, was in it. When the laugh was over, I found myself with tears in my eyes, gazing, holding my breath. The soft features seemed to melt, the lips to move, the anxiety in the eyes to become a personal inquiry. Ah, no! nothing of the kind; only because of the water in mine. My mother! oh, fair and gentle creature, scarcely woman—how could any man's voice call her by that name! I had little idea enough of what it meant,—had heard it laughed at, scoffed at, reverenced, but never had learned to place it even among the ideal powers of life. Yet, if it meant anything at all, what it meant was worth thinking of. What did she ask, looking at me with those eyes? what would she have said if “those lips had language”? If I had known her only as Cowper did—with a child's recollection—there might have been some thread, some faint but comprehensible link, between us; but now all that I felt was the curious incongruity. Poor child! I said to myself; so sweet a creature: poor little tender soul! as if she had been a little sister, a child of mine—but my mother! I cannot tell how long I stood looking at her, studying the candid, sweet face, which surely had germs in it of everything that was good and beautiful; and sorry, with a profound regret, that she had died and never carried these promises to fulfilment. Poor girl! poor people who had loved her! These were my thoughts: with a curious vertigo and giddiness of my whole being in the sense of a mysterious relationship, which it was beyond my power to understand.

Presently my father came back: possibly because I had been a long time unconscious of the passage of the minutes, or perhaps because he was himself restless in the strange disturbance of his habitual calm. He came in and put his arm within mine, leaning his weight partially upon me, with an affectionate suggestion which went deeper than words. I pressed his arm to my side: it was more between us two grave Englishmen than any embracing.

“No. I don't wonder at that; but if it is strange to you, Phil, think how much more strange to me! That is the partner of my life. I have never had another—or thought of another. That—girl! If we are to meet again, as I have always hoped we should meet again, what am I to say to her—I, an old man? Yes; I know what you mean. I am not an old man for my years; but my years are threescore and ten, and the play is nearly played out. How am I to meet that young creature? We used to say to each other that it was forever, that we never could be but one, that it was for life and death. But what—what am I to say to her, Phil, when I meet her again, that—that angel? No, it is not her being an angel that troubles me; but she is so young! She is like my—my granddaughter,” he cried, with a burst of what was half sobs, half laughter; “and she is my wife—and I am an old man—an old man! And so much has happened that she could not understand.”

I was too much startled by this strange complaint to know what to say. It was not my own trouble, and I answered it in the conventional way.

“They are not as we are, sir,” I said; “they look upon us with larger, other eyes than ours.”

“Ah! you don't know what I mean,” he said quickly; and in the interval he had subdued his emotion. “At first, after she died, it was my consolation to think that I should meet her again—that we never could be really parted. But, my God, how I have changed since then! I am another man—I am a different being. I was not very young even then—twenty years older than she was: but her youth renewed mine. I was not an unfit partner; she asked no better: and knew as much more than I did in some things—being so much nearer the source—as I did in others that were of the world. But I have gone a long way since then, Phil—a long way; and there she stands just where I left her.”

I pressed his arm again. “Father,” I said, which was a title I seldom used, “we are not to suppose that in a higher life the mind stands still.” I did not feel myself qualified to discuss such topics, but something one must say.

“Worse, worse!” he replied; “then she too will be like me, a different being, and we shall meet as what? as strangers, as people who have lost sight of each other, with a long past between us—we who parted, my God! with—with——”

His voice broke and ended for a moment: then while, surprised and almost shocked by what he said, I cast about in my mind what to reply, he withdrew his arm suddenly from mine, and said in his usual tone, “Where shall we hang the picture, Phil? It must be here in this room. What do you think will be the best light?”

This sudden alteration took me still more by surprise, and gave me almost an additional shock; but it was evident that I must follow the changes of his mood, or at least the sudden repression of sentiment which he originated. We went into that simpler question with great seriousness, consulting which would be the best light. “You know I can scarcely advise,” I said; “I have never been familiar with this room. I should like to put off, if you don't mind, till daylight.”

“I think,” he said, “that this would be the best place.” It was on the other side of the fireplace, on the wall which faced the windows—not the best light, I knew enough to be aware, for an oil-painting. When I said so, however, he answered me with a little impatience,—“It does not matter very much about, the best light. There will be nobody to see it but you and me. I have my reasons——” There was a small table standing against the wall at this spot, on which he had his hand as he spoke. Upon it stood a little basket in very fine lace-like wickerwork. His hand must have trembled, for the table shook, and the basket fell, its contents turning out upon the carpet,—little bits of needlework, colored silks, a small piece of knitting half done. He laughed as they rolled out at his feet, and tried to stoop to collect them, then tottered to a chair, and covered for a moment his face with his hands.

No need to ask what they were. No woman's work had been seen in the house since I could recollect it. I gathered them up reverently and put them back. I could see, ignorant as I was, that the bit of knitting was something for an infant. What could I do less than put it to my lips? It had. been left in the doing—for me.

“Yes, I think this is the best place,” my father said a minute after, in his usual tone.

We placed it there that evening with our own hands. The picture was large, and in a heavy frame, but my father would let no one help me but himself. And then, with a superstition for which I never could give any reason even to myself, having removed the packings, we closed and locked the door, leaving the candles about the room, in their soft strange illumination lighting the first night of her return to her old place.

That night no more was said. My father went to his room early, which was not his habit. He had never, however, accustomed me to sit late with him in the library. I had a little study or smoking-room of my own, in which all my special treasures were, the collections of my travels and my favorite books—and where I always sat after prayers, a ceremonial which was regularly kept up in the house. I retired as usual this night to my room, and as usual read—but to-night somewhat vaguely, often pausing to think. When it was quite late, I went out by the glass door to the lawn, and walked round the house, with the intention of looking in at the drawing-room windows, as I had done when a child. But I had forgotten that these windows were all shuttered at night, and nothing but a faint penetration of the light within through the crevices bore witness to the instalment of the new dweller there.

In the morning my father was entirely himself again. He told me without emotion of the manner in which he had obtained the picture. It had belonged to my mother's family, and had fallen eventually into the hands of a cousin of hers, resident abroad—“A man whom I did not like, and who did not like me,” my father said; “there was, or had been, some rivalry, he thought: a mistake, but he was never aware of that. He refused all my requests to have a copy made. You may suppose, Phil, that I wished this very much. Had I succeeded, you would have been acquainted, at least, with your mother's appearance, and need not have sustained this shock. But he would not consent. It gave him, I think, a certain pleasure to think that he had the only picture. But now he is dead—and out of remorse, or with some other intention, has left it to me.”

“Yes; or something else. He might have thought that by so doing he was establishing a claim upon me.” my father said: but he did not seem disposed to add any more. On whose behalf he meant to establish a claim I did not know, nor who the man was who had laid us under so great an obligation on his deathbed. He had established a claim on me at least: though, as he was dead, I could not see on whose behalf it was. And my father said nothing more. He seemed to dislike the subject. When I attempted to return to it, he had recourse to his letters or his newspapers. Evidently he had made up his mind to say no more.

Afterwards I went into the drawing-room to look at the picture once more. It seemed to me that the anxiety in her eyes was not so evident as I had thought it last night. The light possibly was more favorable. She stood just above the place where, I make no doubt, she had sat in life, where her little work-basket was—not very much above it. The picture was full-length, and we had hung it low, so that she might have been stepping into the room, and was little above my own level as I stood and looked at her again. Once more I smiled at the strange thought that this young creature, so young, almost childish, could be my mother; and once more my eyes grew wet looking at her. He was a benefactor, indeed, who had given her back to us. I said to myself, that if I could ever do anything for him or his, I would certainly do, for my—for this lovely young creature's sake.

And with this in my mind, and all the thoughts that came with it, I am obliged to confess that the other matter, which I had been so full of on the previous night, went entirely out of my head.

It is rarely, however, that such matters are allowed to slip out of one's mind. When I went out in the afternoon for my usual stroll—or rather when I returned from that stroll—I saw once more before me the woman with her baby whose story had filled me with dismay on the previous evening. She was waiting at the gate as before, and—“Oh, gentleman, but haven't you got some news to give me?” she said.

“My good woman—I—have been greatly occupied. I have had—no time to do anything.”

“Ah!” she said, with a little cry of disappointment, “my man said not to make too sure, and that the ways of the gentlefolks is hard to know.”

“I cannot explain to you,” I said, as gently as I could, “what it is that has made me forget you. It was an event that can only do you good in the end. Go home now, and see the man that took your things from you, and tell him to come to me. I promise you it shall be put right.”

The woman looked at me in astonishment, then burst forth, as it seemed, involuntarily,—“What! without asking no questions?” After this there came a storm of tears and blessings, from which I made haste to escape, but not without carrying that curious commentary on my rashness away with me—“Without asking no questions?” It might be foolish, perhaps: but after all how slight a matter. To make the poor creature comfortable at the cost of what—a box or two of cigars, perhaps, or some other trifle. And if it should be her own fault, or her husband's—what then? Had I been punished for all my faults, where should I have been now. And if the advantage should be only temporary, what then? To be relieved and comforted even for a day or two, was not that something to count in life? Thus I quenched the fiery dart of criticism which my protégée herself had thrown into the transaction, not without a certain sense of the humor of it. Its effect, however, was to make me less anxious to see my father, to repeat my proposal to him, and to call his attention to the cruelty performed in his name. This one case I had taken out of the category of wrongs to be righted, by assuming arbitrarily the position of Providence in my own person—for, of course, I had bound myself to pay the poor creature's rent as well as redeem her goods—and, whatever might happen to her in the future, had taken the past into my own hands. The man came presently to see me who, it seems, had acted as my father's agent in the matter. “I don't know, sir, how Mr. Canning will take it,” he said. “He don't want none of those irregular, bad-paying ones in his property. He always says as to look over it and let the rent run on is making things worse in the end. His rule is, 'Never more than a month, Stevens:' that's what Mr. Canning says to me, sir. He says, 'More than that they can't pay. It's no use trying.' And it's a good rule; it's a very good rule. He won't hear none of their stories, sir. Bless you, you'd never get a penny of rent from them small houses if you listened to their tales. But if so be as you'll pay Mrs. Jordan's rent, it's none of my business how it's paid, so long as it's paid, and I'll send her back her things. But they'll just have to be took next time,” he added, composedly. “Over and over: it's always the same story with them sort of poor folks—they're too poor for anything, that's the truth,” the man said.

Morphew came back to my room after my visitor was gone. “Mr. Philip,” he said, “you'll excuse me, sir, but if you're going to pay all the poor folk's rent as have distresses put in, you may just go into the court at once, for it's without end—”

“I am going to be the agent myself, Morphew, and manage for my father: and we'll soon put a stop to that,” I said, more cheerfully than I felt.

“Manage for—master,” he said, with a face of consternation. “You, Mr. Philip!”

He did not deny the fact. He said with excitement, “Master, sir—master don't let himself be put a stop to by any man. Master's—not one to be managed. Don't you quarrel with master, Mr. Philip, for the love of God.” The old man was quite pale.

“Quarrel!” I said. “I have never quarreled with my father, and I don't mean to begin now.”

Morphew dispelled his own excitement by making up the fire, which was dying in the grate. It was a very mild spring evening, and he made up a great blaze which would have suited December. This is one of many ways in which an old servant will relieve his mind. He muttered all the time as he threw on the coals and wood. “He'll not like it—we all know as he'll not like it. Master won't stand no meddling, Mr. Philip,”—this last he discharged at me like a flying arrow as he closed the door.

I soon found there was truth in what he said. My father was not angry; he was even half amused. “I don't think that plan of yours will hold water, Phil. I hear you have been paying rents and redeeming furniture—that's an expensive game, and a very profitless one. Of course, so long as you are a benevolent gentleman acting for your own pleasure, it makes no difference to me. I am quite content if I get my money, even out of your pockets—so long as it amuses you. But as my collector, you know, which you are good enough to propose to be——”

“Of course I should act under your orders,” I said; but at least you might be sure that I would not commit you to any—to any——” I paused for a word.

“Act of oppression,” he said with a smile—“piece of cruelty, exaction—there are half-a-dozen words——”

“Stop, Phil, and let us understand each other. I hope I have always been a just man. I do my duty on my side, and I expect it from others. It is your benevolence that is cruel. I have calculated anxiously how much credit it is safe to allow; but I will allow no man, or woman either, to go beyond what he or she can make up. My law is fixed. Now you understand. My agents, as you call them, originate nothing—they execute only what I decide——”

“But then no circumstances are taken into account—no bad luck, no evil chances, no loss unexpected.”

“There are no evil chances,” he said “there is no bad luck—they reap as they sow. No, I don't go among them to be cheated by their stories and spend quite unnecessary emotion in sympathising with them. You will find it much better for you that I don't. I deal with them on a general rule, made, I assure you, not without a great deal of thought.”

“And must it always be so?” I said. “Is there no way of ameliorating or bringing in a better state of things?”

“It seems not,” he said; “we don't get 'no forrarder' in that direction so far as I can see.” And then he turned the conversation to general matters.

I retired to my room greatly discouraged that night. In former ages—or so one is led to suppose—and in the lower primitive classes who still linger near the primeval type, action of any kind was, and is, easier than amid the complications of our higher civilisation. A bad man is a distinct entity, against whom you know more or less what steps to take. A tyrant, an oppressor, a bad landlord, a man who lets miserable tenements at a rack-rent (to come down to particulars), and exposes his wretched tenants to all those abominations of which we have heard so much—well! he is more or less a satisfactory opponent. There he is, and there is nothing to be said for him—down with him! and let there be an end of his wickedness. But when, on the contrary, you have before you a good man, a just man, who has considered deeply a question which you allow to be full of difficulty; who regrets, but cannot, being human, avert, the miseries which to some unhappy individuals follow from the very wisdom of his rule,—what can you do—what is to be done? Individual benevolence at haphazard may baulk him here and there, but what have you to put in the place of his well-considered scheme? Charity which makes paupers? or what else? I had not considered the question deeply, but it seemed to me that I now came to a blank wall, which my vague human sentiment of pity and scorn could find no way to breach. There must be wrong somewhere—but where? There must be some change for the better to be made—but how?

I was seated with a book before me on the table, with my head supported on my hands. My eyes were on the printed page, but I was not reading—my mind was full of these thoughts, my heart of great discouragement and despondency, a sense that I could do nothing, yet that there surely must and ought, if I but knew it, be something to do. The fire which Morphew had built up before dinner was dying out, the shaded lamp on my table left all the corners in a mysterious twilight. The house was perfectly still, no one moving: my father in the library, where, after the habit of many solitary years, he liked to be left alone, and I here in my retreat, preparing for the formation of similar habits. I thought all at once of the third member of the party, the newcomer, alone too in the room that had been hers; and there suddenly occurred to me a strong desire to take up my lamp and go to the drawing-room and visit her, to see whether her soft angelic face would give any inspiration. I restrained, however, this futile impulse—for what could the picture say?—and instead wondered what might have been had she lived, had she been there, warmly enthroned beside the warm domestic centre, the hearth which would have been a common sanctuary, the true home. In that case what might have been? Alas! the question was no more simple to answer than the other: she might have been there alone too, her husband's business, her son's thoughts, as far from her as now, when her silent representative held her old place in the silence and darkness. I had known it so, often enough. Love itself does not always give comprehension and sympathy. It might be that she was more to us there, in the sweet image of her undeveloped beauty, than she might have been had she lived and grown to maturity and fading, like the rest.

I cannot be certain whether my mind was still lingering on this not very cheerful reflection, or if it had been left behind, when the strange occurrence came of which I have now to tell: can I call it an occurrence? My eyes were on my book, when I thought I heard the sound of a door opening and shutting, but so far away and faint that if real at all it must have been in a far corner of the house. I did not move except to lift my eyes from the book, as one does instinctively the better to listen; when——But I cannot tell, nor have I ever been able to describe exactly what it was. My heart made all at once a sudden leap in my breast. I am aware that this language is figurative, and that the heart cannot leap: but it is a figure so entirely justified by sensation, that no one will have any difficulty in understanding what I mean. My heart leapt up and began beating wildly in my throat, in my ears, as if my whole being had received a sudden and intolerable shock. The sound went through my head like the dizzy sound of some strange mechanism, a thousand wheels and springs, circling, echoing, working in my brain. I felt the blood bound in my veins, my mouth became dry, my eyes hot, a sense of something insupportable took possession of me. I sprang to my feet, and then I sat down again. I cast a quick glance round me beyond the brief circle of the lamplight, but there was nothing there to account in any way for this sudden extraordinary rush of sensation—nor could I feel any meaning in it, any suggestion, any moral impression. I thought I must be going to be ill, and got out my watch and felt my pulse: it was beating furiously, about 125 throbs in a minute. I knew of no illness that could come on like this with out warning, in a moment, and I tried to subdue myself, to say to myself that it was nothing, some flutter of the nerves, some physical disturbance. I laid myself down upon my sofa to try if rest would help me, and keep still—as long as the thumping and throbbing of this wild excited mechanism within, like a wild beast plunging and struggling, would let me. I am quite aware of the confusion of the metaphor—the reality was just so. It was like a mechanism deranged, going wildly with ever-increasing precipitation, like those horrible wheels that from time to time catch a helpless human being in them and tear him to pieces: but at the same time it was like a maddened living creature making the wildest efforts to get free.

When I could bear this no longer I got up and walked about my room; then having still a certain command of myself, though I could not master the commotion within me, I deliberately took down an exciting book from the shelf, a book of breathless adventure which had always interested me, and tried with that to break the spell. After a few minutes, however, I flung the book aside; I was gradually losing all power over myself. What I should be moved to do,—to shout aloud, to struggle with I know not what; or if was I going mad altogether, and next moment must be a raving lunatic,—I could not tell. I kept looking round, expecting I don't know what: several times with the corner of my eye I seemed to see a movement, as if some one was stealing out of sight; but when I looked straight, there was never anything but the plain outlines of the wall and carpet, the chairs standing in good order. At last I snatched up the lamp in my hand and went out of the room. To look at the picture? which had been faintly showing in my imagination from time to time, the eyes, more anxious than ever, looking at me from out the silent air. But no; I passed the door of that room swiftly, moving, it seemed, without any volition of my own, and before I knew where I was going, went into my father's library with my lamp in my hand.

He was still sitting there at his writing-table; he looked up astonished to see me hurrying in with my light. “Phil!” he said, surprised. I remember that I shut the door behind me, and came up to him, and set down the lamp on his table. My sudden appearance alarmed him. “What is the matter?” he cried. “Philip, what have you been doing with yourself?”

I sat down on the nearest chair and gasped, gazing at him. The wild commotion ceased, the blood subsided into its natural channels, my heart resumed its place, I use such words as mortal weakness can to express the sensations I felt. I came to myself thus, gazing at him, confounded, at once by the extraordinary passion which I had gone through, and its sudden cessation. “The matter?” I cried; “I don't know what is the matter.”

My father had pushed his spectacles up from his eyes. He appeared to me as faces appear in a fever, all glorified with light which is not in them—his eyes glowing, his white hair shining like silver; but his look was severe. “You are not a boy, that I should reprove you; but you ought to know better,” he said.

Then I explained to him, so far as I was able, what had happened. Had happened? nothing had happened. He did not understand me—nor did I, now that it was over, understand myself; but he saw enough to make him aware that the disturbance in me was serious, and not caused by any folly of my own. He was very kind as soon as he had assured himself of this, and talked, taking pains to bring me back to unexciting subjects. He had a letter in his hand with a very deep border of black when I came in. I observed it, without taking any notice or associating it with anything I knew. He had many correspondents, and although we were excellent friends, we had never been on those confidential terms which warrant one man in asking another from whom a special letter has come. We were not so near to each other as this, though we were father and son. After a while I went back to my own room, and finished the evening in my usual way, without any return of the excitement which, now that it was over, looked to me like some extraordinary dream. What had it meant? had it meant anything? I said to myself that it must be purely physical, something gone temporarily amiss, which had righted itself. It was physical; the excitement did not affect my mind. I was independent of it all the time, a spectator of my own agitation—a clear proof that, whatever it was, it had affected my bodily organisation alone.

Next day I returned to the problem which I had not been able to solve. I found out my petitioner in the back street, and that she was happy in the recovery of her possessions, which to my eyes indeed did not seem very worthy either of lamentation or delight. Nor was her house the tidy house which injured virtue should have when restored to its humble rights. She was not injured virtue, it was clear. She made me a great many curtseys, and poured forth a number of blessings. Her “man” came in while I was there, and hoped in a gruff voice that God would reward me and that the old gentleman 'd let 'em alone. I did not like the looks of the man. It seemed to me that in the dark lane behind the house of a winter's night he would not be a pleasant person to find in one's way. Nor was this all: when I went out into the little street, which it appeared was all, or almost all, my fathers property, a number of groups formed in my way, and at least half-a-dozen applicants sidled up. “I've more claims nor Mary Jordan any day,” said one; “I've lived on Squire Canning's property one place and another, this twenty year.” “And what do you say to me,” said another; “I've six children to her two, bless you, sir, and ne'er a father to do for them.” I believed in my father's rule before I got out of the street, and approved his wisdom in keeping himself free from personal contact with his tenants. Yet when I looked back upon the swarming thoroughfare, the mean little houses, the women at their doors all so open-mouthed, and eager to contend for my favor, my heart sank within me at the thought that out of their misery some portion of our wealth came—I don't care how small a portion: that I, young and strong, should be kept idle and in luxury, in some part through the money screwed out of their necessities, obtained sometimes by the sacrifice of everything they prized! Of course I know all the ordinary commonplaces of life as well as anyone—that if you build a house with your hands or your money, and let it, the rent of it is your just due, and must be paid. But yet——

“Don't you think, sir,” I said, that evening at dinner, the subject being reintroduced by my father himself, “that we have some duty towards them when we draw so much from them?”

“Certainly,” he said; “I take as much trouble about their drains as I do about my own.”

“Something! it is a great deal—it is more than they get anywhere else. I keep them clean, as far as that's possible. I give them at least the means of keeping clean, and thus check disease, and prolong life—which is more, I assure you, than they've any right to expect.”

I was not prepared with arguments as I ought to have been. That is all in the Gospel according to Adam Smith, which my father had been brought up in, but of which the tenets had begun to be less binding in my day. I wanted something more, or else something else; but my views were not so clear, nor my system so logical and well-built, as that upon which my father rested his conscience, and drew his percentage with a light heart.

Yet I thought there were signs in him of some perturbation. I met him one morning coming out of the room in which the portrait hung, as if he had gone to look at it stealthily. He was shaking his head, and saying, “No, no,” to himself, not perceiving me, and I stepped aside when I saw him so absorbed. For myself, I entered that room but little. I went outside, as I had so often done when I was a child, and looked through the windows into the still and now sacred place, which had always impressed me with a certain awe. Looked at so, the slight figure in its white dress seemed to be stepping down into the room from some slight visionary altitude, looking with that which had seemed to me at first anxiety, which I sometimes represented to myself now as a wistful curiosity, as if she were looking for the life which might have been hers. Where was the existence that had belonged to her, the sweet household place, the infant she had left? She would no more recognize the man who thus came to look at her as through a veil with mystic reverence, than I could recognize her. I could never be her child to her, any more than she could be a mother to me.

Thus time passed on for several quiet days. There was nothing to make us give any special heed to the passage of time, life being very uneventful and its habits unvaried. My mind was very much preoccupied by my father's tenants. He had a great deal of property in the town which was so near us,—streets of small houses, the best paying property (I was assured) of any. I was very anxious to come to some settled conclusion: on the one hand, not to let myself be carried away by sentiment; on the other, not to allow my strongly roused feelings to fall into the blank of routine, as his had done. I was seated one evening in my own sitting-room busy with this matter,—busy with calculations as to cost and profit, with an anxious desire to convince him, either that his profits were greater than justice allowed, or that they carried with them a more urgent duty than he had conceived.

It was night, but not late, not more than ten o'clock, the household still astir. Everything was quiet—not the solemnity of midnight silence, in which there is always something of mystery, but the soft-breathing quiet of the evening, full of the faint habitual sounds of a human dwelling, a consciousness of life about. And I was very busy with my figures, interested, feeling no room in my mind for any other thought. The singular experience which had startled me so much had passed over very quickly, and there had been no return. I had ceased to think of it: indeed I had never thought of it save for the moment, setting it down after it was over to a physical cause without much difficulty. At this time I was far too busy to have thoughts to spare for anything, or room for imagination: and when suddenly in a moment without any warning, the first symptom returned, I started with it into determined resistance, resolute not to be fooled by any mock influence which could resolve itself into the action of nerves or ganglions. The first symptom, as before, was that my heart sprang up with a bound, as if a cannon had been fired at my ear. My whole being responded with a start. The pen fell out of my fingers, the figures went out of my head as if all faculty had departed: and yet I was conscious for a time at least of keeping my self-control. I was like the rider of a frightened horse, rendered almost wild by something which in the mystery of its voiceless being it has seen, something on the road which it will not pass, but wildly plunging, resisting every persuasion, turns from, with ever increasing passion. The rider himself after a time becomes infected with this inexplainable desperation of terror, and I suppose I must have done so: but for a time I kept the upper hand. I would not allow myself to spring up as I wished, as my impulse was, but sat there doggedly, clinging to my books, to my table, fixing myself on I did not mind what, to resist the flood of sensation, of emotion, which was sweeping through me, carrying me away. I tried to continue my calculations. I tried to stir myself up with recollections of the miserable sights I had seen, the poverty, the helplessness. I tried to work myself into indignation; but all through these efforts I felt the contagion growing upon me, my mind falling into sympathy with all those straining faculties of the body, startled, excited, driven wild by something I knew not what. It was not fear. I was like a ship at sea straining and plunging against wind and tide, but I was not afraid. I am obliged to use these metaphors, otherwise I could give no explanation of my condition, seized upon against my will, and torn from all those moorings of reason to which I clung with desperation—as long as I had the strength.

When I got up from my chair at last, the battle was lost, so far as my powers of self-control were concerned. I got up, or rather was dragged up, from my seat, clutching at these material things round me as with a last effort to hold my own. But that was no longer possible; I was overcome. I stood for a moment looking round me feebly, feeling myself begin to babble with stammering lips, which was the alternative of shrieking, and which I seemed to choose as a lesser evil. What I said was, “What am I to do?” and after a while, “What do you want me to do?” although throughout I saw no one, heard no voice, and had in reality not power enough in my dizzy and confused brain to know what I myself meant. I stood thus for a moment looking blankly round me for guidance, repeating the question, which seemed after a time to become almost mechanical. What do you want me to do? though I neither knew to whom I addressed it nor why I said it. Presently—whether in answer, whether in mere yielding of nature, I cannot tell—I became aware of a difference: not a lessening of the agitation, but a softening, as if my powers of resistance being exhausted, a gentler force, a more benignant influence, had room. I felt myself consent to whatever it was. My heart melted in the midst of the tumult; I seemed to give myself up, and move as if drawn by some one whose arm was in mine, as if softly swept along, not forcibly, but with an utter consent of all my faculties to do I knew not what, for love of I knew not whom. For love—that was how it seemed—not by force, as when I went before. But my steps took the same course: I went through the dim passages in an exaltation indescribable, and opened the door of my father's room.

He was seated there at his table, as usual, the light of the lamp falling on his white hair: he looked up with some surprise at the sound of the opening door. “Phil,” he said, and, with a look of wondering apprehension on his face, watched my approach. I went straight up to him, and put my hand on his shoulder. “Phil, what is the matter? What do you want with me? What is it?” he said.

“Father, I can't tell you. I come not of myself. There must be something in it, though I don't know what it is. This is the second time I have been brought to you here.”

“Are you going——?” he stopped himself. The exclamation had been begun with an angry intention. He stopped, looked at me with a scared look, as if perhaps it might be true.

“Do you mean mad? I don't think so. I have no delusions that I know of. Father, think—do you know any reason why I am brought here? for some cause there must be.”

I stood with my hand upon the back of his chair. His table was covered with papers, among which were several letters with the broad black border which I had before observed. I noticed this now in my excitement without any distinct associations of thoughts, for that I was not capable of; but the black border caught my eye. And I was conscious that he, too, gave a hurried glance at them, and with one hand swept them away.

“Philip,” he said, pushing back his chair, “you must be ill, my poor boy. Evidently we have not been treating you rightly: you have been more ill all through than I supposed. Let me persuade you to go to bed.”

“I am perfectly well,” I said. “Father, don't let us deceive one another. I am neither a man to go mad nor to see ghosts. What it is that has got the command over me I can't tell: but there is some cause for it. You are doing something or planning something with which I have a right to interfere.”

He turned round squarely in his chair with a spark in his blue eyes. He was not a man to be meddled with. “I have yet to learn what can give my son a right to interfere. I am in possession of all my faculties, I hope.”

“Father,” I cried, “won't you listen to me? no one can say I have been undutiful or disrespectful. I am a man, with a right to speak my mind, and I have done so; but this is different. I am not here by my own will. Something that is stronger than I has brought me. There is something in your mind which disturbs—others. I don't know what I am saying. This is not what I meant to say: but you know the meaning better than I. Some one—who can speak to you only by me—speaks to you by me; and I know that you understand.”

He gazed up at me, growing pale, and his under lip fell. I, for my part, felt that my message was delivered. My heart sank into a stillness so sudden that it made me faint. The light swam in my eyes: everything went round with me. I kept upright only by my hold upon the chair; and in the sense of utter weakness that followed I dropped on my knees I think first, then on the nearest seat that presented itself, and covering my face with my hands, had hard ado not to sob, in the sudden removal of that strange influence, the relaxation of the strain.

There was silence between us for some time; then he said, but with a voice slightly broken, “I don't understand you Phil. You must have taken some fancy into your mind which my slower intelligence——Speak out what you want to say. What do you find fault with? Is it all—all that woman Jordan?”

He gave a short forced laugh as he broke off, and shook me almost roughly by the shoulder, saying, “speak out! what—what do you want to say?”

“It seems, sir, that I have said everything.” My voice trembled more than his, but not in the same way. “I have told you that I did not come by my own will—quite otherwise. I resisted as long as I could: now all is said. It is for you to judge whether it was worth the trouble or not.”

He got up from his seat in a hurried way. “You would have me as—mad as yourself,” he said, then sat down again as quickly. “Come, Phil: if it will please you, not to make a breach, the first breach, between us, you shall have your way. I consent to your looking into that matter about the poor tenants. Your mind shall not be upset about that even though I don't enter into all your views.”

“Then it is a piece of folly,” he said, angrily. “I suppose you mean——but this is a matter in which I choose to judge for myself.”

“You know what I mean,” I said, as quietly as I could, “though I don't myself know; that proves there is good reason for it. Will you do one thing for me before I leave you? Come with me into the drawing-room——”

“What end,” he said, with again the tremble in his voice, “is to be served by that?”

“I don't very well know; but to look at her, you and I together, will always do something for us, sir. As for the breach, there can be no breach when we stand there.”

He got up, trembling like an old man, which he was, but which he never looked like, save at moments of emotion like this, and told me to take the light; then stopped when he had got half-way across the room. “This is a piece of theatrical sentimentality,” he said. “No, Phil, I will not go. I will not bring her into any such——Put down the lamp, and if you will take my advice, go to bed.”

“At least,” I said, “I will trouble you no more, father, to-night. So long as you understand, there need be no more to say.”

He gave me a very curt “good-night,” and turned back to his papers—the letters with the black edge, either by my imagination or in reality, always keeping uppermost. I went to my own room for my lamp, and then alone proceeded to the silent shrine in which the portrait hung. I at least would look at her to-night. I don't know whether I asked myself, in so many words, if it were she who—or if it was any one—I knew nothing; but my heart was drawn with a softness—born, perhaps, of the great weakness in which I was left after that visitation—to her, to look at her, to see perhaps if there was any sympathy, any approval in her face. I set down my lamp on the table where her little work-basket still was: the light threw a gleam upward upon her,—she seemed more than ever to be stepping into the room, coming down towards me, coming back to her life. Ah no! her life was lost and vanished: all mine stood between her and the days she knew. She looked at me with eyes that did not change. The anxiety I had seen at first seemed now a wistful subdued question; but that difference was not in her look but in mine.

I need not linger on the intervening time. The doctor who attended us usually, came in next day “by accident,” and we had a long conversation. On the following day a very impressive yet genial gentleman from town lunched with us—a friend of my father's, Dr. something; but the introduction was hurried, and I did not catch his name. He, too, had a long talk with me afterwards—my father being called away to speak to some one on business. Dr. —— drew me out on the subject of the dwellings of the poor. He said he heard I took great interest in this question, which had come so much to the front at the present moment. He was interested in it too, and wanted to know the view I took. I explained at considerable length that my view did not concern the general subject, on which I had scarcely thought, so much as the individual mode of management of my father's estate. He was a most patient and intelligent listener, agreeing with me on some points, differing in others; and his visit was very pleasant. I had no idea until after of its special object: though a certain puzzled look and slight shake of the head when my father returned, might have thrown some light upon it. The report of the medical experts in my case, however, had been quite satisfactory, for I heard nothing more of them. It was, I think, a fortnight later when the next and last of these strange experiences came.

This time it was morning, about noon,—a wet and rather dismal spring day. The half-spread leaves seemed to tap at the window, with an appeal to be taken in; the primroses, that showed golden upon the grass at the roots of the trees, just beyond the smooth-shorn grass of the lawn, were all drooped and sodden among their sheltering leaves. The very growth seemed dreary—the sense of spring in the air making the feeling of winter a grievance, instead of the natural effect which it had conveyed a few months before. I had been writing letters and was cheerful enough, going back among the associates of my old life, with, perhaps, a little longing for its freedom and independence, but at the same time a not ungrateful consciousness that for the moment my present tranquillity might be best.

This was my condition—a not unpleasant one—when suddenly the now well-known symptoms of the visitation to which I had become subject suddenly seized upon me,—the leap of the heart; the sudden, causeless, overwhelming physical excitement, which I could neither ignore nor allay. I was terrified beyond description, beyond reason, when I became conscious that this was about to begin over again: what purpose did it answer, what good was in it? My father, indeed, understood the meaning of it, though I did not understand: but it was little agreeable to be thus made a helpless instrument without any will of mine, in an operation of which I knew nothing; and to enact the part of the oracle unwillingly, with suffering and such a strain as it took me days to get over. I resisted, not as before, but yet desperately, trying with better knowledge to keep down the growing passion. I hurried to my room and swallowed a dose of a sedative which had been given me to procure sleep on my first return from India. I saw Morphew in the hall, and called him to talk to him, and cheat myself, if possible, by that means. Morphew lingered, however, and, before he came, I was beyond conversation. I heard him speak, his voice coming vaguely through the turmoil which was already in my ears, but what he said I have never known. I stood staring, trying to recover my power of attention, with an aspect which ended by completely frightening the man. He cried out at last that he was sure I was ill, that he must bring me something; which words penetrated more or less into my maddened brain. It became impressed upon me that he was going to get some one—one of my father's doctors, perhaps—to prevent me from acting, to stop my interference,—and that if I waited a moment longer I might be too late. A vague idea seized me at the same time, of taking refuge with the portrait—going to its feet, throwing myself there, perhaps, till the paroxysm should be over. But it was not there that my footsteps were directed. I can remember making an effort to open the door of the drawing-room, and feeling myself swept past it, as if by a gale of wind. It was not there that I had to go. I knew very well where I had to go,—once more on my confused and voiceless mission to my father, who understood, although I could not understand.

Yet as it was daylight, and all was clear, I could not help noting one or two circumstances on my way. I saw some one sitting in the hall as if waiting—a woman, a girl, a black-shrouded figure, with a thick veil over her face: and asked myself who she was, and what she wanted there? This question, which had nothing to do with my present condition, somehow got into my mind, and was tossed up and down upon the tumultuous tide like a stray log on the breast of a fiercely rolling stream, now submerged, now coming uppermost, at the mercy of the waters. It did not stop me for a moment, as I hurried towards my father's room, but it got upon the current of my mind. I flung open my father's door, and closed it again after me, without seeing who was there or how he was engaged. The full clearness of the daylight did not identify him as the lamp did at night. He looked up at the sound of the door, with a glance of apprehension; and rising suddenly, interrupting some one who was standing speaking to him with much earnestness and even vehemence, came forward to meet me. “I cannot be disturbed at present,” he said quickly; “I am busy.” Then seeing the look in my face, which by this time he knew, he too changed color. “Phil,” he said, in a low, imperative voice, “wretched boy, go away—go away; don't let a stranger see you——”

“I can't go away,” I said. “It is impossible. You know why I have come. I cannot, if I would. It is more powerful than I——”

“Go, sir,” he said; “go at once—no more of this folly. I will not have you in this room. Go——go!”

I made no answer. I don't know that I could have done so. There had never been any struggle between us before; but I had no power to do one thing or another. The tumult within me was in full career. I heard indeed what he said, and was able to reply; but his words, too, were like straws tossed upon the tremendous stream. I saw now with my feverish eyes who the other person present was. It was a woman, dressed also in mourning similar to the one in the hall; but this a middle-aged woman, like a respectable servant. She had been crying, and in the pause caused by this encounter between my father and myself, dried her eyes with a handkerchief, which she rolled like a ball in her hand, evidently in strong emotion. She turned and looked at me as my father spoke to me, for a moment with a gleam of hope, then falling back into her former attitude.

My father returned to his seat. He was much agitated too, though doing all that was possible to conceal it. My inopportune arrival was evidently a great and unlooked-for vexation to him. He gave me the only look of passionate displeasure I have ever had from him, as he sat down again: but he said nothing more.

“You must understand,” he said, addressing the woman, “that I have said my last words on this subject. I don't choose to enter into it again in the presence of my son, who is not well enough to be made a party to any discussion. I am sorry that you should have had so much trouble in vain; but you were warned beforehand, and you have only yourself to blame. I acknowledge no claim, and nothing you can say will change my resolution. I must beg you to go away. All this is very painful and quite useless. I acknowledge no claim.”

“Oh, sir,” she cried, her eyes beginning once more to flow, her speech interrupted by little sobs. “Maybe I did wrong to speak of a claim. I'm not educated to argue with a gentleman. Maybe we have no claim. But if it's not by right, oh, Mr. Canning, won't you let your heart be touched by pity? She don't know what I'm saying, poor dear. She's not one to beg and pray for herself, as I'm doing for her. Oh, sir, she's so young! She's so lone in this world—not a friend to stand by her, nor a house to take her in! You are the nearest to her of any one that's left in this world. She hasn't a relation—not one so near as you——oh!” she cried, with a sudden thought, turning quickly round upon me, “this gentleman's your son! Now I think of it, it's not your relation she is, but his, through his mother! That's nearer, nearer! Oh, sir! you're young; your heart should be more tender. Here is my young lady that has no one in the world to look to her. Your own flesh and blood: your mother's cousin—your mother's——”

My father called to her to stop, with a voice of thunder. “Philip, leave us at once. It is not a matter to be discussed with you.”

And then in a moment it became clear to me what it was. It had been with difficulty that I had kept myself still. My breast was laboring with the fever of an impulse poured into me, more than I could contain. And now for the first time I knew why. I hurried towards him, and took his hand, though he resisted, into mine. Mine were burning, but his like ice: their touch burnt me with its chill, like fire. “This is what it is?” I cried. “I had no knowledge before. I don't know now what is being asked of you. But, father—understand! You know, and I know now, that some one sends me—some one—who has a right to interfere.”

He pushed me away with all his might. “You are mad,” he cried. “What right have you to think——? Oh, you are mad—mad! I have seen it coming on——”

The woman, the petitioner, had grown silent, watching this brief conflict with the terror and interest with which women watch a struggle between men. She started and fell back when she heard what he said, but did not take her eyes off me, following every movement I made. When I turned to go away, a cry of indescribable disappointment and remonstrance burst from her, and even my father raised himself up and stared at my withdrawal, astonished to find that he had overcome me so soon and easily. I paused for a moment, and looked back on them, seeing them large and vague through the mist of fever. “I am not going away,” I said. “I am going for another messenger—one you can't gainsay.”

My father rose. He called out to me threateningly, “I will have nothing touched that is hers. Nothing that is hers shall be profaned——”

I waited to hear no more: I knew what I had to do. By what means it was conveyed to me I cannot tell; but the certainty of an influence which no one thought of calmed me in the midst of my fever. I went out into the hall, where I had seen the young stranger waiting. I went up to her and touched her on the shoulder. She rose at once, with a little movement of alarm, yet with docile and instant obedience, as if she had expected the summons. I made her take off her veil and her bonnet, scarcely looking at her, scarcely seeing her, knowing how it was: I took her soft, small, cool, yet trembling hand into mine; it was so soft and cool, not cold, it refreshed me with its tremulous touch. All through I moved and spoke like a man in a dream, swiftly, noiselessly, all the complications of waking life removed, without embarrassment, without reflection, without the loss of a moment. My father was still standing up, leaning a little forward as he had done when I withdrew, threatening, yet terror-stricken, not knowing what I might be about to do, when I returned with my companion. That was the one thing he had not thought of. He was entirely undefended, unprepared. He gave her one look, flung up his arms above his head, and uttered a distracted cry, so wild that it seemed the last outcry of nature—“Agnes!” then fell back like a sudden ruin, upon himself, into his chair.

I had no leisure to think how he was, or whether he could hear what I said. I had my message to deliver. “Father,” I said, laboring with my panting breath, “it is for this that heaven has opened, and one whom I never saw, one whom I know not, has taken possession of me. Had we been less earthly we should have seen her—herself, and not merely her image. I have not even known what she meant. I have been as a fool without understanding. This is the third time I have come to you with her message, without knowing what to say. But now I have found it out. This is her message. I have found it out at last.”

There was an awful pause—a pause in which no one moved or breathed. Then there came a broken voice out of my father's chair. He had not understood, though I think he heard what I said. He put out two feeble hands. “Phil—I think I am dying—has she—has she come for me?” he said.

We had to carry him to his bed. What struggles he had gone through before I cannot tell. He had stood fast, and had refused to be moved, and now he fell—like an old tower, like an old tree. The necessity there was for thinking of him saved me from the physical consequences which had prostrated me on a former occasion. I had no leisure now for any consciousness of how matters went with myself.

His delusion was not wonderful, but most natural. She was clothed in black from head to foot, instead of the white dress of the portrait. She had no knowledge of the conflict, of nothing but that she was called for, that her fate might depend on the next few minutes. In her eyes there was a pathetic question, a line of anxiety in the lids, an innocent appeal in the looks. And the face the same: the same lips, sensitive, ready to quiver; the same innocent, candid brow; the look of a common race, which is more subtle than mere resemblance. How I knew that it was so, I cannot tell, nor any man. It was the other—the elder—ah no! not elder; the ever young, the Agnes to whom age can never come—she who they say was the mother of a man who never saw her—it was she who led her kinswoman, her representative, into our hearts.

My father recovered after a few days: he had taken cold, it was said, the day before—and naturally, at seventy, a small matter is enough to upset the balance even of a strong man. He got quite well; but he was willing enough afterwards to leave the management of that ticklish kind of property which involves human well-being in my hands, who could move about more freely, and see with my own eyes how things were going on. He liked home better, and had more pleasure in his personal existence in the end of his life. Agnes is now my wife, as he had, of course, foreseen. It was not merely the disinclination to receive her father's daughter, or to take upon him a new responsibility, that had moved him, to do him justice. But both these motives had told strongly. I have never been told, and now will never be told, what his griefs against my mother's family, and especially against that cousin, had been; but that he had been very determined, deeply prejudiced, there can be no doubt. It turned out after, that the first occasion on which I had been mysteriously commissioned to him with a message which I did not understand, and which for that time he did not understand, was the evening of the day on which he had received the dead man's letter, appealing to him—to him, a man whom he had wronged—on behalf of the child who was about to be left friendless in the world. The second time, further letters, from the nurse who was the only guardian of the orphan, and the chaplain of the place where her father had died, taking it for granted that my father's house was her natural refuge—had been received. The third I have already described, and its results.

For a long time after, my mind was never without a lurking fear that the influence which had once taken possession of me might return again. Why should I have feared to be influenced—to be the messenger of a blessed creature, whose wishes could be nothing but heavenly? Who can say? Flesh and blood is not made for such encounters: they were more than I could bear. But nothing of the kind has ever occurred again.

Agnes had her peaceful domestic throne established under the picture. My father wished it to be so, and spent his evenings there in the warmth and light, instead of in the old library, in the narrow circle cleared by our lamp out of the darkness, as long as he lived. It is supposed by strangers that the picture on the wall is that of my wife; and I have always been glad that it should be so supposed. She who was my mother, who came back to me and became as my soul for three strange moments and no more, but with whom I can feel no credible relationship as she stands there, has retired for me into the tender regions of the unseen. She has passed once more into the secret company of those shadows, who can only become real in an atmosphere fitted to modify and harmonise all differences, and make all wonders possible—the light of the perfect day.—Blackwood's Magazine.

DELLA CRUSCA AND ANNA MATILDA:
An Episode in English Literature.

Most people are more or less vaguely aware that there existed in England, towards the end of the last century, a school of poets, or poetasters, called Della Cruscan; and Mrs. Oliphant not long ago suggested, in her Literary History, that a sketch of their eccentricities might not be unamusing. I propose, accordingly, for the edification of the curious, to recount a few particulars of the Della Cruscan writers, in the days of their prosperity and the days of their collapse. They were, let it at once be admitted, a feeble and a frivolous folk; yet I think that a moral may suggest itself when their story has been told.

In the year 1784 Mr. Robert Merry, a bachelor of thirty, had been for some years domiciled at Florence. That his position and prospects were not of a very definite order was owing to no defect of nurture or opportunity. He had been educated at Harrow, at the same time as Sheridan, and afterwards at Christ's College, Cambridge, and was originally intended for the Bar. To Lincoln's Inn he accordingly made a pretence of belonging till the death of his father, who was a Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company; the family connection with the North Seas being still perpetuated in the name of Merry's Island. Robert Merry at once took advantage of the independence which came to him on his father's death to abandon the Bar and buy himself a commission in the Guards. His liking for high play and high society kept him, for a short time, amused in his new position. He grew, however, once more restless; wandered on the Continent; and became, in the phraseology of the day, a man of letters and of leisure. His love of letters he gratified, at Florence, by becoming a member of the Italian Academy, the Accademia della Crusca, and his love of letters and leisure combined by joining himself to an English society who called themselves the “Oziosi,” and, no doubt, took good care to merit that designation.

The leading spirit of this coterie was no less a personage than Mrs. Piozzi, happily married at last, and safely escaped from the malice of her cold-blooded daughters, and from the virulence with which the English journals had inveighed against her choice of a second husband. Even now the memory of her domestic troubles tended to inspire her with a dejection which the master-pieces of Florentine sculpture were, oddly enough, powerless to remove. As she herself described it, in lines at which one cannot help smiling, sincere as they perhaps were,—

The homage of her countrymen, however, did much to enliven her despondency; and she complacently records in her journals some of the compliments paid her by her fellow-members of the “Oziosi.” They used to address her in this style:—

The Parsons and Greathead of this all-round panegyric of Merry's were two members of the “Oziosi” clique: Parsons, a bachelor with a tendency to flirt, to “trifle with Italian dames,” as Mrs. Piozzi poetically put it; Greathead, the newly-married husband of a beautiful wife. Both Parsons and Greathead were voluminous contributors to the society's Album, which soon assumed formidable dimensions. The staple of the contents consisted of high-flown compliments in verse. Parsons, for instance, would write to Greathead's wife:—

And Bertie, as in duty bound, would reply in kind, bidding the sallow Arno pause and listen to the lays of Parsons. As an alternative to these panegyrics, they wrote Dithyrambics to Bacchus, Odes to the Siroc, or lines on that latest novelty, Montgolfier's air-balloon. Mrs. Greathead was, in fact, as Parsons informs us, the only member of the society who contributed nothing but the inspiration of her charms.

Some of these poems were printed in an Arno Miscellany, of which only a few copies were privately circulated. It was a subsequent and larger collection, published in 1785, under the name of The Florence Miscellany, which first made its way to England, and drew the attention of the English public to the rising school of versifiers. Horace Walpole characterized their productions as “mere imitations of our best poets,” that is to say, of Milton, Gray, and Collins. How justly, may be inferred from the opening stanza of Merry's Ode on a distant prospect of Rome:—

The imitations of Milton and Collins are of a like description. Such as it was, the book was a success, and samples of its contents were reproduced, after the fashion of the day, in the newspapers and magazines—the Gentleman's, the European, the Universal Magazine, and so forth. Of the quality of the poems, critically considered, and of the Della Cruscan poetry generally, I shall have something to say farther on. In the meantime, it may, perhaps, be worth while to disinter a ludicrous passage in one of Merry's contributions to the Florence Miscellany. The “Oziosi” had one day agreed that each of them should produce by the evening a story or poem which should “excite horror by description.” Mrs. Piozzi's production will be found in her Autobiography, and is by no means devoid of merit. Merry brought a poem (“a very fine one,” says Mrs. Piozzi), in which he introduced the following remarkable ghost, which I commend to the attention of the new Psychical Society:—

But I must not linger over the Florence Miscellany, which was but the prelude to those melodious bursts which filled the spacious times of George III. with the music of Della Crusca and Anna Matilda. A year or two after its publication the Florence coterie broke up, and returned to England.

The first note of the concert was struck by Robert Merry, who, in June 1787, sent to the World a poem entitled The Adieu and Recall to Love, subscribing himself Della Crusca, a nickname which had been given to him at Florence, on account of his connection, already mentioned, with the Italian Academy. The World was a daily morning paper, price threepence, which in more than one respect resembled its modern namesake. A contemporary satirist, writing under the modest pseudonym of “Horace Juvenal,” describes how the young lady of 1787—

And another poet portrays two unlucky baronets, Sir Gregory Turner and Sir John Miller—husband of Lady Miller of Bath Easton vase celebrity—lamenting the ridicule with which the same newspaper had overwhelmed them:—

“In this paper,” says Gifford, “were given the earliest specimens of those audacious attacks on all private character, which the town first smiled at for their quaintness, then tolerated for their absurdity; and now that other papers, equally wicked and more intelligible, have ventured to imitate it, will have to lament to the last hour of British liberty.” That literary history is self-repeating, and that prophecies are mostly mistaken, are not new reflections; yet it is difficult to avoid making them when we compare those days with these.

But beyond its function as a purveyor of social gossip, no newspaper was then considered complete without a Poet's Corner, consecrated to sentimental effusions and labored impromptus—“Complimentary verses to the brilliancy of the Hon. Mrs. N——h's Eyes,” or “Lines on Lady T—e—l's Ring.” In publishing his poem in the World, Della Crusca did but select the natural and recognized arena of the eighteenth-century poet. It may be as well to quote the greater part of The Adieu and Recall to Love, in order to give some notion of the calibre of the verses which were to found a school:—

I suppose what will strike most readers with regard to these lines is that they are decidedly fluent, and utterly commonplace. That, however, is not the light in which a critic of the last quarter of the eighteenth century would regard them. Amid the dead level of sing-song couplets, the milk-and-water decency of Hayley, the chill and prolix classicism of Pye, the ineffable mediocrity of a thousand Pratts and Polwheles—the fluency of Merry passed, according to the critic's leanings, for fire or for fustian; and the phraseology, which afterwards became hackneyed, was then startling. Take, for instance, Horace Walpole's criticism of the new poetic departure. “It is refreshing to read natural easy poetry, full of sense and humor, instead of that unmeaning, labored, painted style now in fashion of the Della Cruscas and Co., of which it is impossible ever to retain a couplet, no more than one could remember how a string of emeralds and rubies were placed in a necklace. Poetry has great merit if it is the vehicle and preservative of sense, but it is not to be taken in change for it.” Poetry the vehicle and preservative of sense—that is the critical canon which would have made Walpole as blind to Della Crusca's merits, had he happened to possess any, as it made him keen-sighted for his defects.

It may, nevertheless, be doubted whether Della Crusca would have caused so great a stir in literature, had it not been for several collateral circumstances, of which the first and most important was the appearance in the World, some ten days later, of “Anna Matilda,” with a poem entitled To Della Crusca, the Pen.

The shuttlecock of correspondence, thus fairly started, was diligently tossed to and fro in the World by the two pseudonymous writers; Della Crusca “seized his quill” again and again, and his ideal passion for the invisible Anna Matilda gained in fervor of expression with every fortnight. It is obvious that here was just that element of mystery, of romance, which creates a furore and sets a fashion.

The lady who signed herself “Anna Matilda” was Mrs. Hannah Cowley, the wife of an absent East India captain, then in her forty-fifth year, and known to-day as the authoress of the Belle's Stratagem, a play which still, and deservedly, keeps the stage. Her biographer records the beginning of her literary career as follows: “In the year 1776, some years after her marriage, a sense of power for dramatic writing suddenly struck her whilst sitting with her husband at the theatre. 'So delighted with this?' said she to him; 'why, I could write as well myself.' She then wrote The Runaway. Many will recollect the extraordinary success with which it was brought out.” Her habits of composition were not, perhaps, likely to result in poetry of much excellence. “Catching up her pen immediately as the thought struck her, she always proceeded with the utmost facility and celerity. Her pen and paper were so immediately out of sight again, that those around her could scarcely tell when it was she wrote. She was always much pleased with the description of Michael Angelo making the marble fly around him, as he was chiselling with the utmost swiftness, that he might shape, however roughly, his whole design in unity with one clear conception.” Her preparatory note to her collected “Anna Matilda” poems bears out this account. “The beautiful lines of The Adieu and Recall to Love struck her so forcibly that, without rising from the table at which she read, she answered them. Della Crusca's elegant reply surprised her into another, and thus the correspondence most unexpectedly became settled. Anna Matilda's share in it had little to boast; but she has one claim of which she is proud, that of having been the first to point out the excellence of Della Crusca; if there can be merit in discerning what is so very obvious.” She further apologizes for one of her poems to Della Crusca, on the ground that it was written while sitting for her portrait, the painter interrupting her with “Smile a little,” or “More to the right.” Only that class of mind which grows incredulous when informed that orators prepare their speeches, will expect much from such methods of workmanship.

Nevertheless, to Mrs. Cowley appears to belong the credit, or discredit, of giving to the Della Cruscan poetry a certain turn or development which did much to make it popular. A hint of this development may be seen in the description of the pen, which was “borne on the vapor of a sigh.” It took final shape in such phrases as these:—

A large and amusing assortment of this ambitious verbiage, which subsequently became in the eyes of the critics the sole “differentia” of Della Cruscan verse, may be seen in the notes to Gifford's Baviad. It was, however, an after-development, proceeding from a gradual consciousness of flagging powers; the feeling which induced Charles Reade's Triplet to “shove his pen under the thought, and lift it by polysyllables to the true level of fiction.”

The other members of the Florence coterie, who, as I have said, were now back in England, speedily began to swell the Della Cruscan chorus in the columns of the World and the Oracle. Bertie Greathead as “Reuben” became Della Crusca's rival, on paper, in the affections of Anna Matilda; and Parsons, signing himself “Benedict,” in memory of a sojourn in the Benedictine convent of Vallombrosa, deluged with sonnets an imaginary Melissa. Whether Mrs. Piozzi contributed anything beyond tea-party patronage, appears to be doubtful; but, as was only to be expected, London already possessed a score of indigenous rhymesters, eager to pursue the triumph and partake the gale. One of the principal of these was Edward Jerningham, alias “The Bard,” who is commemorated in Macaulay's neat sentence: “Lady Miller who kept a vase wherein fools were wont to put verses, and Jerningham who wrote verses fit to be put into the vase of Lady Miller.” His brother, Sir William, of Cossy Hall, in Norfolk, kept an album which rivalled in celebrity the vase of Bath Easton, and “The Bard” had been a determined poetaster for the last thirty years. He is described as “a mighty gentleman, who looks to be painted, and is all daintification in manner, speech, and dress, singing to his own accompaniment on the harp, whilst he looks the gentlest of all dying Corydons.” Fashionable poets seldom suffer from lack of appreciation. Burke wrote of Jerningham's poem The Shakespeare Gallery, “I have not for a long time seen anything so well finished. The author has caught new fire by approaching in his perihelion so near to the sun of our poetical system.” I think we may be certain, after reading The Shakespeare Gallery, that the patron of Crabbe did not read it.

Another Della Cruscan songstress was Mrs. Robinson, alias “Laura Maria,” known to the public as a former mistress of the Prince of Wales, and authoress of various novels. In rapidity of composition she emulated Mrs. Cowley. “Conversing one evening with Mr. Richard Burke” (the Burke family appear to have been sometimes unfortunate in their poetical acquaintances) “respecting the facility with which modern poetry was composed, Mrs. Robinson repeated nearly the whole of those beautiful lines, 'To him who will understand them.' This improvisatore produced in her auditor not less surprise than admiration, when solemnly assured by its author that this was the first time of its being repeated. Mr. Burke entreated her to commit the poem to writing, a request which was readily complied with; and Mrs. Robinson had afterwards the gratification of finding this offspring of her genius inserted in the Annual Register, with a flattering encomium from the pen of the eloquent and ingenious editor.” She was one of Merry's most ardent admirers.

Her Della Cruscan poems were published under the signature of “Laura,” and she was followed by Cesario, Carlos, Adelaide, Orlando, Arno, and fifty more whose identity can no longer be determined.

A year after his first appearance in the World, Della Crusca printed his poems in a volume, and Anna Matilda speedily followed suit. But this was not enough for the reading public. They further greedily absorbed a collection of Della Cruscan verse, published as The Poetry of the “World,” by Major Topham, the creator and editor of that paper, who, in a dedication to Sheridan, observes: “Of their merit, I am free to say I know no modern poems their superior. I am more happy that your opinion has confirmed mine.” It will be well to make allowance for changing literary fashions before we make too sure that Sheridan is here misrepresented. The Poetry of the “World” afterwards ran through at least four editions as The British Album. As we read the publisher's advertisement of this work, which still abounds on second-hand bookstalls—immorimur studiis lapsoque renascimur ævo—we seem to be walking in the Bond Street of the Prince Regent. “Two beautiful volumes this day published, embellished with genuine portraits of the real Della Crusca and Anna Matilda, engraved in a very superior manner from faithful pictures, under the title of The British Album, being a new edition, revised and corrected by their respective authors, of the celebrated poems of Della Crusca, Anna Matilda, Arley, Laura, Benedict, and the elegant Cesario, “the African Boy;” and others, signed The Bard, by Mr. Jerningham; General Conway's elegy on Miss C. Campbell; Marquis of Townshend's verses on Miss Gardiner; Lord Derby's lines on Miss Farren's portrait.” It is unfortunate that the only pseudonym in the list which it is of much interest to decipher, should still remain a mystery. It is to “Arley” that we owe the admittedly excellent ballad of “Wapping old Stairs,” which first appeared in the World for November 29th, 1787, and shines, a solitary pearl, in the pages of the British Album.

The Della Cruscan mania was at its height—“bedridden old women and girls at their samplers began to rave,”—when Gifford, in search of a quarry for a seasonable satire, came before the town with the Baviad. Of this poem I shall say but little, as it is better known than the writings which it satirised. It contains passages of a certain coarse and rank vigor not difficult of attainment by a student of Dryden and Juvenal. There is, in fact, a sort of Billingsgate raciness about the Baviad; and the notes, which are better written than the poem, contain much amusing matter. The imputation made against the Della Cruscan love-poetry of licentious warmth is, however, wholly absurd—as absurd as the charge made by Mathias, the author of The Pursuits of Literature, that Merry—

a notion which arose merely from the fact that he identified himself with the anarchists of France, and wrote odes for the Revolution Society, thereby acquiring the name, as Madame d'Arblay tells us, of “Liberty Merry,” and no doubt also the reputation for free-thinking then associated with everything French. As for detecting any breach of decorum in the mannered and falsetto gallantries of insincere Reubens addressing imaginary Annas, the idea was only possible to a satirist who started with the determination to fling all the mud he could find; and, it must be added, when he flung it at irreproachable characters such as Mrs. Piozzi, he did but excite a certain revulsion of sympathy for the victims. Nor was this Gifford's only misrepresentation. He asserted, in order to bring in an apt quotation from Martial, that the interview which finally took place between Merry and Mrs. Cowley, produced mutual disgust. This is not the testimony of Della Crusca himself in the poem of The Interview.

That the poet was shortly afterward “married to another,” is sufficient to explain the cessation of the correspondence, from which Gifford argues that the interview resulted in aversion. And he might further have reflected that when a poet is reduced to talk of “petrifying suns” his correspondence has been known to cease for lack of ideas.

The satirised poets did their best to retaliate on Gifford by abusive sonnets in the newspapers; and Mr. Jerningham wrote a feebly vituperative poem on Gifford and Mathias. The Della Cruscans had, undeniably, the worst of the battle. The efficacy of Gifford's satire in putting an end to the school is, however, more than doubtful. It is true that it afterwards came to be considered, naturally enough, that he had given the Della Cruscans their death-blow. Scott, for instance, writing in 1827, observes that the Baviad “squabashed at one blow a set of coxcombs who might have humbugged the world long enough”; but that is not the evidence of contemporary witnesses. Seven years after the publication of the Baviad, Mathias, in the preface to The Pursuits of Literature, remarks that “even the Baviad drops from Mr. Gifford's pen have fallen off like oils from the plumage of the Florence and Cruscan geese. I am told that Mr. Greathead and Mr. Merry yet write and speak, and Mr. Jerningham (poor man!) still continues 'sillier than his sheep.”

This statement is in far better accordance both with the facts and the probabilities of the case. Satire, even first-rate satire, does not kill follies. They gradually die of inanition, or are crowded out by newer fashions. Laura Matilda's dirge in the Rejected Addresses is a standing monument of the vitality of Della Cruscanism more than twenty years after its supposed death-blow.

The career as stage-writers of Merry, Greathead, and Jerningham, their bad tragedies and bad farces, do not belong to my present subject. Of the subsequent history of one or two of them a word may, however, be said. Jerningham lived to publish, as late as 1812, two editions of a flaccid poem, called The Old Bard's Farewell, after which he disappears from life and literature. Mrs. Cowley, perhaps the most interesting of the group, died in rural and religious retirement at Tiverton, in 1809. Mrs. Piozzi, as is well known, outlived all her contemporaries, and witnessed the popularity of a modern literature of which she had no very high opinion.

As for Della Crusca, he married, in 1791, Miss Brunton, an actress, whose sister became Countess of Craven, and who had played the heroine in his tragedy of Lorenzo. His reply to the remonstrances of his aunt on the mésalliance shall be quoted, to show that he had his lucid intervals. “She ought,” he said, “to be proud that he had brought a woman of such virtue and talents into the family. Her virtue his marrying her proved; and her talents would all be thrown away by taking her off the stage.” Nevertheless, he afterwards weakly yielded to his relations, and withdrew her from the stage against her own inclination, thereby depriving himself of a source of income with which, as a gambler and bon vivant, he could ill afford to dispense. He accordingly quitted England, and must have betaken himself to France, an adventure which befell him in Paris, in September, 1792, being thus amusingly given by Horace Walpole:—

But England was not to see much more of Merry. English society was probably not so kind to the Radical husband of an actress as it had been to the bachelor of fashion. He withdrew, with his wife, to America, in 1796, and died, three years afterwards, of apoplexy, in his garden at Baltimore.

Merry did not fail to find in his own day apologists of some pretensions to taste. I find in the notes to George Dyer's poem, The Poet's Fate, published in 1797—which contains early and interesting laudations not only of his school-fellows Lamb and Coleridge, but also of Wordsworth and Southey—the following reference to Merry:—“But, after all, though the hero of the Baviad betrayed glitter and negligence—though he misled the taste of some, too much inclined to admire and imitate defects, yet Merry's writings possess poetical merits; and the spirit of liberty and benevolence which breathes through them is ardent and sincere.” The criticism may be incorrect, but it is worth noting, because it is the criticism of a contemporary. Had it not been for Coleridge's fervently expressed admiration for Bowles's sonnets, which so perplexes critics who do not judge literature from a historical point of view, the world would have continued to sneer at him, with Byron, as “simple Bowles,” and to know him only by Byron's line. The fact is, literary history will never be intelligently written, till it is studied in the spirit of the naturalist, to whom the tares are as interesting as the wheat. We may, perhaps, give the Della Cruscans, with their desperate strainings after poetic fire and poetic diction, the credit of having done something to shake the supremacy of versified prose; of having forwarded, however feebly, the poetic emancipation which Wordsworth and Coleridge were to consummate. The false extravagance of Della Crusca may have cleared the way for the truthful extravagance of Keats. It is, I am aware, customary to attribute the regeneration of English poetry to the French Revolution, which “shook up the sources of thought all over Europe,” but the critics who use these glib catch-words are in no hurry to point out a concrete chain of logical connection between Paris mobs and sequestered poets. Plain judges will ever consider it a far cry from The Rights of Man to Christabel. At all events, Dyer was right in deprecating the savagery of Gifford's satire. The question

will apply to other schools and fashions besides that of the “elegant Cesario's,” whom Leigh Hunt designated par excellence as “the plague of the Butterflies.” And here, I think, we touch upon the moral which I promised at the outset.

It is not very long since the country, to which Della Crusca ultimately betook himself, received to her shores the reputed prophet of Æstheticism, whose career, in other respects, presented remarkable parallels with that of Robert Merry. Each made his poetical appearance in the columns of a newspaper called the World; each professed Republican opinions; each wrote poems not remarkable for truth to nature or sobriety of diction; each represented a school; and the name of each became as a red rag to the Giffords who played the part of the bull in the china shop. But it is not with this clumsy rage that posterity will regard our follies; nor is it useful, or desirable, that we should now so regard them. It is with a smile of amused anticipation, it is with a bland and philosophic interest, that the antiquarian of the future will turn to the pages of Punch or the libretto of Patience, to read of the Anna Matildas who lately delighted to apparel themselves in what Bramston called “shape-disguising sacks”—the Della Cruscas who took Postlethwaite for a great poet.—National Review.

THE SAVAGE.

There are people in the world who are very fond of asking what they call point-blank questions. They generally profess to hate all shilly-shallying, and they are at no pains to hide their suspicion that anyone who declines to say yes or no to any question which they choose to ask has either his intellect clouded by metaphysics or has not the courage of his opinions. The idea that it is often more difficult to ask a sensible question than to answer it, and that a question, however pointed it may sound, may for all that be so blunt and vague that no accurate and honest thinker would care or dare to answer it, never enters their mind; while the thought that there are realms of knowledge where indefinite language is more appropriate, and in reality more exact and more truthful than the most definite phraseology, is scouted as mere fencing and intellectual cowardice.

One of those point-blank questions which has been addressed to me by several reviewers of my books is this, “Tell us, do you hold that man began as a savage or not?” To say that man began as a savage, and that the most savage and degraded races now existing present us with the primeval type of man, seems to be the shibboleth of a certain school of thought, a school with which on many points I sympathize, so long as it keeps to an accurate and independent inquiry into facts, and to an outspoken statement of its discoveries, regardless of all consequences, but from which I totally dissent as soon as it tries to make facts subservient to theories. I am told that my own utterances on this subject have been ambiguous. Now even granting this, I could never understand why a certain hesitation in answering so difficult a question should rouse such angry feelings, till it began to dawn on me that those who do not unreservedly admit that man began as a savage are supposed to hold that man was created a perfect and almost angelic being. This would amount to denying the gospel of the day, that man was the offspring of a brute, and hence, I suppose, the Anathema.

Now I may say this, that though I have hesitated to affirm that man began as a savage, whatever that may mean, I have been even more careful not to commit myself to the opinion that man began as an angel, or as a child, or as a perfect rational being. I strongly object to such alternatives as that if man did not begin as a savage he must have begun as a child. It would be dreadful if, because there is no sufficient evidence to enable us to form a decided opinion on any given subject, we were to be driven into a corner by such alternatives, instead of preserving our freedom of judgment until we have the complete evidence before us.

But in our case the evidence is as yet extremely scanty, and, from the nature of the case, will probably always remain so. If we want to prove that man began as a child, what evidence can we produce? If we appealed to history, history is impossible before the invention of language; and what language could the primitive child have spoken, what life could it have lived, without a father and without a mother? If we give up history and appeal to our inner consciousness, our reason, nay, our very imagination, collapses when approaching the problem how such a child could have been born, how such a child could have been nourished, reared, and protected from wild animals and other dangers. We feel we have come to the end of our tether, and are running our head against a very old, but a very solid, wall.

Has Kant then written in vain; and is it still supposed that our senses or our reason can ever reach transcendent truths? Has the lesson to be taught again and again that both our senses and our reason have their limits; that we are indeed tethered, and that it is no proof of intellectual strength or suppleness to try to stand on our own shoulders? We are so made that neither can our senses perceive nor can our reason conceive the real beginning and end of anything, whether in space or in time. And yet we imagine we can form a definite conception of the true beginning of mankind.

Then what remains? There remains the humbler and yet far nobler task of studying the earliest records of man's life on earth: to go back as far as literature, language, and tools will allow us, and for a time to consider that as primitive which, whether as a tool, or as a word, or as a proverb, or as a prayer, is the last we can reach, and seems at the same time so simple, so rational, so intelligible, as to require no further antecedents. That is the true work of the historian, and of the philosopher too; and there is plenty of work left for both of them before they dive into the whirlpool of their inner consciousness to find there the primordial savage.

Instead of allowing ourselves to be driven into a corner by such a question as “Did man begin as a savage or as a child?” we have a perfect right to ask the question, What is meant by these two words, savage and child?

Has any one ever attempted to define the meaning of savage, and to draw a sharp line between a savage and a non-savage? Has any one ever attempted to define the meaning of child, if used in opposition to savage or brute? Have we been told whether by child is meant a suckling without a mother, or a boy who can speak, and count, and reason without a father? Lastly, are savage and child really terms that mutually exclude each other? May not a savage be a child, and may not a child be a savage?

How, then, is any one who has given serious thought to the problem of the origin of mankind to answer such a question as “Tell me, do you hold that man began as a savage or as a child?”

When we read some of the more recent works on anthropology, the primordial savage seems to be not unlike one of those hideous india-rubber dolls that can be squeezed into every possible shape, and made to utter every possible noise. There was a time when the savage was held up to the civilised man as the inhabitant of a lost paradise—a being of innocence, simplicity, purity, and nobility. Rousseau ascribed to his son of nature all the perfection which he looked for in vain in Paris and London. At present, when so many philosophers are on the lookout for the missing-link between man and beast, the savage, even if he has established his right to the name of man, cannot be painted black enough. He must be at least a man who maltreats his women, murders his children, kills and eats his fellow-creatures, and commits crimes from which even animals would shrink.

This devil-savage, however, of the present anthropologist is as much a wild creation of scientific fancy as the angel-savage of former philosophers. The true Science of Man has no room for such speculations.

Sometimes the history of a name can take the place of its definition, but this is hardly so in our case. The Greeks spoke of barbarians rather than of savages, and the Romans followed their example, though they might possibly have called the national heroes and sages of Germany and Britain not only barbari but feri—that is, savages not very far removed from feræ, or wild beasts. Our own word savage, and the French sauvage, meant originally a man who lived in the woods, a silvaticus. It was at first applied to all who remained outside the cities, who were not cives, or civilised, and who in Christian times were also called heathen—that is, dwellers on the heath.

But all this does not help us much. Of course the Spaniards called the inhabitants of America savages, though it is now quite generally conceded that the Spanish conquerors supplanted a higher civilisation than they established.10 The first discoverers of India called the naked Brahmans savages, though they could hardly have followed them in their subtle arguments on every possible philosophical topic. Even by us New Zealanders and Zulus are classed as savages. And yet a Zulu proved a match for an English bishop; and some of the Maori poems and proverbs may rightly claim a place by the side of English popular poems and proverbs. Nothing is gained if it is said that a savage is the opposite of a civilised man. Civilisation is the product of the uninterrupted work of many generations; and if savage meant no more than an uncivilised man, it is no great discovery to say that the first man must have been a savage. No doubt he could not have been acquainted even with what we consider the fundamental elements of civilisation, such as the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic. His dress must have been very scanty, his food very primitive, his dwelling very uncomfortable, his family life very unrestrained. And yet, for all that, he might have been very far removed from the brute; nay, he might have been a perfect man, doing his duty in that state of life into which it pleased God to call him.

Civilisation, as it is well known, is as vague a term as savagery. When Alexander, the pupil of Aristotle, the representative of Greek civilisation, stood before the naked philosophers of India, who were ὑλόβιοι dwellers in the forest, can we hesitate to say which of the two was the true savage and which the sage? To the New Zealander who has been brought into contact with European civilisation, his former so-called savage life seems to have gained little by recent improvements. A grand Maori chief, reputed to have been one of the strongest men in his youth, thus speaks of the old days:11—

This is the view which a so-called savage takes of the benefits of European civilisation as contrasted with the contentment and happiness in which his forefathers had passed through this life. Let us now hear what a highly educated American, a scholar and a philosopher, Mr. Morgan, says of the character of the Iroquois, who are often quoted as specimens of extreme savagery:—

No one would suspect Morgan of exaggeration or sentimentality. And if it should be objected that these were private virtues only, and no proof of true civilisation or a well-organised society among the Iroquois, the same writer tells us:12—

It is the fashion to quote against these favorable statements cases of cruelty committed by the Red Indians or the New Zealanders in their wars among themselves and in their resistance to their white enemies. But let us not forget the bloody pages of our own history. We should probably say that the eighteenth century was one of the most brilliant in the history of Europe. We should probably assign to England at that time a foremost place among European countries, and we know how high a position Scotchmen took during the last century in general culture, in philosophy, in science, and statesmanship. Yet, in his “History of England in the Eighteenth Century,” Mr. Lecky describes the common people of Scotland as broken into fierce clans, ruled by wild chieftains; as thieves and cattle-lifters, kidnappers of men and children to be sold as slaves; as ferocious barbarians, besotted with the most brutal ignorance, and the grossest and gloomiest superstitions, possessed of the rudest modes of agriculture, scratching the earth with a crooked piece of wood for a plough, and for a harrow a brush attached to the tail of a horse, otherwise devoid of harness; their food, oatmeal and milk, mixed with blood drawn from the living cow; their cooking, revolting and filthy, boiling their beef in the hide, and roasting fowls in their feathers, with many like customs and demoralising habits unknown to aboriginal life among the Red Indians.

It will be clear after these few specimens, which might have been considerably increased, that we shall make no step in advance if we continue to use the word savage so vaguely as it has been hitherto used. To think is difficult, but it becomes utterly impossible if we use debased or false coin. I have been considered too inquisitive for venturing to ask anthropologists what they meant by a fetish, but I must expose myself once more to the same reproach by venturing to ask them to state plainly what they mean by a savage.

Whatever other benefits a study of the science of language may confer, there is one which cannot be valued too highly—namely, that it makes us not only look at words, but through words. If we are told that a savage means an uncivilised man, then, to say that the first man was a savage is saying either nothing or what is self-evident. Civilisation consists in the accumulated wisdom of countless generations of men, and to say that the first generation of men was uncivilised is therefore pure tautology. We are far too tolerant with respect to such tautologies. How many people, for instance, have been led to imagine that such a phrase as the survival of the fittest contains the solution of the problem of the survival of certain species and the extinction of others? To the student of language the survival of the fittest is a mere tautology, meaning the survival of the fittest to survive, which is the statement of a fact, but no solution of it.

It is easy to say that the meaning of savage has been explained and defined by almost every writer on anthropology. I know these explanations and definitions, but not one of them can be considered as answering the requirements of a scientific definition.

Some anthropologists say that savage means wild and cruel. But in that case no nation would be without its savages. Others say that savages are people who wear little or no clothing. But in that case the greatest philosophers, the gymnosophists of India, would have to be classed as savages. If it means people without a settled form of government, without laws and without a religion, then, go where you like, you will not find such a race. Again, if people who have no cities and no central government are to be called savages, then the Jews would have been savages, the Hindus, the Arabs, the ancient Germans, and other of the most important races in the history of the world. In fact, whatever characteristics are brought forward as distinctive of a savage, they can always be met by counter-instances, showing that each definition would either include races whom no one dares to call savage, or exclude races whom no one dares to call civilised. It used to be imagined that the use of letters was the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilised people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that artificial help, to quote the words of Gibbon, “the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas committed to her charge, and the nobler faculties of the mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers, the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid or irregular.” Such arguments might pass in the days of Gibbon, but after the new light that has been thrown on the ancient history of some of the principal nations of the world they are no longer tenable.

No one would call the ancient Brahmans savages, and yet writing was unknown to them before the third century B.C. Homer, quite apart from his blindness, was certainly unacquainted with writing for literary purposes. The ancient inhabitants of Germany, as described by Tacitus, were equally ignorant of the art of writing as a vehicle of literature; yet for all that we could not say, with Gibbon, that with them the nobler faculties of the mind had lost their powers, the judgment had become feeble, and the imagination languid.

And as we find that the use of letters is by no means an indispensable element of true civilisation, we should arrive at the same conclusion in examining almost every discovery which has been pointed out as a sine quâ non of civilised life. Every generation is apt to consider the measure of comfort which it has reached as indispensable to civilised life, but very often, in small as well as great things, what is called civilised to-day may be called barbarous to-morrow. Races who abstain from eating the flesh of animals are apt to look on carnivorous people as savages; people who abstain from intoxicating drinks naturally despise a nation in which drunkenness is prevalent. What should we say if we entered a town in which the streets were neither paved nor lighted, and in which the windows were without glass; where we saw no carriages in any of the thoroughfares, and where, inside the houses, ladies and gentlemen might be seen eating without forks and wearing garments that had never been washed? And yet even in Paris no street was paved before 1185. In London Holborn was first paved in 1417, and Smithfield in 1614, while Berlin was without paved streets far into the seventeenth century. No houses had windows of glass before the twelfth century, and as late as the fourteenth century anything might be thrown out of window at Paris, after three times calling out “Gare l'eau!” Shirts were an invention of the Crusades, and the fine dresses which ladies and gentlemen wore during the Middle Ages were hardly ever washed, but only refreshed from time to time with precious scents. In 1550 we are told that there existed in Paris no more than three carriages—one belonging to the Queen, the other to Diane de Poitiers, and the third to René de Laval. In England coaches (so called from the Hungarian kossi) date from 1580, though whirlicotes go back to the fourteenth century. So far as we know, neither Dante nor Beatrice used forks in eating, and yet we should hardly class them as savages.

It is easy to say that all these are matters of small importance. No doubt they are, but we often see them treated as matters of great importance, when we speak of races with red skins or black skins. With us civilisation, whether consisting of these small or great matters, has often become a burden, a check rather than a help to the free development of all that is noble in human nature; while many conditions of life which we are inclined to call barbarous were almost essential for the growth of the human mind during its earlier stages. Can we imagine a religion growing up in modern Paris? Would a travelling bard, such as Homer, find an audience in the streets of London? Would a Socrates be listened to by the professors of Berlin? A Panini sitting almost naked under a pippal tree and composing the rules of his marvellous grammar of Sanskrit, a Bâdârâyana with dishevelled hair, spinning out of his mind the subtle web of Vedânta philosophy, would be shunned as wild creatures by a young English officer, and yet, on the ladder that leads to the highest excellence of intellect, how many steps would the former stand above the latter! For carrying out the chief objects of our life on earth, very little of what is now called civilisation is really wanted. Many things are pleasant, without being really essential to our fulfilling our mission on earth. For laying the foundations of society, for settling the broad principles of law and morality, for discovering the deep traces of order and unity in nature, and for becoming conscious of the presence of the Divine within and without, a life in the forests, on the mountains, ay, even in the desert, is far more favorable than a lodging in Bond Street.

The latest attempt which has been made at defining the true character of a savage restricts the distinctive characteristics of a savage to three—(1) that he murders his children, (2) that he kills and eats his fellow-men, (3) that he disregards certain laws of nature.

Now in that sense it seems quite clear that the first man could not have been a savage, for if he had murdered his children we should not be alive; if he had eaten his fellow-men, supposing there were any to eat, again we should not be alive; and if he had disregarded certain laws of nature, in that case also, probably, we should not be alive.

What, then, is to be done? Are we to say that there never were any savages, or that it is impossible to distinguish between a savage and a non-savage? Certainly not. All we have to do is to be on our guard against a very common trick of language, or rather against a very common mistake of philosophers, who imagine that the same name must always mean the same thing. All the difficulties hitherto detailed which have prevented anthropologists from agreeing on any real definition of savage have arisen from their having mixed up under the same name at least two totally different classes of men, both called savages in ordinary parlance, but each occupying its own place in the history of the world. How this should have happened is difficult to explain, but I think we can trace the first beginnings in the works of some of the earlier anthropologists, who were carried away by the idea that we can study in the illiterate races of the present day, such as we find in Africa, America, and Polynesia, the true character of the primitive man, as he emerged new-born from the bowels of nature. Scientific ethnologists have long since awaked from this fond dream, but the primitive savage has remained as a troublesome legacy in other quarters. Nothing can be more interesting than the study of races who have no literature, but whose former history may be read in their languages and their tools, and whose present state of civilisation or savagery may certainly be used to throw collateral light on many phases in the history of more highly civilised nations. Only let us remember that these races and their languages are as old as the most civilised races and their languages, while their history, if so we may call it, seldom carries us back beyond the mere surface of the day. If we in England are old, the Fuegians are not a day younger. If the question as to the age of the European and American races could be settled by geological evidence, it would seem as if America is now able to produce human skulls older than the Neanderthal skull.14 No one, so far as I know, has ever succeeded in proving that after man had once been evolved or created, a new evolution or creation of man took place, attested by contemporaneous witnesses. The Duke of Argyll goes so far as to maintain15 that those who hold the opinion that different races of men represent different species, or a species which spread from more than one place, stand outside the general current of scientific thought.

But while scientific anthropologists have long given up the idea that, if we want to know the condition of primitive man, we must study it among the Fuegians or Eskimos, the subject has lost none of its charms. It is, no doubt, a very amusing occupation to run through the books of modern and ancient travellers, traders, or missionaries, to mark with pencil a strange legend here, and an odd custom there, to point out a similarity between a Shâman and an Archbishop, between a Hottentot and Homer. This kind of work can be done in the intervals of more serious studies, and if it is done with the facile pen of a journalist or the epigrammatic eloquence of a young lawyer, nothing can be more delightful. But it is dangerous work—so dangerous that the prejudice that has lately arisen among scientific anthropologists against Agriology seems justified, at least to a certain extent. There are truly scholarlike works on savages. I say scholarlike intentionally, because they are based on a scholarlike study of the languages spoken by the races whose mental organisation has to be analysed. The works of Bishops Callaway and Caldwell, of Brinton and Horatio Hale, of Gill, Bleek, and Hahn, the more general compilations of Waitz, Tiele, Lubbock, Tylor, and Reville, the clever contributions of A. Lang, John Fiske, and others, are but the first that occur to my mind as specimens of really useful work that may be done in this line. But the loose and superficial appeals to savages as the representatives of a brand-new humanity, fresh from the hands of the potter, the ignorant attempts at explaining classical myths from Melanesian tattle, the wild comparisons of Hebrew customs with the outrages of modern cannibals, have at last met with their well-merited reward, and the very name of savage is gradually disappearing from the best works on anthropology and philosophy.

And yet there are savages, only we must distinguish. There are, as I pointed out long ago, two classes of savages, to say nothing of minor subdivisions—namely, progressive and retrogressive savages. There is a hopeful and a hopeless barbarism, there is a growing and a decaying civilisation. We owe a great deal to the Duke of Argyll, particularly in his last great work, The Unity of Nature, for having laid so much stress on the fact that of all works of nature man is the one most liable to two kinds of evolution, one ascending and the other descending. Like the individual, a whole family, tribe, or race of men may, within a very short time, rise to the highest pitch of virtue and culture, and in the next generation sink to the lowest level of vice and brutality.

The first question, therefore, which we have to ask when we have to speak of savages, is whether there is any indication of their having once reached a higher stage from which they have descended, or whether they are only just ascending from that low but healthy level which must precede every attempt at what we call civilisation. We may call both by the same name of savages, but, if we do so, we must always remember that, from an historical point of view, no two stages in civilised life can be more apart from each other than that of the retrogressive and that of the progressive savage.

But even after we have laid down this broad line of demarcation, we shall by no means find it easy to catch either a progressive or a retrogressive savage pur et simple. If looking out for retrogressive or decaying savages, most people would naturally think of Fuegians, Tasmanians, Hottentots, Ashantis, Veddas, and Red Indians, and one of the strongest proofs of their decay would be derived from the fact that they are dying out wherever they are brought in contact with European civilisation. Now it is true that the Tasmanians have become extinct, and that several of the Red Indian tribes, too, have actually been destroyed by our civilisation. But we must not generalise too quickly. Some of these very tribes, the Red Indians,16 seem to be recovering, seem to increase again, and to be able to hold their own against the baneful influences which threatened to destroy them. The negroes also are by no means dwindling away. On the contrary, they are increasing both in Africa and in America. We must therefore be careful before we deny the recuperative powers even of retrogressive savages, and we must look for other evidence beyond mere statistics in support of their hopeless degeneracy.

Historical evidence of such gradual degeneracy is, from the nature of the case, almost impossible. We must trust, therefore, to less direct proof. I believe there is some distinct historical evidence in the case of the Central and South American races, that at the time of the arrival of Columbus and his successors civilisation had really been decaying for some time in America.17 But in nearly all other cases we have to look out for other proofs in support of a higher antecedent civilisation possessed by tribes who, as we know them at present, have to be classed as savages. Such proofs, if they exist, must be sought for in language, religion, customs, tools, and works of art.

As I look upon language neither as a ready-made gift of God nor as a natural growth of the human mind, but as, in the true sense of the word, a work of human art, I must confess that nothing has surprised me so much as the high art displayed in the languages of so-called savages. I do not wish to exaggerate; and I know quite well that a great abundance of grammatical forms, such as we find in these savage dialects, is by no means a proof of high intellectual development. But if we consider how small is the number of words and ideas in the ordinary vocabulary of an English peasant,18 and if then we find that one dialect of the Fuegians, the Tagan, consists of about 30,000 words,19 we certainly hesitate before venturing to classify the possessors of so vast an inherited wealth as the descendants of poor savages, more savage than themselves. Such facts cannot be argued away. We cannot prevent people from despising religious concepts different from their own, or from laughing at customs which they themselves could never adopt. But such a treasure of conceptual thought as is implied in the possession of a vocabulary of 30,000 entries cannot be ignored in our estimate of the antecedents of this Fuegian race. I select the Fuegians as a crucial test simply because Darwin20 selected them as the strongest proof of his own theory, and placed them almost below the level reached by the most intelligent animals. I have always had a true regard for Darwin, and what I admired in him more than anything else was his fearlessness, his simple devotion to truth. I believe that if he had seen that his own theories were wrong, he would have been the first to declare it, whatever his followers might have said. But in spite of all that, no man can resist the influence of his own convictions. When Darwin looked at the Fuegians, he no doubt saw what he tells us, but then he saw it with Darwinian eyes. According to his account, the party of Fuegians whom he saw resembled the devils which come on the stage in such plays as Der Freischütz.21 “Viewing such men, one can hardly believe,” he says, “that they are fellow-creatures, and inhabitants of the same world” (p. 235). “Their language, according to our notions, scarcely deserves to be called articulate. Captain Cook has compared it to a man clearing his throat, but certainly no European ever cleared his throat with so many hoarse, guttural, and clicking sounds.”

Now, even with regard to their physical aspect, Darwin must have either been very unlucky in the Fuegians whom he met, or he cannot have kept himself quite free from prejudice. Captain Parker Snow, in his Two Years Cruise of Tierra del Fuego (London 1857), speaks of them as without the least exaggeration really beautiful representatives of the human race. Professor Virchow, when exhibiting a number of Fuegians at Berlin, strongly protested against the supposition of the Fuegians being by nature an inferior race, so that they might be considered as a connecting link between ape and man. But what shall we say of Darwin's estimate of the Fuegian language? Here we can judge for ourselves, and I doubt whether, so far as this sound is concerned, anyone would consider Fuegian as inferior to English. Giacomo Bove, when speaking of the Tagan dialect, says, “le parole di quella sono dolci, piacevoli, piene di vocali.” And though he admits that some of the other dialects are harsher, yet that is very far as yet from the sound of clearing the throat.

And, even if the sound of their language was as guttural as some of the Swiss dialects, how shall we account for the wealth of their vocabulary? Every concept embodied in their language is the result of hard intellectual labor; and although here again excessive wealth may be an embarrassment, yet there remains enough to prove a past that must have been very different from the present.

The workman must at least have been as great as his work; and if the ruins of Central America tell us of architects greater than any that country could produce at present, the magnificent ruins in the dialects, whether of Fuegians, Mohawks, or Hottentots, tell us of mental builders whom no one could match at present. Even in their religious beliefs there are here and there rays of truth which could never have proceeded from the dark night of their actual superstitions. The Fuegians, according to Captain FitzRoy, believe in a just god and a great spirit moving about in forests and mountains. They may believe in a great deal more, but people who believe in a great spirit in forests and mountains, and in a just god, are not on the lowest step of the ladder leading from earth to heaven.

The Duke of Argyll, in examining the principal races that are commonly called savage, has pointed out that degraded races generally inhabit the extreme ends of continents or tracts of country almost unfit for human habitation, or again whole islands difficult of access except under exceptionally favorable conditions. He naturally concludes that they did not go there of their own free will, but that they represent conquered races, exiles, weaklings, cowards, criminals, who saved nothing but their life in their flight before more vigorous conquerors, or in their exile from countries that had thrown them off like poison. Instead of looking on the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego as children of the soil, Autochthones, or the immediate descendants of the mythical Proanthropoi, the Duke points out that it is far more likely they may have come from the north; that their ancestors may have participated in the blessings of the soil and climate of Chili, Peru, Brazil, or Mexico, possibly in the early civilisation of that part of the world; and that the wretchedness of the country into which they were driven fully accounts for their present degradation. Take away the wretchedness of their present home, educate a baby, as Captain FitzRoy did, under the beneficent influences of an English sky and of European civilisation, and in one generation, as Mr. Darwin tells us, “his intellect was good, and his disposition nice.”

It is quite fair that those who oppose this theory should call upon the Duke to establish his view by the evidence of language. If the Fuegians were the descendants of the same race which reached a high pitch of civilisation in Peru, Mexico, or Central America, their language ought to show the irrefragable proof of such descent. If it did, his position would be impregnable. Unfortunately the materials now at hand have not yet been sufficiently examined to enable us to say either yes or no. Nor must we forget that language, when it is not fixed by a popular literature, is liable among nomadic tribes to unlimited variation. The number of languages spoken22 throughout the whole of North and South America has been estimated to considerably exceed twelve hundred; and on the northern continent alone more than five hundred distinct languages are said to be spoken, which admit of classification among seventy-five ethnical groups, each with essential linguistic distinctions, pointing to its own parent stock. Some of these languages are merely well-marked dialects, with fully developed vocabularies. Others have more recently acquired a dialectic character in the breaking up and scattering of dismembered tribes, and present a very limited range of vocabulary, suited to the intellectual requirements of a small tribe or band of nomads. The prevailing condition of life throughout the whole North American continent was peculiarly favorable to the multiplication of such dialects and their growth into new languages, owing to the constant breaking up and scattering of tribes, and the frequent adoption into their numbers of the refugees from other fugitive broken tribes, leading to an intermingling of vocabularies and fresh modifications of speech. It is to be hoped that the study of native American languages may before long receive that attention which it so fully deserves. It must be taken up in good earnest, and with all the accuracy which we are accustomed to in a comparative study of Indo-European languages. All ethnological questions must for the present be kept in abeyance till the linguistic witness can be brought into court, and it would be extraordinary if the laurels that can here be gained should fail to stimulate the ambition of some young scholar in America.

As to the Fuegians at Cape Horn, so at the North Pole the Eskimos, however low their present state of civilisation, have been looked upon as immigrants from a centre of civilisation located in a more temperate zone. The Eskimo leads the only life that is possible in his latitudes. Why he should have migrated there, unless driven by force majeure, is impossible to say. Unless we are willing to admit a special Eskimo Adam, we have no choice except to look upon him either as a withering offshoot of the American moundbuilders, or as a weak descendant of Siberian nomads.

In Africa, the most degraded races, the Bushmen, are clearly a corruption of the Hottentots, while it is well known that some eminent ethnologists look upon the Hottentots as degraded emigrants from Egypt. How much higher the civilisation of Africa stood in former ages, we know from the monuments of Egypt and Nubia, from the histories of Phœnicia, Carthage, and Numidia. If among the ruins of these ancient centres of civilisation we now find tribes whom European travellers would call savage, we see again that in the evolution of man retrogression is as important an element as progression.

Even in Australasia, where we meet with the most repulsive customs and the most hopeless barbarism, the Duke of Argyll shows that, according to the principles of evolution, the separation of the islands from the Asiatic continent would date from a period anterior to the age of man, and that here too man must be an immigrant, a degraded offshoot from that branch of the human race which in China or India has risen to some kind of civilised life. For further details the pages in the last book of the Duke of Argyll, particularly chapter x., on the “Degradation of Man,” should be consulted. It must suffice here to quote his summing up:—

We have thus seen that, wherever we seem to lay hold of primeval savages who are supposed to represent to us the unchanged image of the primeval man, the evidence of their having been autochthonous in the places where we now find them is very weak, the proofs that they have never changed are altogether wanting; while geographical, physical, and linguistic considerations make it probable, though no more, that they originally came from more favored countries, that they were driven in the struggle for life into inhospitable climates, and that in accommodating themselves to the requirements of their new homes they gradually descended from a higher level of civilisation, indicated by their language and religion, to that low level in which we find them now. Some of them have sunk so low that, like individual members of the noblest families in Europe, they can no longer be reclaimed. Others, however, though shaken by sudden contact with the benefits and the dangers of a higher civilisation, may regain their former health and vigor, and, from having been retrogressive savages, become once more progressive in the great struggle for existence.

But if in the cases just mentioned we feel inclined to recognise the influence of degradation, and if we class such races as the Fuegians, the Eskimos, the Bushmen and Hottentots, the Papuans and brown Polynesians, as retrogressive savages, the question arises where we can hope to find specimens of the progressive savage, or rather of the natural man, who might teach us something of what man may have been before civilisation completely changed him into an artificial being, forgetful of the essential purposes of life, and who feels at home no longer in fields and forests, on rivers or mountains, but only in that enchanted castle of custom and fashion which he has erected for himself out of the unmeaning fragments of former ages?

My answer is that after we have collected the primitive tools and weapons which lie buried beneath the abodes of civilised man, our best chance of learning some of the secrets of primitive civilisation is to study the sacred hymns and the ancient legends of India, the traditions embodied in the Homeric poems, and whatever has been preserved to us of the most ancient literature of the progressive races of the world, the Italic, Celtic, Slavonic, and Teutonic races. This of course applies to the Aryan race only. The Semitic races are represented to us in their progress from a nomadic to a more or less civilised life in the Old Testament, in the earliest ballads of the Arabs, and in passages scattered in the inscriptions of Assyrians, Babylonians, and Phœnicians. China too in its ancient literature allows us an insight into the age of a nascent society, while Egypt discloses to us the most ancient of all civilisations, which can boast of a literature at a time when the very idea of writing was as yet unknown to all other nations.

It is easy to say that all this is modern. In one sense no doubt it is. The Vedic literature, the most ancient of the whole Aryan race, presupposes a succession of intellectual strata which no chronology can measure. The language of the Veda is a work of art which it must have taken generations to build up. But is it reasonable to expect anything less modern in the history of the human race? And is there not a continuity in language and thought which allows us to see even in these literary remains, call them as modern as you like, something of the first dawn of human life. French is a very modern language, but in chien we still hear the Sanskrit ṥvan; in journal we recognise the old Vedic deity Dyaus. In the same way we can go back from what is common to Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, to what was the common language of the Aryans before they broke up in different nationalities. In that common Aryan vocabulary, again, we can distinguish between what is radical and primitive and what is formal and secondary. Thus we may go back beyond all so-called historical limits to a stage of primitive thought, represented by a small number of radical concepts, and a still smaller number of formal elements. And is not that enough? Is it not more historical and more trustworthy, at all events, than all à priori speculations? and have we not at least a right to demand this from our à priori friends, that, in running their tunnel from the other end, they should take care that when it emerges into the daylight of history it should meet the tunnel which comparative philology, mythology, and theology have carefully dug out on the opposite side through the solid rock of facts? It will never do for à priori theories to run counter to à posteriori facts. It is a fact, for instance, proved by historical evidence, that fetichism represents a secondary stage in the growth of religion, and that it presupposes an earlier stage, in which the name and the concept of something divine, the predicate of every fetich, was formed. It would be fatal, therefore, to any system of à priori reasoning if it placed fetichism before that phase in the development of human thought which is represented by the first formation of divine concepts. It would be a real hysteron-proteron.

Again, it is a fact, proved by historical evidence, that all the words of the Aryan languages are derived from definite roots, expressive of definite concepts. It would therefore be fatal, again, to any system of à priori reasoning if it attempted to derive words direct from more or less inarticulate cries or imitations of cries, and not from that small number of roots which has been proved to supply all that is really wanted in explanation of all the facts of Aryan speech.

Again, it is a fact, proved by historical evidence, that most of the ancient deities of the Aryan nations have names expressive of the great powers of nature, and it would be an insult to all historical scholarship if our à priori friends were to attempt to prove once more that the worship of Zeus was derived from a general reverence felt for a gentleman of the name of Sky, or the belief in Eos from a sentimental devotion excited by a young lady of the name of Dawn. I believe it will be admitted by all honest anthropologists that the philological identification of one single word, Dyaus in the Veda and Zeus in Homer, has done more for rectifying our ideas of the true course of ancient Aryan civilisation than all the myths and customs of savages put together.

There was a time when the students of Oriental literature were inclined to claim an extravagant antiquity for the books which they had rescued from oblivion. But that tendency has now been changed into the very opposite. There may be traces of it among Chinese, sometimes among Egyptian and Accadian scholars, but wherever we have to deal with a real literature, whether in India, Persia, or Palestine, scholars are far more anxious to point out what is modern than what is ancient, whether in the Veda the Avesta, or the Old Testament. I certainly do not feel guilty of ever having claimed an excessive antiquity for the Rig-Veda. From the very first, though I placed the whole of Vedic literature before Buddhism, say the sixth century B.C. and though, owing to the changes in language, style, and thought which are clearly perceptible in different parts of Vedic literature, owing also to certain astronomical dates, I ventured to place it between 1000 and 1500 B.C., yet I have never concealed my impression that some portions of the Veda may turn out to be of far more recent origin.23

But is not that sufficient? Is it not perfectly marvellous that so much that is really old, so much that carries us back more than 3,000 years, should have been preserved to us at all? Why will people ask for what is impossible? Savages they say, do not read and write, and yet they want to have trustworthy information from literary documents composed by those very savages who cannot read and write. Among the Aryan nations, I do not believe in any written books before the sixth century B.C. In China, books may have been older, papyri are older in Egypt, and clay tablets in Babylon. But even when literature began, the very last that ancient people do is to write about themselves, about their manners and customs. What we know of the manners and customs of ancient people, when they were still passing through that phase which we call progressive savagery, comes to us from strangers only. As modern travellers give us full accounts of the life of savages who cannot speak and write for themselves, our only chance of learning something about our own ancestors, before they began to write, would be from ancient travellers who were interested in these promising savages. Now it is a piece of excessive good luck that, with regard to one of the Aryan races, with regard to our own Teutonic ancestors, we possess such a book, written by a stranger who felt deeply interested in German savages, and who has told us what they were, before they could write and tell us themselves what they were. If we want to study the progressive savage, not as he ought to have been, according to à priori philosophy, nor as he might have been, according to what we see among Fuegians of the present day, but as he really was according to the best information that could be collected by the best of historians, we must, read and read again the Germania of Tacitus.

If history means the evidence of contemporary eye-witnesses, I doubt whether history will ever enable us to see further into the natural transition of barbarism into civilisation than in the Germania of Tacitus. To divide civilisation from barbarism by a sharp line is of course impossible. There are remnants of barbarism in the most advanced state of civilisation, and there are sparks of civilisation in the most distant ages of barbarism—at least of that healthy barbarism which is represented to us in the Germania, and of which we find but scanty fragments in the ancient literature of the civilising nations of the world.

Here we may see ourselves as we were not quite two thousand years ago. Here we may see from how small beginnings the highest civilisation may be reached. Here we may study the natural man as he really was, in some respects certainly a savage, but a progressive savage, as we know from his later history, and certainly without one sign of that corruption and decay which is so plainly visible in Hottentots and Papuans.

This book, the account of the site, the manners, and the inhabitants of Germany, by Tacitus, has had various fates. To every German, to every member of the Teutonic race, it has always been a kind of national charter, a picture of a golden age, adorned with all that is considered most perfect, pure, and noble in human nature; whereas French savants have often either ridiculed the work of Tacitus as a mere romance, or so interpreted his words as to turn the ancient Germans into real Hottentots.

This controversy has been carried on during several centuries. M. Guizot, for instance, in his History of Civilisation completely ignoring the distinction between retrogressive and progressive savages, tried to show that there was little to choose between the Germans of Tacitus and the Red Indians of the present day.

This controversy became embittered by a curious circumstance. Whereas Tacitus and other Roman writers spoke in glowing terms of the Teutonic races, their remarks on the Gauls, the ancient inhabitants of France, were not only far from complimentary, but happened to touch on points on which Frenchmen are particularly sensitive. Tertullian, who was a great admirer of the Jews, was very wroth with Tacitus because he used very anti-Semitic language. He actually calls Tacitus a “brawler, and the greatest teller of lies,”24 The French do not differ much from that opinion, not so much because Tacitus spoke ill of the Jews, and likewise of the Celts of Gaul, as because he spoke so well of the paysans du Danube. The ancient classical writers dwell rather strongly on the unfavorable side of the Celtic character. It is well known how low an opinion Aristotle formed of Celtic morality. Strabo says that the Celts are simple, but proud and sensitive, fond of dress and ornaments. It is even hinted that they dyed their hair, and allowed their mustache to grow, so that it interfered with the comfort of eating and drinking.25 Strabo goes on to say that they are not malicious, but reckless, changeable, fond of innovation, and never to be depended on. They are quick in their resolutions, but often inconsiderate, fond of war, brave, but intolerably conceited if victorious, and quite demoralised if defeated. Polybius confirms that their first onslaught is terrible, but both Cæsar and Livy agree as to their want of steadiness and perseverance. Other Latin authors add that they are unmanageable and inclined to revolutions, and that, owing to continual factions, many are obliged to leave the country, and to try their fortunes as adventurers elsewhere. Still darker colors were added by others to this picture of national depravity. The state of morality in Gaul was such that it was considered infamous for a father to be seen in company with his son before the latter had come of age. At the death of a nobleman his widow was, as a matter of course, subjected to a trial as to whether she had been the cause of her husband's death. Strabo affirms that it was their custom to cut off the heads of their enemies after a battle, and to hang them on the heads of their horses, or nail them over their doors. While German scholars composed this mosaic out of all the stones that classical writers had ever thrown at the inhabitants of Gaul, French writers retaliated by either throwing discredit on Tacitus, the supposed encomiast of the Germans, or by showing that the account which Tacitus gives of the ancestors of the Teutonic race proves better than anything else that, at his time, the Germans had not yet emerged from a state of the grossest barbarism, and were incapable, therefore, as yet of vices of which they maintain are the outcome of a more advanced state of civilisation.

To my mind, apart from any national idiosyncrasies, the description which Tacitus gives us of the Germans, as he had seen them, is perfectly unique and invaluable as a picture of what I should willingly call the life of progressive savages. What should we give if, besides the hymns of the Rig-Veda, we had the accounts of travellers who had actually seen the ancient Rishis of India with their flocks and families, their priests and sacrifices, their kings and battles? What should we give if, besides the Homeric poems, we had the work of an eyewitness who could describe to us the real Troy, and the real fight between Greece and Asia Minor? This is what Tacitus has done for Germany, and at a time when the ancient religion was still living, when the simple laws of a primitive society were still observed, and when the epic poems of a later time were still being sung as ballads at the feasts of half-naked warriors! In Tacitus, therefore, and not in the missionary accounts of Melanesian savages, should we study the truly primitive man, primitive in the only sense in which we shall ever know of primitive man, and primitive certainly in a far truer sense than Papuans or Fuegians are likely to be in the nineteenth century. I cannot understand how an historian like Guizot could have allowed himself to be so much misguided by national prejudice as to speak of Tacitus as a kind of Montaigne or Rousseau, who, in a fit of disgust with his own country, drew a picture of Germany as a mere satire on Roman manners, or to call the Germania “the eloquent sulking of a patriotic philosopher who wishes to see virtue where he does not find the disgraceful effeminacy and the elegant depravity of an old society.” Surely the work of Tacitus cannot have been very fresh in the memory of the great French historian when he delivered this judgment. If Tacitus, like Rousseau or Voltaire, had intended to draw the picture of an ideal barbarism, would he have mentioned the many vices of the German Utopia, the indolence of the Germans, their drunkenness, their cruelty to slaves, their passion for gambling, and their riotous revels? Besides, three-fourths of his book treat of subjects which have no bearing whatever on Roman society, nay, which are of so little interest to the general reader that I doubt whether many Romans would have taken the trouble to read them. The facts which came to the knowledge of Tacitus are so loosely strung together that his book looks more like a collection of memoranda than the compact and pointed pamphlet of a political satirist. We need only read the letters of Voltaire on England, or Montalembert's pamphlet, De l'Angleterre, in order to perceive the difference between a political satire and an historical memoir. No doubt a man of the temper of Tacitus would naturally dwell with satisfaction on the bright side of the German character, and, while holding before the eyes of his own nation the picture of a brave and simple, religious and independent race, might naturally think of what Rome once had been, and was no longer. But there is no more sarcasm or satire in his work than is inseparable from a straightforward statement of facts when addressed to ears no longer accustomed to the sound of unvarnished truth.

So little did M. Guizot perceive the unique character of the Germania of Tacitus as an historical document of the earliest stage of society, that he amused himself with collecting from various books of travel a number of facts observed among the very lowest races in America and Africa, which, as he thinks, form an exact parallel to the statements of Tacitus with regard to the good and bad qualities of the Germans. His parallel columns, which occupy nearly ten pages, are certainly amusing, but they prove nothing, least of all that there was no difference between the healthy sons of Germany and the tattooed cannibals of New Zealand. If they prove anything, it is that there is one kind of barbarism through which every nation has to pass, the childhood and wild youth of a race, to be followed by the mature vigor of a nation's manhood, and that there is another kind of barbarism which leads to nothing, but ends in mere brutality, shrinking from contact with higher civilisation and succumbing when it attempts to imitate with monkeyish delight the virtues and vices of a more advanced society. Why is it that the fresh breezes of European civilisation proved fatal to the consumptive barbarism of the wretched inhabitants of Australia, while the strong constitution of the Germans of Tacitus resisted even the poisonous vapors of Roman life? When the results are so different, surely there must be a difference in the antecedents, and though M. Guizot is successful in showing that in some respects the ancient Germans did the same things and said the same things as Ojibways and Papuans, he forgets in drawing his conclusion the old proverb, Si duo dicunt idem, non est idem.

After these remarks it will perhaps seem less surprising that students of antiquity should decline to answer the point-blank question whether man began his life on earth as a savage. Every definition that has been attempted of a savage in general, has broken down as soon as it was confronted with facts. The only characteristic of the savage which remained, and was strong enough to withstand the sharpest cross-examination, was cannibalism. But I am not aware that even the most extreme believers in the primitive savage would insist on his having been necessarily a cannibal, a kind of human Kronos, swallowing his own kith and kin.

Every attempt to place the savage who can no longer be called civilised in the place of the savage who can not yet be so-called, could only end, as it has, in utter confusion of thought.

Something, however, will be gained, or at all events some kind of mutual understanding will become possible, if in future discussions on the character of primitive man a careful distinction is made between the two kinds of savages, the progressive and the retrogressive. When that distinction has once been grasped, the question whether man began as a savage has no longer anything perplexing about it. Man certainly began as a savage, but as a progressive savage. He certainly did not begin with an innate knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic; but, on the other hand, there is nothing to lead us to suppose that he was a being altogether foul and filthy, that when he grew up he invariably ill-treated his wife or wives, and that still later in life he passed his time in eating his children.

If we must need form theories or reason by analogy on the primitive state of man, let us go to the nearest ci-près, such as the Vedic Hindus, or the Germans as described by Cæsar and Tacitus, but not to Fuegians, who in time and probably in space also are the most widely removed from the primitive inhabitants of our globe. If we knew nothing of the manners and customs of the Saxons, when they first settled in these isles, should we imagine that they must have resembled the most depraved classes of modern English society? Let us but once see clearly that the Fuegian, whether as described by Darwin or by Parker Snow, is the most modern of human beings, and we shall pause before we see in him the image of the first ancestor of the human race. Wherever we look we can see the rise and fall of the human race. We can see it with our own eyes, if we look at the living representatives of some of our oldest and noblest families; we can read it in history if we compare ancient India with modern India, ancient Greece with modern Greece. The idea that the Fuegian was salted and preserved for us during many thousands of years, so that we might study in him the original type of man, is nothing but a poetical sentiment unsupported alike by fact, analogy, and reason.

I know full well that when I speak of the Germans of Tacitus or of the Aryans of the Veda as the ci-près of primitive man, all the indications of modern, or at all events of secondary and tertiary thought which I have pointed out myself in the hymns of the Rig-Veda, and which might easily be collected from the book of Tacitus, will be mustered against me. Must I quote the old saying again: Est quoddam prodire tenus si non datur ultra? All I maintain is that these historical documents bring us as near to the primitive man as historical documents can bring us; but that the nearest point within our reach is still very far from the cradle of the human race, no one has pointed out more often than myself.

There is, however, plenty of work still to be done in slowly following up the course of human progress and tracing it back to its earliest stages, as far as literary, monumental, and traditional documents will allow us to do so. There are many intricate windings of that historical river to be explored, many riddles to be solved, many lessons to be learnt. One thing only is quite certain—namely, that the private diary of the first man will never be discovered, least of all at Cape Horn.

I have thus tried to show how untenable is the theory which would boldly identify the modern savage with primitive man, and how cautious we ought to be whenever we take even a few hints here and there from degraded tribes of the present day in order to fill out our imaginary picture of the earliest civilisation of our race. Some lessons, and even important lessons, may be learnt from savages, if only they are studied in a truly scholarlike spirit, as they have been, for instance, by Callaway and Codrington, by Waitz and Tylor. But if the interpretation of an Homeric custom or myth requires care, that of African or Polynesian customs or myths requires ten times greater care, and if a man shrinks from writing on the Veda because he does not know Sanskrit, he should tremble whenever he writes the names of Zulus, unless he has some idea of what Bântu grammar means.

In arguing so far, I have carefully kept to the historical point of view, though I am well aware that the principal traits in the imaginary picture of primitive man are generally taken from a very different source. We are so made that for everything that comes before us we have to postulate a cause and a beginning. We therefore postulate a cause and a beginning for man. The ethnologist is not concerned with the first cause of man, but he cannot resist the craving of his mind to know at least the beginning of man.

Most ethnologists used to hold that, as each individual begins as a child, mankind also began as a child; and they imagined that a careful observation of the modern child would give them some idea of the character of the primeval child. Much ingenuity has been spent on this subject since the days of Voltaire, and many amusing books have been the result, till it was seen at last that the modern baby and the primeval baby have nothing in common but the name, not even a mother or a nurse.

It is chiefly due to Darwin and to the new impulse which he gave to the theory of evolution that this line of argument was abandoned as hopeless. Darwin boldly asked the question whose child the primeval human baby could have been, and he answered it by representing the human baby as the child of non-human parents. Admitting even the possibility of this transitio in aliud genus, which the most honest of Darwin's followers strenuously deny, what should we gain by this for our purpose—namely, for knowing the primitive state of man, the earliest glimmerings of the human intellect? Our difficulties would remain exactly the same, only pushed back a little further.

Disappointing as it may sound, the fact must be faced, nevertheless, that our reasoning faculties, wonderful as they are, break down completely before all problems concerning the origin of things. We may imagine, we may believe, anything we like about the first man; we can know absolutely nothing. If we trace him back to a primeval cell, the primeval cell that could become a man is more mysterious by far than the man that was evolved from a cell. If we trace him back to a primeval pro-anthropos, the pro-anthropos is more unintelligible to us than even the protanthropos would be. If we trace back the whole solar system to a rotating nebula, that wonderful nebula which by evolution and revolution could become an inhabitable universe is, again, far more mysterious than the universe itself.

The lesson that there are limits to our knowledge is an old lesson, but it has to be taught again and again. It was taught by Buddha, it was taught by Socrates, and it was taught for the last time in the most powerful manner by Kant. Philosophy has been called the knowledge of our knowledge; it might be called more truly the knowledge of our ignorance, or, to adopt the more moderate language of Kant, the knowledge of the limits of our knowledge.—Nineteenth Century.

LE BONHOMME CORNEILLE.

The Marquis de Dangeau wrote, in his journal for the 1st of October, 1684: “Aujourd'hui est mort le bonhomme Corneille.” The illustrious dramatist was an old man, for he had been born in 1606. He was a good old fellow in his way, being always an honest and upright man, though the appellation “le bonhomme” was less frequently given to him than to La Fontaine.

Had it been as much the fashion fifty years ago as now to honor great men by anniversaries, in the year 1836 a more gracious homage might have been paid to the author of Le Cid. At Christmastime in that year this play burst upon Paris. As a bombshell carries with it destruction, the Cid gave sudden and unexpected delight to all who saw it. It is the first of French tragedies that has left a mark; no earlier tragedy is now generally remembered. Corneille woke up to find himself famous. It appears that, though he was by no means a novice, he was as much astonished as anyone at the great success of his play. The Court liked it, and the town liked it. It was at once translated into many languages. In France people learnt passages of it by heart, and for a while there was a popular saying, “Cela est beau comme le Cid.” If the good folk in Paris had only bethought themselves in 1836 of celebrating the bi-centenary of the appearance of the Cid the event would have sounded happier than of now celebrating the author's death. But fashion rules much in this world. It has not yet become fashionable to recollect the date of a great man's great work—fifty years ago it had not become fashionable to have centenaries at all; so that now, all other excuses failing, we must seize upon the bi-centenary of Corneille's death as a date upon which to honor him. Let us hope that on the 6th of June, 1906, the ter-centenary of his birth, a more joyful note may be sung.

We have said that Pierre Corneille was a good old fellow in his way, but it was his misfortune that his way was not more like that of other men. He was very poor during the last ten or twelve years of his life. He walked out one day with a friend, and went into a shop to have his shoe mended. During the operation he sat down upon a plank, his friend sitting beside him. After the cobbler had finished his job Corneille took from his purse three bits of money to pay for his shoe, and when the two gentlemen got home Corneille's friend offered him his purse, but he declined all assistance. Corneille was of a proud and independent nature. He is reported to have said of himself, “Je suis saoûl de gloire, mais affamé d'argent.” He has been accused of avarice—unjustly, we think—because he tried to get as much money as he could for his plays. If a man wants money he will try to obtain that which he thinks should belong to him. And if he wants it badly, his high notions of dignity—if it be only mock dignity—will go to the wall. No fine gentleman nowadays would think it beneath him to take £100 from a publisher or from a theatrical manager after it had been fairly earned. Some ask for their £100 before it has been earned. Two hundred years ago a poet was supposed to be paid with honor and glory, but, unfortunately for himself, Corneille wanted more solid acknowledgment. And two hundred years ago the rights of authorship were not so well understood as now. In France, as in England, very few men could have lived by their pen alone. It is true that the dramatists were among the most fortunate, but many years had elapsed since Corneille's plays had been popular at the theatre. In 1670 Molière, as theatrical manager, had given him 2,000 francs for a piece. This was considered a large sum, and it may be doubted if Molière's company ever got back their money. The play was Tite et Bérénice, and it was played alternately with Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. We may judge which of the two plays we should like to see best. Corneille had to make the most of his 2,000 francs, for his pension, supposed to be paid to him every year from the Civil List, was always delayed. The year was made to have fifteen months! Sometimes the pension was not paid at all. So that poor Corneille was hard pressed for money in the latter years of his life, from 1672 to 1684, while his years of greatest triumph had been from 1636 to 1642. And he had small resources except what had come to him from writing. His two sons went into the army, and he had to provide for them at a time when his payments from the theatre were diminishing. There is no evidence which should make us think he was avaricious or greedy for money.

In his manner Corneille was apt to be awkward and ungainly. A contemporary says that when he first saw him he took him for a tradesman at Rouen. Rouen was his birthplace, and there he lived until his avocations compelled him, against his will, to live in Paris. Like La Fontaine, he made a poor figure in society. He did not talk well. He was not good company, and his friends were bound to confess that he was rather a bore. Those who knew him well enough would hint to him his defects, at which he would smile, and say, “I am none the less Pierre Corneille.” But his physiognomy, when observed, was far from commonplace. His nephew, Fontenelle, says of him: “His face was pleasant enough; a large nose, a good mouth, his expression lively, and his features strongly marked and fit to be transmitted to posterity in a medal or in a bust.” Corneille begins a letter to Pellisson with the following verses, describing himself:

This is a charming little bit of autobiography. And in the same letter, after the verses, the old poet says, “My poetry left me at the same time as my teeth.”

All this he writes, laughing in his sleeve. But often enough he was melancholy and depressed. Again we quote from Fontenelle: “Corneille was of a melancholy temperament. He required stronger emotions to make him hopeful and happy than to make him mournful or despondent. His manner was brusque, and sometimes rude in appearance, but at bottom he was very easy to live with, and he was affectionate and full of friendliness.” When he heard of large sums of money being given to other men for their plays, for pieces that the world liked perhaps better than his own, he got unhappy, for he felt that his glory was departing from him. Need we go back two hundred years to find instances of men who have become unhappy from similar causes? There are many such in London and in Paris at this moment. Early in his career, before the days of the Cid, he was proud of his calling. He gloried in being one of the dramatic authors of his time. He says:—

Then he had the ball at his feet, and all the world was before him. He had just made his name, and was honored by Richelieu—being appointed one of his five paid authors. But minister and poet did not like each other. The autocrat was in something of the same position towards his inferior as is the big boy towards the little boy who gets above him at school. The big boy wanted to thrash the little boy, and the little boy wouldn't have it; but at last he had to suffer for his precociousness. The big boy summoned other little boys to his assistance, and made them administer chastisement to the offender. This was the examination of the Cid by the Academy.

Corneille was a voluminous writer. He wrote nearly as many plays as Shakespeare, but his later ones are not equal to those of his best days. And he wrote a translation in verse of the Imitatione Christi. This was a pecuniary success. The book was bought and eagerly read, though now it is rarely taken down from the shelf. But his prose, unlike Racine's, which charms by its grace, is insignificant. And, unlike Racine, his speech when he was received into the French Academy was dull, and disappointed everybody. An Academical reception is one of the occasions in which Frenchmen have always expected that the recipient of honor should distinguish himself. But it was not in Corneille's power to please his audience by making a speech. We need not be too heavy upon him because his glory was not universal. As he said of himself, he was none the less Pierre Corneille. Readers have generally extolled Corneille too highly, or have not given him his due praise. This is partly from the fact that after his great success he wrote much that was unworthy of his former self; and partly, we believe at least, that even in his best plays he is too spasmodic. His fine lines come out too much by starts, amidst much that is uninteresting. The famous “Qu'il mourût” (Horace, Act III., sc. 6) is very grand, and the next line, though not English in sentiment, is fine. But the four succeeding lines are washy, and take away from the dignity of what has just gone before. Instinctively Corneille was a dramatist, and had it not been for the laws of the unities which bound him down to conventional and unwise rules, he would in all probability have risen higher in the world's esteem. He was also a poet, having the gift of poetical expression more at his command than the larger measure of composition in prose. His lines are often sweet and very stirring, for he was moved towards his subject with a true feeling of poetic chivalry. None of his lines is more quoted than one in which he proudly spoke of himself:—

CHARLES DICKENS AT HOME.
With Especial Reference to His Relations with Children.

Charles Dickens was a very little and very sickly boy, but he had always the belief that this circumstance had brought to him the inestimable advantage of having greatly inclined him to reading.

When money troubles came upon his parents, the poor little fellow was taken away from school and kept for some time at an occupation most distasteful to him, with every surrounding that could jar on sensitive and refined feelings. But the great hardship, and the one which he felt most acutely, was the want of the companionship of boys of his own age. A few years later on we read in “Mr. Forster's Life” a schoolfellow's description of Charles Dickens: “A healthy-looking boy, small, but well-built, with a more than usual flow of spirits, inclining to harmless fun, seldom, if never, I think, to mischief. He usually held his head more erect than lads ordinarily do, and there was a general smartness about him.” This is also a very good personal description of the man.

I have never heard him refer in any way to his own childish days, excepting in one instance, when he would tell the story of how, when he lived at Chatham he and his father often passed Gad's Hill in their walks, and what an admiration he had for the red-brick house with its beautiful old cedar trees, and how it seemed to him to be larger and finer than any other house; and how his father would tell him that if he were to be very persevering and were to work hard he might perhaps some day come to live in it. I have heard him tell this story over and over again, when he had become the possessor of the very place which had taken such a hold upon his childish affections. Beyond this, I cannot recall a single instance of any allusion being made by him to his own early childhood.

He believed the power of observation in very young children to be close and accurate, and he thought that the recollection of most of us could go further back than we supposed. I do not know how far my own memory may carry me back, but I have no remembrance of my childhood which is not immediately associated with him.

He had a wonderful attraction for children and a quick perception of their character and disposition; a most winning and easy way with them, full of fun, but also of a graver sympathy with their many small troubles and perplexities, which made them recognise a friend in him at once.

I have often seen mere babies, who would look at no other stranger present, put out their tiny arms to him with unbounded confidence, or place a small hand in his and trot away with him, quite proud and contented at having found such a companion; and although with his own children he had sometimes a sterner manner than he had with others, there was not one of them who feared to go to him for help and advice, knowing well that there was no trouble too trivial to claim his attention, and that in him they would always find unvarying justice and love. When any treat had to be asked for, the second little daughter, always a pet of her father's, was pushed into his study by the other children, and always returned triumphant. He wrote special prayers for us as soon as we could speak, interested himself in our lessons, would give prizes for industry, for punctuality, for neat and unblotted copy-books. A word of commendation from him was indeed most highly cherished, and would set our hearts glowing with pride and pleasure.

His study, to us children, was rather a mysterious and awe-inspiring chamber, and while he was at work no one was allowed to enter it. We little ones had to pass the door as quietly as possible, and our little tongues left off chattering. But at no time through his busy life was he too busy to think of us, to amuse us, or to interest himself in all that concerned us. Ever since I can remember anything I remember him as the good genius of the house, and as its happy, bright, and funny genius. He had a peculiar tone of voice and way of speaking for each of his children, who could tell, without being called by name which was the one addressed. He had funny songs which he used to sing to them before they went to bed. One in particular, about an old man who caught cold and rheumatism while sitting in an omnibus, was a great favorite, and as it was accompanied by sneezes, coughs, and gesticulations, it had to be sung over and over again before the small audience was satisfied.

I can see him now, through the mist of years, with a child nearly always on his knee at this time of the evening, his bright and beautiful eyes full of life and fun. I can hear his clear sweet voice as he sang to those children as if he had no other occupation in the world but to amuse them; and when they grew older, and were able to act little plays, it was their father himself, who was teacher, manager, and prompter to the infant amateurs. These theatricals were undertaken as earnestly and seriously as were those of the grown up people. He would teach the children their parts separately; what to do and how to do it, acting himself for their edification. At one moment he would be the dragon in “Fortunio,” at the next one of the seven servants, then a jockey—played by the youngest child, whose little legs had much difficulty to get into the tiny top-boots—until he had taken every part in the play.

As with his grown-up company of actors, so with his juvenile company, did his own earnestness and activity work upon them and affect each personally. The shyest and most awkward child would come out quite brilliantly under his patient and always encouraging training.

At the juvenile parties he was always the ruling spirit. He had acquired by degrees an excellent collection of conjuring tricks, and on Twelfth Night—his eldest son's birthday—he would very often, dressed as a magician, give a conjuring entertainment, when a little figure which appeared from a wonderful and mysterious bag, and which was supposed to be a personal friend of the conjuror, would greatly delight the audience by his funny stories, his eccentric voice and way of speaking, and by his miraculous appearances and disappearances. Of course a plum pudding was made in a hat, and was always one of the great successes of the evening. I have seen many such puddings, but no other conjurer has been able to put into a pudding all the love, sympathy, fun, and thorough enjoyment which seemed to come from the hands of this great magician. Then, when supper time came, he would be everywhere at once, serving, cutting up the great twelfth cake, dispensing the bonbons, proposing toasts, and calling upon first one child and then another for a song or recitation. How eager the little faces looked for each turn to come round, and how they would blush and brighten up when the magician's eyes looked their way!

One year, before a Twelfth Night dance, when his two daughters were quite tiny girls, he took it into his head that they must teach him and his friend John Leech the polka. The lessons were begun as soon as thought of, and continued for some time. It must have been rather a funny sight to see the two small children teaching those two men—Mr. Leech was over six feet—to dance, all four as solemn and staid as possible.

As in everything he undertook, so in this instance, did Charles Dickens throw his whole heart into the dance. No one could have taken more pains than he did, or have been more eager and anxious, or more conscientious about steps and time than he was. And often, after the lesson was over, he would jump up and have a practice by himself. When the night of the party came both the small dancing mistresses felt anxious and nervous. I know that the heart of one beat very fast when the moment for starting off arrived. But both pupils acquitted themselves perfectly, and were the admiration of all beholders.

Sir Roger de Coverley was always the finale to those dances, and was a special favorite of Charles Dickens, who kept it up as long as possible, and was as unflagging in his dancing enthusiasm as was his own “Fizziwig” in his.

There can be but little doubt that the children who came to those parties, and who have lived to grow up to be men and women, remember them as something bright and sunny in their young lives, and must always retain a loving feeling for their kind and genial host.

In those early days when he was living in Devonshire Terrace, his children were quite babies. And when he paid his first visit to America—accompanied by Mrs. Dickens—they were left under the care of some relations and friends. Anyone reading “The Letters of Charles Dickens” must be touched by his frequent allusions to these children, and by the love and tenderness expressed in his longings to see them again.

I can recall but very little of those days. I can remember our being obliged to spend much of the time at the house of a dear and good friend, but where the children of the house were very severely and sternly brought up. And I can remember how my little sister used to cry whenever she had to go there. I have also a vague remembrance of the return of the travellers, and of being lifted up to a gate and kissing my father through the bars. I do not know how the gate came to be shut, but imagine that he, in his impatience and eagerness to see us again, must have jumped out of the carriage before there was time for the gate to be opened.

I cannot at all recall his appearance at this time, but know from old portraits that his face was beautiful. I think he was fond of dress, and must have been rather a dandy in his way. Carrying my memory further on, I can remember him as very handsome. He had a most beautiful mouth, sensitive, strong, and full of character. This was, unfortunately, hidden when he took to wearing—some years afterwards—a beard and mustache. But this is the only alteration I can remember in him, as to me his face never seemed to change at all. He had always an active, young, and boyish-looking figure, and a way of holding his head a little thrown back, which was very characteristic. This carriage of the head, and his manner altogether, are exactly inherited by one of his sons.

Charles Dickens was always a great walker, but in these days he rode and drove more than he did in later years. He was fond of the game of battledore and shuttlecock, and used constantly to play with friends on summer evenings. There is a little drawing by the late Daniel Maclise, where a shuttlecock is to be seen in the air. This is suggestive of many and many a pleasant evening in the garden, which was shut in all round by a high wall, and where, in summer time, a tent was always put up, and where, after dinner the family would adjourn for “dessert,” This was always considered by us a special treat.

As the children grew older, there were evenings when they would be allowed to drive out into the country, and then get out of the carriage and walk with “Papa.” It seems now as if the wild flowers which used to be gathered on those evenings in the country lanes were sweeter and more beautiful than any which grow nowadays! The very lanes have all disappeared and grown into houses. But the memory of the one who originated those treats, and who was the good spirit of the time, can never be blotted out.

Charles Dickens brought a little white Havannah spaniel with him from America, and from that time there were always various pets about the house. In particular there was an eagle and a raven. The eagle had a sort of grotto made for him in the garden, to which he was chained, and being chained he was not quite such an object of terror to the children as the raven was. This raven, with its mischievous nature, delighted in frightening them. One of the little daughters had very chubby, rosy legs, and the raven used to run after and peck at them, until poor “Tatie's leds” became a constant subject for commiseration. Yet the raven was a great source of amusement to the family, and there were countless funny stories about him. He was especially wicked to the eagle; as soon as his food was brought to him, the raven would swoop down upon it, take it just beyond the eagle's reach, mount guard over it, dancing round it, and chuckling. When he considered he had tantalised the poor bird enough, he would eat the food as deliberately and slowly as possible, and then hop away perfectly contented with himself. He was not the celebrated Grip of “Barnaby Rudge,” but was given after the death of that bird.

In bringing up his children, Charles Dickens was always most anxious to impress upon them that as long as they were honest and truthful, so would they always be sure of having justice done to them. To show how strongly he felt about this, and what a horror he had of their being frightened, or in any way unnecessarily intimidated, his own words shall be quoted:—

“In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may only be small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter.” And again:—“It would be difficult to overstate the intensity and accuracy of an intelligent child's observation. At that impressible time of life, it must sometimes produce a fixed impression. If the fixed impression be of an object terrible to the child, it will be (for want of reasoning upon) inseparable from great fear. Force the child at such a time, be Spartan with it, send it into the dark against its will, and you had better murder it.”

He was always tender with us, as I have said, in our small troubles and trials. When the time came for the eldest son to be sent to a boarding-school, there was great grief in the nursery at Devonshire Terrace, and he came unexpectedly upon one of his daughters who was putting away some school-books, and crying bitterly at the time. To him the separation could not have seemed such a terrible one, as the boy was certainly to come home once a month, if not once a week. But he soothed the weeping child, and reasoned with her, using much the same arguments as he did years afterwards, when the well-beloved Plorn went to Australia—namely, that these partings were “Hard, hard things, but must be borne,” until at last the sobs ceased, and the poor aching little heart had found consolation in his loving sympathy.

There are so many people, good, kind, and affectionate, but who can not remember that they once were children themselves, and looked out upon the world with a child's eyes only!

A third daughter was born in Devonshire Terrace, but only lived to be nine months old. Her death was very sudden, and happened while Charles Dickens was presiding at a public dinner. He had been playing with the baby before starting for the dinner, and the little thing was then as well and as bright as possible.

An evening or two after her death, some beautiful flowers were sent and were brought into the study, and the father was about to take them upstairs and place them on the little dead baby, when he suddenly gave away completely. It is always very terrible to see a man weep; but to see your own father weep, and to see this for the first time as a child, fills you with a curious awe.

When the grave where the little Dora was buried was opened, a few years ago, and the tiny coffin was seen lying at the bottom of it, the remembrance of that evening in the study at Devonshire Terrace was fresh in the minds of some of those who were standing at the grave.

It was always a great honor and delight to any of the children to have any special present from “Papa,” and on the occasion of a daughter's birthday a watch had been promised, and the day was eagerly looked forward to by the whole of the family. When the morning arrived, Charles Dickens was not well, and was unable to get up to breakfast, but the little girl was sent for, and went up to his bedside in a state of trembling and anxious expectation. He put his arms round her and kissed her, wishing her “Many happy returns of the day,” and took a case from under his pillow and opened it. But when she saw first a gold watch, and then when he turned it and showed an enamelled back, with her initials also in enamel, it was many seconds before the joyful Oh! could be gasped out; but when it did come, and she met her father's eyes, I don't think they were freer from a certain sort of moisture than were those of the happy and delighted child.

When the move was made from Devonshire Terrace to Tavistock House—a far larger and handsomer house than the old home—Charles Dickens promised his daughters a better bedroom than they ever had before, and told them that he should choose “the brightest of papers” for it, but that they were not to see “the gorgeous apartment” until it was ready for their use. But when the time came for the move, and the two girls were shown their room, it surpassed even their expectations. They found it full of love and thoughtful care, and as pretty and as fresh as their hearts could desire, and with not a single thing in it which had not been expressly chosen for them, or planned by their father. The wall-paper was covered with wild-flowers, the two little iron bedsteads were hung with a flowery chintz. There were two toilet-tables, two writing-tables, two easy chairs, etc., etc., all so pretty and elegant, and this in the days when bedrooms were not, as a rule, so luxurious as they are now.

Notwithstanding his constant and arduous work, he was never too busy to be unmindful of the comfort and welfare of those about him, and there was not a corner in any of his homes, from kitchen to garret, which was not constantly inspected by him, and which did not boast of some of his neat and orderly contrivances. We used to laugh at him sometimes and say we believed that he was personally acquainted with every nail in the house.

It was in this home, some few years later, that the first grown-up theatricals were given. And these theatricals were very remarkable, in that nearly every part was filled by some celebrated man in either literature or art.

Besides being a really great actor, Charles Dickens as a manager was quite incomparable. His “company” was as well trained as any first-class professional company, and although always kind and pleasant, he was feared and looked up to by every member of his company. The rehearsals meant business and hard work, and sometimes even tears to a few, when all did not go quite satisfactorily. Each one knew that there could be no trifling, no playing at work. As in the children's performances so in these later ones did he know every part, and enter heart and soul into each character. If any new idea came into his head, he would at once propound it to the actor or actress, who, looking upon that earnest face and active figure, would do his or her very best to gain a managerial smile of approval.

He had a temporary theatre built out into the garden, and the scenes were painted by some of the greatest scene-painters of the day. A drop-scene, representing Eddystone lighthouse, by the late Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., was afterwards framed and covered with glass, and hung in the entrance hall of Gad's Hill.

In the play called “The Lighthouse,” written by Mr. Wilkie Collins, the great effect at the end of an act was to come from a storm, and the rehearsing of this storm was a very serious matter indeed. There was a long wooden box with peas in it, to be moved slowly up and down to represent rain—a wheel to be turned for wind—a piece of oilcloth to be dashed upon oilcloth and slowly dragged away, for the waves coming up and then receding, carrying the pebbles along with them—a heavy weight rolled about upon the floor above the stage, for thunder, etc., etc.

At the time of the storm the manager's part kept him on the stage, but during rehearsal he somehow or other managed to be in the hall where the storm was worked, as well as on the stage, for he sometimes appeared with the rain, sometimes with the wind, sometimes with the thunder, until he had seen each separate part made perfect. This storm was pronounced by the audience a most wonderful success. I know there was such a noise “behind the scenes” that we could not hear ourselves speak, and it was most amusing to watch all the actors in their sailor dresses and their various “make-ups,” gravely and solemnly pounding away at these raw materials.

Then the suppers after these evenings were so delightful! Many and many of the company, besides the dear manager, have passed away, but many still remain to remember them.

Until he came into possession of Gad's Hill, Charles Dickens was in the habit of removing his whole household to some seaside place every summer. For many years Broadstairs was the favorite spot, and for some seasons he rented a house there, called Fort House. It stood on a hill surrounded by a nice garden, a little out of the town, and close to the cliff, and was a home of which he was very fond. Since those days the name of it has been changed to Bleak House. During these seaside visits he would take long walks, in all weathers—and always accompanied by one faithful friend and companion—and would get as brown and as weather-beaten as any of the sailors about, of whom he was the special favorite. I think he had some of the sailor element in himself. One always hears of sailors being so neat, handy, and tidy, and he possessed all these qualities to a wonderful extent. When a sea captain retires, his garden is always the trimmest about, the gates are painted a bright green, and of course he puts up a flag-staff. The garden at Gad's Hill was the trimmest and the neatest, green paint was on every place where it could possibly be put, and the flag staff had an endless supply of flags.

There was one year spent in Italy, when the children were still very young, and another year in Switzerland, at Lausanne; but after Broadstairs, Boulogne became the favorite watering-place. It was here, in a charming villa, quite out of the town, that he and his youngest son, “The Plorn,” would wander about the garden together admiring the flowers, the little fellow being taught to show his admiration by holding up his tiny arms. It was a pretty sight to watch them down the long avenue, the baby looking so sweet in its white frock and blue ribbons, either carried in his father's arms, or toddling by his side with his little hand in his, and a most perfect understanding between them! There were always anecdotes to be told of the Plorn after these walks, when his father invariably wound up with the assertion that he was “a noble boy.” Being the youngest of the family, he was made a great pet of, especially by his father, and was kept longer at home than any of his brothers had been.

Charles Dickens writes to his sister-in-law in the year 1856:—“Kiss the Plorn for me, and expound to him that I am always looking forward to meeting him again, among the birds and flowers in the garden on the side of the hill at Boulogne.” And when he had to part with this son in 1868, he says in a letter to a friend, “Poor Plorn is gone to Australia. It was a hard parting at the last. He seemed to me to become once more my youngest and favorite little child as the day drew near, and I did not think I could have been so shaken.” The housekeeper at his office, who saw him after he had taken leave of the boy, told “how she had never seen the master so upset, and that when she asked him how Mr. Edward went off he burst into tears, and couldn't answer her a word.”

During the years spent at Tavistock House one of his daughters was, for a time, a great invalid, and after a worse attack of illness than usual her father suggested that she should be carried as far as the study, and lie on the sofa there, while he was at work. This was of course considered an immense privilege, and even if she had not felt as weak and ill as she did, she would have been bound to remain as still and quiet as possible. For some time there was no sound to be heard in the room but the rapid working of the pen, when suddenly he jumped up, went to the looking-glass, rushed back to his writing-table and jotted down a few words; back to the glass again, this time talking to his own reflection, or rather to the simulated expression he saw there, and was trying to catch before drawing it in words, then back again to his writing. After a little he got up again, and stood with his back to the glass, talking softly and rapidly for a long time, then looking at his daughter, but certainly never seeing her, then once more back to his table, and to steady writing until luncheon time. It was a curious experience, and a wonderful thing to see him throwing himself so entirely out of himself and into the character he was writing about. His daughter has very seldom mentioned this incident, feeling as if it would be almost a breach of confidence to do so. But in these reminiscences of her father, she considers it only right that this experience should be mentioned, showing as it does his characteristic earnestness and method of work.

Often, after a hard morning's writing, when he has been alone with his family, and no visitors in the house, he has come in to luncheon and gone through the meal without uttering a word, and then has gone back again to the work in which he was so completely absorbed. Then again, there have been times when his nerves have been strung up to such a pitch that any sudden noise, such as the dropping of a spoon, or the clatter of a plate, seemed to cause him real agony. He never could bear the least noise when he was writing, and waged a fierce war against all organ-grinders, bands, etc.

In 1856 the purchase of Gad's Hill was made. Charles Dickens had never been inside the house until it was his own. For once we may hope and believe that a childish dream was realised, for certainly some of the happiest years of his home-life were spent in the house he had so coveted and admired when he was quite a small boy. “It has never been to me like any other house,” were his own words.

For the first three years, Gad's Hill was only used by him as a summer residence, but after the sale of Tavistock House, in 1860, it became his home; and from this time, until the year of his death, his great delight was to make “the little freehold” as comfortable, complete, and pretty as possible. Every year he had some “bright idea,” or some contemplated “wonderful improvement” to propound to us. And it became quite a joke between him and his youngest daughter—who was constantly at Gad's Hill—as to what the next improvement was to be. These additions and alterations gave him endless amusement and delight, and he would watch the growing of each one with the utmost eagerness and impatience. The most important out-door “improvement” he made, was a tunnel to connect the garden with the shrubbery, which lay on the opposite side of the high road, and could only be approached by leaving the garden, crossing the road, and unlocking a gate. The work of excavation began, of course from each side, and on the day when it was supposed that the picks would meet and the light appear, Charles Dickens was so excited that he had to “knock off work,” and stood for hours waiting for this consummation, and when at last it did come to pass, the workmen were all “treated,” and there was a general jubilee. This “improvement” was a great success, for the shrubbery was a nice addition to the garden, and moreover in it, facing the road, grew two very large and beautiful cedar-trees. Some little time after Monsieur Fechter sent his friend a two-roomed châlet, which was placed in the shrubbery. The upper room was prettily furnished, and fitted all round with looking-glasses to reflect the view, and was used by Charles Dickens as a study throughout the summer. He had a passion for light, bright colors, and looking-glass. When he built a new drawing-room he had two mirrors sunk into the wall opposite each other, which, being so placed, gave the effect of an endless corridor. I do not remember how many rooms could thus be counted, but he would often call some of us, and ask if we could make out another room, as he certainly could.

For one “improvement” he had looking-glass put into each panel of the dining-room door, and showing it to his youngest daughter said, with great pride, “Now, what do you say to this, Katie?” She laughed and said, “Well, really, papa, I think when you're an angel your wings will be made of looking-glass, and your crown of scarlet geraniums!”

He loved all flowers, but especially bright flowers, and scarlet geraniums were his favorite of all. There were two large beds of these on the front lawn, and when they were fully out, making one scarlet mass, there was blaze enough to satisfy even him. Even in dress he was fond of a great deal of color, and the dress of a friend who came to his daughter's wedding quite delighted him because it was trimmed with a profusion of cherry-colored ribbon. He used constantly to speak about it afterwards in terms of the highest admiration.

The large dogs at Gad's Hill were quite a feature of the place, and were also rather a subject of dread to outsiders. But this was desirable, as the house really required protection, standing as it did on the high road, which was frequented by tramps of a wild and low order, who, in the hopping season, were sometimes even dangerous; and the dogs, though as gentle as possible to their own people, knew that they were the guardians of the place, and were terribly fierce to all intruders. Linda—a St. Bernard, and a beautiful specimen of that breed—had been as a puppy living in the garden at Tavistock House before she was taken to Gad's Hill. She and Turk, a mastiff, were constant companions in all their master's walks. When he was away from home, and the ladies of the family were out alone with the dogs, Turk would at once feel the responsibility of his position, and guard them with unusual devotion, giving up all play in an instant when he happened to see any suspicious-looking figure approaching; and he never made a mistake in discovering the tramp. He would then keep on the outside of the road, close to his mistresses, with an ominous turning up of the lip, and with anything but the usually mild expression in his beautiful large brown eyes, and he would give many a look back before he thought it safe to be off again on his own account. Of all the large dogs— and there were many at different times—these two were the best loved by their dear master.

Mrs. Bouncer, a little white Pomeranian with black eyes and nose, the very sweetest and most bewitching of her sex, was a present to the eldest daughter, and was brought by her, a puppy of only six weeks old, to Tavistock House. “The boys,” knowing that the little dog was to arrive, were ready to receive their sister at the door, and escorted her, in a tremendous state of excitement, up to the study. But when the little creature was put down on the floor to be exhibited to Charles Dickens, and showed her pretty figure and little bushy tail curling tightly over her back, they could keep quiet no longer, but fairly screamed and danced with delight. From that moment he took to the little dog and made a pet of her, and it was he who gave her the name of Mrs. Bouncer. He delighted to see her out with the large dogs, because she looked “so preposterously small” by the side of them. He had a peculiar voice and way of speaking for her, which she knew perfectly well and would respond to at once, running to him from any part of the house or garden directly she heard the call. To be stroked with a foot had great fascinations for Mrs. Bouncer, and my father would often and often take off his boot of an evening and sit stroking the little creature while he read or smoked for an hour together. And although there were times, I fear, when her sharp bark must have irritated him, there never was an angry word for Bouncer.

Then there was Dick, the eldest daughter's canary, another important member of the household, who came out of his cage every morning at breakfast time and hopped about the table, pecking away at anything he had a fancy for, and perching upon the heads or shoulders of those present. Occasionally he would have naughty fits, when he would actually dare to peck his master's cheek. He took strong likes and dislikes, loving some people and really hating others. But a word from his mistress called him to order at once, and he would come to her when so called from any part of the room. After she had been away from home she always on her return went to the room where Dick lived and put her head just inside the door. At the very sight of her the bird would fly to the corner of his cage and sing as if his little throat would burst. Charles Dickens constantly followed his daughter and peeped into the room behind her, just to see Dick's rapturous reception of his mistress. When this pet bird died he had him buried in the garden, and a rose-tree planted over his grave, and wrote his epitaph:—

While Dick lived cats were of course tabooed, and were never allowed about the house; but after his death a white kitten called Williamina was given to one of the family, and she and her numerous offspring had a happy home at Gad's Hill.

This cat ingratiated herself into favor with every one in the house, but she was particularly devoted to the master. Once, after a family of kittens had been born, she had a fancy that they should live in the study. So she brought them up, one by one, from the kitchen floor, where a comfortable bed had been provided for them, and deposited them in a corner of the study. They were taken down stairs by order of the master, who said he really could not allow the kittens to be in his room. Williamina tried again, but again with the same result. But when the third time she carried a kitten up the stairs into the hall, and from there to the study window, jumping in with it in her mouth, and laying it at her master's feet, until the whole family were at last before him, and she herself sat down beside them and gave him an imploring look, he could resist no longer, and Williamina carried the day. As the kittens grew up they became very rampagious, and swarmed up the curtains and played on the writing-table, and scampered among the book-shelves, and made such a noise as was never heard in the study before. But the same spirit which influenced the whole house must have been brought to bear upon those noisy little creatures to keep them still and quiet when necessary, for they were never complained of, and they were never turned out of the study until the time came for giving them away and finding good homes for them. One kitten was kept, and, being a very exceptional cat, deserves to be specially mentioned. Being deaf, he had no name given him, but was called by the servants “the master's cat,” in consequence of his devotion to him. He was always with his master, and used to follow him about the garden and sit with him while he was writing. One evening they were left together, the ladies of the house having gone to a ball in the neighborhood. Charles Dickens was reading at a small table on which a lighted candle was placed, when suddenly the candle went out. He was much interested in his book, relighted the candle, gave a pat to the cat, who he noticed was looking up at him with a most pathetic expression, and went on with his reading. A few minutes afterwards, the light getting dim, he looked up and was in time to see Puss deliberately put out the candle with his paw, and then gaze again appealingly at his master. This second appeal was understood, and had the desired effect. The book was shut, and Puss was made a fuss with and amused till bed-time. His master was full of this anecdote when we all met in the morning.

During the summer months there was a constant succession of visitors at Gad's Hill, with picnics, long drives, and much happy holiday-making. At these picnics there was a frequent request to this lover of light and color of “Please let us have the luncheon in the shade at any rate.” He came to his daughter one day and said he had “a capital idea” about picnic luncheons. He wished each person to have his or her own ration neatly done up in one parcel, to consist of a mutton pie, a hard-boiled egg, a roll, a piece of butter, and a packet of salt. Of course this idea was faithfully carried out, but was not always the rule, as when the choice of food was put to the vote, it was found that many people cared neither for mutton-pie nor hard-boiled egg. But “the capital idea” of separate rations was always followed as closely as possible.

Charles Dickens was a most delightful and genial host, had the power of putting the shyest people at ease with him at once, and had a charm in his manner peculiarly his own and quite indescribable. The charm was always there whether he was grave or gay, whether in his very funniest or in his most serious and earnest mood.

He was a strict master in the way of insisting upon everything being done perfectly and exactly as he desired, but, on the other hand, was most kind, just, and considerate.

His punctuality was a remarkable characteristic, and visitors used to wonder how it was that everything was done to the very minute, “almost by clockwork,” as some of them would remark.

It is a common saying now in the family of some dear friends, where punctuality is not quite so well observed, “What would Mr. Dickens have said to this?” or, “Ah! my dear child, I wish you could have been at Gad's Hill to learn what punctuality means!”

Charles Dickens was very fond of music, and not only of classical music. He loved national airs, old tunes, songs, and ballads, and was easily moved by anything pathetic in a song or tune, and was never tired of hearing his special favorites sung or played. He used to like to have music of an evening, and duets used to be played for hours together, while he would read or walk up and down the room. A member of his family was singing a ballad one evening while he was apparently deep in his book, when he suddenly got up, saying, “You don't make enough of that word,” and he sat down by the piano, showed her the way in which he wished it to be emphasized, and did not leave the instrument until it had been sung to his satisfaction. Whenever this song was sung, which it often was, as it became a favorite with him, he would always listen for that word, with his head a little on one side, as much as to say, “I wonder if she will remember.”

There was a large meadow at the back of the garden in which, during the summer-time, many cricket matches were held. Although never playing himself, he delighted in the game, and would sit in his tent, keeping score for one side, the whole day long. He never took to croquet; but had lawn-tennis been played in the Gad's Hill days, he would certainly have enjoyed it. He liked American bowls, at which he used constantly to play with his male guests. For one of his “improvements” he had turned a waste piece of land into a croquet-ground and bowling-green.

In the meadow he used to practice many of his “readings;” and any stranger passing down the lane and seeing him gesticulating and hearing him talking, laughing, and sometimes it may be weeping, must surely have thought him out of his mind! The getting up of these “readings” gave him an immense amount of labor and fatigue, and the sorrowful parts tried him greatly. For instance, in the reading of “Little Dombey,” it was hard work for him so to steel his heart as to be able to read the death without breaking down or displaying too much emotion. He often told how much he suffered over this story, and how it would have been impossible for him to have gone through with it had he not kept constantly before his eyes the picture of his own Plorn alive and strong and well.

His great neatness and tidiness have already been alluded to, as also his wonderful sense of order. The first thing he did every morning, before going to work, was to make a complete circuit of the garden, and then to go over the whole house, to see that everything was in its place. And this was also the first thing he did upon his return home, after long absence. A more thoroughly orderly nature never existed. And it must have been through this gift of order that he was enabled to make time—notwithstanding any amount of work—to give to the minutest household details. Before a dinner-party the menu was always submitted to him for approval, and he always made a neat little plan of the table, with the names of the guests marked in their respective places, and a list of “who was to take in who” to dinner, and had constantly some “bright idea” or other as to the arrangement of the table or the rooms.

Among his many attributes, that of a doctor must not be forgotten. He was invaluable in a sick room, or in any sudden emergency; always quiet, always cheerful, always useful and skilful, always doing the right thing, so that his very presence seemed to bring comfort and help. From his children's earliest days his visits, during any time of sickness, were eagerly longed for and believed in, as doing more good than those even of the doctor himself. He had a curiously magnetic and sympathetic hand, and his touch was wonderfully soothing and quieting. As a mesmerist he possessed great power, which he used, most successfully, in many cases of great pain and distress. He had a strong aversion to saying good-bye, and would do anything he possibly could to avoid going through the ordeal. This feeling must have been natural to him, for as early as the “Old Curiosity Shop” he writes: “Why is it we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and while we have the fortitude to bid farewell have not the nerve to say it? On the eve of long voyages, or an absence of many years, friends who are tenderly attached will separate with the usual look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a feint to save the pain of uttering that one word, and that the meeting will never be! Should possibilities be worse to bear than certainties?” So all who love him, and who know the painful dislike he had to that word, are thankful that he was spared the agony of that last, long Farewell.

Almost the pleasantest times at Gad's Hill were the winter gatherings for Christmas and the New Year, when the house was more than full, and the bachelors of the party had to be “put up” in the village. At these times Charles Dickens was at his gayest and brightest, and the days passed cheerily and merrily away. He was great at games, and many of the evenings were spent in playing at Yes and No, Proverbs, Russian Scandal, Crambo, Dumb Crambo—in this he was most exquisitely funny—and a game of Memory, which he particularly liked.

The New Year was always welcomed with all honors. Just before twelve o'clock everybody would assemble in the hall, and he would open the door and stand in the entrance, watch in hand—how many of his friends must remember him thus, and think lovingly of the picture!—as he waited, with a half-smile on his attentive face, for the bells to chime out the New Year. Then his voice would break the silence with, “A Happy New Year to us all.” For many minutes there would be much embracing, hand-shaking, and good-wishing; and the servants would all come up and get a hearty shake of the hand from the beloved “master.” Then hot spiced wine would be distributed, and good-health drunk all round. Sometimes there would be a country dance, in which the host delighted, and in which he insisted upon every one joining, and he never allowed the dancing—and real dancing it was too—to flag for an instant, but kept it up until even he was tired and out of breath, and had at last to clap his hands, and bring it to an end. His thorough enjoyment was most charming to witness, and seemed to infect every one present.

One New Year's Day at breakfast, he proposed that we should act some charades, in dumb show, that evening. This proposal being met with enthusiasm, the idea was put into train at once. The different parts were assigned, dresses were discussed, “properties” were collected, and rehearsing went on the whole day long. As the home visitors were all to take part in the charades, invitations had to be sent to the more intimate neighbors to make an audience, an impromptu supper had to be arranged for, and the day was one of continual bustle and excitement, and the rehearsals were the greatest fun imaginable. A dear old friend volunteered to undertake the music, and he played delightfully all through the acting. These charades made one of the pleasantest and most successful of New Year's evenings spent at Gad's Hill.

But there were not only grown-up guests invited to the pretty cheerful home. In a letter to a friend Charles Dickens writes: “Another generation begins to peep above the table. I once used to think what a horrible thing it was to be a grandfather. Finding that the calamity falls upon me without my perceiving any other change in myself, I bear it like a man.” But as he so disliked the name of grandfather as applied to himself, those grandchildren were taught by him to call him “Venerables.” And to this day some of them still speak of him by this self-invented name.

Now there is another and younger family who never knew “Venerables,” but have been all taught to know his likeness, and taught to know his books by the pictures in them, as soon as they can be taught anything, and whose baby hands lay bright flowers upon the stone in Westminster Abbey, every June 9 and every Christmas Eve. For in remembrance of his love for all that is gay in color, none but the brightest flowers, and also some of the gorgeous American leaves, sent by a friend for the purpose, are laid upon the grave, making that one spot in the midst of the vast and solemn building bright and beautiful.

In a letter to Plorn before his departure for Australia, Charles Dickens writes: “I hope you will always be able to say in after life, that you had a kind father.” And to this hope, each one of his children can answer with a loving, grateful heart, that so it was.—Cornhill Magazine.

THE SUMMER PALACE, PEKING.

I think the only enjoyable time of the day, during the burning summer in dusty, dirty, dilapidated Peking, is the very early morning, before the sun rises high, and while the air still feels fresh, and one can enjoy sitting in the cool courts which take the place of gardens, and listen to the quaint music of the pigeons as they fly overhead. This is no dove-like cooing, but a low melodious whistle like the sighing of an Eolian harp or the murmur of telegraph wires thrilled by the night wind. It is produced by the action of cylindrical pipes like two finger-ends, side by side, about an inch and a half in length. These are made of very light wood and filled with whistles. Some are globular in form and are constructed from a tiny gourd. These little musical boxes are attached to the tail feathers of the pigeon in such a manner that as he flies the air shall blow through the whistle, producing the most plaintive tones, especially as there are often many pigeons flying at once—some near, some distant, some just overhead, some high in the heavens; so the combined effect is really melodious. I believe the Pekingese are the only people who thus provide themselves with a dove orchestra, though the use of pigeons as message-bearers is common to all parts of the Empire.

There is one form of insect life here which is a terrible nuisance—namely, the sand-flies, which swarm in multitudes. They are too cruel, every one is bitten, and the irritation is so excessive that few people have sufficient determination to resist scratching. So of course there is a most unbecoming prevalence of red spots, suggestive of a murrain of measles!

I have been told that I am singularly unfortunate in the season of my visit, and that if only I had come in September I should have found life most enjoyable (I recollect some of the residents at Aden likewise assuring me that they really learnt to think their blazing rock quite pleasant!) I suppose that I am spoilt by memories of green Pacific isles and sweet sea breezes, so I can only compassionate people who, till two months ago, were ice-bound—shut off from the world by a frozen river—and now are boiled and stifled!

Such of them, however, as can get away from their work in the city have the delightful resource of going to the hills, and establishing themselves as lodgers at one of the many almost forsaken temples, where a few poor priests are very glad to supplement their small revenues by a sure income of barbaric coin. The Pekingese themselves are in the habit of thus making summer trips to the hills—so many of the temples have furnished rooms to let—with a view to encouraging the combination of well-paid temple service with this pleasant change of air.

I am told that many of these temples are charmingly situated, and have beautifully laid-out grounds. A group called “The Eight Great Temples” is described as especially attractive. They are dotted on terraces along the face of the western mountains, about twelve miles from the city, and among their attractions are cool pools in shady grottoes all overgrown with trailing vines and bright blossoms; stone fountains, where numberless gold-fish swim in crystalline water, which falls from the mouth of a great marble dragon; curious inscriptions in Thibetan and Chinese characters, deeply engraven on the rocks and colored red; fine groups of Scotch firs, and old walnut-trees; and in springtime I am told that our dear familiar lilac blossoms in perfection. Then there are all manner of quaintly ornamental pagodas and temples, great and small, with innumerable images and pictures, and silken hangings, and all the paraphernalia so attractive to the artistic eye.

Among the points of chief interest in the immediate neighborhood of Peking, the Summer Palace of course holds a foremost place, and there I found my way yesterday by paying the penalty of eight hours of anguish in a hateful springless cart, which is the cab of Peking, and the only mode of locomotion for such as are not the happy possessors of horses.

The manifold interests of the day, however, far more than compensated for the drawbacks of even dust and bumping, which is saying a great deal. A member of one of the Legations had kindly undertaken to show me the various points of interest to the north-west of the city, and we agreed to try and escape some heat by starting at 3.30 A.M., at which hour I was accordingly ready, waiting in the courtyard to open the gate. It was a most lovely morning, the clear moonlight mingling with the dawn, and the air fresh and pleasant. I had full leisure to enjoy it, for the carter, who had promised to be at the Japanese Legation by three, was wrapped in slumber. So my companion had to begin his day's work by a two miles' walk to fetch me. Luckily, my carter had been more faithful, so we started in very fair time; indeed, I profited by the delay, for as we passed through the great northern gate, there on the dusty plain—just outside the walls—we came in for a grand review of the Eight Banners, by Prince Poah of the Iron Crown. Such a pretty, animated scene, with all these Tartar regiments galloping about, and their gay standards flashing through the smoke of artillery and the dust-clouds, which seem to blend the vast plain with the blue distant hills and the great gray walls and huge three-storied keep which forms the gateway.

The latter is that Anting Gate of which we heard so much at the time when it was given up to the British army after the sacking of the Summer Palace; not, however, till their big guns were planted on the raised terraces within the sacred park of the Temple of Earth, all ready to breach the walls.

The Prince's large blue tent was pitched on a slightly rising ground apart from the others, and was constantly surrounded by gorgeous officers in bright yellow raiment, with round, flat black hats and long feathers, who were galloping to and fro, directing grand charges of cavalry. It did seem so funny to see a whole army of ponies; for there are no horses here, unless the foreign residents chance to import any.

These Eight Banners are all Manchus or Mongol Tartars, or at any rate are descended from such, Chinese troops being ranged under the green standard. These Eight Banners which, as I have said, are multiplied, are plain white, red, blue, and yellow, and the same colors repeated, and distinguished by a white edge and white spot. These companies are supposed to defend different sides of the city, the colors having some mystic relation to the points of the compass; except that yellow is in the middle, where it guards the Imperial Palace. Red guards the south, blue the north, and white the west, whilst the east is nominally given up to the green standard, which, however, being composed of Chinamen, is not admitted to the honor of guarding the forbidden city. I am told that the Banner Army numbers upwards of a hundred thousand men, who supply Tartar garrisons for the principal cities of the Empire.

We got out of the cart and secured a good position on a small hillock, whence we had a capital view. A number of Tartar soldiers who were off duty gathered round, and were quite captivated by the loan of my opera-glasses. Then they showed us their wretched firearms (which certainly did not look as if any European could have superintended the arsenal where they were manufactured), and also their peculiar belts, containing charges of powder only, and yet we are told that in addition to first-class firearms, which are being ceaselessly manufactured at the Government arsenals at Tientsin, Shanghai, Canton, Foochow, Nankin, and other less important places, the Chinese Government spares no expense in buying both ammunition and firearms of European manufacture. I suppose they are kept in reserve for real war!

A picturesque company of archers rode by on stout ponies, holding their bridles in the right hand, and in the left their bows, the arrows being cased in a leathern quiver, slung across the shoulders. As to their swords, instead of hanging from the waist, they are stuck under the saddle-flap; each man's cap is adorned with the tails of two squirrels, which is the correct military decoration. Now though we Scots are quite ready to believe that blackcocks were created for the express purpose of bequeathing their tails to adorn the caps of the London Scottish (the said tails having very much the jovial, independent character of the bird itself), it really is impossible to see the fitness of things in selecting poor little squgs as military emblems, unless to suggest the wisdom of he who fights and runs away! Anyhow, it now seems as if we might find a profitable market for all the thousands of squirrel's tails which are annually wasted in our north-country woods. I quite forgot to take note of the fan and the pipe, which I am told are invariable items in the accoutrements of the Chinese soldiers.26

Returning to our cart we next drove to the Ta-tsoon-tsu, or Temple of the Great Bell. It is a large Buddhist monastery. The priests, who occupy separate houses, are a civil, kindly lot, very different from the Lamas of the Yung-ho-Kung! There are curious paintings of Buddhist saints in the halls; but the great object of interest is the huge bell, which is said to be the largest hanging bell in the world. Anyhow, it is a wonderful piece of casting, being nearly eighteen feet high and forty-five feet in circumference, and is of solid bronze four inches thick. It is one of eight great bells which were cast by command of the Emperor Yung-lo about A.D. 1400, and this giant is said to have cost the lives of eight men, who were killed during the process of casting. The whole bell, both inside and out, is covered with an inscription in embossed Chinese characters about half an inch long, covering even the handle, the total number being 84,000! I am told that this is a whole classic.

This gigantic bell hangs in a two-storied pagoda, and underneath the beam from which it is suspended hangs a little bell, and a favorite amusement of Chinese visitors to the temple is to ascend to a gallery, whence they throw small coins at the little bell, in hopes of hitting it, on the same principle, I suppose, that they spit chewed prayer-papers at certain gods in the hope of hitting them! The throwing of cash is certainly more profitable to the priests, as the coins fall into a rim round the great bell and become temple property. This great bell, which is struck on the outside by a suspended ram of wood, is only sounded when—in times of drought—the Emperor in person or the Imperial Princes as his deputies come to this temple to pray for rain. Theoretically, they are supposed not to rise from their knees till the rain falls in answer to their prayer, and responsive to the vibrations of the mighty bell.

There is sore need of rain now, so I suppose the bell will be struck ere long. Apparently it is reserved as a last resource, for already the little Emperor and the Empresses Regent have been pleading for rain in the gorgeous yellow tiled temple at the entrance to the Forbidden City, and Prince Yeh, as the Emperor's deputy, has been repeatedly sent to pray for rain in a most strange open-air temporary sanctuary close to the Bell Temple. We discovered this quite by chance, having observed a large circular inclosure in the middle of a field of standing corn.

We halted and went to see what it was, and we found that it consisted of eight screens of coarse yellow mats, with great yellow dragons designed on them. Four of the screens form a circle having four gaps. The other four are straight, and are placed outside, so as to guard and conceal the entrances. In the centre a square raised platform of earth forms a rude altar, at the four corners of which are four vases of the coarsest pottery, containing plants; straggling and much trampled corn grows between and around them, as in the field outside. In a small tent close by we found a sleepy watchman, who told us about the Prince's devotional visits to this very primitive oratory.

After four hours of intolerably weary jolting in our dreadful cart, we arrived at Wan-Shu-Shan, which is the only portion of the grounds of the Summer Palace (the Yuen-Ming-Yuen) to which foreigners are still admitted, as they have there wrought such hopeless ruin that I suppose it is not thought worth while to shut them out; and truly it is sickening even now to look on such a scene of devastation. The park, which is now once more closed to the barbarians, contains fine palatial buildings, faced with colonnades and altogether of a very Italian type, having been built under the direction of the Jesuits, but the beautiful pleasure grounds, where we wandered over wooded hills all strewn with beautiful ruins, is purely Chinese, and as such is to me far more interesting.

Our first halt was beside a well whose waters are so deliciously crystalline and cold that they seemed to our parched and dusty throats as a true elixir. So famous is this pure spring that the daily supply for the Imperial Palace is brought thence in barrels, in a cart flying a yellow flag, with an inscription in black characters stating that it travels on the Emperor's business—a warning to all men to make way for it. The water near the city is all bad and brackish, so such a spring as this is a priceless boon.

This wonderland has been so often described since its destruction, that in its present aspect the whole seems familiar ground; but it is new to me to learn anything concerning it in its palmy days, from the pen of an eyewitness, and so I have been much interested in reading a curious account of these Imperial pleasure-grounds written in 1743 by Mons. Attiret, a French missionary, whose talent for painting led to his receiving an order to make drawings for the Emperor at the Summer Palace.

He tells how he and his companions were conducted to Peking by a Chinese official, who would on no account allow them to look out of the windows of their covered boats to observe the country, still less to land at any point. The latter part of the journey they were carried in litters, in which they were shut up all the day long, only halting at wretched inns. Naturally, when they were released from this tedious captivity and beheld these beautiful grounds—the Yuen-Ming-Yuen—the Garden of gardens, they supposed themselves in Paradise, and here they seem to have remained for a considerable time.

M. Attiret describes the ornamental buildings, containing the most beautiful and valuable things that could be obtained in China, the Indies, and even Europe—ancient vases of fine porcelain, silk cloths of gold and silver, carved furniture of valuable wood, and all manner of rare objects. He counted no less than two hundred of these palaces, each of which he declared to be large enough to accommodate the greatest nobleman in Europe with all his retinue. Some of these towns were built of cedar-wood, brought at great expense from a distance of fifteen hundred miles; some were gilded, painted, and varnished. Many had their roofs covered with glazed tiles of different colors, red, yellow, blue, green, and purple, arranged in patterns.

What chiefly astonished the artist was the variety which had been obtained in designing these pleasure houses, not only as regarded their general architecture but such minor details as the forms of the doors and windows, which were round, oval, square, and of all manner of angled figures, while some were shaped like fans, others like flowers, vases, birds, beasts, and figures.

In the courts and passages he saw vases of porcelain, brass, and marble filled with flowers, while in the outer courts stood mythological figures of animals, and urns with perfumes burning in them, resting on marble pedestals.

Most of these buildings were but one story high, and, being built on artificially raised ground, were approached by rough steps of artificial rock work. Some of these were connected one with another by fanciful winding porticoes or colonnades, which in places were raised on columns, and in others were so led as to wind by the side of a grove or by a river bank.

Wonderful ingenuity was displayed in so placing these houses as to secure the greatest possible variety of situation, and to command the most varied views. Every natural feature of the ground had been elaborated, so as to produce charming landscapes, which could scarcely be recognised as artificial; hills, of from ten to sixty feet in height, were constructed, divided by little valleys and watered by clear streams forming cascades and lakes, one of which was five miles in circumference. On its calm waters floated beautiful pleasure-boats, including one magnificent house-boat for the amusement of the ladies of the palace.

In every direction, winding paths led to quaint little pavilions and charming grottoes, while artificial rock-work was made the nursery for all manner of beautiful flowers, much care being bestowed on securing a great variety for every season of the year. Flowering trees were scattered over the grassy hills, and their blossoms perfumed the air. Each stream was crossed at frequent intervals by most picturesque and highly ornamental bridges of wood, brick or freestone adorned with fanciful kiosks, in which to repose while admiring the view. He says the triumph of art was to make these bridges twist about in such an extraordinary manner that they were often three times as long as if they had been led in a direct line. Near some of them were placed some very remarkable triumphal arches, either of elaborately carved wood or of marble.

M. Attiret awards the palm of beauty to a palace of a hundred apartments, standing in an island in the middle of the large lake, and commanding a general view of all the other palaces, which lay scattered round its shores, or half concealed among the groves, which were so planted as to screen them from one another. Moreover, from this point all the bridges were visible, as each rivulet flowed to the lake, round which the artificial hills rose in a series of terraces, forming a sort of amphitheatre.

On the brink of the lake were network houses for all manner of strange waterfowl, and in a large reservoir, inclosed by a lattice work of fine brass wire, were a multitude of beautiful gold and silver fish. Other fish there were of all manner of colors—red, blue, green, purple, and black—these were likewise inclosed. But the lake must have been well stocked, as fishing was one of the favorite recreations of the nobles.

Sometimes there were mimic sea-fights and other diversions for the entertainment of the Court, and occasionally illuminations, when every palace, every boat, almost every tree was lighted up, and brilliant fireworks, which M. Attiret declared far exceeded anything of the sort he had witnessed in France or Italy.

As to the variety of lanterns displayed at the great Feast of Lanterns, it was altogether amazing. From the ceiling of every chamber in every palace, they were suspended from the trees on the hills, the kiosks on the bridges. They were shaped like fishes, birds, and beasts, vases, fruits, flowers, and boats of different form and size. Some were made of silk, some of horn, glass, mother-of-pearl, and a thousand other materials. Some were painted, some embroidered, some so valuable that it seemed as if they could not have been produced under a thousand crowns. On every rivulet, river, and lake floated lanterns made in the form of little boats, each adding something to the fairy-like scene.

At the time when the Barbarian army so ruthlessly forced their way into this Chinese paradise it was in the most perfect order—a feature by no means common even in the houses of the greatest mandarins.

Forty small palaces, each a marvel of art, occupied beautiful sites within the grounds, and the footpaths leading from one to another were faultlessly neat. The sheets of ornamental water, lakes, and rivers were all clean, and each marble bridge was a separate object of beauty, while from out the dense foliage on the hill, yellow tiled roofs, curled up at the ends, gleamed like gold in the sunlight.

Within the palace were stored such treasures of exquisitely carved jade, splendid old enamels, bronzes, gold and silver, precious jewels of jade and rubies, carved lapis lazuli, priceless furs and richest silks, as could only have been accumulated by a long dynasty of Celestial rulers.

Cruel indeed was the change when a few hours later the allied forces arrived. The English cavalry was the first to reach the ground, but did not enter. The French quickly followed by another approach, and at once proceeded to sack the palace; so that when the British were allowed to join in the work of devastation and indiscriminate plunder, all the most obviously valuable treasure had already been removed, while the floors were strewn knee-deep with broken fragments of priceless china, and every sort of beautiful object too cumbersome or too fragile for rough and ready removal, and therefore ruthlessly smashed with the butt ends of muskets, to say nothing of the piles of most gorgeous silks and satins and gold embroideries, which lay unheeded among the ruins.

Then when the best of the steeds had been stolen, the doors were locked and Indian troops were posted to guard the treasures that remained (no easy task), till it should be possible to divide them equally between the forces. When this had been done the share apportioned to the British was at once sold by public auction, in order that an immediate distribution of prize money might allay the very natural jealousy which would otherwise have been aroused by the sight of French soldiers laden with the Sycee silver and other treasures which they had appropriated.

But though wagon-loads of what seemed the most precious objects were removed, these were as nothing compared with what was left and destroyed, when the order was given to commence the actual demolition of the principal buildings: a work on which two regiments were employed for two whole days, ere the hand of the destroyer was stayed by a treaty of peace, and so happily a few wonderful and unique buildings still remain as a suggestion of vanished glories.

Of course all this was done with the best possible intentions, by way of punishing the Emperor himself and his great nobles for the official deeds of treachery, rather than injure the innocent citizens of Peking. Yet it seems that these would have accepted any amount of personal loss and suffering rather than this barbarous destruction of an Imperial glory—an act which has so impressed the whole nation with a conviction that all foreigners are barbarous Vandals, that it is generally coupled with their determined pushing of the opium trade. These two crimes form the double-barrelled weapon of reproach wherewith Christian missionaries in all parts of the Empire are assailed, and their work grievously hindered.

We devoted about three hours to exploring these beautiful grounds, of which might well be said, “Was never scene so sad so fair!” Even the ornamental timber was cut for firewood by the allied barbarians, though enough remains to beautify the landscape.

The grounds are enclosed by a handsome wall of dark-red sandstone with a coping of glazed tiles, and its warm color contrasts pleasantly with the rich greens of the park and the lovely blue lake with its reedy shores, and floating lotus blossoms. One of the most conspicuous objects is a very handsome stone bridge of seventeen arches, graduated from quite small arches on either side to very high ones in the centre. It is commonly called the marble bridge, because of its beautiful white marble balustrades with about fifty pillars on either side, on each of which sits a marble lion, and of all these I am told that no two are quite alike. Each end of this bridge is guarded by two large lions, also of marble. This bridge connects the mainland with an island about a quarter of a mile in circumference; it is entirely surrounded with a marble balustrade like that of the bridge. In the centre of the isle is an artificial mound, on which, approached by flights of steps, and enclosed by yet another marble balustrade, are the ruins of what must have been a beautiful temple.

Another very striking bridge, which spans a stream flowing into the lake, is called the Camel's Hump, and has only one very steep arch, about forty feet high. What makes this look so very peculiar is the fact that the banks on either side are almost level with the stream, so the elevation is purely fanciful. The bridge also has a beautiful marble balustrade.

A third, very similar to this last, crosses another winding of the stream, where it flows through flooded rice-fields, and so appears like an extension of the lake. Along this stream there is a fine avenue of willow-trees fully a mile in length.

Ascending a wooded hill, which is dotted all over with only partially destroyed buildings, we thence had a most lovely view of all the park, looking down on the blue lake, the winding streams, the various bridges, the blue mountain range, and the distant city of Peking with a foreground of most picturesque temple buildings and fine Scotch firs, dark rocks and green creepers.

Though the general feeling is one of desolation (as one climbs stairways, passing between numberless mounds of rubble, entirely composed of beautifully glazed tiles of every color of the rainbow, and all in fragments), there are, nevertheless, some isolated buildings which happily have quite escaped. Among these are several most beautiful seven-story pagodas. Of one, which is octagonal, the lower story is adorned with finely sculptured Indian gods. Two others are entirely faced and roofed with the loveliest porcelain tiles—yellow gold, bright green, and deep blue. They are exquisitely delicate and are quite intact; even the tremulous bells suspended from the leaves still tinkling with every breath of air.

Another building, which is still almost perfect, is a beautiful little bronze temple, near to which is a fine triple pai-low, or commemorative arch, and there are others of indescribable form, such as a little globe resting on a great one, and the whole surmounted by a spire representing fourteen canopies. But nothing save colored sketches (of which I secured a few) could really give any idea of this strange place or of these singular buildings.

On the summit of the hill there still stands a very large two-storied brick building, entirely faced with glittering glazed tiles of dazzling yellow, emerald green, and blue, with a double roof of yellow porcelain tiles; among its decorations are a multitude of images of Buddha in brown china. It is approached by a grand triple gateway of white marble and colored tiles, like one we saw at the Confucian temple in the city of Peking.

There are also a great variety of huge stone pillars and tablets, all highly sculptured; the dragon and other mythical animals appearing in all directions. There are bronze beasts and marble beasts, but only those of such size and weight as to have baulked all efforts of thieving visitors, whether native or foreign, whose combined efforts have long since removed every portable image and ornament.

To me the most interesting group of ruins is a cluster of very ornamental small temple buildings, some with conical, others, with tent-shaped roofs, but all glazed with the most brilliantly green tiles, and all the pillars and other woodwork painted deep red. On either side of the principal building are two very ornamental pagoda-shaped temples, exactly alike, except that the green roof of one is surmounted by a dark-blue china ornament, the other by a similar ornament in bright yellow.

Each is built to contain a large rotatory cylinder on the prayer-wheel principle, with niches for a multitude of images. In fact they are small editions of two revolving cylinders with five hundred disciples of Buddha, which attracted me at the great Lama temple as being the first link to Japanese Scripture-wheels, or Thibetan prayer-wheels which I have seen in China, and the existence of which has apparently passed unnoticed. It is needless to add that of course every image has been stolen, and only the revolving stands now remain in a most rickety condition.

When we could no longer endure the blazing heat, we descended past what appears to have been the principal temple, of which absolutely nothing remains standing—only a vast mound of brilliant fragments of broken tiles, lying on a great platform; steep zigzag stairs brought us to the foot of the hill, where great bronze lions still guard the forsaken courts.

Parched with thirst, we returned to the blessed spring of truly living water, and drank and drank again, cup after cup, till the very coolies standing by laughed. Then once again climbing into the horrible vehicle of torture, we retraced our morning route, till we reached a very nice clean restaurant, where we ordered luncheon. We were shown into a pretty little airy room upstairs, commanding a very fine view of the grounds we had just left. After the preliminary tiny cup of pale yellow tea, basins of boiling water were brought in, with a bit of flannel floating in each, that we might wash off the dust in orthodox Chinese fashion. The correct thing is to wring out the flannel, and therewith rub the face and neck with a view to future coolness.

Luncheon (eaten with chop sticks, which I can now manage perfectly) consisted of the usual series of small dishes, little bits of cold chicken with sauce, little bits of hot chicken boiled to rags, morsels of pork with mushrooms, fragments of cold duck with some other sort of fungus, watery soup, scraps of pigs' kidneys with boiled chestnuts, very coarse rice, pickled cucumber, garlic and cabbage, patty of preserved shrimps, all in infinitesimal portions, so that, but for the plentiful supply of rice, hungry folk would find it hard to appease the inner wolf. Tiny cups of rice wine followed by more tea completed the repast for which a sum equivalent to sixteen shillings was demanded, and of course refused; nevertheless, necessitating a troublesome argument.

We hurried away as soon as possible, being anxious to visit a very famous Lama temple, the “Wang-Tzu,” or Yellow Temple. As we drove along I was amazed to notice how singularly numerous magpies are hereabouts. They go about in companies of six or eight, and are so tame and saucy that they scarcely take the trouble to hop aside as we pass.

Though the drive seemed very long still, we never suspected anything amiss till suddenly we found ourselves near the gates of the city; when we discovered that our worthy carter, assuming that he knew the time better than we did, and that we should be locked out of the city at sunset, had deliberately taken a wrong road, and altogether avoided the Yellow Temple. Reluctantly yielding to British determination, he sorrowfully turned, and we had to endure a long extra course of bumping ere we reached the temple, which is glazed with yellow tiles (an Imperial privilege which is conceded to Lamas).

This is a very large Lama monastery, full of objects of interest, of which the most notable is a very fine white marble monument to a grand Lama who died here. It is of a purely Indian design, and all round it are sculptured scenes in the life and death of Buddha, Of course, having lost so much time, we had very little to spare here, so once more betook us to the cart and jolted back to Peking.

As we crossed the dreary expanse of dusty plain, a sharp wind sprang up, and we had a moderate taste of the horrors of a dust-storm, and devoutly hope never to be subjected to a real one.

The dread of being locked out is by no means unfounded. Punctually at a quarter to six, one of the soldiers on guard strikes the gong which hangs at the door, and continues doing so for five minutes with slow regular strokes. Then a quickened beat gives notice that only ten minutes' grace remains, then more and more rapidly fall the strokes, and the accustomed ear distinguishes five varieties of beat, by which it is easy to calculate how many minutes remain. From the first stroke every one outside the gate hurries towards them, and carts, foot passengers, and riders stream into the city with much noise and turmoil. At six o'clock precisely the guard unite in a prolonged unearthly shout, announcing that time is up. Then the ponderous gates are closed, and in another moment the rusty lock creaks, and the city is secure for the night.

Then follows the frightful and unfragrant process of street watering, of which we had full benefit, as our tired mule slowly dragged us back to our haven of rest under the hospitable roof of the London Missionary Society.—Belgravia.

THE CAMORRA.

Most foreign visitors to Naples are inclined to think that the Camorra is as entirely a thing of the past as the Swiss guards that used to protect the King of the Two Sicilies, or the military pageant that was formerly held in honor of Santa Maria Piedigrotta, the Madonna who was once nominated commander-in-chief of the Neapolitan armies, and led them to victory. Young men with gorgeous, if somewhat tawdry, caps and jewelry are no longer to be seen sauntering through the streets and markets with an insolent air of mastery which no one dares to question; and the old man who used to collect money for the lamps of the Madonna—a request which, somehow, no coachman ever refused—have vanished from the cabstands. The outward glory of the Camorra has passed away; it is anxious now to conceal instead of displaying its power; but among the older residents in Naples there are many who believe that this strange secret society has never exercised a greater influence than it does at present, though it is possible that the interest it is said to have lately taken in politics may lead to its fall. In fact, such an interference in public affairs is a distinct departure from the principles on which the earlier traditions of the association were founded.

The whole subject is of course shrouded in mystery. There are important points connected with it on which it is impossible to obtain trustworthy information, as all who have any real knowledge of the facts have the strongest personal reasons for concealing them. Still, the organization of the lower ranks of the society is well known to the police, and it is by no means impossible to form a clear conception of its real character and aims, though it is necessary to sift every statement made about them with unusual care, as the inquirer must be on his guard not only against the romance and exaggeration of popular fancy, but also against a desire to mislead. It is only by inadvertence that any correct information is likely to be given, and as soon as the stranger exhibits an interest in the subject, he is supplied with a splendid stock of pure inventions. He must look and listen, and refrain from questioning as much as possible, unless he has the good fortune to meet an intelligent official connected with the police, or still better one who served the deposed dynasty. Before entering on the subject itself, however, a digression will be necessary in order to explain to English readers how such an association could be formed, and what were the circumstances that favored its growth and have hitherto secured its existence.

With respect to Sicily, Dr. Franchetti tells us that, whenever several men combine to support their own interests in opposition to those of their neighbors, that is Mafia. Where the condition of society is favorable, such combinations become exceedingly powerful. The strongest, the most enterprising, and the most violent inhabitants unite together. The will of each member is law in as far as the outside world is concerned; in executing it his companions will shrink neither from force nor fraud, and all they expect is that he should be ready to render similar services in his turn. When such a body has been formed in a district where the law is not powerful enough to hold it in check, the other members of the community must either tamely submit to its oppressions, put themselves under its protection, or form a new Mafia of their own. Now the Camorra is only a fully-developed and highly-organized Mafia.

It owes its long existence and its great influence chiefly to two circumstances. Family feeling in Naples is much stronger than in the North. Not only do parents and children, brothers and sisters cling together through life, but even distant cousins are recognized as relations whose interests must be guarded and advanced. If your cook's uncle happens to have a friend who is a butcher, nothing will induce him to buy your meat at any other shop; if your boy is sent to fetch a cab, he will waste half an hour looking for some distant acquaintance of his aunt's. As soon as you take a servant your custom becomes the property of his family connections. If you attempt to prevent this, you only embitter your life with a vain endeavor to thwart petty intrigues. If you dismiss your man, you only change your set of tradesmen; if you submit good humoredly, you soon begin to be regarded as a patron of the whole family, and will therefore be treated with all fitting consideration and esteem. The single members will serve you honestly, and even go out of their way to please you. It is clear that a society so clannish is excellently suited for a Mafia.

On the other hand, the uncertainty of the law under the old dynasty might well serve as an excuse for a good deal of self-assertion and self-defence. The tyranny of the Bourbons, it is true, was chiefly exercised upon the educated members of the middle class, whom they suspected, not unjustly, of designs against their rule. For the poor and the uneducated they did a good deal, often in a rather unwise way, and they never seem intentionally to have oppressed them. But the police are generally said to have been corrupt, the influence of the man of birth and wealth was great, and it was doubtless at times capriciously exercised. Against this the individual was powerless; when a large number were bound together by secret pledges, they could ensure respect and consideration.

It must not, however, be thought that there was anything heroic even in the old Camorra. It was not a league of justice and freedom, but simply an association which was pledged to advance the interests of its members, to right their wrongs, and to protect them to the utmost against every external power, including that of the law. And it has always maintained this character. Though it has occasionally done acts of justice and mercy, these are by no means its chief, or even an important, object; though many of its members belong to the criminal classes, it is not a society for the furtherance of crime. It pays no respect to the law except from prudential motives, and, as it has often dirty work to do, it makes use of dirty hands; but many men in all classes who are otherwise perfectly honest and respectable belong to it, and find their advantage in doing so.

To a certain extent, however, the aims of the Camorra have grown with the growth of its power. In the face of so powerful an association, it became necessary for those who did not belong to it to take steps to guard their own interests, and most of them did so by seeking its protection. This could be obtained by the payment of a tribute which consisted either of a fixed tax or of a percentage on profits. Thus the association claims, and has long claimed, a right to levy an impost on all meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables exposed for sale in the markets, on all goods sold in the streets, on the winnings in all games of chance played in public, and on all cab hire. Very stringent laws have been enacted against this practice, and the Government has from time to time made energetic efforts to suppress it, but without success. The peasants and fishermen are eager to pay the illegal tax. The threat not to accept it will awe the most refractory among them into obedience to the other regulations of the Association, for they know that if the countenance of the Society is withdrawn, it will soon become impossible for them to visit the market. For a week or two they may thrive under the exceptional care of the police, but as soon as the attention of the authorities relaxes, customers will be crowded away from their stalls, their goods will be pilfered, and their boats or carts, as the case may be, either seriously injured or put vexatiously out of gear. The mere fact that the Camorra has ceased to favor So-and-so is enough to expose him to the violence and the wiles of half the roughs and thieves of the district, as well as to the tricks and torments of the most impish crowd of street boys that any European town can show.

The Camorra dues are, therefore, an insurance against theft and annoyance. Those who pay them are not members of the fraternity, they for the most part know nothing of its constitution, and they can make no claim upon it, except for protection, on their way from the gates of the town to the market-place, and during their stay there. This, however, is highly valuable, and it is honestly exercised. Some years ago a party of fishermen brought a rather unusual supply to market, and left their wares standing at the accustomed place while they went into a neighboring coffee-house to breakfast. They were stolen, and the men applied to the official representative of the Camorra as naturally an Englishman would to the police. He asked some questions, took a few notes, and then bid them leave the market for a time, and come back at a certain hour. They did so, and on their return found their fish standing where they had originally left it, “not a sardine was missing.” Such events are constantly occurring.

The almost unlimited influence which the association exercises over the criminal classes is due less to the fact that many of them are enrolled among its members than to the extraordinary information it can command as to any detail of city life. In every district it has a body of highly-trained agents, as to whose education and organization we may perhaps have an opportunity of saying something in a future number. These men are all eye and ear, and if a question is proposed to them by their superiors as to the private life of any one who resides in their district, it will go hard if they are not able to supply a trustworthy answer in a few days. Hence it would be almost impossible for a criminal to escape the officers of justice if the Camorra sincerely desired his arrest. It never interferes in such matters, however, except when one of its members or tributaries has been wronged, and compensation is refused. This rarely happens; but when it does it is said that its vengeance is swift and implacable, while it takes the perfectly legal form of a judicial sentence. Nor does the victim escape from its power when the prison gates close upon him. Some members of the association are almost sure to be confined within the same gloomy precincts, and they spare no pains to render the life of the foe of their society intolerable by a thousand petty vexations which the gaolers could not prevent, even if they cared to incur the personal danger of endeavoring to do so. As a rule, they prefer to stand on a good footing with the Camorrists, and to employ their influence in keeping the other prisoners in order.

When a dispute arises, either in the streets or market-places, between persons who have purchased the protection of the association, it is usually referred to one of its agents whose decision is regarded as final, and so great is the reputation of many of these men for justice and fair play, that they are frequently requested to arbitrate on matters with which they have officially no concern whatever. On such occasions it is usual to make a present to the amateur judge, proportionate in worth to the matter he has settled, or at least to invite him to a sumptuous dinner. In a similar way these Camorrists form the court of honor of the lazzaroni. All questions of vendetta which have their origin in a sense of honor rather than personal hatred are submitted to them, and it is only just to recognize that they almost invariably do their best to bring about a reconciliation, though they themselves are notoriously ready to use their knives. In a word, whatever the ultimate purposes of the Camorra may be—they are doubtless always lawless, and not unfrequently criminal—its influence over the poorer classes is not an unmixed evil. It is unscrupulous both in forming and executing its designs, but when its own interests are not involved, it can be both just and merciful. There are honest and well-to-do tradesmen in Naples who would never have risen from the gutter, if, in their boyhood, the Camorra had not given them a fair start and something more.—Saturday Review.

THE DECAY OF IRISH HUMOR.

The above heading was suggested to us by a friend as the subject of a paper some months back, but it was not until much time had elapsed, and not a little reflection had been devoted to the matter, that we felt ourselves constrained to admit its unwelcome truth. For to acknowledge that Irish humor is on the wane is a serious admission at the present day, when we are suffering from an undoubted dearth of that commodity on this side of the Channel; when laughter has been effectually quenched at St. Stephen's; when our interest in the best comic paper is almost entirely centred in the illustrations, and not the text; and when we have grown to be strangely dependent upon America for light reading of all sorts. This year—an exceptionally uninteresting year for the reader—has, it is true, been marked by a new departure or a reaction in the direction of startling sensation and melodramatic plots—engendered perhaps by a desire to escape from the unromantic common placeness of our daily surroundings, culminating in Mr. Stevenson's tale, “The Bodysnatcher,” in the Christmas number of the Pall Mall Gazette, which literally reeks of the charnel-house. But this movement, apart from its general literary or constructive merit, is from its very nature opposed to sunshine and mirth. The advent of a new humorist was hailed by some critics on the appearance of “Vice Versâ,” but his second considerable contribution to fiction, “The Giant's Robe,” is anything but a cheerful book. Lastly, at least two conscious and elaborate attempts have been made during the last six months to transplant the squalid anatomical photography of Zola into the realm of English fiction. Where, then, in these latter days are we to look for native humorists? Not in the ranks of Irish politicians surely, for the Irish political fanatic is anything but a comic personage, and the whole course of the Nationalist agitation has been unredeemed by any humorous passage. There are no Boyle Roches, or O'Connells, or Dowses, or even O'Gormans, to be found amongst the followers of Mr. Parnell. The cold, impassive address of their leader, utterly un-Irish in its character, and, perhaps, only the more effective on that account, has infected them all. Mr. O'Donnell has now and then let fly a sardonic shaft; but Mr. Justin McCarthy reserves his graceful pleasantry for the pages of his novels, save no one occasion when Mr. Gladstone pounced down on a “bull” of preternatural magnitude. Acrimony, virulence, and powers of invective, these are abundantly displayed by Messrs. Sexton, Healy, and O'Brien; but as for humor, there is none of it. For otherwise would they not have seen the logical outcome of their decision (we speak of the Nationalists as a whole) to rename the Dublin streets,—we mean the corollary that they should in many cases divest themselves also of their indubitably Sassenach patronymics in favor of Celtic and national names? From their own point of view, Charles Stewart Parnell is an odious combination, and should give place, let us say, to Brian Boroihme O'Toole. If we turn from politics to literature, we shall find much the same state of things prevailing. Irishmen are remarkably successful as journalists, but the prizes of that profession draw them away from their own country; their lives are spent amid other surroundings, less favorable to the development of their characteristic humor, which encourage their facile wits to waste themselves in mere over-production. Some of the very best specimens of recent Irish verse are to be found in the pages of Kottabos, a magazine supported by the members of Trinity College, Dublin. But although it is hardly a good sign that the best work of this kind should flourish under Academic patronage, we have been sincerely grieved to learn that Kottabos is no more, and the goodly company of Kottabistæ finally disbanded.

If we descend to the other end of the social scale, we shall find that a variety of causes have conspired to diminish or even destroy the sense of humor with the possession of which tradition has credited the Irish peasant. It is only fair, however, to premise that much of what strikes an appreciative visitor as humorous in the speech of an Irish peasant is wholly unconscious in the speaker, and arises from his casting his sentences in the diffuse form of his mother-tongue, or from his use of imposing phrases picked up from the books read during his school-time. The first of these causes probably accounts for many picturesque expressions, such as “to let a screech out of oneself;” where an Englishman would merely say, “to shout,” or “screech;” the second explains the use of words like “extricate,” “congratulate,” by bare-legged gossoons in remote mountain glens. Among the destructive agents alluded to above, the tourist occupies a prominent position. For when the native inhabitants at any favorite place of resort found that it paid them to amuse the visitors, they cultivated the faculty and spoilt it in the cultivation. If we are asked for an example, we have only to mention the Killarney guide, a creature who is to every true Irishman anathema,—a tedious retailer of stories concocted during the slack season. A more serious cause of decay of late years has been the emigration which is slowly draining certain districts of the South and West of the cream of their population. In some parts of Kerry it is well-nigh impossible to get young and vigorous laborers; and the national game of “hurly” has completely died out, in consequence of the dearth of able-bodied players. We regard this as a serious loss, for though matches between the teams of rival villages often led to subsequent “ructions,” the game was a fine one and a good outlet for the excitable side of the Celtic character, which now finds a far less healthy field for expansion. All attempts to teach the peasants cricket have failed. Though fine athletes and unsurpassed jumpers, they lacked the coolness, the patience, and faculty of co-operating so essential to success in cricket. From this absence of vigorous youth, there results a dearth of “play-boys”—i.e., jokers, merry fellows—which is not likely to be remedied in this generation. Even in former years, before the entente cordiale between landlord and tenant had been so rudely severed, it struck us as a symptom of decadence—unless, may-be, it was a mere compliment to the “quality,”—that on all festive gatherings where gentle and simple met on a friendly footing, the singers as often as not chose for the delectation of their superiors some old popular music-hall song of six or seven seasons back, which had filtered down from London through the provinces to Dublin, and so slowly made its way into our remote district. Thus we have heard “The Grecian Bend” rendered with the richest brogue imaginable, which partly alleviated the Philistinism of the song. The Irish peasantry, it should be remarked, do not sing Moore's Irish melodies, with few exceptions, in spite of the charm of the airs to which the words are wedded, which is an adequate proof, if any were wanted, that he has no claim to be considered a national poet. Few readers realise that by far his finest work is in the domain of satire, on which his title to immortality is far more securely based than on his erotic dactyls. Nor do the peasants, as a rule, know much of Lover, whose amusing ballads have a great and well-merited popularity in the middle and upper classes of Irish society. The reason of this is, perhaps, to be found in the character of the music, generally Lover's own, which is a sort of compromise between an Irish melody of the flowing type and the modern drawing-room ballad. Genuine Irish music is a barbarous thing enough—a wild, nasal chant, freely embellished with trills and turns—and to this setting the peasantry in the outlying districts still sing a good many songs in Irish or in English, in the latter case generally translations. To this must be added a certain number of ballads which trace their source to the events of the last few years. Nothing can be gained from an attempt to write down the Land League from a literary point of view, and we are very far from harboring such an intention. But these songs are, in the main, dreary and abusive, as one might naturally expect, for the events of recent years have not been conducive to mirth in Ireland. Here is a fragment from one on the landlords of Ireland:—

Irish humor is not dead yet, but it is decaying or dormant; and if ever, in spite of the malign influence of the Gulf Stream, and the Nationalist Party, and a sense of their past wrongs, and race-hatred, and half-a-dozen other drawbacks, Ireland should recover her sanity and grow prosperous and contented, then, and not till then, may we expect to see her sons grow merry as well as wise,—unless, indeed, their sense of humor is entirely improved out of them in the process. Judging from the character of the men of Antrim, this is not impossible. But valuable as is the gift of humor, the harmony of Great Britain would not be too dearly bought by its sacrifice.—The Spectator.

PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER.

The late general election in Germany showed results which have signally verified Prince Bismarck's calculations on the tendencies of modern democracy.

The Liberalists, who represent the opinions of the Manchester school, lost a great number of seats—no less than forty-four; while signal victories were won by the Conservatives, the Catholics, and the Socialists. The doctrines of the Liberals were treated with unequivocal contempt in the large cities, and several members of the party retained their seats only through the support grudgingly given to them by Socialist electors at the second ballot. At the first ballot the Socialists testified to their absolute hatred of the Liberals by voting for Conservative or Catholic candidates in constituencies where they were not strong enough to carry candidates of their own; but at the second ballot they dictated terms to the sorely mortified party whose overthrow they had caused, and agreed to assist Liberals who promised to vote for a repeal of the law against Socialists. The Liberals swallowed the leek and made the promise, though throughout the electoral campaign they had denounced the Socialists as the worst enemies of human progress. The Socialists, on their side, went to the polls as if obeying the injunction which Ferdinand Lassalle laid upon working-men eighteen months before his death27: “I have always been a Republican, but, promise me, my friends, that if ever a struggle should take place between the Divine Right Monarchy and the miserable Liberal middle-class, you will fight on the King's side against the bourgeois.”

German Conservatives have regretted that Lassalle died at least six years too soon, for it is supposed that if he had witnessed the triumphs of Bismarck's policy and the unification of Germany after the war of 1870, he would have used his influence over the working classes to make them trust the great and successful champion of their nation. This, however, is doubtful, for the post-mortem examination of Lassalle's body revealed that he had in him the germs of disease by which his intellect would have gradually deteriorated. He had become a voluptuary before he died, and had he lived a little longer he might simply have been dazzled by the conqueror s glory, and have lost his influence by accepting honors and favors too readily as the reward of his homage. On the other hand, if Lassalle had remained head-whole and heart-whole, Bismarck and he could not have lived together. Both giants, one must have succumbed to the other after some formidable encounter. The two spent an afternoon in company at the height of the Conflikt-Zeit, when Bismarck was wrestling with the Liberal opposition in the Prussian Parliament. They smoked and drank beer, laughed like old friends over the events of the day, talked long and with deepening earnestness over the world's future, and separated well pleased with each other. But Lassalle is believed to have shown his hand a little too openly to his host. There were points where the policy of the two blended, and one point of ultimate convergence might have been found if Lassalle's only object had been to seek it; but his personal ambition was at least equal to his zeal as a reformer. “He is a composer,” said Edward Lasker, “who will never think his music well executed unless he conducts the orchestra.”

It is well to remember what were the views of Lassalle about Germany, and how much they differed from those of his inferior successor in the leadership of the Socialists, Karl Marx. In a historical tragedy, “Franz von Sickingen,” which Lassalle published in 1859, he declared that “the sword is the god of this world, the word made flesh, the instrument of all great deliverances, the necessary tool of all useful undertakings.” In the 3d scene of Act III. Franz von Sickingen, the hero in whom Lassalle portrays himself, exclaims against the sordid ambition of petty princes, adding: “How are you to make the soul of a giant enter into the bodies of pigmies? ... what we want is a strong and united Germany free from the yoke of Rome—an empire under an evangelical emperor.”28

This has been also the wish of Bismarck's life—and this wish he has realised; the obstacles he had to surmount before achieving success offer a most curious subject for study. The political difficulties have furnished matter for many books, but something remains to be said of the social difficulties.

“A conqueror's enemies are not all in front of him,” said Wallenstein, and we know Voltaire's apologue about that “grain of sand in the eye which checked Alexander's march.” Bismarck, like other great fighters, has had to shake off friends—real friends—tugging at his arm. He has had to foil boudoir cabals more powerful than Parliamentary majorities. He has got into those little scrapes which Lord Beaconsfield compared to sudden fogs in a park: “You may have the luck to walk straight home through them, or they may cause you to go miles out of your way and to miss anything, from a dinner to an appointment on which all your prospects depend.” Bismarck again has known the worry and agony of being unable to convince persons of thick head or of timorous conscience, whose co-operation was absolutely indispensable to him. Lord Chesterfield well said that the manner of a man's discourse is of more weight than the matter, for there are more people with ears to be charmed than with minds to understand. Bismarck is no charmer; he has had to contend with the disadvantage of cumbersome speech moved by slow thoughts, and of a temper inflammable as touchwood. For many years he was considered by those who knew him best to be more of a trooper than a politician.

Lord Ampthill once found him reading Andersen's story on the Ugly Duckling, which relates how a duck hatched a swan's egg, and how the cygnet was jeered at by his putative brethren, the ducklings, until one day a troop of lordly swans, floating down the river, saluted him as one of their race. “Ah,” observed Bismarck, “it was a long time before my poor mother could be persuaded that in hatching me she had not produced a goose.”

Bismarck was born in 1814, and at the age of seventeen went to the University of Göttingen. Here he joined a Verbindung—one of those student associations whose members wear flat caps of many colors, hold interminable Kneipen or beer-carousals, and fight rapier duels with the members of other clubs. Bismarck's Verbindung was select, containing none but the sons of noblemen, and it called itself by Kotzebue's name, out of antagonism to a Liberal club which was named after Karl Sand, Kotzebue's murderer.29 There hangs in one of the rooms at Varzin, a pencil sketch of young Otto Bismarck fighting with a “Sandist” who was the great swashbuckler of his party. Both combatants are dressed, as is still the custom for such meetings, in padded leather jackets, tall hats, iron spectacles with wire netting over the glasses, and they wear thick stocks covering all the neck and throat. Only parts of the face are exposed, the object of the fighters being not to inflict deadly injuries, but to slit each other's cheeks, or to snip off the tip of a nose. Bismarck's adversary, named Konrad Koch, was a towering fellow with such a long arm that he had all the advantage; and after a few passes he snicked Bismarck along the left cheek down to the chin, making a wound of which the scar can be seen to this day. But before the duel he had bragged that he would make the “Kotzebuan” wear the “Sandist” color, red—and, laughing triumphantly at the fulfilment of his threat, as he saw Bismarck drenched in blood, he so infuriated the latter that the Kotzebuan insisted on having another bout. This was contrary to the regulations of student duels, which always end with first blood, so Bismarck had to take patience until his cut was healed, and until he could prove his fitness to meet Koch again, by worsting a number of Sandists. The rapier duels were, and are now, regular Saturday afternoon pastimes, taking place in a gymnastic room, and the combatants on either side being drawn by lot; but it is a rule that, when a student has beaten an opponent, he may decline duelling with him again until this antagonist works his way up to him, so to say, by prevailing over all other swordsmen who may care to challenge him. Bismarck had to fight nearly half-a-dozen duels before he could cross swords with Koch again, but on this second occasion he dealt the Sandist a master-slash on the face and remained victorious.

This series of duels had some important consequences. A satirical paper called Der Floh (The Flea), which was published at Hanover, inserted an article against student fights, and pretty clearly designated young Bismarck as a truculent fellow. Bismarck went to Hanover, called on the editor of the paper, and holding up to his nose the cutting of the offensive article, requested him to swallow it. One version of the story says that the editor's mouth was forced open and that the article was thrust into it in a pellet; another version states that a scrimmage ensued and that the student, after giving and receiving blows and kicks, was hustled out of the office. But it is certain that the affair reached the ears of the Rector of Göttingen University, who sent for Bismarck and rebuked him in a paternal way for his pugnacity. Bismarck did not accept the reproof. To the Rector's astonishment he made an indignant speech, expressing his detestation of Frenchmen, French principles and revolutionary Germans, whom he called Frenchmen in disguise. He prayed that the sword of Joshua might be given him to exterminate all these. “Well, my young friend, you are preparing great trouble for yourself,” remarked the Rector, with a shake of the head; “your opinions are those of another age.” “Good opinions re-flower like the trees after winter,” was Bismarck's answer.

At this time, however, Bismarck's principles were not yet well set. The son of a Pomeranian squire, he had the Junker's abhorrence of Radicals, and from the study of J. J. Rousseau's “Emile,” he had derived the idea that all cities are nests of corruption. Though he execrated Rousseau's name, he was so far his disciple as to look upon country life as the perfect life; in fact, he was an idealist, and he was often sadly at a loss for arguments with which to refute the reasoning of political opponents. This tormented him, for he did not wish to be a man like that Colonel in Hacklander's “Tale of the Regiment,” who said of a philosopher: “I felt the fellow was going to convince me, so I kicked him down stairs.” From Göttingen he went to the University of Berlin, and there vexed his soul in many disputations, without acquiring the consciousness that he was growing really strong in logic. At last he heard in a Lutheran church a sermon which left a lasting impression on his mind. He has often spoken of it since as “my Pentecost.”

The preacher was treating of infidelity in connection with Socialist aspirations, and he observed that men could not live without faith in some ideal. Those men who reject the doctrine of immortality and of a world after this, delude themselves with visions of an earthly paradise. The Socialist's dream is nothing else; and his shibboleths of equality, fraternity and co-operation, are but a paraphrase of the Christian's “love one another.” Love is not necessary to the fulfilment of the Socialist's schemes than it is to the realisation of one's image of Heaven. A world in which there shall be no poor—in which each man shall receive according to his needs and work to the full measure of his capacities, having no individual advancement to expect from his industry, but content to see other men, less capable, fed out of the surplus of his earnings—what would this be but a paradise purged of all human passions—envy, jealousy, covetousness and sloth? Unless there were universal love, how could all the members of a Socialist community be expected to work to their utmost? And if every man did not work his best, so that the weak and the clumsy might live at the expense of the strong and the clever, how could the community exist?

This was the substance of the sermon which Bismarck heard, and those words “the Socialist's Earthly Paradise” have remained fixed in his memory ever since as a terse demonstration as to the inanity of Socialism. State Socialism is of course another matter, and very early in life Bismarck came to the conclusion that the wise ruler must try to make himself popular by humoring the fancies of the people, whatever they may be, and however they may vary. If he can divert the people's fancies towards the objects of his own preference, so much the better, and it must be part of his business to endeavor to do this. But if he cannot lead, he must seem to lead while letting himself be pushed onward. “The people must be led without knowing it,” said Napoleon in a letter which he wrote to Fouché to decline Barrère's offer of pamphlets extolling the Emperor's policy. Bismarck has described universal suffrage as “the government of a house by its nursery;” but he added: “You can do anything with children if you play with them.”

It has been one of the secrets of Bismarck's strength that he has never let himself be imposed upon by inflated talk about the “majesty of the People.” The Democracy has been in his eyes a mere multitude of mediocrities. “Cent imbéciles ne font pas un sage,” said Voltaire, and though La Rochefoucauld inclines to the contrary opinion in some of his well-known aphorisms,30 it is a provable fact that the only successful rulers are those who have had eyes enabling them to analyse the component elements of a crowd. As sportsmen delight in tales of the chase, and soldiers in anecdotes of war, so Bismarck has always taken a peculiar pleasure in stories showing how one man by presence of mind has mastered an angry mob, or outwitted it, or coaxed it into good humor. A sure way to make him laugh is to tell him such stories, and it must be added that he likes them all the better when they exhibit the bon enfant side of the popular character.

During the siege of Paris, whilst he was at Versailles, a pass was applied for by a relation of M. Cuvillier Fleury, the eminent critic and member of the French Academy. The Chancellor at once gave the pass, saying: “M. Fleury is an admirable man. I know a capital story about him.” The story was this: M. Fleury, who had been tutor to the Duc d'Aumale, was in 1848 Private Secretary to the Duchess of Orleans. When the revolution of February broke out, a rabble invaded the Palais Royal, where the Princess resided, and began smashing works of art, pictures, statuettes, and nicknacks. All the household was seized with panic except M. Fleury, who, throwing off his coat, smeared his face and hands with coal, caught up a poker, and rushed among the mob, shouting: “Here, I'll show you where the best pictures are.” So saying, he plied his poker upon furniture of no value, and, thus winning the confidence of the roughs, was able to lead them out of the royal apartments into the kitchen regions, where they spent their patriotic fury upon the contents of the larder and cellar. The sequel of this story is very droll, and Bismarck relates it with great relish. A few days after he had saved the Palais Royal, M. Fleury was recognised in the streets as the Duchess of Orleans's Secretary, and mobbed. He was being somewhat roughly hustled when a hulking water-carrier elbowed his way through the throng and roared: “Let that man be! He is one of the right sort. He led us to the pillage of the Palais Royal the other day!”

Bismarck once told Lord Bloomfield that he had the highest opinion of Charles Mathews, the actor. It turned out that this opinion was not based on any particular admiration for Mathews's professional talent, but on his coolness during a theatrical riot which Bismarck witnessed during a visit to London. Mathews was manager of a theatre, and for want of pay, part of his company had struck work. It was impossible to perform the piece advertised, so pit and gallery grew clamorous. In the midst of the hubbub, Mathews came before the curtain and jovially announced that, although he must disappoint the audience of the comedy which they had expected, he was ready to perform anything they pleased, provided only that he could satisfy the majority. A voice from the gallery sang out: “'Box and Cox.'” “Well, that is an excellent play,” said Mathews gravely, “but before my honorable friend puts a motion for its performance, I think he should explain to the audience why he prefers it to all others.” This turned a general laugh against the “mover,” who of course became bashful and could explain nothing. Mathews then made a chaffing little speech on the comparative merits of various plays, and at length withdrew, saying that as he could discern nothing like unanimity among the audience, he thought it best that they should all agree to meet him another day, but that meanwhile those who liked to apply for their money at the doors should have it. It seems that a number of men had come to the theatre on purpose to create a disturbance, but Mathews's banter put the whole audience into good humor, and the house was emptied without any riot.31

Bismarck has another favorite story about mobs. When the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia went as Viceroy to Poland in 1862, he was received in the streets of Warsaw with cries of “Long live the Constitution!” A Prussian, Count Perponcher, who was present, asked a vociferating Pole who “Constitutiona” was? “I suppose it's his wife,” answered the Pole. “Well, but he has children,” said Perponcher, “so you should cry: “Hurrah for Constitutiona and the little Constitutions,”” which the Pole at once did. Hearing Bismarck tell this anecdote—not for the first time probably—his son-in-law Count Rantzau, once said: “You can make a mob cry anything by paying a few men among them a mark apiece to start the shouting.” “Nein, but you need not waste your marks,“ demurred the Chancellor, ”es gibt immer Esel genug, die schreien unbezahlt.” (There are always asses to bray gratis).

The knowledge of how men can be swayed involves an accurate estimate of the influence which oratory exercises over them. Bismarck, as we have said, is not eloquent, and it is one of his maxims that a man of many words cannot be a man of action. “The best Parliamentary speeches”—he said, in conversation with M. Pouyer Quertier about M. Thiers—“are those which men have delivered to criticise other men's work, or to set forth what they themselves were going to do, or to apologize for what they have left undone.”

Action speaks for itself. “When I hear of ministers in parliamentary countries making long speeches to defend their policy, it always strikes me that there has been very little policy; and I am reminded of those big dishes of stew which our frugal German housewives serve up on Mondays with the remnants of Sunday's dinner—lots of cabbage and carrots, making a great show, with small scraps of meat.”

Action fascinates the masses as much as speech,32 for it demands courage, which is of all virtues the rarest.33 Pastor Stocker, of anti-Semitic renown, relates that Bismarck once asked him whether there were any text in the Bible saying, “All men are cowards?” “No, you are thinking of the text: 'The Cretans are all liars,'” said Stocker. “Liars—cowards, it comes to much the same thing,” answered Bismarck; “but it's not true only of the Cretans;” and he then asked Stocker whether the latter had met many thoroughly brave men. The Court pastor replied that there might be several definitions of courage; but Bismarck interrupted him with a boisterous laugh: “Oh, yes, the moral courage of letting one's face be smacked rather than fight a duel; I have met plenty of men who had that.”

Bismarck's own courage is that of a mastiff, and in early life it often got him into scrapes. We have remarked how some of these might have been detrimental to his whole career. Whilst he was doing his One Year Voluntariate in the Prussian Light Infantry, he paid a visit to Schleswig, which was then under Danish rule. One day, wearing his uniform, he was seated in a Brauerei when he overheard two gentlemen holding a political conversation and expressing extreme Liberal sentiments. With amazing impudence he walked up to their table and requested that: “If they must talk nonsense, they would use an undertone.” The two Schleswigers told the Junker to mind his own business, whereupon Bismarck caught up a beer-jug and dashed its contents in their faces. This affair caused very serious trouble. Bismarck was taken into custody and ordered out of the country. On joining his regiment he was placed under arrest again, and there was an interchange of diplomatic notes about him. He only escaped severe punishment through powerful intercession being employed at Court on his behalf.

Some years later when Bismarck had been appointed to the Legation at Frankfort (a post which he owed to the delight with which Frederick William IV. had read his bluff speeches in the Prussian Lower House), he was present at a public ball, where a member of the French Corps Législatif, M. Jouvois de Clancy, was pointed out to him as a noted fire-eater. This gentleman had been a Republican, but had turned his coat after the coup d'état. He was a big man with dandified airs, but evidently not much accustomed to society, for he had brought his hat—not a compressible one—into the ball-room; and in waltzing he held it in his left hand. The sight of the big Frenchman careering round the room with his hat extended at arm's length was too much for Bismarck's sense of fun; so, as M. Jouvois revolved past him, he dropped a copper coin into the hat. One may imagine the scene. The Frenchman, turning purple, stopped short in his dancing, led back his partner to her place, and then came with flashing eyes to demand satisfaction. There would have been assault and battery on the spot if friends had not interposed; but on the following day the Frenchman and the Prussian met with pistols and the former was wounded. Unfortunately for Bismarck, M. Jouvois knew Louis Schneider, the ex-comedian, who had become Court Councillor to Frederick William IV., and was that eccentric monarch's favorite companion. Schneider had but a moderate fondness for Bismarck, and he represented his act of gaminerie in so unfavorable a light to the King that his Majesty instructed the Foreign Office to read the newly appointed diplomatist a severe lecture.

Bismarck has never liked Frenchmen. His feelings towards them savor of contempt in their expression, but there is more of hatred than of genuine disdain in them, and much of this hatred has its source in religious fervor. Bismarck is a believer. The sceptical levity of most Frenchmen, the profanity and licentiousness of their literature, their want of reverence for all things, whether of Divine or of human ordinance—all this shocks the statesman, who still reads his Bible with a simple faith, and who has attentively noted the doom which is threatened to nations who are disobedient, During the Franco-German War, Countess Bismarck, hearing that her husband had lost the travelling-bag in which he carried his Bible, sent him another with this naïve letter: “As I am afraid you may not be able to buy a Bible in France, I send you two copies of the Scriptures, and have marked the passages in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel which relate to France—also the verse in the Psalms which says that 'The unbeliever shall be rooted out.'”

Carlyle saw affinities between the character of Cromwell and that of Bismarck, but the only resemblance between the two men is physical. One may question how far Cromwell was a believer: he certainly had as little respect for sacred words as he had for cathedrals and kings, and he juggled with texts of Scripture as it suited his purpose. Bismarck has never canted. His acknowledgments of Divine mercies have only been expressed where national triumphs were concerned—never where his own personal enterprises had to be lauded. On the other hand, he has evinced strong religious scruples under circumstances when few men would have credited him with such. He has spent more sleepless hours from thinking over the deposition of George V. of Hanover than Cromwell did from fretting over Charles I.'s execution. He reconciled that deposition with the dictates of his reason, but not with those of his faith in the inviolability of kings. When it had been decided to annex Hanover, the Crown lawyers were instructed to draw up a report of legal justifications for this measure; but when Bismarck had read half through this document, he threw it aside with irritation: “Better nothing than that—it reminds me of Teste's Memorandum on the confiscation of the estates of the Orleans family.”34

Again Bismarck, while making it the chief occupation of his life to study how the Plebs might be managed, has never stooped to such immoral means for this purpose as the French officials of the Second Empire employed. He was deeply interested in Napoleon III.'s experiments with universal suffrage. The whole system of plébiscites, official candidatures, prefectoral newspapers, and electoral districts, so arranged that peasant votes should neutralise those of Radical working-men, seemed to him “very pretty,” as he once told a disgusted Republican refugee. But the encouragement given by De Morny, De Persigny, and others to every kind of immorality that could amuse the people—frivolous newspapers, improper novels and plays, gambling clubs, and outrageous fashions in dress—this was a very different affair. De Morny was fond of quoting the anecdote about Alcibiades having cut off the tail of his dog to give the Athenians something to talk about, and during Bismarck's short stay in Paris as Ambassador in 1862, he and the Prussian statesman had more than one conversation about the art of ruling. Bismarck had the frankness to say that he looked upon the comedies of Dumas the younger, and indeed on most French plays of the lighter sort, as grossly corrupting to the public morals. “Panem et circenses,” smiled De Morny. “Panem et saturnalia,” muttered Bismarck.

Another point upon which De Morny and Bismarck could not agree, was about the qualities that are requisite in a public servant. De Morny cared nothing for character. The men whom he recommended for prefectships or posts in the diplomatic service were, for the most part, adventurers—brilliant, witty, diseurs de rien and cajolers of the other sex. “A French Ambassador,” he maintained, “should always consider himself accredited auprès des reines.” Bismarck loathes ladies' men: and he had the poorest opinion of Napoleon III.'s diplomatists. His own ideal of a State functionary is the blameless man without debts or entanglements—laborious, but not pushing, well-educated but not abounding in ideas, a man in all things obedient. His sneering judgment on plenipotentiaries like M. Benedetti and the Duc de Gramont is well known. He called them “dancing dogs without collars.” They never seemed to have a master, he complained, “but stood up on their hind legs and performed their antics without authority from man alive. If they barked, you were sure to hear a voice from Paris crying to them to be quiet. If they fawned you might expect to see them receive some sly kick, warning them that they ought to be up and biting.” Bismarck conceived some liking and respect for Napoleon III., whom he saw to be better than his entourage. Had the Emperor's health remained good, the war of 1870 would doubtless never have taken place; but so early as 1862 Bismarck perceived that Napoleon III.'s bodily ailments were causing an indolence of mind that left the Emperor at the mercy of intriguing counsellors; and what he observed in his subsequent visits to Paris in 1867 and to Plombières in 1868, confirmed these impressions. His ceaseless study of France as the great enemy that would have to be coped with soon, moreover added to his deep and moody detestation of that country. When the formal declaration of war by France reached Berlin in July 1870, Count Bismarck was staying for a few days at Varzin. The news was communicated to him by a telegram which was put into his hands just as he was returning from a drive. He at once sprang into his carriage, to go to the railway station, and on his way through the village of Wussow, he saw the parish minister standing at the door of his manse. “I said nothing to him,” ejaculated Bismarck, in relating the story long afterwards to some friends, “but I just made a sign as of two sabre-cuts crosswise, and he quite understood.”

The pastor of Wussow understood the sign of the cross in sword-cuts to mean crusade, and as such the war against France was viewed by all good Prussians. Bismarck and the village clergyman were at one in regarding the French people as the Beast of the Apocalypse, and Paris as Babylon. Such sentiments are not incompatible with Christian piety, for there must be militants in the Church. But where Bismarck ceases to be a Christian in the common acceptance of that term, is in his exaggerated contempt for almost all men as individuals.35

His want of charity—we do not of course mean in almsgiving, for in this respect he is as generous as the Princess, his wife, allows him to be—is the most unamiable and disconcerting trait in his nature. Disconcerting because misanthrophy is an evidence of moral short-sightedness, begetting timidity and rendering a man incapable of forming disciples to carry on his work. Without trustfulness, a statesman can make no real friends. It may be said that uncharitableness like Bismarck's must be the result of many disenchantments; but a man who only keeps rooks and ravens must not complain that all birds are black. The men who were at different times Bismarck's most zealous helpmates—Count Harry Arnim, Herr Delbrück, Count Stolberg and Count Eulenborg—were all discarded as soon as they gave the smallest sign, not of mutiny, but of independence. Bismarck would not accept advice or remonstrance from them; he required on all occasions that blind obedience which is not loyal service, but servility. For the same cause he would never employ Herr Edward Lasker, whose great talents as a financier and parliamentary debater would have been of immense value to the monarchy. He has rejected the advances of Herr Bennigsen, the Hanoverian founder of the Nationalverein, who is now leader of the National Liberals; and those of Dr. Rudolph Gneist, who is one of the ablest politicians in Germany, but who had the misfortune to take the wrong side during the Conflikt-Zeit. Opposition, as Bismarck has often taken care to impress upon his hearers, shall never be regierungsfähig so long as he holds office. He abominates the Parliamentary system which brings to power men who have begun life as demagogues agitating for the abolition of this and that, and who, afterwards, are obliged to make shameless recantations, or to quibble away their words. The contrary system of selecting for his assistants only men who have never sown political wild oats is, however, compelling Bismarck to rely now on such henchmen as Herr Von Puttkamer and Herr Hofmann. The former is the Chancellor's brother-in-law, an excellent subordinate, supple as a glove, but with no originality of mind or firmness that could enable him to remain Home Minister if he were not propped up in this post. Herr Hofmann is also a mere painstaking bureaucrat, who, if he did not hear the voice of command, would be quite inapt to think for himself. Of late Prince Bismarck is said to have been training his son, Count Herbert to act as his Secretary and to take his place by-and-by. Count Herbert is a clever man, but dynasties of maires du palais have never succeeded in any country, and it is strange Bismarck should have forgotten that the Hohenzollern dynasty has owed its rapid rise to a respect for that principle which he is now ignoring, namely the selection of the best men without favoritism. If independence of mind and character have been eyed with suspicion by the Prussian kings, as they now are by the Chancellor, Germany would have had no Bismarck.

The popular idea of a genial, soldierly, blunt-spoken Bismarck is a wrong one. Bismarck can be jovial among friends and good-humoredly affable with strangers; but genial he is not. There is a sarcastic tone in his voice which grates on the ears of all who are brought in contact with him for the first time, and his unconcealed mistrust for the rectitude of all public men, of no matter what country, who do not happen to be in his good graces at the time, is too often offensive. It must be remembered that when Bismarck has quarrelled with public men, it has generally been because, having changed an opinion himself, he has been unable to persuade men to do the same at a moment's notice. Turn by turn, Free-trader and Protectionist, inclining one day to the Russian, another to the Austrian alliance, coquetting at one time with England, then with Italy, and even with France, he has ever been actuated by the sole desire to use every passing wind which might push the interest of his Government. He has declined to formulate any policy in details, because against such a policy parties might coalesce, whereas by veering and tacking often, he throws disunion among his opponents. He appropriates what is best in the new designs of this or that party, takes for his Sovereign and himself the credit of carrying them into execution, and then leaves the original promoters with a sense that power has gone out of them—that they have been played with, but that they have nothing to complain of.

This policy of variations, however, has exposed Bismarck to some cutting rebukes from loyal Prussians whose consciences were not acrobatic. The trouble with Count Harry Arnim began when this diplomatist—“Der Affe,” as he was nicknamed by his familiars—said to Countess Von Redern, at one of the Empress Augusta's private parties, that he had hitherto been trying to walk on his feet in Paris, but that from “his latest instructions he gathered that he was expected until further notice to walk on his hands.” The saying was reported to Bismarck and made “his three hairs bristle.” “The 'Ape' has only been employed, because we thought him quadrumanous,“ he exclaimed, and from that moment there was war between the two men.

Another time Bismarck had to bear a snub from a young nobleman of the House of Hatzfelt. This gentleman, being left in charge of a Legation during the absence of the Minister, sent home a despatch embodying views favorable to the policy which the Chancellor had, until then, been pursuing towards the country where the attaché was residing. But it so chanced that the Chief of the Legation had been summoned to Berlin on purpose to receive instructions for a change of policy; so that when the attaché's despatch arrived, it gave no pleasure in Wilhelmstrasse, and the Chancellor spoke testily of its writer as a ”Schafsköpf.” Hearing this, the attaché resigned. He was a young man of high spirit, who had many friends at Court, and it was pointed out to the Chancellor by an august peacemaker, that the young fellow had not been very well-treated. Somewhat grudgingly—for he does not like to make amends—the Chancellor was induced to send his Secretary to the ex-attaché offering to reinstate him. But the recipient of this dubious favor drew himself up stiffly and said: “Germany has not fallen to so low a point that she needs to be served by Schafsköpf; and for the rest, you may tell the Chancellor that I have not been trained to turn somersaults.”36

It has been mentioned that Bismarck has had to contend with many a boudoir cabal. The Empress Augusta's long antipathy to him is no secret, and the Chancellor has never had to congratulate himself much on the friendliness of the Crown Prince's and Princess's circle. The ill-will of royal ladies enlists that of many other persons influential in society; but it stands to Bismarck's honor that he has never used newspapers to combat these drawing-room foes. The revelations made to the public some years since by an ex-member of the “Reptile's Bureau” were no doubt in the main true, and they showed that the Chancellor had raised the art of “nobbling” the Press to a high pitch of perfection. Not only had he, all over Germany, newspapers supported in part out of the Secret Service Fund and inspired wholly by the Press Bureau, but he has been accused of employing hirelings on the staffs of newspapers reputed as independent, and through these he was in a position to procure the insertion of articles in foreign journals, these effusions being afterwards reprinted in German papers as genuine expressions of foreign opinion.

All this constituted a very powerful organization, which the Chancellor might have used with telling effect in fighting society caballers. But while he has not scrupled to direct the heaviest artillery of his newspapers and not unfrequently torpedo attacks against open political opponents, he would never let his difficulties with “die Wespen” as he called society aggressors, be made the subjects of Press comments. Newspapers, guilty of assailing members of the Imperial family or of the Court household, have been unsparingly prosecuted by his orders. “Er is kein Journaliste!” exclaimed a too zealous partisan-writer, who had gone to the Chancellerie with a proposal for creating in Berlin a newspaper like the Paris Figaro, “er könne sich nicht auf die feine Malice zu verstehen.” This may be rendered as, “He won't throw mud;” and it is no small compliment to the integrity of a statesman, whom his enemies are wont to describe as more astute than Machiavelli, and more unscrupulous than Richelieu.37

In the autumn of the present year the Pope gave a commission to the painter Lenbach to paint a portrait of Prince Bismarck. The Chancellor agreed to sit; the artist went several times to Varzin, and people have been asking ever since what is the meaning of this strange fancy of Leo XIII.'s to have a portrait of the arch-enemy of Rome, the formidable champion of the Kulturkampf. A French journalist has suggested that there is at the Vatican an artistic Index Expurgatorius—a Galerie des Réprouvés—and that Bismarck's portrait is to hang there in the place of honor, between that of Dositheus the Samaritan, and Isaac Laquedem the Wandering Jew.

It is more likely that the Pope aspires to some political rapprochement with Germany, and if he have such a hope it must have come to him from the knowledge that the Chancellor would not object to a reconciliation. But if Bismarck consents to make peace with the Vatican, and to find some official post for Herr Windhorst, it would not be that any of his own private Lutheran prejudices against Rome have vanished. He is a doughty Protestant in whose religion there is no variableness, but he may veer on the Kulturkampf as he did on that of free trade, simply because, having failed, after doing his best, to crush the Catholics, he will see no use in recommencing the struggle. And whatever is useless seems to Bismarck a thing which should not be attempted, indeed, many of his great triumphs hitherto have been won by shaking hands with yesterday's enemy, and saying “Let us two stand together.” Before long the world may see Prince Bismarck recognise the Roman Catholic Church as one of the greatest living forces of Continental Conservatism, and enlist its services in the work of “dishing” both Liberals and Socialists. It is significant that in one of his few autumn speeches, Bismarck was heard quoting Joseph De Maistre's dictum about the Soldier and the Priest being the sentries of civilisation.—Temple Bar.

A FEW NOTES ON PERSIAN ART.

The limner's art in Persia has few patrons, and the professional draughtsman of the present day in that country must needs be an enthusiast, and an art-lover for art's sake, as his remuneration is so small as to be a mere pittance; and the man who can live by his brush must be clever indeed. The Persians are an eminently practical people, and buy nothing unless it be of actual utility; hence the artist has generally to sink to the mere decorator; and as all, even the very rich, expect a great deal for a little money, the work must be scamped in order to produce a great effect for a paltry reward. The artists, moreover, are all self-taught, or nearly so, pupilage merely consisting of the drudgery of preparing the canvas, panel, or other material for the master, mixing the colors, filling in backgrounds, varnishing, &c. There are no schools of art, no lectures, no museums of old or contemporary masters, no canons of taste, no drawing from nature or the model, no graduated studies, or system of any kind. There is, however, a certain custom of adhering to tradition and the conventional; and most of the art workmen of Iran, save the select few, are mere reproducers of the ideas of their predecessors.

The system of perspective is erroneous; but neither example nor argument can alter the views of a Persian artist on this subject. Leaving aside the wonderful blending of colors in native carpets, tapestries, and embroideries, all of which improve by the toning influence of age, the modern Persian colorist is remarkable for his skill in the constant use of numerous gaudy and incongruous colors, yet making one harmonious and effective whole, which surprises us by its daring, but compels our reluctant admiration.

Persian pictorial art is original, and it is cheap; the wages of a clever artist are about one shilling and sixpence a day. In fact, he is a mere day-laborer, and his terms are, so many days' pay for a certain picture. In this pernicious system of time-work lies the cause of the scamping of many really ingenious pieces of work.

As a copyist the Persian is unrivalled; he has a more than Chinese accuracy of reproduction; every copy is a fac-simile of its original, the detail being scamped, or the reverse, according to the scale of payment. In unoriginal work, such as the multiplication of some popular design, a man will pass a lifetime, because he finds it pay better to do this than to originate. This kind of unoriginal decoration is most frequent in the painted mirror cases and book-covers, the designs of which are ancient; and the painter merely reproduces the successful and popular work of some old and forgotten master.

But where the Persian artist shines is in his readiness to undertake any style or subject; geometrical patterns—and they are very clever in originating these; scroll-work scenes from the poets; likenesses, miniatures, paintings of flowers or birds; in any media, on any substance, oils, water, or enamel, and painting on porcelain; all are produced with rapidity, wonderful spirit, and striking originality. In landscape, the Persian is very weak; and his attempts at presenting the nude, of which he is particularly fond, are mostly beneath contempt. A street scene will be painted in oils and varnished to order “in a week” on a canvas a yard square, the details of the painting desired being furnished in conversation. While the patron is speaking, the artist rapidly makes an outline sketch in white paint; and any suggested alterations are made in a few seconds by the facile hand of the ustad nakosh (master-painter), a term used to distinguish the artist from the mere portrait-painter or akkas, a branch of the profession much despised by the artists, a body of men who consider their art a mechanical one, and their guild no more distinguished than those of other handicraftsmen.

A Persian artist will always prefer to reproduce rather than originate, because, as a copy will sell for the same price as an original, by multiplication more money can be earned in a certain time, than by the exercise of originality. Rarely, among the better class of artists, is anything actually out of drawing; the perspective is of course faulty, and resembles that of early specimens of Byzantine art. Such monstrosities as the making the principal personages giants, and the subsidiaries dwarfs, are common; while the beauties are represented as much bejewelled; but this is done to please the buyer's taste, and the artist knows its absurdity. There is often considerable weakness as to the rendering of the extremities; but as the Persian artist never draws, save in portraiture, from the life, this is not to be wondered at.

The writer has before him a fair instance of the native artist's rendering of the scene at the administration of the bastinado. This picture is an original painting in oils, twenty-four inches by sixteen on papier-mâché. The details were given to the artist by the writer in conversation, sketched by him in white paint on the papier mâché during the giving of the order, in the course of half an hour; and the finished picture was completed, varnished, and delivered in a week. The price paid for this original work in oils in 1880 was seven shillings and sixpence. The costumes are quite accurate in the minutest detail; the many and staring colors employed are such as are in actual use; while the general mise en scène is very correct.

Many similar oil-paintings were executed for the writer by Persian artists, giving graphic renderings of the manners and customs of this little-known country. They were always equally spirited, and minutely correct as to costume and detail, at the same low price; a small present for an extraordinarily successful performance gladdening the heart of the artist beyond his expectations.

As to original work by Persian artists in water-color, remuneration is the same—so much per diem. A series of water-colors giving minute details of Persian life were wished; and a clever artist was found as anxious to proceed as the writer was to obtain the sketches. The commission was given, and the subjects desired carefully indicated to the artist, who, by a rapid outline sketch in pencil, showed his intelligence and grasp of the subject. The writer, delighted at the thought of securing a correct and permanent record of the manners and customs of a little-known people, congratulated himself. But, alas! he counted his chickens before hatching; for the artist, on coming with his next water-color, demanded, and received, a double wage. A similar result followed the finishing of each drawing; and though the first only cost three shillings, and the second six, the writer was reluctantly compelled to stop his commissions, after paying four times the price of the first for his third water-color, on the artist demanding twenty-four shillings for a fourth—not that the work was more, but as he found himself appreciated, the wily painter kept to arithmetical progression as his scale of charge; a very simple principle, which all artists must devoutly wish they could insist on.

For a reduced copy of a rather celebrated painting, of which the figures were life-size, of what might be called, comparatively speaking, a Persian old master—for this reduction, in oils, fourteen inches by eight, and fairly well done, the charge was a sovereign. The piece was painted on a panel. The subject is a royal banqueting scene in Ispahan—the date a century and a half ago. The dresses are those of the time—the ancient court costume of Persia. The king in a brocaded robe is represented seated on a carpet at the head of a room, his drinking-cup in his hand; while his courtiers are squatted in two rows at the sides of the room, and are also carousing. Minstrels and singers occupy the foreground of the picture; and a row of handsome dancing-girls form the central group. All the figures are portraits of historical personages; and, in the copy, the likenesses are faithfully retained.

The palaces of Ispahan are decorated with large oil paintings by the most eminent Persian artists of their day. All are life-size, and none are devoid of merit. Some are very clever, particularly the likenesses of Futteh Ali Shah and his sons, several of whom were strikingly like their father. As Futteh Ali Shah had an acknowledged family of seventy-two, this latter fact is curious. These paintings are without frames, spaces having been made in the walls to receive them. The Virgin Mary is frequently represented in these mural paintings; also a Mr. Strachey, a young diplomate who accompanied the English mission to Persia in the reign of our Queen Elizabeth, is still admired as a type of adolescent beauty. He is represented with auburn hair in the correct costume of the period; and copies of his portrait are still often painted on the pen-cases of amateurs. These pen-cases, or kalamdans, are the principal occupation of the miniature-painter. As one-fourth of the male population of Persia can write, and as each man has one or more pen-cases, the artist finds a constant market for his wares in their adornment. The pen-case is a box of papier-mâché eight inches long, an inch and a half broad, and the same deep. Some of them, painted by artists of renown, are of great value, forty pounds being a common price to pay for such a work of art by a rich amateur. Several fine specimens may be seen in the Persian Collection at the South Kensington Museum. It is possible to spend a year's hard work on the miniatures painted on a pen-case. These are very minute and beautiful. The writer possesses a pen-case, painted during the lifetime of Futteh Ali Shah, a king of Persia who reigned long and well. All the faces—none more than a quarter of an inch in diameter—are likenesses; and the long black beard of the king reaching to his waist, is not exaggerated, for such beards are common in Persia.

Bookbinding in Persia is an art, and not a trade; and here the flower and bird painter finds his employment. Bright bindings of boards with a leather back are decorated by the artist, principally with presentments of birds and flowers, both being a strange mixture of nature and imagination; for if a Persian artist in this branch thinks that he can improve on nature in the matter of color, he attempts it. The most startling productions are the result; his nightingales being birds of gorgeous plumage, and the colors of some of his flowers saying much for his imagination. This method of “painting the lily” is common in Persia; for the narcissus—bouquets of which form the constant ornament in spring of even the poorest homes—is usually “improved” by rings of colored paper, silk, or velvet being introduced over the inner ring of the petals. Startling floral novelties are the result; and the European seeing them for the first time, is invariably deceived, and cheated into admiration of what turns out afterwards to be a transparent trick. Of course, this system of binding each book in an original cover of its own, among a nation so literary as the Persians, gives a continuous and healthy impetus to the art of the flower-painter.

Enamelling in Persia is a dying art. The best enamels are done on gold, and often surrounded by a ring or frame of transparent enamel, grass-green in color. This green enamel, or rather transparent paste, is supposed to be peculiar to the Persian artist. At times, the gold is hammered into depressions, which are filled with designs in enamel on a white paste, the spaces between the depressions being burnished gold. Large plaques are frequently enamelled on gold for the rich; and often the golden water-pipes are decorated with enamels, either alone, or in combination with incrusted gems.

Yet another field remains to the Persian artist—that of engraving on gold, silver, brass, copper, and iron. Here the work is usually artistically good, and always original, no two pieces being alike.

Something must be said about the artist and his studio. Abject poverty is the almost universal lot of the Persian artist. He is, however, an educated man, and generally well-read. His marvellous memory helps him to retain the traditional attributes of certain well-known figures: the black-bearded Rustum (the Persian Hercules), and his opponent the Deev Suffid or White Demon; Leila and Mujnūn, the latter of whom retired to the wilderness for love of the beautiful Leila; and in a painfully attenuated state, all his ribs being very apparent, is always represented as conversing with the wild beasts, who sit around him in various attitudes of respectful attention. Dr. Tanner could never hope to reach the stage of interesting emaciation to which the Persian artists represent Mujnūn to have attained. Another popular subject is that of Solomon in all his glory.

These legends are portrayed with varying art but unquestionable spirit, and often much humor; while the poetical legends of the mythical history of ancient Persia, full of strange imagery, find apt illustrators in the Persian artist. The palmy days of book-illustration have departed; the cheap reprints of Bombay have taken away the raison d'être of the caligraphist and book-illustrators, and the few really great artists who remain are employed by the present Shah in illustrating his great copy of the Arabian Nights by miniatures which emulate the beauty and detail of the best specimens of ancient monkish art, or in making bad copies of European lithographs to “adorn” the walls of the royal palaces.

As for the painter's studio, it is usually a bare but light apartment, open to the winds, in a corner of which, on a scrap of matting, the artist kneels, sitting on his heels. (It tires an oriental to sit in a chair.) A tiny table a foot high holds all his materials; his paints are mixed on a tile; and his palette is usually a bit of broken crockery. His brushes he makes himself. Water-pipe in mouth—a luxury that even an artist can afford, in a country where tobacco is fourpence a pound—his work held on his knee in his left hand, without a mahl-stick or the assistance of a color-man, the artist squats contentedly at his work. He is ambitious, proud of his powers, and loves his art for art's sake. Generally, he does two classes of work—the one the traditional copies of the popular scenes before described, or the painting on pen cases—by this he lives; the other purely ideal, in which he deals with art from a higher point of view, and practises the particular branch which he affects.

As a painter of likenesses, the Persian seldom succeeds in flattering. The likeness is assuredly obtained; but the sitter is usually “guyed,” and a caricature is generally the result. This is not the case in the portraits of females, and in the ideal heads of women and children. The large dreamy eye and long lashes, the full red lips, and naturally high color, the jetty or dark auburn locks (a color caused by the use of henna, a dye) of the Persian women in their natural luxuriance, lend themselves to the successful production of the peculiarly felicitous representation of female beauty in which the Persian artist delights. Accuracy in costume is highly prized, and the minutiæ of dress are indicated with much aptness, the varied pattern of a shawl or scarf being rendered with almost Chinese detail. Beauty of the brunette type is the special choice of the artist and amateur, and “salt”—as a high-colored complexion is termed—is much admired.

Like the ancient Byzantine artist, the Persian makes a free use of gold and silver in his work. When wishing to represent the precious metals, he first gilds or silvers the desired portion of the canvas or panel, and then with a fine brush puts in shadows, etc. In this way a strangely magnificent effect is produced. The presentments of mailed warriors are done in this way; and the jewelled chairs, thrones, and goblets in which the oriental mind delights. Gilt backgrounds, too, are not uncommon, and their effect is far from displeasing.

The painting of portraits of Mohammed, Ali, Houssein, and Hassan—the last three, relatives of the Prophet, and the principal martyred saints in the Persian calendar, is almost a trade in itself, though the representation of the human form is contrary to the Mohammedan religion, and the saints are generally represented as veiled and faceless figures. Yet in these particular cases, custom has overridden religious law, and the Schamayūl (or portrait of Ali) is common. He is represented as a portly personage of swarthy hue; his dark and scanty beard, which is typical of the family of Mohammed, crisply curled; his hand is grasping his sword; and he is usually depicted as wearing a green robe and turban (the holy color of the Seyyuds or descendants of the Prophet). A nimbus surrounds his head; and he is seated on an antelope's skin, for the Persians say that skins were used in Arabia before the luxury of carpets was known there.

Humble as is the lot of the Persian artist, he expects to be treated by the educated with consideration, and would be terribly hurt at any want of civility. One well-known man, Agha Abdullah of Shiraz, generally insisted on regaling the writer with coffee, which he prepared himself when his studio was visited. To have declined this would have been to give mortal offence. On one of these visits, his little brasier of charcoal was nearly extinguished, and the host had recourse to a curious kind of fire-igniter, reviver, or rather steam-blast, that as yet is probably undescribed in books. It was of hammered copper, and had a date on it that made it three hundred years old. It was fairly well modelled; and this curious domestic implement was in the similitude of a small duck preening its breast; consequently, the open beak, having a spout similar to that of a tea-kettle, was directed downwards. The Persian poured an ounce or so of water into the copper bird, and placed it on the expiring embers. Certainly the result was surprising. In a few minutes the small quantity of water boiled fiercely; a jet of steam was emitted from the open bill, and very shortly the charcoal was burning brightly. The water having all boiled away, the Persian triumphantly removed this scientific bellows with his tongs, and prepared coffee.

No mention has been made of the curious bazaar pictures, sold for a few pence. These cost little, but are very clever, and give free scope for originality, which is the great characteristic of the Persian artist. They consist of studies of town-life, ideal pictures of dancing-girls, and such-like. All are bold, ingenious, and original. But bazaar pictures would take a chapter to themselves, and occupy more space than can be spared.—Chambers's Journal.

HOW INSECTS BREATHE.

Perhaps in the entire range of insect anatomy there is no point more truly marvellous than the manner in which the respiratory system is modified, in order to suit it to the peculiar requirements of its owners.

In many ways the structure of the insects is wonderful enough. They are gifted with muscles of extraordinary strength, and are yet destitute of bones to which those muscles can be attached; they possess a circulatory system, and are yet without a heart; they perform acts involving the exercise of certain mental qualities, and are yet without a brain. But, more remarkable still, they breathe atmospheric air without the aid of lungs.

And this for a very good reason. It can be neither too often nor too strongly insisted upon that, throughout animated nature, Structure is in all cases subservient to Habit. If in any animal we find some singular development in bodily form, we may be quite sure that there is a peculiarity in the life-history which renders such development of particular service, and so may often gain very complete information with regard to the habits by a mere glance at external characteristics. If, for example, the general shape is cylindrical, the toes webbed, and the hair set closely against the body, we may safely conclude that the animal is one intended for a life in the water. If the form is conical, the limbs short, and the claws large and strong, that it is one which burrows in the earth. If the jaws are large and massive, the teeth long and sharply pointed, and the muscular power is concentrated principally into the fore-parts of the body, that it is a beast of prey. And so on with minor details.

And this rule holds equally good in the case of the insects, which are devoid of lungs for the very sufficient reason that those organs are necessarily weighty, and consequently unsuitable to the requirements of beings which are in great measure creatures of air. In all animals intended for a more or less aerial existence every particle of superfluous weight must be dispensed with, in order that the strain upon the muscles of flight may be reduced to the least possible degree. Take the bats, and see how the skeleton has been attenuated until it scarcely seems capable of affording the necessary rigidity to the frame. Take the birds, and see how a large portion of the body is occupied by supplementary air-cells, which permeate the very bones themselves, and thus minimize the weight without detracting from the strength. And so also with the insects, but in a different manner.

For in them the very lungs themselves are taken away, and replaced by a respiratory system of great simplicity, and yet of wonderful intricacy, which penetrates to every part of the structure, and simultaneously aerates the whole of the blood contained in the body. In other words, an insect is one large Lung.

If we take any moderately large insect, say a wasp or a hornet, we can see, even with the naked eye, that a series of small spot-like marks runs along either side of the body. These apparent spots, which are generally eighteen or twenty in number, are in fact the apertures through which air is admitted into the system, and are generally formed in such a manner that no extraneous matter can by any possibility find entrance. Sometimes they are furnished with a pair of horny lips, which can be opened and closed at the will of the insect; in other cases they are densely fringed with stiff, interlacing bristles, forming a filter, which allows air, and air alone, to pass. But the apparatus, of whatever character it may be, is always so wonderfully perfect in its action that it has been found impossible to inject the body of a dead insect with even so subtle a medium as spirits of wine, although the subject was first immersed in the fluid, and then placed beneath the receiver of an air-pump.

The apertures in question, which are technically known as “spiracles,” communicate with two large breathing-tubes, or “tracheæ,” which extend through the entire length of the body. From these main tubes are given off innumerable branches, which run in all directions, and continually divide and subdivide until a wonderfully intricate network is formed, pervading every part of the structure, and penetrating even to the antennæ and claws.

Physiologists tell us that if in the human frame the nerves, the muscles, and the veins and arteries could be separated from one another, while retaining their own relative positions, each would be found to possess the perfect human form. In other words, there would be the nerve-man, the muscle-man, and the blood-vessel-man, as well as the bone-man which supplies the framework of the whole. In the same way we may speak of the tracheal, or breathing-tube insect; for the two main tubes and the endless ramifications of their branches, if they could be detached from the surrounding tissues while themselves suffering no displacement, would exhibit to us the form of the insect from which they were taken, and that so exactly that in many cases we should almost be able to recognize the species.

In the smaller branches of these air-vessels considerable variety is to be found. Some retain their tubular character to their very termination. Others assume a curious beaded form, dilating at short intervals into small chambers; while yet others abruptly resolve themselves into sac-like reservoirs, in which a comparatively large quantity of air is stored up. From the larger vessels are thrown off vast numbers of exceedingly delicate filaments, so small that a very powerful microscope is necessary in order to detect them, which float loosely in the blood, and furnish it with the constant supply of oxygen necessary for its purification.

Now, we may well ask ourselves how it is that these tubes, which are of almost inconceivable delicacy, should remain open during the various movements of which the flexible body is capable. Why is it, for instance, that the air-supply of the lower leg is not cut off when the limb is bent at the knee-joint? or from the head, when that important part of the frame is tucked away beneath the body? How does the Earwig contrive to breathe while folding its wings by the aid of its tail-forceps? or many of the Cocktail-beetles when curled up in their peculiar attitude of repose?

The answer to these questions is simple enough, and may be discovered by a glance at one of the most familiar of our own inventions—the flexible gas-tube. This preserves its tubular form no matter to what degree it may be bent or twisted, for coiled closely within it is a spiral wire, which obliges the interior of the pipe to retain its diameter almost unaltered alike when straight or curved. And as with this, so with the tracheæ of the insect, whose walls are formed of a double layer, the one lying inside the other, while between the two, and surrounding the inner, is coiled a fine but very strong elastic thread, whose convolutions allow the vessel to be bent in any required direction without losing its cylindrical form. By the exercise of a little care the anatomist can often unwind an inch or two of this spiral thread from a single branch of the tracheæ of a tolerably large insect, so closely is it coiled, and so elastic its character.

It will thus be seen that each expansion of the respiratory muscles causes the air to rush to every part of the body, the entire bulk of the blood being consequently aerated at each respiration. This fact is a most important one, for, as it is not necessary that the blood should be brought to a definite centre, as in the higher animals, before it can be re-vivified, and then despatched through another series of vessels upon its errand of invigorating the frame, the necessity for a circulatory system is almost wholly at an end, and a large amount of weight consequently dispensed with. Insects have neither veins nor arteries, one principal vessel running along the back, and the blood passing slowly through this, and flowing between the various organs of the body until it again enters it at the opposite extremity to that from which it emerged.

Nor is this all. With ourselves, as with the higher animals in general, nearly one-half of the blood, the venous, is always effete and useless, requiring to pass through the lungs before it can again be rendered fit for service. When this is vivified and pumped back by the heart into the system, that which was before arterial becomes venous in its turn; and so on. But not in the case of the insects. The whole bulk of their blood is arterial, if we may use the expression in speaking of animals which do not possess a vascular system. In other words, being incessantly vivified throughout the body, owing to the comprehensive character of the respiratory apparatus, no portion of it becomes at any time effete from the exhaustion of the contained oxygen. Blood so thoroughly and continually aerated, therefore, can practically perform double work, and need be far less in volume than in beings whose circulation is conducted upon different principles. The tracheal structure, consequently, while itself detracting from rather than adding to the substance of the body, permits of the abolition, not only of lungs, but also of veins and arteries and of a considerable proportion of the blood, so that the weight of the insect is reduced to the least possible degree.

There is yet another point to be considered, and that a very curious and at present unexplained one. Upon careful investigation we find that the tracheæ extend beyond the limits of the circulation, showing that they must serve some secondary purpose in addition to that generally attributed to them. For nature provides nothing in vain, and would not without good and sufficient reason have carried the breathing-tubes farther than necessary for their primary object of regenerating the blood. As to what this purpose may be, however, we have no certain knowledge, and can only conjecture that it is in some way connected with the olfactory system. It is well known that the sense of scent is in many insects very highly developed, enabling them to ascertain the position of their food while yet at a considerable distance. Burying-beetles and blowflies, for instance, will detect the faintest odor of putrid carrion, and will wing their way without hesitation to the spot whence it proceeds. Ivy-blossom, again, will attract almost every butterfly and moth in the neighborhood, and this clearly by reason of its peculiar fragrance.

It may be, therefore, that the perfection of the organs of scent in insects is due to the fact that they are distributed throughout the body, instead of being localized as is the case with animals higher in the scale. That they must be connected with the respiratory apparatus would seem, judging by analogy, to be indisputable, for, so far as we know, an odor cannot be appreciated unless the air containing it be allowed to pass more or less rapidly over the olfactory nerves. And in no other part of an insect's structure could this requisite so well be observed as in the tracheæ themselves, through which a stream of air is continually passing, and which penetrate to the remotest parts of the body.

With so wonderful a respiratory system, it naturally follows that an insect must be particularly susceptible to the effects of any poisonous vapor, which, being immediately carried to all parts of the body, must speedily be attended by fatal results. And this is the case in a very marked degree. A moth or beetle, which will live for hours, and even days, after receiving an injury which would cause instant death to a more highly organized being, will yet succumb in a few seconds to the fumes of ether or chloroform, owing to the fact that the deadly influence is simultaneously exerted upon all the nerve-centres of the body, instead of being confined to one or two alone.

So much for the respiratory system of insects as a group. We have seen how air is admitted into the body, how the entire bulk of the blood is continuously aerated, and how every particle of needless weight has carefully been dispensed with. There are many species, however, whose mode of life renders necessary certain further developments, in order that respiration may be carried on under circumstances which would otherwise render it impossible. Such, for example, are the various aquatic insects, which, while spending the greater part of their existence beneath the surface of the water, must yet be enabled to command a continual supply of atmospheric air. They are not, as a rule, furnished with gills like the fish, for it is necessary that they should be able to leave their ponds and streams at will, and become for the time terrestrial or aerial beings, subject to the same conditions as others of their class. But they are, nevertheless, provided with certain modifications of structure, which enable them to breathe with equal ease, whether submerged in the water, crawling upon the ground, or flying through the air.

Even in these modifications there is considerable variety, dependent in all cases upon the requirements of the individual species. The Water-beetles, for instance, which must be able to lurk concealed among the weeds, &c., until a victim comes within their reach, and then to pursue and overtake it, carry down with them a supply of air in a kind of reservoir, situated between the body and the wing-cases. The former of these is concave and the latter convex, so that a chamber of considerable size is formed, containing sufficient for their requirements during a tolerably long period of time. And in these insects the spiracles, instead of being situated along the sides of the body, are placed upon the upper surface of the abdomen, so that they open into the air-chamber itself, and allow the respiration to be carried on without the slightest difficulty or inconvenience.

There is only one drawback to this arrangement, and that is, that the increased buoyance prevents the insect from remaining beneath the water excepting at the expense of active exertion, unless it can find some submerged object to which to cling. Even this disadvantage, however, is more apparent than real, for, while on the watch for prey, it is necessary for the insect to remain as motionless as possible, and, when engaged in swimming, the peculiar action of the oar-like limbs neutralizes the tendency to rise towards the surface.

Upon an average, a water-beetle remains from fifteen to twenty minutes without requiring to breathe; this period being capable of considerable extension should occasion arise. I have forced one of these insects, for instance, to stay beneath the surface for nearly an hour and a half, by alarming it as often as it attempted to rise. Generally speaking, however, before the first half hour is over, the beetle allows itself to float to the surface, protrudes the tips of the wing-cases, and expels the exhausted air from the cavity beneath them; a fresh supply is then taken in, and the insect again dives, the entire operation occupying barely a second of time.

Here we have a being, feeding upon living prey, which it must capture for itself, and yet sluggish and slow of foot. By stratagem alone, therefore, can it hope to succeed, and it accordingly lies hidden among the dead leaves, sticks, &c., at the bottom of the water until some luckless insect passes within reach of its jaw-like fore-limbs. But this may not occur for hours, and it is imperatively necessary that no alarm should be given by frequent journeys to the surface in search of air. So, the extremity of the body is furnished with a curious organ consisting of two long filaments, which are, in reality, tubular, and which serve to convey air to the spiracles. The extreme tips of these project slightly above the surface when the insect is at rest at the bottom of the pond, so that respiration can be carried on without difficulty, and without necessitating the slightest change of position.

A still more curious structure, although of very much the same character, is afforded us by the grubs of the common Drone-fly. These are inhabitants of the thickest and most fetid mud, dwelling entirely beneath its surface, and consequently cut off from all personal communication with the atmosphere. But from the end of the body proceeds a long tube, which can be lengthened or shortened at will, somewhat after the manner of a telescope, and which conveys air to the spiracles just as do the tail filaments of the water scorpion. Unable to change their position, these “rat-tailed maggots,” as they are popularly called, are yet independent of any alteration in the depth of the water above them, for the air-tube can be instantly regulated to the required length, and so insure an uninterrupted supply of air.

Yet another system we find employed in the case of the grub of the Dragon-fly, which stands almost alone among insects in its power of extracting the necessary oxygen from the water itself. This is one of the most rapacious of living beings, ever upon the watch for prey, and securing its victims, not by stealth and fraud, but by open attack. Its swimming powers, consequently, are of a very high order, and are due to an organ which serves the double purpose of locomotion and respiration, and which is one of the most wonderful pieces of structure to be found in the whole of the insect world.

If a dragon-fly grub be even casually examined, a curious five-pointed appendage will be noticed at the extremity of the body. If these five points be carefully separated they will be seen to surround the entrance to a tubular passage, of about the diameter of an ordinary pin. This passage runs throughout almost the entire length of the body, and, by the expansion and contraction of the abdominal muscles, can be opened and closed at will.

When open, of course, it is instantly filled with water; when closed, the contents are driven out with some little force. Consequently, the action of the ejected fluid upon the surrounding water drives the insect sharply forward, just as a sky-rocket rises into the air owing to the action of the expelled gases upon the atmosphere. As soon as the effect of the first stroke is at an end a second contraction of the body takes place, and the operation is repeated as often as necessary. The water, while in the swimming tube, however, is exhausted of its oxygen, for the entrances to the respiratory system are inside instead of outside the body, and act in much the same manner as do the gills of a fish. The insect, therefore, is not obliged to visit the surface of the water at all, and can continue to search for prey without interruption.

Such are some of the many modifications brought about in insect structure by the requirements of the respiratory organs alone. Each, as will be noticed, is specially adapted to individual wants, and each is absolutely perfect in its own way, insuring a continual supply of oxygen for the purification of the blood, whatever the conditions under which life may be carried on.—Good Words.

PIERRE'S MOTTO:
A CHACUN SELON SON TRAVAIL.

“A chacun selon son travail, To each man according to his work, that's my way of looking at it. Go by that motto and things will soon come right.”

I heard this said, with great emphasis, by Pierre Nigaud to some of his mates as I entered the workshop. I went there every month to collect the contributions to a Provident Insurance Club, to which several of the men belonged. Pierre was on the whole an industrious as well as clever workman, and had joined the club readily, as he thought it right to save something for his wife and children, and to provide for a rainy day, as the saying is.

I had observed, however, that Pierre on the last occasion when I saw him was less frank than he used to be, and did not hand over his money with the same cheerful goodwill as formerly. What was the cause I did not know, but he soon made it plain. He had been listening to some plausible people, or reading some shallow treatises that made him discontented with his lot.

“I was just saying when you came in,” he began, “A chacun selon son travail, To each man according to his work. Don't you think that a good motto?”

“Well, it sounds good, but it depends how you apply it, and what you are talking about.”

“I was talking, I and my mates, about the great inequality among people. Riches are distributed in a very strange and, I say, unjust fashion. Is it not unjust that, while so many poor fellows have to work hard to gain a few pence a day, there are wealthy Nabobs who haul in gold by shovelfuls? I read in a paper the other day that the English Duke of Westminster has an income of twenty millions of francs, which brings him at least 50,000 francs a day!”

“Quite true, and he is far from being the most wealthy man you might name, I believe the Californian Mackay has about seventy millions of income. Rothschild, of Frankfort, left more than a milliard. Astor and Vanderbilt, of New York, and other millionaires on both sides the ocean, have untold wealth.”

“There, you see,” said Pierre; “and what appears to me the worst wrong of all is that these huge incomes belong to people who do next to nothing, while poverty is oftenest the lot of those who work and toil the hardest. I call this downright injustice. A chacun selon son travail. The riches ought to be with those that work. That's my way of looking at it.”

“All right, Pierre,” said I; “there is a good deal of truth in what you say. It is quite true that in regard to the distribution of wealth, as in regard to many other things, this world is far from being perfect. But do you think that if you had the re-arrangement of society, and the redistribution of riches, you could proceed on some other and better plan?”

“Certainly. I believe, without any presumption, that I could,” said Pierre. “What seems to me difficult is not to make things better, but to make them any worse than they are now!”

One of the workmen here said that nothing was simpler than to take the surplus wealth of these rich men, and divide it amongst the deserving poor.

“That plan is just a little too simple,” I remarked. “All the millions of a Rothschild would go a very little way, if divided among the population of Paris alone, and we should soon have to resort to other schemes to redress the ever-renewed inequalities. No; no; what I want Pierre to show us is some better system of society, and he thinks he has the key to the problem in his favorite motto, A chacun selon son travail. But just let me remind you that in ancient times there was a king of Spain who was a bit of an astronomer; and looking at the heavens, and wondering at the complicated movements of the stars, he said that if he had been consulted in the matter he could have made a much better and simpler arrangement. Your purpose is not so ambitious and presumptuous as his, for the heavens are the work of the Almighty, who has imposed upon Nature certain fixed laws; whereas the laws of society are the work of men, and men are liable to err. Let us then hear what improvement you can suggest in the laws and usages which regulate the distribution of wealth.”

Pierre was somewhat taken aback, for he felt that the existing arrangements of society were very complex, and it was not easy to determine where the reform should begin.

“Well,” said I, “let us suppose that a number of persons were set on shore upon an island, where none had any rights or property beyond the others. Let us suppose that there are as yet no laws, that there is no government, no past history: all are free and equal, and you have full power to organise the distribution of wealth in this new society, and to decide what is to be the share of each. Come now, you have a carte blanche, let us hear what you would do.”

“Well,” said Pierre, “I should begin by deciding that every one was to do what he would and what he could, and that every one should keep what he was able by his work and industry to obtain. A chacun selon son travail: behold my fundamental rule!”

“It is an excellent rule,” I said, “and I do not think any one could find a better. It appears to me to be just, and also eminently practical, for it would stimulate every one to produce by his industry as much as he could. I see by this that you are no advocate of Communism.”

“Certainly not,” said Pierre. “Communism is a very good thing in a family, where every one exerts himself to work for those he loves, and accepts without murmur his share of work, certain that the mother, or whoever is housekeeper, manages the common purse with thrift, and in the interest of all. But in a large society, I do not think that men are equally willing to exert themselves for those whom they have no knowledge of and no special attachment to. Besides, in Communism under the State, the manager holding the purse strings would be no other than the Government, and I would not have confidence in its management being wise and economical.”

“I quite agree with you. But let us return to your plan. After establishing your principle, “to each one the produce of his labor,” what would you do then?”

“Nothing at all; every one would then stand on his own bottom. He that works well would have sufficient, and he who did no work would have nothing.”

“You do not imagine,” I observed, “that you would obtain equality by these conditions? Since every one has to take his part in the work, it is evident that these parts will be small or great, according as each is industrious or not. You would soon come to have in your new society the rich and the poor.”

“Well, perhaps; but at all events there would be none too rich or too poor.”

“How do you know that? Here are two families: in one the habits of work, of order, of economy, are hereditary; the other is given, from father to son, to idleness, improvidence, and dissipation. The distance that separates these families, small at first, must go on increasing, till in the natural course of things, sooner or later, there would come to be the same inequality as between Rothschild and a beggar. It would only be a question of time.”

Pierre's companions, who were listening attentively to the discussion, here murmured assent, or what would correspond to the “Hear, hear!” of more formal debates. Pierre, however, merely remarked that this result might seem opposed to his views, but that he nevertheless accepted it; “because,” said he, “in this case the inequality of riches would at least be the result of work and of the efforts of each worker. There would be no injustice.”

“Pardon me, Pierre, but I think that your motto is still causing you to cherish some illusions. Let me show you my way of looking at it. A chacun selon son travail, you say, To every one the product of his own industry. But what is the proprietor to do with the product of his labor? He will no doubt sell all that is over and above what he needs for his own use, and the price of what is sold will form his income. But the price of things depends on a variety of conditions independent of our personal labor and our own will; such for instance, as the vicissitudes of seasons and the variations of the markets. Out of a difference of ten francs in the price of wine may result the fortune or the ruin of a proprietor, and that proves nothing as to his having himself labored well or ill. The revenue or net profit is rarely in exact proportion to the labor bestowed, in farming or vine-growing or any other industry. What we call chance will always play its part in the affairs of this world, and in the new world which you are planning you cannot hinder Fortune from dispensing her favors in an unequal fashion; it is not without reason that she is represented with a bandage over her eyes!”

“Ah, bah!” exclaimed Pierre; “you disconcert me with your suppositions. What do you want? I firmly believe that in my colony, as everywhere, there will be good and bad luck, but while the chances are equal for all, and there is no place for wrong-doing or trickery, I console myself. At least you will admit that my principle, A chacun le produit de son travail, will have this good result, that it will render impossible the existence of rich idle people who pass their life in doing nothing.”

“Are you quite sure of that, Pierre? If any one after working ten or twenty years has produced enough property to suffice for his wants during the remainder of his days, do you pretend to hinder him from spending in his own way, in idleness if he pleases, what he had amassed by his labors?”

“Certainly not, because such a one would be living on the product of his own toil. Let a man rest in the evening after having worked hard in the morning, and let him live in ease in his old age after having produced enough by the toil of his youth; I see no harm in that. I have no wish to condemn the members of my colony to forced labor in perpetuity. The only idlers that I wish to exclude are those who live without ever having worked at all or produced anything—the rentiers, as they call them, or idle people, who live on their income, or the interest of their money.”

“Stop now, Pierre; do you admit that a man who has obtained anything by his labor has the right to do what he pleases with it?”

“Here is a man who has made a loaf of bread. You admit his right to eat it all if he is hungry, or to set part of it aside if he has not appetite at the time for all of it, or even to throw some of it away, as he pleases.”

“Yes, it is a consequence of my principle, A chacun le produit de son travail. He who creates wealth has the right to dispose of it as he pleases. But what has that to do with your argument?”

“Just this. If he who produces a thing can do what he pleases with it, he can surely give it where he pleases. If, then, it suits me to make every day a loaf for you, and to give it to you; still more, if it pleases me to give to you out of my property or to bequeath to you after my death enough bread, or, what comes to the same thing, enough money to support you during your life, you will have acquired the means of walking about with your hands in your pockets like an idle gentleman. You will, in fact, have become a rentier.”

Never,” said Pierre, “never. If I allowed such parasites to exist in my new society it would be no better than the old.”

“Then don't talk any more about your motto, A chacun le produit de son travail. If you adopt this principle you must adopt also its consequences, whether you like them or not. If, according to your system, you admit to every one the right of disposing of the fruit of his labor, you must admit the right to receive as well as to give. Where the worker is master of his own property it depends on him whether he will create a rentier, and you cannot prevent him except by decreeing that he is incapable of disposing of what belongs to him. Beware of what must happen otherwise. If in your new society you prevented parents from giving or leaving to their children the property they have amassed, there would be risk of their amassing far less or of dissipating what they had already been able to accumulate by their industry and thrift, which would be a great loss for all. We must allow, in fact, and it is to the honor of human nature, that there are very many in this world who work more and save more for their children and for others rather than for themselves.”

“Well, sir, if in my new society there must eventually be rich and poor, workers and non-workers: if the portion of each is not necessarily proportioned to their labor then how, I wish to know, would this new society which I have taken such trouble to plan and organise, how would it differ from the society in which we now live?”

“In nothing at all, my good friend, and this it just what I wished to demonstrate to you. You see that the world in which we live is, after all, not so badly organised, seeing that the new one which you have tried to create on better principles, as you imagined, turns out, at the end of the account, to be an exact reproduction of the existing system.”—Leisure Hour.

BEHIND THE SCENES.

During the past year there has been a considerable amount of discussion, within the circumference of a comparatively inconsiderable circle, as to the social position of the professional actor. It is a subject that crops up from time to time, attracting more or less attention to itself, from those outside the boundary, according to whatever may happen to be the prevalent artistic development, or the latest fashionable craze. The tone of the disputants and the weight of their individual character must, of course, be taken into account. The actor is of all professors of any kind of art the one who is most before the public. The result of his study is ephemeral: “he struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more,” though nowadays the strutting and fretting are not by any means limited to the hour upon the stage; and at the present time there seems to be some anxiety on the part of the children of Thespis to obtain such an authoritative definition of their status, as shall put their position in society above all question, by placing them on a level with the members of the recognised professions. It is asserted that the professional actor is far differently situated now from what he was fifty, or even thirty years ago. Actor and actress are, it is pointed out, received everywhere, petted, fêted, lionized, and made much of; our young men of birth and education but of limited purse, take to the stage, professionally, as a honorable means of earning their livelihood, just as the youngest son of a good, but impoverished family, used to be sent into the Church in order to hold a family living. Further, it has been said that for our young ladies to go on the stage is not now considered, as heretofore, a disgrace, but, on the contrary, rather a plume in their bonnet. Altogether it may be fairly inferred that there has recently been a movement theatrewards, favorable to the social prospects of the professional actor. But has it been anything more than this? Is the actor's calling one whit nearer being recognised as on a social equality with the regular professions than it was fifty years ago?

Throughout this article I shall use the word “society” in its widest and most comprehensive acceptation, except of course where its limitation is expressly stated.

A “status in society” means a certain standing among one's fellow subjects, fixed by law, recognised by traditional usage, and acknowledged by every one, from the highest to the lowest. Formerly, it must be admitted, that as one of the “rogues and vagabonds” by Act of Parliament the actor, quâ actor, had no more status in society than the professional beggar with whom he was unjustly classed.

And even now, when this blot on our statute-book has been erased, a respectable theatrical company, travelling in the provinces, is described in the law courts as “a company of strolling players.” Undoubtedly, in a liberal age, the actor's disabilities have been removed; but is he not asking for what is an impossibility from the very nature of the case, when he advances a claim for the recognition of his “calling” as on an equality with the acknowledged professions, which, of themselves, confer a certain honorable status on their members, stamping them, so far, gentlemen? A man who is a gentleman by birth and education is, as Mrs. Micawber phrases it, “eligible” for the best society; and he can only forfeit his social position by misconduct. Now, one question is, does “going on the stage” imply forfeiture of social position? To consider this impartially we must get entirely away from Leo Hunter associations and cliques established on the mutual-admiration principle. The test cases are soon and easily put. Let us suppose the case of the son of an impoverished peer. He cannot afford to be idle. He has a liking for the bar: he passes his examination and becomes a barrister; or he has an inclination for the Church, and there being a family living vacant, and plenty of interest to get him on, he takes orders. In either case does he forfeit his social position? Certainly not: if anything, he improves it by becoming a member of an honorable and dignified profession. Supposing he has money, and prefers soldiering or sailoring to doing absolutely nothing, does he forfeit his social position by becoming an officer? Certainly not: on the contrary he improves his already good social status. I maintain that, prima facie, for a man to be an officer, a barrister, or a clergyman, is in itself a passport to any English society. Wherever he is personally unknown, it is assumed that he is a gentleman, until the contrary is proved; and this assumption is on the strength of his profession only. Let the rank of our hypothetical peer's son be subsequently discovered, and for that representative portion of society which has “entertained an angel unawares,” he has the recommendation of his nobility plus the social position implied by his profession.

But how if the son of our “poor nobleman” have a taste for theatricals, and, after being at Eton and Oxford, determine on “adopting the stage as a profession,” or, as it might be more correctly put, “in lieu of a profession.” What will his noble father and his relatives say to this step? Will they be as pleased as if he were going into the army, or to the bar, or into the Church? Not exactly. If he became an officer, a barrister, or a clergyman, the event would be officially notified in due form; but if he went on the stage there would be startling paragraphs in the papers announcing “The Son of an Earl on the Stage,” “The Honorable Mr. So-and-So has adopted the profession of the stage, &c., &c.” “Well, and why not?” some will exclaim; and others will commend his pluck, and say, “Quite right too.” I entirely agree with them. But the point is, has the young gentleman taken a step up the social ladder, or has he gone more than two or three down? Has he improved his position, or injured it? Certainly, as matters stand, there can be but one answer,—the step he has taken has seriously affected the position to which his birth and education entitle him.

As a barrister on circuit I have supposed him received quâ barrister with his legal brethren; as an officer, quartered in a garrison town, we know he will be received quâ officer, with his brother officers, and no questions asked; and I have alluded to the satisfaction that will be felt (snobbery of course is taken for granted everywhere) when his rank is discovered. But as a player with other players in a country town, will he be received by society, it being understood that because he is a player, therefore he is a gentleman by birth and education? On becoming a soldier, or a barrister, does any one change his name? No: but on going “on the stage” it is the rule for any one to conceal his identity under some name widely different from his own, just as he conceals his individuality behind the footlights with cosmetics, burnt cork, and an eccentric wig. When it is ascertained who he is, will this same society, which would have received him as a barrister, be satisfied and delighted? No, probably scandalised. It will be with these simple, old-fashioned persons a foregone conclusion that this scion of a noble house must be a loose sort of fellow, and they will decide that the less they see of him the better.

There is one reason why the aspirant for Thespian honors (if such he really be) should change his name, and that is the chance of failure. If he goes on the stage as somebody else, and fails as somebody else, very few will hear of it, and he may quit “the boards” none the worse, perhaps for the experience; but for some considerable time, until in fact he has “lived it down,” he will be very careful to conceal this episode in his career from the world at large.

Before getting at the very essence of the difficulty, I will ask in what light do our upper-middle class, and upper-lower middle class, and the remainder of that form (the public school divisions are useful) regard the stage as a means of earning a livelihood?

We must put out of the case entirely all instances of genius. An histrionic genius will be an actor, and his success will justify his choice. The force of his genius will take him everywhere. Genius excuses a multitude of faults and solecisms. We must, too, leave out of the question cases of exceptional talent, where there is more than an occasional spark of the feu sacré. Whether histrionic genius could be better utilised than on the stage, may occur to some serious minds with a decided anti-theatrical bias. But the histrion for the stage, and the stage for the histrion, and we must take the stage as it is for what it is, and not for what it is not. Such a reform of the stage, as shall give its members something like the status they very properly covet, is a matter for future consideration. Let it be understood then—and I cannot impress this too often on those who do me the honor of reading my contribution towards the discussion,—that I am only speaking of very ordinary men and women taking to the stage as a means of earning their livelihood. The men first; it is not yet awhile place aux dames, when professions are concerned.

Whatever theatrical biography I have taken up, I can call to mind but very few instances of a man going on the stage with the full approbation of his relatives. Let his parents be small or large tradesmen, civil servants, clerks in the City, no matter what, they rarely took kindly to their son “going on the stage.” It was so: is it not so now? The bourgeois is as dead against his son becoming an actor as ever he was. Scratch the British bourgeois and you'll come upon the puritan.

Supposing a tradesman, free from narrow prejudices, and theatrically inclined, a regular theatre-goer in fact,—will he be one whit more favorable to his son's becoming an actor? No: rather the contrary. He will not indeed regard him as going straight to a place unmentionable, as probably he will not consider the religious bearings of the “vocation” at all, but he will not give the youth his blessing, and he may contemplate omitting his name from his will. Supposing this same son had told his father that he wanted to be a barrister, and in order to do so he should like, as a first step, to serve as a clerk in a solicitor's office, wouldn't the old tradesman be pleased? Certainly. He might, indeed, prove to the lad that if he would stick to the business he would be better off for a certainty, but, all the same, the youth's aspirations would give his parent considerable pleasure. And, to be brief, here is a case which will bring the question directly home to every one; given equality in every other respect, and which would be preferred as a son-in-law, the ordinary actor, or the briefless barrister?

The question of the social status of the stage is still more important as affecting ladies who have to earn their livelihood. At the present day there are more chances of suitable employment for educated, respectably-connected girls than there were fifty years ago. As yet, however, the demand exceeds the supply. Few occupations insure to successful ladies such good pay as stage-playing; but, as in the previous instances, “on the spear side,” so now we must consider the case of girls of ordinary intelligence, well brought up, not by any means geniuses, with no particular talent, and who have to earn their living. If they cannot paint plates and doileys, or copy pictures in oils, if they object to any clerkly drudgery that has something menial in it, and if, as has been affirmed, they “turn with a sigh of relief towards the vista of the stage,” let us see what this “vista” has to offer, and on what terms. And to do this we had better take a glance at “professional,” i.e., “theatrical” life.

What Tom Robertson, whose personal experience of every variety of theatrical life was considerable, in his thoroughly English (let us be grateful for this, at all events) play of Caste left to the imagination, in giving us Eccles as a widower, and bestowing an honest, hard-working lover on Polly (this was a mistake, except as a concession to respectability, for Polly was never meant to be a Mrs. Sam Gerridge, a small tradesman's wife, or, if she were, so much the worse for Sam), M. Halévy in his Monsieur et Madame Cardinal has put before his readers very plainly. The scenes in Georges Ohnet's Lise Flueron are not merely peculiar to the French stage; and only to those who want to know the seamy side of a strolling player's life would I recommend A Mummer's Wife, but not otherwise, as the realism of Mr. Moore's story is repulsive. Be it remembered, however, that the best chance for girls who seek an engagement at a London theatre, is to travel with a company “on tour,” and so learn experience by constant and frequently varying practice. “The Stage” is an art, and not a profession, and an art which, as a means of obtaining a bare livelihood, is open to everybody possessing ordinary natural faculties, offering employment without requiring from the applicants any special qualification or any certificate from schoolmaster, pastor, or master, and therefore it must be the resort of all who, unable or unwilling to do anything else, are content to earn their few shillings a week, and to be in the same category with Garrick, Macready, Phelps, and Kean; for the “super” who earns his money by strict attention to business, and who has night after night, for a lifetime, no more than a few lines to say, is briefly described in the census as “Actor,” as would be the leading tragedian or comedian of the day. He is a supernumerary, i.e., a supernumerary actor; and a supernumerary, abbreviated to “super,” attached to the theatre, he lives and dies. In civil and Government offices there are supernumeraries. They are supernumerary clerks, and none the less clerks on that account. If taken on to the regular staff they cease to be called supernumeraries, and if a super on the stage should exhibit decided histrionic talent, he, too, would cease to be a super and become an actor, that is, he would drop the qualification of “supernumerary.” So for the “extra ladies,” as they are politely termed, who are the female supers. As a rule, the extras are a good, hard-working people as you will find anywhere. They have “come down” to this, and in most cases consider their position as a descent in the social scale, no matter what they may have been before. A few may take the place for the sake of obtaining “an appearance,” with a view to something better; some as a means of honest livelihood, and to help the family in its “little house in Stangate;” and others, to whom a small salary is not so much an object as to obtain relief from the monotony of evenings at home, take to the stage in this, or any other capacity, as “extras” in burlesque, in pantomime, or as strengthening a chorus; and to these the theatre is a source of profitable amusement. These being some of the essential component parts of most theatrical companies, would any of us wish our daughters to “go on the stage?”

There can be but one answer to this: No; certainly we would rather they did not choose the stage as the means of earning a livelihood. But some objector will say, “Surely my daughter need not associate with such persons as you describe.” I answer No; she need not off the stage, but how is she to avoid it in the theatre? Your daughter, my dear sir, is not all at once a Mrs. Siddons; she is a beginner. Perhaps she never will be a Mrs. Siddons; perhaps she will never get beyond playing a soubrette, or, if she cannot deliver her lines well, and has not the fatal gift of beauty, she may, being there only to earn her livelihood, be compelled to remain among the extras. At all events, she cannot expect to consort in the theatre with the stars and with the leading ladies. The manageress may “know her at home,” and do everything she can for her; but she cannot be unjust to others, and your daughter must dress in the same room with the “extras,” just as Lord Tomnoddy, should he choose to take the Queen's shilling, must put up with the other privates in barracks. The officers may have “known him at home,” but that can't be helped now. Your daughter, my dear lady, goes on to the stage in preference to being a governess, to earn money to relieve her parents of a burden, and to replenish the family purse. Excellent motive! But can you, her mother, always be with her? Can you accompany her to rehearsals, and be with her every evening in the dressing-room of the theatre, where there are generally about a dozen others, more or less according to the accommodation provided by the theatre? If you make your companionship a sine quâ non, will it not prevent any manager from engaging your daughter? They cannot have the dressing-rooms full of mothers; they cannot spare the space, and mothers cannot be permitted to encumber green-rooms and the “wings.” You may have implicit confidence in your child and in her manager and manageress, but the latter have something else to do besides looking after your daughter. “Some theatres,” you will say, “are more respectable than others.” True; but your daughter having to earn her daily bread by her profession, cannot select her theatre. It is a hard saying, that beggars must not be choosers. Lucky for your daughter if she obtains employment in a small theatre where only comedy is played.38 But the chances are against her, and she will be compelled to take the first engagement that offers itself, which will probably be at some large theatre where there is employment for any number of extra ladies, and where the salaries are really very good, if your daughter is only showy enough to make herself an attraction. You ask “what sort of attraction?” Well, have you any objection to her appearing as a page in an extravaganza? Consider that anyone who plays Shakespeare's heroines, Viola or Rosalind, must wear much the same costume; but the other ladies who play pages, and some of whom will be her companions in the dressing-room, are they just the sort of girls you would like your daughter to be with every evening of her life? If your well-brought-up daughter does go there one of two things will happen,—she will be either so thoroughly disgusted at all she hears and sees that she will never go near the place after the first week, or she will unconsciously deteriorate in tone, until the fixed lines of the moral boundary have become blurred and faint. If among these surroundings a girl remain pure in heart, it is simply nothing short of a miracle of grace. Would you like to expose your daughter to this atmosphere? Of course not. How can I put the question? but I do put the question, after giving you the information of the facts of the case. Even in a first-class theatre, for a Shakespearian revival, there must be a large number of all sorts engaged, and with them, your daughter, as beginner, will have to consort, and she cannot have her mother always at her elbow. Besides her mother cannot neglect her other daughters, or her household duties, to attend to the youthful actress.

Now supposing a young lady at once obtains an engagement at a reputable theatre, and is cast for a good part. What then? Then the atmosphere of the theatre at its best is not a pleasant one. Your daughter will be astonished at the extraordinary variations of manner, from the abjectly servile to the free-and-easy, described in Mr. Namby's case as “Botany Bay gentility.” She will hear everybody “my dearing” one another. At first she will not understand half that is said, and very little that is meant. When they all warm to their work, the veneer of politeness is soon rubbed off, and actor and actress are seen as the real artistes they are. The stage manager comes out strongly too; strange words are used, and whether it be high art or not that is being illustrated, there is pretty sure to be a considerable amount of forcible language employed in the excitement of the moment. Your daughter's ideas of propriety will be rudely shocked at every turn. When she ceases to be even astonished, she will be unconsciously deteriorating.

There is one sort of girl to whom all this does no harm, and that is the girl who comes of a hard-working professional theatrical family, who has been decently brought up in the middle of it all from a child, whose father and mother are in the theatre, thoroughly respectable people, and as careful of their daughter s morals as though she were the niece of a bishop. Such a girl as this, if she remain on the stage, will be a tolerable actress, always sure of an engagement. She will marry a decent, respectable actor, of some one connected with theatricals, will bring up a family excellently, will be really religious without ostentation, will never lose her self-respect, and in her own way be perfectly domesticated, happy and contented. Or she may marry some one in a good social position: if so, she will quit the stage without regret, because she is not of the stuff of which great actresses are made; but she will look back on her theatrical experience with affection for her parents to whom she owed so much. She is neither Esther, nor Polly Eccles, nor is she in the position of the well-brought-up young lady we have been considering. But she is an admirable woman, in whatever station of life her lot may be cast, and not a bit of a snob.

For a young lady, travelling with a company would be simply impossible, unless accompanied by her mother, or by some trustworthy relative. A manageress might undertake the guardianship and execute the trust conscientiously. But this is an exceptional case.

There is another point, and a very important one, to be considered, and that is the artistic temperament. If a young lady of attractive personal appearance possesses histrionic talent, then in proportion to her talent will be her temperament. She will be impulsive, passionate, impressionable, self-willed, impatient of control, simple, confiding, and vain, but artistically vain, and desirous of applause. She will be illogical, inconsistent, full of contradictions, fond of variety, and unable to exist without excitement. It only requires her to be a genius to be duped by the first schemer that throws himself in her way.

So, when the theatrical profession is brought before you, my dear madam, as a calling for your daughter to follow, you see that on the one hand there is mediocrity and deterioration of character, and on the other success, at, probably, a ruinous price. This does not apply, and again I impress it on my readers, to those who are to the manner born. They will lead jog-trot lives, study their parts, make puddings, act mechanically every night, knit socks in the green-room, and be virtuous and happy to the end of their days. Their artistic temperament will not lead them very far astray, unless they have the feu sacré, and then, it is likely, they will make a hasty marriage, repent at leisure, and try to forget they ever bore a husband's name by making one for themselves. In some recent French romance an ex-actress is warning her daughter who has married a prince, against the fascinations of a young painter. The princess turns on her mother with, “Est ce ma faute à moi si j'ai dans les veines du sang d'artiste?” And the ex-comédienne feels the full force of her daughter's retort, which has in it a certain amount of truth. Public life has great dangers for young women of the artistic temperament: mothers cannot be always with them, and sheep-dogs are expensive and untrustworthy. Chance or ill-luck may bring your daughter, madam, to the stage, but you would not choose it for her, that is, the stage, being as it is, and as it is likely to be under the present conditions. When those conditions are altered for the better, it will be time enough for society to change its opinion on the subject.

But, it is urged, the present state of the stage is a vast improvement on the past; that the actor is a person of more consideration than formerly, and not necessarily tabooed from all society, but on the contrary, he is to be met in the very best drawing-rooms. It may be that a few, whom you may count on the fingers of both hands, have the entrée to the best society. It may be so; I am not in a position to deny it. But their genius, or talent, and their unblemished reputation have combined to place them on that pedestal exalted above their fellows. But was it not always so? Have there not always been a privileged few among the actors, as among other citizens of the Great Republic of Art and Letters, who have been admitted to the assemblies of the great, and whose hospitality the great have condescended to accept in return? Go back thirty years and at least a dozen names of prominent actors and actresses will occur to us as having been received in the best society. Now, in their time, the number of West-end theatres was about one-third of what it is at the present day. Therefore, if five actors were received by society then, there should be fifteen received now. If there are not, the stage of to-day is socially on the same level with the stage of thirty years ago, and has not advanced a step; if the number of presentable actors is, nowadays, less, then the stage has retrograded. I cannot make out that there are more received than formerly. There are a few University men on the stage, men of birth and education, entitled to be received in good society. But now we are speaking of only a section of society, and are begging the original question.

And why, from the nature of the case, cannot the stage ever rank with the recognised professions? Because, as a means of earning a livelihood, that is as a mere employment, the stage is open to all the world. Unlike painting, literature, and music, it requires no special knowledge of any sort; it can be practised as well by the unlearned as, though not with the same facility, by the learned. It is a self-educating profession. Physical gifts, up to a certain point, will make up for deficiency in talent: but given talent, and with perseverance and application even for the most illiterate, success is certain. Given genius, then “reading and writing” seem to “come by nature,” and though there may always be a little difficulty with the spelling, yet triumph is sure and swift. The stage requires no matriculation; but for an actor of talent, who loves his art, there is no limit to his studies,—one helps another, one leads to another. As far as society is concerned, there should be no one more thoroughly qualified to play a leading part in the very highest, the most intellectual, and most cultivated society, than the actor or actress, who is rising in or who has reached the summit of “the profession.” Scarcely a subject can be named that is not, in its degree, almost essential—a strong word, but on consideration used correctly—to the perfection of the actor's art. A first-rate actor should be an admirable Crichton. The best preparation for the stage is, as I have elsewhere insisted, a thorough education. True, that it is so for every calling, but especially for the stage. To belong to the bar of England is an honor in itself, even though the barrister never gets a brief and could do nothing with it if he did. To belong to the stage of England is not an honor in itself. To the genius, the talents, and the private worth of our eminent actors in the past and in the present, our stage owes its lustre. They owed nothing to the stage, the stage everything to them.

The desire to raise the social status of the actor so that the term actor shall be “synonymous with gentleman,” is worthy of all praise. To make it possible for young ladies of education to take to acting as a means of earning a livelihood, would be a great social benefit.

When a youth, well brought up, takes to the stage, he should not be immediately treated as a pariah. On the contrary, if ever there be a time in a young man's career when more than ever he stands in need of good home traditions, the companionship of his equals, and the encouragement of his superiors, it is when he has honestly chosen, as a means of earning his living, the stage as a profession. That, for evident reasons, it has been usually selected by the dissolute, the idle, and those to whom any restraint is distasteful, accounts to a great extent for the disrepute in which the stage has been held. Of course the statute-book and the puritanism of the seventeenth century have much to answer for in the popular estimate of the players. There is a strong leaven of Puritanism amongst us, and, in some respects, so much the better; but also among very excellent people of various religious opinions, there has been, and it exists now, a sort of vague idea that the stage has always been under the positive ban of the Church. In the temporary laws and regulations of different countries, enforced by narrow-minded men, civil or ecclesiastical, may be found the origin of this mistaken notion. The Church has never pronounced the stage the anathema. On the contrary, she has patronised the stage, and the first mimes who entered France from Italy rather resembled members of a religious order in their pious fervor, than actors of a later date in their laxity. If players were refused Christian burial, it was when they had neither lived nor died as even nominal Christians, and in such cases even “maimed rites” would savor of hypocrisy. In France the actors themselves were under this hallucination. M. Regnier tells us how in 1848 a deputation of comedians went to Monseigneur Affre to ask him to get the sentence of excommunication removed from the theatrical profession. “L'illustre prélat leur répondit qu'il n'y avait pas à la lever, parcequ'elle n'avait jamais été formulée, et que les comédiens français, comme les comédiens de tous les autres pays catholiques, pouvaient participer aux sacraments.”

It would be a comparatively easy task to trace the origin of this floating but perfectly false tradition, but I have already overrun the limit of this article. In the time of Louis XIII. the actors were excellent church-goers, had their children baptised, frequented the sacraments, and were on the best terms with curés of Paris; and it will be a consolation to those actors among us who, like the doll in the song, “pine for higher society” to be reminded, that the grand monarch himself did not disdain to stand god-father at the font to the first-born of Molière, and to do the like office to the third child of Domenico Biancolelli, the Italian harlequin.

Our leading actors and actresses of the present day will naturally strive, no less than those of the past, to do their best for the stage, and, in return, the patrons of the drama will do their best for them. But to claim for it, as its right, the social status of the recognised professions, and to be fussily indignant with society at large for refusing to acknowledge this groundless claim, is degrading to an art which should be as independent and as exalted as virtue, and content with virtue's reward.—Fortnightly Review.

GO TO THE ANT.

In the market-place at Santa Fé, in Mexico, peasant women from the neighboring villages bring in for sale trayfuls of living ants, each about as big and round as a large white currant, and each entirely filled with honey or grape-sugar, much appreciated by the ingenuous Mexican youth as an excellent substitute for Everton toffee. The method of eating them would hardly command the approbation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It is simple and primitive, but decidedly not humane. Ingenuous youth holds the ant by its head and shoulders, sucks out the honey with which the back part is absurdly distended, and throws away the empty body as a thing with which it has now no further sympathy. Maturer age buys the ants by the quart, presses out the honey through a muslin strainer, and manufactures it into a very sweet intoxicating drink, something like shandygaff, as I am credibly informed by bold persons who have ventured to experiment upon it, taken internally.

The curious insect which thus serves as an animated sweetmeat for the Mexican children is the honey-ant of the Garden of the Gods; and it affords a beautiful example of Mandeville's charming paradox that personal vices are public benefits—vitia privata humana commoda. The honey-ant is a greedy individual who has nevertheless nobly devoted himself for the good of the community by converting himself into a living honey-jar, from which all the other ants in his own nest may help themselves freely from time to time, as occasion demands. The tribe to which he belongs lives underground, in a dome-roofed vault, and only one particular caste among the workers, known as rotunds from their expansive girth, is told off for this special duty of storing honey within their own bodies. Clinging to the top of their nest, with their round, transparent abdomens hanging down loosely, mere globules of skin enclosing the pale amber-colored honey, these Daniel Lamberts of the insect race look for all the world like clusters of the little American Delaware grapes, with an ant's legs and head stuck awkwardly on to the end instead of a stalk. They have, in fact, realised in everyday life the awful fate of Mr. Gilbert's discontented sugar-broker, who laid on flesh and “adipose deposit” until he became converted at last into a perfect rolling ball of globular humanity.

The manners of the honey-ant race are very simple. Most of the members of each community are active and roving in their dispositions, and show no tendency to undue distension of the nether extremities. They go out at night and collect nectar or honey-dew from the gall-insects on oak-trees; for the gall-insect, like love in the old Latin saw, is fruitful both in sweets and bitters, melle et felle. This nectar they then carry home, and give it to the rotunds or honey-bearers, who swallow it and store it in their round abdomen until they can hold no more, having stretched their skins literally to the very point of bursting. They pass their time, like the Fat Boy in “Pickwick,” chiefly in sleeping, but they cling upside down meanwhile to the roof of their residence. When the workers in turn require a meal, they go up to the nearest honey-bearer and stroke her gently with their antennæ. The honey-bearer thereupon throws up her head and regurgitates a large drop of the amber liquid. (“Regurgitates” is a good word, which I borrow from Dr. McCook, of Philadelphia, the great authority upon honey-ants; and it saves an immense deal of trouble in looking about for a respectable periphrasis). The workers feed upon the drops thus exuded, two or three at once often standing around the living honey-jar, and lapping nectar together from the lips of their devoted comrade. This may seem at first sight rather an unpleasant practice on the part of the ants; but, after all, how does it really differ from our own habit of eating honey which has been treated in very much the same unsophisticated manner by the domestic bee?

Worse things than these, however, Dr. McCook records to the discredit of the Colorado honey-ant. When he was opening some nests in the Garden of the Gods, he happened accidentally to knock down some of the rotunds, which straightway burst asunder in the middle, and scattered their store of honey on the floor of the nest. At once the other ants, tempted away from their instinctive task of carrying off the cocoons and young grubs, clustered around their unfortunate companion, like street boys around a broken molasses barrel, and instead of forming themselves forthwith into a volunteer ambulance company, proceeded immediately to lap up the honey from their dying brother. On the other hand, it must be said, to the credit of the race, that (unlike the members of Arctic expeditions) they never desecrate the remains of the dead. When a honey-bearer dies at his post, a victim to his zeal for the common good, the workers carefully remove his cold corpse from the roof where it still clings, clip off the head and shoulders from the distended abdomen, and convey their deceased brother piecemeal, in two detachments, to the formican cemetery, undisturbed. If they chose, they might only bury the front half of their late relation, while they retained his remaining moiety as an available honey-bag: but from this cannibal proceeding ant-etiquette recoils in decent horror; and the amber globes are “pulled up galleries, rolled along rooms, and bowled into the graveyard, along with the juiceless heads, legs, and other members.” Such fraternal conduct would be very creditable to the worker honey-ants, were it not for a horrid doubt insinuated by Dr. McCook that perhaps the insects don't know they could get at the honey by breaking up the body of their lamented relative. If so, their apparent disregard of utilitarian considerations may really be due not to their sentimentality but to their hopeless stupidity.

The reason why the ants have taken thus to storing honey in the living bodies of their own fellows is easy enough to understand. They want to lay up for the future, like prudent insects that they are; but they can't make wax, as the bees do, and they have not yet evolved the purely human art of pottery. Consequently—happy thought—why not tell off some of our number to act as jars on behalf of the others? Some of the community work by going out and gathering honey; they also serve who only stand and wait—who receive it from the workers, and keep it stored up in their own capacious india-rubber maws till further notice. So obvious is this plan for converting ants into animated honey-jars, that several different kinds of ants in different parts of the world, belonging to the most widely distinct families, have independently hit upon the very self-same device. Besides the Mexican species, there is a totally different Australian honey-ant, and another equally separate in Borneo and Singapore. This last kind does not store the honey in the hind part of the body, technically known as the abdomen, but in the middle division which naturalists call the thorax, where it forms a transparent bladder-like swelling, and makes the creature look as though it were suffering with an acute attack of dropsy. In any case, the life of a honey-bearer must be singularly uneventful, not to say dull and monotonous; but no doubt any small inconvenience in this respect must be more than compensated for by the glorious consciousness that one is sacrificing one's own personal comfort for the common good of universal anthood. Perhaps, however, the ants have not yet reached the Positivist stage, and may be totally ignorant of the enthusiasm of formicity.

Equally curious are the habits and manners of the harvesting ants, the species which Solomon seems to have had specially in view when he advised his hearers to go to the ant—a piece of advice which I have also adopted as the title of the present article, though I by no means intend thereby to insinuate that the readers of this magazine ought properly to be classed as sluggards. These industrious little creatures abound in India: they are so small that it takes eight or ten of them to carry a single grain of wheat or barley; and yet they will patiently drag along their big burden for five hundred or a thousand yards to the door of their formicary. To prevent the grain from germinating, they bite off the embryo root—a piece of animal intelligence outdone by another species of ant, which actually allows the process of budding to begin, so as to produce sugar, as in malting. After the last thunderstorms of the monsoon the little proprietors bring up all the grain from their granaries to dry in the tropical sunshine. The quantity of grain stored up by the harvesting ants is often so large that the hair-splitting Jewish casuists of the Mishna have seriously discussed the question whether it belongs to the landowner or may lawfully be appropriated by the gleaners. “They do not appear,” says Sir John Lubbock, “to have considered the rights of the ants.” Indeed our duty towards insects is a question which seems hitherto to have escaped the notice of all moral philosophers. Even Mr. Herbert Spencer, the prophet of individualism, has never taken exception to our gross disregard of the proprietary rights of bees in their honey, or of silkworms in their cocoons. There are signs, however, that the obtuse human conscience is awakening in this respect; for when Dr. Loew suggested to bee-keepers the desirability of testing the commercial value of honey-ants, as rivals to the bee, Dr. McCook replied that “the sentiment against the use of honey thus taken from living insects, which is worthy of all respect, would not be easily overcome.”

There are no harvesting ants in Northern Europe, though they extend as far as Syria, Italy, and the Riviera, in which latter station I have often observed them busily working. What most careless observers take for grain in the nests of English ants are of course really the cocoons of the pupæ. For many years, therefore, entomologists were under the impression that Solomon had fallen into this popular error, and that when he described the ant as “gathering her food in the harvest” and “preparing her meat in the summer,” he was speaking rather as a poet than as a strict naturalist. Later observations, however, have vindicated the general accuracy of the much-married king by showing that true harvesting ants do actually occur in Syria, and that they lay by stores for the winter in the very way stated by that early entomologist, whose knowledge of “creeping things” is specially enumerated in the long list of his universal accomplishments.

Dr. Lincecum of Texan fame has even improved upon Solomon by his discovery of those still more interesting and curious creatures, the agricultural ants of Texas. America is essentially a farming country, and the agricultural ants are born farmers. They make regular clearings around their nests, and on these clearings they allow nothing to grow except a particular kind of grain, known as ant-rice. Dr. Lincecum maintains that the tiny farmers actually sow and cultivate the ant-rice. Dr. McCook, on the other hand, is of opinion that the rice sows itself, and that the insects' part is limited to preventing any other plants or weeds from encroaching on the appropriated area. In any case, be they squatters or planters, it is certain that the rice, when ripe, is duly harvested, and that it is, to say the least, encouraged by the ants, to the exclusion of all other competitors. “After the maturing and harvesting of the seed,” says Dr. Lincecum, “the dry stubble is cut away and removed from the pavement, which is thus left fallow until the ensuing autumn, when the same species of grass, and in the same circle, appears again, and receives the same agricultural care as did the previous crop.” Sir John Lubbock, indeed, goes so far as to say that the three stages of human progress—the hunter, the herdsman, and the agriculturist—are all to be found among various species of existing ants.

The Saüba ants of tropical America carry their agricultural operations a step further. Dwelling in underground nests, they sally forth upon the trees, and cut out of the leaves large round pieces, about as big as a shilling. These pieces they drop upon the ground, where another detachment is in waiting to convey them to the galleries of the nest. There they store enormous quantities of these round pieces, which they allow to decay in the dark, so as to form a sort of miniature mushroom bed. On the mouldering vegetable heap they have thus piled up, they induce a fungus to grow, and with this fungus they feed their young grubs during their helpless infancy. Mr. Belt, the “Naturalist in Nicaragua,” found that native trees suffered far less from their depredations than imported ones. The ants hardly touched the local forests, but they stripped young plantations of orange, coffee, and mango trees stark naked. He ingeniously accounts for this curious fact by supposing that an internecine struggle has long been going on in the countries inhabited by the Saübas between the ants and the forest trees. Those trees that best resisted the ants, owing either to some unpleasant taste or to hardness of foliage have in the long run survived destruction; but those which were suited for the purpose of the ants have been reduced to nonentity, while the ants in turn were getting slowly adapted to attack other trees. In this way almost all the native trees have at last acquired some special means of protection against the ravages of the leaf-cutters; so that they immediately fall upon all imported and unprotected kinds as their natural prey. This ingenious and wholly satisfactory explanation must of course go far to console the Brazilian planters for the frequent loss of their orange and coffee crops.

Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of the Darwinian theory (whose honors he waived with rare generosity in favor of the older and more distinguished naturalist), tells a curious story about the predatory habits of these same Saübas. On one occasion, when he was wandering about in search of specimens on the Rio Negro, he bought a peck of rice, which was tied up, Indian fashion, in the local bandanna of the happy plantation slave. At night he left his rice incautiously on the bench of the hut where he was sleeping; and next morning the Saübas had riddled the handkerchief like a sieve, and carried away a gallon of the grain for their own felonious purposes. The underground galleries which they dig can often be traced for hundreds of yards; and Mr. Hamlet Clark even asserts that in one case they have tunnelled under the bed of a river where it is a quarter of a mile wide. This beats Brunel on his own ground into the proverbial cocked hat, both for depth and distance.

Within doors, in the tropics, ants are apt to put themselves obtrusively forward in a manner little gratifying to any except the enthusiastically entomological mind. The winged females, after their marriage flight, have a disagreeable habit of flying in at the open doors and windows at lunch time, settling upon the table like the Harpies in the Æneid, and then quietly shuffling off their wings one at a time, by holding them down against the table-cloth with one leg, and running away vigorously with the five others. As soon as they have thus disembarassed themselves of their superfluous members, they proceed to run about over the lunch as if the house belonged to them, and to make a series of experiments upon the edible qualities of the different dishes. One doesn't so much mind their philosophical inquiries into the nature of the bread or even the meat; but when they come to drowning themselves by dozens, in the pursuit of knowledge, in the soup and the sherry, one feels bound to protest energetically against the spirit of martyrdom by which they are too profoundly animated. That is one of the slight drawbacks of the realms of perpetual summer: in the poets you see only one side of the picture—the palms, the orchids, the humming-birds, the great trailing lianas; in practical life you see the reverse side—the thermometer at 98°, the tepid drinking-water, the prickly heat, the perpetual languor, the endless shoals of aggressive insects. A lady of my acquaintance, indeed, made a valuable entomological collection in her own dining-room, by the simple process of consigning to pillboxes all the moths and flies and beetles that settled upon the mangoes and star-apples in the course of dessert.

Another objectionable habit of the tropical ants, viewed practically, is their total disregard of vested interests in the case of house-property. Like Mr. George and his communistic friends, they disbelieve entirely in the principle of private rights in real estate. They will eat their way through the beams of your house till there is only a slender core of solid wood left to support the entire burden. I have taken down a rafter in my own house in Jamaica, originally 18 inches thick each way, with a sound circular centre of no more than 6 inches in diameter, upon which all the weight necessarily fell. With the material extracted from the wooden beams they proceed to add insult to injury by building long covered galleries right across the ceiling of your drawing-room. As may be easily imagined, these galleries do not tend to improve the appearance of the ceiling; and it becomes necessary to form a Liberty and Property Defence League for the protection of one's personal interests against the insect enemy. I have no objection to ants building galleries on their own freehold, or even to their nationalising the land in their native forests; but I do object strongly to their unwarrantable intrusion upon the domain of private life. Expostulation and active warfare, however, are equally useless. The carpenter-ant has no moral sense, and is not amenable either to kindness or blows. On one occasion, when a body of these intrusive creatures had constructed an absurdly conspicuous brown gallery straight across the ceiling of my drawing-room, I determined to declare open war against them, and getting my black servant to bring in the steps and a mop, I proceeded to demolish the entire gallery just after breakfast. It was about twenty feet long, as well as I can remember, and perhaps an inch in diameter. At one o'clock I returned to lunch. My black servant pointed, with a broad grin on his intelligent features, to the wooden ceiling. I looked up: in those three hours the carpenter-ants had reconstructed the entire gallery, and were doubtless mocking me at their ease, with their uplifted antennæ, under that safe shelter. I retired at once from the unequal contest. It was clearly impossible to go on knocking down a fresh gallery every three hours of the day or night throughout a whole lifetime.

Ants, says Mr. Wallace, without one touch of satire, “force themselves upon the attention of everyone who visits the tropics.” They do, indeed, and that most pungently; if by no other method, at least by the simple and effectual one of stinging. The majority of ants in every nest are of course neuters, or workers, that is to say, strictly speaking, undeveloped females, incapable of laying eggs. But they still retain the ovipositor, which is converted into a sting, and supplied with a poisonous liquid to eject afterwards into the wound. So admirably adapted to its purpose is this beautiful provision of nature, that some tropical ants can sting with such violence as to make your leg swell and confine you for some days to your room; while cases have even been known in which the person attacked has fainted with pain, or had a serious attack of fever in consequence. It is not every kind of ant, however, that can sting; a great many can only bite with their little hard horny jaws, and then eject a drop of formic poison afterwards into the hole caused by the bite. The distinction is a delicate physiological one, not much appreciated by the victims of either mode of attack. The perfect females can also sting, but not, of course, the males, who are poor, wretched, useless creatures, only good as husbands for the community, and dying off as soon as they have performed their part in the world—another beautiful provision, which saves the workers the trouble of killing them off, as bees do with drones after the marriage flight of the queen bee.

The blind driver-ants of West Africa are among the very few species that render any service to man, and that, of course, only incidentally. Unlike most other members of their class, the driver-ants have no settled place of residence; they are vagabonds and wanderers upon the face of the earth, formican tramps, blind beggars, who lead a gipsy existence, and keep perpetually upon the move, smelling their way cautiously from one camping-place to another. They march by night, or on cloudy days, like wise tropical strategists, and never expose themselves to the heat of the day in broad sunshine, as though they were no better than the mere numbered British Tommy Atkins at Coomassie or in the Soudan. They move in vast armies across country, driving everything before them as they go; for they belong to the stinging division, and are very voracious in their personal habits. Not only do they eat up the insects in their line of march, but they fall even upon larger creatures and upon big snakes, which they attack first in the eyes, the most vulnerable portion. When they reach a negro village the inhabitants turn out en masse, and run away, exactly as if the visitors were English explorers or brave Marines, bent upon retaliating for the theft of a knife by nobly burning down King Tom's town or King Jumbo's capital. Then the negroes wait in the jungle till the little black army has passed on, after clearing out the huts by the way of everything eatable. When they return they find their calabashes and saucepans licked clean, but they also find every rat, mouse, lizard, cockroach, gecko, and beetle completely cleared out from the whole village. Most of them have cut and run at the first approach of the drivers; of the remainder, a few blanched and neatly-picked skeletons alone remain to tell the tale.

As I wish to be considered a veracious historian, I will not retail the further strange stories that still find their way into books of natural history about the manners and habits of these blind marauders. They cross rivers, the West African gossips declare, by a number of devoted individuals flinging themselves first into the water as a living bridge, like so many six-legged Marcus Curtiuses, while over their drowning bodies the heedless remainder march in safety to the other side. If the story is not true, it is at least well invented; for the ant-commonwealth everywhere carries to the extremest pitch the old Roman doctrine of the absolute subjection of the individual to the State. So exactly is this the case that in some species there are a few large, overgrown, lazy ants in each nest, which do no work themselves, but accompany the workers on their expeditions; and the sole use of these idle mouths seems to be to attract the attention of birds and other enemies, and so distract it from the useful workers, the mainstay of the entire community. It is almost as though an army, marching against a tribe of cannibals, were to place itself in the centre of a hollow square formed of all the fattest people in the country, whose fine condition and fitness for killing might immediately engross the attention of the hungry enemy. Ants, in fact, have, for the most part, already reached the goal set before us as a delightful one by most current schools of socialist philosophers, in which the individual is absolutely sacrificed in every way to the needs of the community.

The most absurdly human, however, among all the tricks and habits of ants are their well-known cattle-farming and slaveholding instincts. Everybody has heard, of course, how they keep the common rose-blight as milch cows, and suck from them the sweet honey-dew. But everybody, probably, does not yet know the large number of insects which they herd in one form or another as domesticated animals. Man has, at most, some twenty or thirty such, including cows, sheep, horses, donkeys, camels, llamas, alpacas, reindeer, dogs, cats, canaries, pigs, fowl, ducks, geese, turkeys, and silkworms. But ants have hundreds and hundreds, some of them kept obviously for purposes of food; others apparently as pets; and yet others again, as has been plausibly suggested, by reason of superstition or as objects of worship. There is a curious blind beetle which inhabits ants' nests, and is so absolutely dependent upon its hosts for support that it has even lost the power of feeding itself. It never quits the nest, but the ants bring it in food and supply it by putting the nourishment actually into its mouth. But the beetle, in return, seems to secrete a sweet liquid (or it may even be a stimulant like beer, or a narcotic like tobacco) in a tuft of hairs near the bottom of the hard wing-cases, and the ants often lick this tuft with every appearance of satisfaction and enjoyment. In this case, and in many others, there can be no doubt that the insects are kept for the sake of food or some other advantage yielded by them.

But there are other instances of insects which haunt ants' nests, which it is far harder to account for on any hypothesis save that of superstitious veneration. There is a little weevil that runs about by hundreds in the galleries of English ants, in and out among the free citizens, making itself quite at home in their streets and public places, but as little noticed by the ants themselves as dogs are in our own cities. Then, again, there is a white woodlouse, something like the common little armadillo, but blind from having lived so long underground, which walks up and down the lanes and alleys of antdom, without ever holding any communication of any sort with its hosts and neighbors. In neither case has Sir John Lubbock ever seen an ant take the slightest notice of the presence of these strange fellow-lodgers. “One might almost imagine,” he says, “that they had the cap of invisibility.” Yet it is quite clear that the ants deliberately sanction the residence of the weevils and woodlice in their nests, for any unauthorised intruder would immediately be set upon and massacred outright. Sir John Lubbock suggests that they may perhaps be tolerated as scavengers; or, again, it is possible that they may prey upon the eggs or larvæ of some of the parasites to whose attacks the ants are subject. In the first case, their use would be similar to that of the wild dogs in Constantinople or the common black John-crow vultures in tropical America: in the second case, they would be about equivalent to our own cats or to the hedgehog often put in farmhouse kitchens to keep down cockroaches.

The crowning glory of owning slaves, which many philosophic Americans (before the war) showed to be the highest and noblest function of the most advanced humanity, has been attained by more than one variety of anthood. Our great English horse-ant is a moderate slave-holder; but the big red ant of Southern Europe carries the domestic institution many steps further. It makes regular slave-raids upon the nests of the small brown ants, and carries off the young in their pupa condition. By-and-by the brown ants hatch out in the strange nest, and, never having known any other life except that of slavery, accommodate themselves to it readily enough. The red ant, however, is still only an occasional slaveowner; if necessary, he can get along by himself, without the aid of his little brown servants. Indeed, there are free states and slave states of red ants side by side with one another, as of old in Maryland and Pennsylvania: in the first, the red ants do their work themselves, like mere vulgar Ohio farmers; in the second, they get their work done for them by their industrious little brown servants, like the aristocratic first families of Virginia before the earthquake of emancipation.

But there are other degraded ants, whose life-history may be humbly presented to the consideration of the Anti-Slavery Society, as speaking more eloquently than any other known fact for the demoralising effect of slaveowning upon the slaveholders themselves. The Swiss rufescent ant is a species so long habituated to rely entirely upon the services of slaves that it is no longer able to manage its own affairs when deprived by man of its hereditary bondsmen. It has lost entirely the art of constructing a nest; it can no longer tend its own young, whom it leaves entirely to the care of negro nurses; and its bodily structure even has changed, for the jaws have lost their teeth, and have been converted into mere nippers, useful only as weapons of war. The rufescent ant, in fact, is a purely military caste, which has devoted itself entirely to the pursuit of arms, leaving every other form of activity to its slaves and dependents. Officers of the old school will be glad to learn that this military insect is dressed, if not in scarlet, at any rate in very decent red, and that it refuses to be bothered in any way with questions of transport or commissariat. If the community changes its nest, the masters are carried on the backs of their slaves to the new position, and the black ants have to undertake the entire duty of foraging and bringing in stores of supply for their gentlemanly proprietors. Only when war is to be made upon neighboring nests does the thin red line form itself into long file for active service. Nothing could be more perfectly aristocratic than the views of life entertained and acted upon by these distinguished slaveholders.

On the other hand, the picture has its reverse side, exhibiting clearly the weak points of the slaveholding system. The rufescent ant has lost even the very power of feeding itself. So completely dependent is each upon his little black valet for daily bread, that he cannot so much as help himself to the food that is set before him. Hüber put a few slaveholders into a box with some of their own larvæ and pupæ, and a supply of honey, in order to see what they would do with them. Appalled at the novelty of the situation, the slaveholders seemed to come to the conclusion that something must be done; so they began carrying the larvæ about aimlessly in their mouths, and rushing up and down in search of the servants. After a while, however, they gave it up and came to the conclusion that life under such circumstances was clearly intolerable. They never touched the honey, but resigned themselves to their fate like officers and gentlemen. In less than two days, half of them had died of hunger, rather than taste a dinner which was not supplied to them by a properly constituted footman. Admiring their heroism or pitying their incapacity, Hüber, at last, gave them just one slave between them all. The plucky little negro, nothing daunted by the gravity of the situation, set to work at once, dug a small nest, gathered together the larvæ, helped several pupæ out of the cocoon, and saved the lives of the surviving slaveowners. Other naturalists have tried similar experiments, and always with the same result. The slaveowners will starve in the midst of plenty rather than feed themselves without attendance. Either they cannot or will not put the food into their own mouths with their own mandibles.

There are yet other ants, such as the workerless Anergates, in which the degradation of slaveholding has gone yet further. These wretched creatures are the formican representatives of those Oriental despots who are no longer even warlike, but are sunk in sloth and luxury, and pass their lives in eating bang or smoking opium. Once upon a time, Sir John Lubbock thinks, the ancestors of Anergates were marauding slaveowners, who attacked and made serfs of other ants. But gradually they lost not only their arts but even their military prowess, and were reduced to making war by stealth instead of openly carrying off their slaves in fair battle. It seems probable that they now creep into a nest of the far more powerful slave ants, poison or assassinate the queen, and establish themselves by sheer usurpation in the queenless nest. “Gradually,” says Sir John Lubbock, “even their bodily force dwindled away under the enervating influence to which they had subjected themselves, until they sank to their present degraded condition—weak in body and mind, few in numbers, and apparently nearly extinct, the miserable representatives of far superior ancestors, maintaining a precarious existence as contemptible parasites of their former slaves.” One may observe in passing, that these wretched do-nothings cannot have been the ants which Solomon commended to the favorable consideration of the sluggard; though it is curious that the text was never pressed into the service of defence for the peculiar institution by the advocates of slavery in the South, who were always most anxious to prove the righteousness of their cause by most sure and certain warranty of Holy Scripture.—Cornhill Magazine.

LITERARY NOTICES.

The autobiographer in this case (for the last year has been singularly rich in interesting autobiography) is not in any degree, at least for Americans, an eminent and well-known personage. But, in spite of this, his record of experience and vicissitude is full of interest, and we may almost say fascinating. His threescore years and ten have been crowded with events which, if not in themselves strikingly dramatic, are at least striking in the telling, for he has all the art of an accomplished raconteur, simple, direct and vigorous in style, and knowing perfectly when to glide over with little stress, when to put on his color with a vigorous and lavish brush. Mr. Gallenga (this being his true name) was in the latter part of his life a leading correspondent of the London Times, having achieved a high reputation in this direction prior to the days of Dr. Russell and Archibald Forbes. His work and position brought him into confidential relations with many of the most important men and events of Europe from 1840 to 1875, and he describes these in a racy fashion which will command attention, we think.

Mr. Gallenga as a youth of twenty took part in the Italian struggle for liberty in 1831, under the name of Luigi Mariotti. It was one of those brief episodes of revolution with which Italy was convulsed so often before the great final dead-lock came, which drove the hated Sedischi from her soil. The young patriot was for a short time in prison, but finally escaped, and lived for a while as a tutor in Tangiers. Thence he came to America, to carve a career for himself, and located himself in Boston in 1836. Here he speedily found employment as teacher, lecturer and writer, and was fortunate in securing the friendship and goodwill of the leading people of the city. Boston was then without dispute the only literary centre of the country, in spite of a few brilliant names in New York, and Sig. Gallenga seems to have found congenial employment and companionship from the outset. His reminiscences of such men as Edward Everett, Fields, Ticknor, Prescott and others are entertaining, and his sketch of the whole entourage of Boston society is given with a refreshing naïveté, as well as with graceful vivacity. Among the minor incidents which lend humor to the book is the author's experience with a young American beauty, with whom he was in love, and whom in his impulsive and passionate Italian way, he clasped in his arms and kissed. He professes himself highly astonished because the damsel was greatly enraged and ordered him from the house, ending the acquaintance then and there. After spending four years in America under unusually agreeable conditions, Mr. Gallenga, who was still known under his pseudonym of Mariotti, took ship for England, and bade a final farewell to the country of which he speaks in such cordial and even affectionate terms. Settling in London good luck still followed him. He secured introductions to prominent persons, was accorded recognition at once, and became acquainted with many of the people, both literary and otherwise, best worth knowing in England. A great interest in Italian affairs and literature was then the rage, and Mr. Gallenga, who was a scholar and an able writer, found ample opportunity and occupation in contributing to the magazines and reviews on subjects which he discussed con amore. A book which he published gave him repute beyond that of a mere fugitive writer, and he was fortunate in making literature lucrative as well as honorable. His gossip about prominent people and occurrences in London forty years ago, is very entertaining, and he shows as much skill in throwing light on the English life of that day as he had done in describing America. Twenty years of literary and professorial work, were frequently broken up by long residences in Italy, during which he sat for a time in the Italian Parliament, and helped to pave the way for that consolidation of Italian interests which at last led to Solferino and Magenta, and the grand result of Italian unity. He seems to have been accorded an important place in the councils and deliberations of his nation, and to have been an important agent in bringing about those relations which freed Italy from foreign domination. In 1859 our author became connected with the Times as correspondent, and since that time has been employed on many of the most delicate and important commissions. He represented them in the Franco-Italian-Austrian War, and succeeded Dr. Russell at the time of our late civil conflict; was sent repeatedly to every part of Europe, and, for a good while had a roving commission to write whatever he saw worth reporting and discussing, particularly on the peoples and events of the Mediterranean seaboard countries, from the straits of Gibraltar to the Dardanelles. Mr. Gallenga tells his story (and he has much to tell) with the vivacity of an Italian and with the ability of a trained man-of-letters. A number of books, mostly on historical and political subjects, have given him a recognized literary place aside from mere journalism, and he reviews a long, diversified and interesting career with an interest and satisfaction which he fully communicates to his readers. We have rarely read a volume more packed with interesting matter, narrated with the skill which comes of long training.

The plan adopted in this handy reference book of historical dates and events has been to deal separately with the events of different countries, and an excellent system has been followed with great thoroughness. The author is very well known as an industrious and painstaking scholar, the results of whose work can be depended on. About many historical dates there is much confusion, and the difficulties in coming to a conclusion are great. Mr. Heilprin very modestly states the obstacles in the way of perfect accuracy, and convinces the reader that, if blunders have been made, they are such as are absolutely unavoidable in the dire chaos which envelops many of even the most important facts of history so far as certainty of year is concerned. We may be sure that every caution and pains have been taken by the author. In many cases where it is impossible to reach an absolute statement, two dates are given, the preferable one stated first. Such a book as this is of the greatest convenience, and one that a well-informed or studious man can hardly afford to be without. A remarkable seeming omission, however, is the non-assignment of date to the Christian era, or any reference to the life and career that gave it significance. The studious avoidal seems significant, but we may explain it on the theory that the absolute date of Christ's birth cannot be absolutely fixed within several years. On the whole, indeed, with this one exception (perhaps an unavoidable one) the compilation appears to be all such a work should.

The germ of this book was in an article called “Bermudan Days” published in the Atlantic Monthly for December, 1883, and we find the paper incorporated with the work. The volume is a brightly written account of a vacation of three months in the Bermudas, one of the most charming sanitariums of our western seas. So much has been written about the pleasant lotos-lands of the North and South Antilles, that no new facts can be now told about them. But the old background of cloudless skies, summer seas, and balmy ocean breezes, which make such places as the Bahamas and the Bermudas earthly paradises, never get tedious or dull when seen and felt through the medium of a fresh and lively nature. In winter time especially, when the bleak cold of the north starts the imagination travelling toward summer climates, and those condemned to stay in cold weather, sigh for the delights of the more fortunate voyager, such books as the one before us make very pleasant reading. The author describes the attractions of Bermudan life: its roses and sunshine, its novel sights and sounds, the picturesque aspects of a primitive, contented, lazy population, delightful sails over beautiful seas, and all the episodes of the sojourn with the keenest enjoyment, and a skilful literary touch. The very essence of an agreeable book of this kind is an utter lack of anything like fine writing. Mrs. Dorr certainly shows good taste in this matter, though one might fancy the temptation would be great to try what is so often called word-painting. She tells us what she has to say, and she has many good things to tell us, too, in a lively, racy, picturesque, but utterly unpretentious way. Of course we do not expect anyone to write a book about the Bermudas, without giving us something of the oft-repeated tale of its history and traditions; but Mrs. Dorr has spared us from overmuch, and does not weary the attention. The enjoyable portion of the work is the personal impressions and experiences of herself and her party. As every traveller or tourist with a literary taste, finds it essential, nowadays, to serve the sight-seeing up in book form, we can only wish that more of them had the good taste and lively nature of the present author.

This new manual of one of the most interesting branches of science, is equally adapted for the school or for family reading. The object of the authors, which is to present in plain and concise language and in the light of the latest research and investigation, the life history of the various groups making up the animal kingdom has been well done. The best authorities have been followed. The authors, too, have introduced a great deal of matter of a descriptive and narrative matter, such as will thoroughly interest their young readers, such as the growth of the coral, nest-building fishes, luminous animals, animal electricians, hibernation, mimicry, etc., things which make certain phases of science almost like a fairy tale. The dry classification of science has but little attraction except to the professional scientist, and the authors have avoided this rock of dreariness as far as possible. The aim of the book seems to be largely to encourage the reader to become an original investigator, and to use his eyes and ears intelligently in observing the order of animated nature. The cuts are nicely and cleanly made, and the volume is very neat, though gotten up for service and not for ornament.

In this day of scepticism without, and dry-rot within, it well becomes the champions of the Christian faith to enter the lists with the keenest weapons furnished for the fight. Dr. Van Dyke argues, not from the standpoint of the dialectician, or from that of the defender of historical Christianity. It is the personal argument drawn from needs of human nature which he has here elaborated. He says: “We do not sneer at the dogmas of theology. They are certainly as important as the dogmas of science. We do not despise the questions of ritual. They are at least of equal consequence with the questions of social order. But religion is infinitely beyond all these. It is more vital and more profound. It does not appeal to the intellect alone. It is not satisfied with the conclusions of logic. Nor does it rest at ease upon the æsthetic sense. It reaches down into the very depths of the living, throbbing, human heart, and stirs a longing which nothing outward and formal can ever fill—the longing for personal fellowship with God.” It is this need of religion in the soul as essential to satisfy its truest and deepest longing which furnishes the keynote of the argument. He insists that religion is as absolute a reality, which we can feel and know in our spiritual life, as is the bread we eat to sustain our physical life. Dr. Van Dyke considers the subject under the heads of “A Real Religion Necessary;” “The Living God;” “The Living Soul” “The Living Word;” “The Living Sacrifice;” and “The Living Christ.” In the last, of course, we find the key-stone and cap, as well, of the logic of his thesis. The work will give comfort and satisfaction to many Christian souls, and is not unworthy of Dr. Van Dyke as an accomplished stylist. Chastened, yet glowing, subdued, yet strong, the book is one which should have a large number of readers among those devoted to the interests of the Church of Christ.

This collection has aimed to avoid both the characteristics of the jest-book or of table-talk. Its place is between the two, being compiled from the annals of conversation, and comprising at the same time only those jests and stories which possess the stamp of wit as distinguished from humor or drollery. That the collection is good, one needs only to read the pleasant prefatory essay, which is very gracefully and brightly written, to feel sure that the taste and knowledge of the writer or editor have been well displayed in his work of selection. It goes without saying that many of the anecdotes are old and familiar. Many of the very best things ever said in the world, of course, are what we term “Joe Millers.” That they should be otherwise, would argue but bad taste on the part of our predecessors. But our present author has gleaned in many an outlying field as well as in the well travelled road, and gives us very satisfactory showing for his literary excursus in new directions. Some of the stories in the book we do not remember to have seen before in any similar work.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

The monument to Virgil at Pietole (which is supposed to be the Andes of the Romans), near Mantua, was unveiled lately.

The death of a popular Russian novelist, B. M. Markievich, on the 30th of last month, is reported from St. Petersburg.

The original autographs of the love-letters addressed by John Keats to Miss Fanny Brawne in the years 1819-20 will be sold by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge the first week in March, together with six unpublished autograph letters of Charles Lamb.

A pamphlet by Madame E. Coulombe is announced for immediate publication by Mr. Elliot Stock. This lady was associated with Madame Blavatsky for some years, and in this brochure tells what she heard and saw of Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists with whom she came in contact in India and elsewhere.

Trinity College, Dublin, is about to start a new paper with the title The Dublin University Review. The first number will appear on February 1st, and the issue will be bi-monthly, except during the long vacation. The paper will contain literary articles as well as university news of every description, and will be owned by a limited liability company.

The Incorporated Society of Authors propose to send a deputation to the Prime Minister to urge the codification of the Copyright Acts, which are fourteen in number. Several of the chief publishers, not of books only, but also of prints and music, will be asked to join.

A conference of elementary teachers, international in its character, has been summoned to meet at Havre. This is the first conference of the kind which has been organized in France, and it is expected that the Government will make a grant in aid of the expenses.

The article on Polish history and literature in the next volume of the “Encyclopædia Britannica” will be from the pen of Mr. Morfill, who will also contribute the articles on the Emperor Paul, and on Peter the Great.

Mr. Lowe, correspondent of the Times at Berlin, is engaged in writing a biography of Prince Bismarck, which will appear next spring.

M. Schlumberger, the well known numismatist, and M. Benoist have lately been elected members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

An exhibition is to be held in the Imperial Library at Constantinople of Turkish writing, bookbinding, and illumination, for which prizes are to be given.

One of the most important scholastic reforms now in progress in Turkey is that relating to the study of the Arabic language. As now conducted, this study absorbs years in a desultory way which might be applied to the acquisition of other branches of knowledge. With the view to abridge the course of study without impairing its quality, the Sultan has determined on founding a special medresseh for teaching Arabic on a scientific basis, and for this purpose has purchased from the funds of the civil list the property of the Guedik Pasha Theatre at Constantinople.

The long lost and often found commentary on the “Atharva-veda” seems at last on its way to publication. The whole of the commentary has not yet been found, but two-thirds of it are now in the hands of the pandits of Poona, who will prepare a critical publication of both text and commentary. The text of the “Atharva-veda” was published in the early days of Vedic scholarship by Roth and Whitney, and the latter scholar has lately published a very useful index.

We are enabled to state, says the Athenæum, that a popular edition of Her Majesty's recent work, “More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands,” is in the press, and will be ready for publication in the course of a few weeks. The new edition will contain all the woodcut illustrations which appeared in the original edition, together with wood-engravings of the portraits, and will be uniform with the popular edition of the Queen's previous work, “Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands.”

Mr. Alexander Del Mar, according to the Academy, formerly Director of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States, whose History of the Precious Metals was published in 1880, has in the press a work on The History of Money from the Earliest Times to the Middle Ages, upon which he has been occupied for many years past. It will shortly be published by Messrs. Bell & Sons.

“The Magazin für die Literatur des In- und Auslandes continues to be unfortunate when it meddles with the English language. Many of our readers will be acquainted with Victor Scheffel's charming German song—referring, we believe, to Heinrich von Ofterdingen—which has the refrain, 'Der Heini von Steier ist wieder im Land.' The Magazin of January 10 publishes an 'English' translation of this poem, by Johanna Baltz, from which we quote the following specimen:—

The eighty-ninth birthday of Dr. Ranke (December 21st) has excited interest throughout Germany, and elicited many expressions of the respect universally felt for him. The strength of the venerable historian defies the increase of years, and he works daily at his home in Berlin on the history which he hopes to complete.

Mr. C. E. Pascoe has issued a prospectus on the publication of English books in America. He says in effect that, though the lack of international copyright is one reason why English authors derive but little profit from the sale of their works in America, another and graver reason is, that as a class, they are in ignorance of the means for getting the best out of existing conditions. The usual method of procedure is for the English publisher to make proposals to an American publisher, or for the representative of an American firm in London to submit proposals to his principals in the United States. Mr. Pascoe points to the danger of losing a lucrative sale that this method entails. His prospectus, which is accompanied by letters from American publishers and some well-known English authors, is worth attention. Mr. Pascoe's address is 6 Southfields Road, West Hill, Wandsworth, S. W.

An early and hitherto unknown Arabic work has lately been added to the Museum Library. It is entitled “Kitāb al-Mohabbir”, and contains various historical notices and traditions relating to the ancient Arabs and to the time of Mohammed and his immediate successors. The author, Abu Sa'id al-Hasan al-Sukkari, lived in the third century of the Hijrah, and is well known as one of the earliest editors and commentators of the old poets, but the present work appears somehow to have escaped notice; it is neither mentioned in the Fihrist, nor by Ibn Khallikan or Soyuti. The two last-named authors state that Al-Sukkari died A.H. 275; but according to Ibn Kāni' (Leyden Catalogue, vol. ii. p. 8) he lived on to A.H. 290. The present work would show that the former date is decidedly wrong; for it contains a brief sketch of the Abbasides brought down by Al-Sukkari himself to the accession of Al-Mo'tadid, i.e., A.H. 279.

Among other recent additions to the Arabic collection, the following are especially deserving of the attention of scholars: the earliest extant history of the Moslem conquest of Egypt, Africa, and Spain, by Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, who died A.H. 257, a twelfth century copy; “Zubdat al-Tawarikh,” a history of the Seljuk-dynasty, written shortly after its extinction, about A.H. 620, by Sadr al-Din Abul Hasan Ali Ibn Abul Fawaris Nasir Husaini, a fine and apparently unique copy of the thirteenth century; “Kitab al-Osul,” an extensive and hitherto unknown work on Arabic grammar by one of the earliest writers on the subject, Ibn al-Sarraj, who died A.H. 316, handsomely written, with all vowels, A.H. 651; a fine and valuable copy of the “Makamat al-Hariri,” written by a grandson of the author, A.H. 557 (i.e., forty years after Hariri's death), and consequently earlier than any copy of that standard work known to exist in European libraries.

The numbers of ladies attending the King's College classes at Observatory Avenue have been very high during the term that has just ended. The entries were nearly 600, which is a larger number than has been reached since the first year, 1878, when the classes started, and the present house hardly affords room for such numbers.

It is not generally known that the Times attains its hundredth year on the 1st of January, 1885. The prevailing notion is that the year in which it was founded was 1788, the truth being that the 940th number of the journal appeared on the first day in that year. The mistake is due to confounding a change in the title with the foundation of the journal. The actual facts are set forth in an article which Mr. Fraser Rae contributes to the January number of the Nineteenth Century. Amongst other things which will attract notice in that article is a verbatim copy of the inscription on the tablets affixed in honor of the conduct of the Times in the case of Bogle v. Lawson in 1841, by a committee of bankers and merchants of the City, in the Royal Exchange, and over the entrance to the Times printing office. As these tablets are placed where the inscriptions on them cannot easily be read, and as copies of these inscriptions are not given in the works dealing with the City, the copy in the Nineteenth Century is a piece of historical information which will be novel to most readers.

The last number of Shakspeariana contains the somewhat surprising statement that Prof. Kuno Fischer is a convert to the Bacon-Shakspere theory, and will lecture upon it at Heidelberg this winter. From the same periodical we copy the following curious paragraph:—

“A very remarkable discovery has been placed on record by the Hon. Ignatius Donnelly, who claims to have proof positive that Bacon was the author of Shakspere's plays. This is accomplished by means of a cipher which Bacon twice describes, whereby one writing could be infolded and hidden in another. The words of the hidden story have a definite relation to the acts and scenes of the plays, which is determined by counting. Attracted by 'I. Henry IV.'; II., i., ii., iv., and IV., ii., in which he found the words 'Francis,' 'Bacon' (twice), 'Nicholas' (twice), 'Bacon's,' 'son,' 'master,' 'Kings,' 'exchequer,' 'St. Albans'—the name of Bacon's place of residence—and, in IV., ii., 'Francis' repeated twenty times on one page, Mr. Donnelly applied his key to it, with the following result:—Elizabeth during the Essex troubles became, as is known, incensed at the use made of the play of 'Richard II.,' in which is represented the deposition and killing of the King; and she made it one of the points of prosecution which cost Essex his head, that he had hired the company of players to which Shakspere belonged to represent it more than forty times in open streets and in tavern yards, in order to prepare the public mind for her own deposition and murder. History tells us that she caused the arrest of Haywarde, who wrote a prose narrative of the deposition of Richard II. and dedicated it to Essex, and he narrowly escaped a State prosecution. Mr. Donnelly shows that at the same time Shakspere was arrested as the author of the plays; he was threatened with the torture, and disclosed to the officers of the Crown the fact that Bacon was the real author of the plays. Bacon threw himself on the protection of his uncle, Lord Burleigh, the great Lord Treasurer, who saved him from exposure and prosecution, but revealed the truth to Elizabeth; and this is the explanation of the fact, that, as long as Elizabeth lived, she kept Bacon out of office and in poverty.”

MISCELLANY.

Some Personal Recollections of George Sand.—The recent unveiling of George Sand's statue at La Châtre has set people thinking about her afresh. At no time since “Indiana” and “Lelia” first revealed the existence of a new writer of transcendent power, has her place in French literature, and her influence on the social problems of the time, and the question whether her artistic creations will or will not live, been canvassed with more energy than during the past few weeks. Some personal recollections of George Sand given by Mrs. Ellis, the authoress of “Sylvestra,” may therefore be of interest: “Above twenty years ago,” writes Mrs. Ellis, “I spent three days in a French hotel (at Tours) with George Sand, without knowing who she was. She puzzled me all the time, and had in person something of the same effect on me that her character—attractive and repulsive—has still. She sat opposite me at a narrow table d'hôte—a tall, large, strongly-built woman, with features in proportion to her size. Her eyes were fine, but her force of appearance was rather physical than intellectual. It must have been the brain beneath the strong features which teased me as it did, to make out to myself who she could be. She was mature, but in no decline of force, massive, grave, and restful, with nothing Gallic about her. The dark hair, eyes, and tint might have belonged to Italy or Spain, quite as well as to France, and the bearing, better. Her dress might have been called 'dowdy.' It was of the type of the travelling Englishwoman, as French eyes see it, rather than French. I think her 'robe' was brown, which did not become her at all. Crimson would have suited her. She wore an ugly, large-brimmed, straw hat, with broad lace falling over the brim, at a time when Frenchwomen had hardly begun to wear hats, and—if my memory does not err—she wore it at dinner. Her companion was an elderly and feeble man, seemingly more than seventy. There was nothing in the appearance of the couple (viewing them as married folk) unlike that of many other French pairs, when, as is so often the case, the man 'ranges' himself at forty by the side of a young lady of half his years. My perplexing neighbor understood what I said to my husband in English, and offered me some little courteous attentions. There was no real speech between us. If I had known it was George Sand, I believe that I should not have spoken more, as I had not long before read some unpleasing remarks in her autobiography on the way in which she was annoyed by 'les Anglaises,' and on the 'étranges sifflements' which they introduced into the fine French tongue! She and I were the only two women in the hotel who ever went into a sort of reading-room adjoining the house to look at the newspapers. I had nearly settled with myself that she was a lady country squire, such as I used to see drive into Tours on market days, when one morning, on going, as I used to do, to the Imperial library, to draw from old illuminated MSS., my friend, the librarian, M. d'Orange, said to me, 'Madame, do you know that you have George Sand in your hotel?' When I went back, she had just gone with the gentleman who had lent her his name to travel with, for she was entered as his 'Comtesse' in the book of the hotel. He was a Radical Deputy. I told my lively landlady, who declared that M. d'Orange 'n'en savait rien,' and opened her book to show me the names of M. le Comte and Madame la Comtesse So-and-So. Then she said, 'If it was George Sand,' her books, 'ma foi,' of which she had read one or two—instancing a couple of the best—were not 'grande chose.' When I got back to England, I looked at a fine lithographed portrait of George Sand, and saw it was the woman. Perhaps it was for the best that I had not known who she was, as my impression, which is still vivid, remains of her as she seemed, and not such as my fancy would at once have set to work to make her out. Thinking of her afterward, I was reminded of that passage in her autobiography in which she tells how, in a moment of misery, she tested her own strength by lifting a large heavy stone, and said to herself in despair, 'And I may have to live forty years!' Also I thought of Alfred de Musset's taunting her—she never forgot it—with having no esprit. Of 'esprit Gallois' she seems to have had little. The Northern races had the uppermost in her making, I should say. I have a notion that the Königsmarks were Pomeranian—of the Bismarck build—and had she not the blood of the Counts Horn? I forget. However, Marshal Saxe spoke for himself in her. Mr. Hamerton says that an intense desire to study character had its strong share in her illicit liaisons with poets, musicians, lawyers, novelists, etc., all being men above the common run. But here, again, I cannot help thinking that race descent from Augustus II. of Saxony and Aurore de Königsmark counted for much. Her genuine feeling for the poor, and a sort of homely motherliness, seem to have made her greatly loved by the Berry people.“—Spectator.

The American Senate.—It is amusing to see discussions on the possible abolition of the American Senate, in which the disputants on one side do not seem to see that what they are proposing is the abolition of the federal system altogether. It has been explained over and over again—yet, as long as some seem not to understand so plain a matter, it must be explained once more—that a proposal to abolish the American Senate is quite a different matter from a proposal to abolish the French Senate. With regard to the French Senate the question is simply whether the business of the nation is likely to be best done by one House or by two. With regard to the American Senate we have to go much deeper. The House of Representatives represents the nation formed by the union of all the separate States; the Senate represents the separate States themselves. The federal nation is formed by the union of States differing widely in size and power, but equal in rights and dignity, each of which still keeps all such attributes of independent commonwealths as it has not formally given up to the federal power. To hinder alike the federal nation from being swamped by the States and the States from being swamped by the federal nation, it is needful to have one assembly in which each State has only that amount of voice to which it is entitled by its population, and another assembly in which each State, great and small, has an equal voice. If any party in the United States wishes altogether to get rid of the federal system, if they wish to get rid of the independence of the several States, if they wish the great names of Massachusetts and Virginia to mean no more than an English county or a French department, then let them propose the abolition of the Senate of the United States, and not otherwise. Yet even under a system where the Second Chamber is absolutely necessary, we see the comparative weakness of Second Chambers; its abolition can be discussed. And herein comes the wonderful wisdom of the founders of the American Constitution in strengthening the Senate with those powers of other kinds which make it something more than a Second Chamber or Upper House. And mark further that the Swiss Ständerath or Conseil des États, formed after the model of the American Senate, like it absolutely necessary if Switzerland is to remain a federal commonwealth, is far from holding the same position in the country which the American Senate holds. For it is a mere partner with the Nationalrath, and has not those special powers in and by itself which the American Senate has. But mark again that the great position of the American Senate is something which cannot exist along with our form of executive government. A President may be asked formally to submit his acts to be confirmed by one branch of the Legislature; a King can hardly be asked to do so.—Contemporary Review.

Shakespeare and Balzac.—Yacht life gives ample leisure. I had employed part of mine in making sketches. One laughs at one's extraordinary performances a day or two after one has completed them. Yet the attempt is worth making. It teaches one to admire less grudgingly the work of real artists who have conquered the difficulties. Books are less trying to vanity, for one is producing nothing of one's own, and submitting only to be interested or amused, if the author can succeed in either. One's appetite is generally good on these occasions, and one can devour anything; but in the pure primitive element of sea, and mountains, and unprogressive peasantry, I had become somehow fastidious. I tried a dozen novels one after the other without success; at last, perhaps the morning we left Elversdale, I found on the library shelves ”Le Père Goriot.” I had read a certain quantity of “Balzac” at other times, in deference to the high opinion entertained of him. N——, a fellow of Oriel, and once Member for Oxford, I remembered insisting to me that there was more knowledge of human nature in “Balzac” than in Shakespeare. I had myself observed in him a knowledge of a certain kind of human nature which Shakespeare let alone—a nature in which healthy vigor had been corrupted into a caricature by highly seasoned artificial civilization. Hothouse plants, in which the flowers had lost their grace of form and natural beauty, and had gained instead a poison-loaded and perfumed luxuriance, did not exist in Shakespeare's time, and if they had they would probably not have interested him. However, I had not read “Le Père Goriot,” and as I had been assured that it was the finest of Balzac's works, I sat down to it and deliberately read it through. My first impulse after it was over was to plunge into the sea to wash myself. As we were going ten knots, there were objections to this method of ablution, but I felt that I had been in abominable company. The book seemed to be the very worst ever written by a clever man. But it, and N——'s reference to Shakespeare, led me into a train of reflections. Le Père Goriot, like King Lear, has two daughters. Like Lear, he strips himself of his own fortune to provide for them in a distinguished manner. He is left to poverty and misery while his daughters live in splendor. Why is Lear so grand? Why is Le Père Goriot detestable? In the first place, all the company in Balzac are bad. Le Père Goriot is so wrapped up in his delightful children, that their very vices charm him, and their scented boudoirs seem a kind of Paradise. Lear, in the first scene of the play, acts and talks like an idiot, but still an idiot with a moral soul in him. Take Lear's own noble nature from him, take Kent away, and Edgar, and the fool, and Cordelia—and the actors in the play, it must be admitted, are abominable specimens of humanity—yet even so, leaving the story as it might have been if Marlowe had written it instead of Shakespeare, Goneril and Regan would still have been terrible, while the Paris dames of fashion are merely loathsome. What is the explanation of the difference? Partly, I suppose, it arises from the comparative intellectual stature of the two sets of women. Strong natures and weak may be equally wicked. The strong are interesting, because they have daring and force. You fear them as you fear panthers and tigers. You hate, but you admire. M. Balzac's heroines have no intellectual nature at all. They are female swine out of Circe's sty; as selfish, as unscrupulous as any daughter of Adam could conveniently be, but soft, and corrupt, and cowardly, and sensual; so base and low that it would be a compliment to call them devils. I object to being brought into the society of people in a book whom I would shut my eyes rather than see in real life. Goneril and Regan would be worth looking at in a cage in the Zoological Gardens. One would have no curiosity to stare at a couple of dames caught out of Coventry Street or the Quadrant. From Shakespeare to Balzac, from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth, we have been progressing to considerable purpose. If the state of literature remains as it has hitherto been, the measure of our moral condition, Europe has been going ahead with a vengeance. I put out the taste of “Le Père Goriot” with “Persuasion.” Afterwards I found a book really worth reading, with the uninviting title of “Adventures in Sport and War,” the author of it a young Marquis de Compiègne, a ruined representative of the old French noblesse, who appears first as a penniless adventurer seeking his fortune in America as a birdstuffer, and tempted by an advertisement into the swamps of Florida in search of specimens, a beggarly experience, yet told with naïveté and simplicity, truth and honor surviving by the side of absolute helplessness. Afterwards we find him in France again, fighting as a private in the war with Germany, and taken prisoner at Sedan; and again in the campaign against the Commune, at the taking of Paris, and the burning of the Tuileries—a tragic picture, drawn, too, with entire unconsciousness of the condition to which Balzac, Madame Sand, and the rest of the fraternity had dragged down the French nation.—Longman's Magazine.

The Dread of Old Age.—We all of us, or at least all of us who are slipping past fifty, secretly dread old age, and regard with aversion its usual, or traditionally usual, conditions; and the sight of a man about whose years there can be no question, who has passed by thirty years the average limit of human life, and by ten years an extreme limit, and yet talks well, hears fairly well, sees perfectly well and could walk like another but for weakness, is pleasantly reassuring. If the man of a century can be like Sir Moses Montefiore, the man of ninety may be only a little indolent, the man of eighty hale and hearty, and the man of seventy retain “the fullest vigor of his faculties.” That is one secret, we are convinced, of the decided popularity of very old statesmen, and especially old statesmen of great vigor, a sense among the middle-aged that if they who are so visible can be so strong and active and full brilliancy, old age cannot be so dreadful after all. An apprehension has been removed or lessened, and a very keen one. Some of the dread no doubt is traditional, founded upon boyish recollections, and even upon books, Shakespeare in particular having expressed, in lines which have stuck in the national memory, an unusually strong sense of the infirmities of age. His celebrated lines were probably accurate at the time, for they are accurate now when applied to certain classes of the very poor; but they no longer describe the majority of the aged well-to-do. Whatever the cause, whether improved sanitary appliances, or greater temperance, or, as we should ourselves believe, an increase of the habit of persistently using the mind, and consistently taking interest in events, it is certain that the disease called senility is among the fully-fed much rarer than it used to be. The old lose their hearing, and their activity, and part of the keenness of their sight, and are supposed to be grown duller alike to pleasure and to pain; but they much seldomer become totally blind, or fatuous, or unable to control their features, or incapable of guiding themselves about. Men of eighty-four or five, who, in the early part of the century, would have fallen into second childhood—then a disease recognized not only by doctors, but by all men, and regarded as a sort of idiotcy—now talk easily, and glide over little deficiencies of memory, and are, apart from a not ungraceful physical weakness, truly men. The younger generation has, however, scarcely realised the change in its full extent, and fears age, therefore, unconsciously a little more acutely than it should, though it has reason for some of its fear. The lot of the old is not the happiest, even if they are fortunately placed. They suffer from the certainty that such physical ills as they have cannot be cured, and a fear that they will become worse, from a deficiency, not so much of occupation as of imperative occupation, the business occupation of middle-age and from that unconscious insolence of the babbling youth around them, which is, perhaps, most felt by the aged when youth is most loving and considerate. One does not want to be “considered” by a baby. They suffer from a jar between their own impression of their own wisdom, as a necessary product of their long experience, and a secret doubt whether the young, who evidently think so differently, can be all wrong, not to mention that actual disrespect which the peculiar conceit of the young always appears to indicate even when it is not intended. They suffer from their keen memory for disappointments, which sometimes in the reflections of the old exaggerate their bulk till life seems made up of little else—a phenomenon constantly observable in the monologues of the uneducated and ill-restrained. And they suffer most of all from the loss, ever-increasing as time slips along, not only of those dearest to them, but of accustomed intimates, and especially of friends who grow fewer not only from deaths, but from departures, alienations, and changes of condition and feeling. The very old, as far as our experience serves, are fortunate if, outside the circle of blood relations, they retain even one or two close friends: and this to some men and women, especially to those much dependent on conversation to stimulate their natures and “put them in spirits,” is the most irremediable of losses. They feel as if life had altered, and the very sunlight were less inspiring. Add that all the indulgences of hope, including day dreaming, become vapid—reason showing the unreality—and gradually cease, and we may admit that even under favorable circumstances old age is not an enviable condition, more especially among Englishmen and Americans, who feel little of that instinctive reverence for age, and belief in its nearness to the divine, which characterises all Asia and a large portion of Southern Europe. The Teutons think allusions to gray hairs, which Southerners regard as solemn, and will accept even in a theatre with applause, a little rhetorical or artificial. The respect for the old is not gone, but a certain reverence is, if it ever existed among us, which, remembering Shakespeare's lines and our own workhouse arrangements, we half incline to doubt.—Spectator.

A True Critic.—He who has the genuine pictorial sense, of which not even the idea can be given to those who have not got it, is quickly discovered by those who have the same gift. They will detect him in the gallery by many signs. He is guided by instinct to stand at the right distance from the picture, which is not a mere matter of taste as most folk think, but the distance at which the picture has the same expanse to the eye as the real object replaced by it would have. A little nearer or a little farther he feels the picture bearing falsely. Falsely when things are represented which in the real view would alter (as the picture objects cannot) in their mutual effects by advancing towards or retreating from them. His eye goes right to the heart of the picture; the spot made to be such by the artifice of the painter. He is in no hurry to look elsewhere. He looks towards one point, but he sees the rest sufficiently without peeping about. His consciousness takes in the whole simultaneously, and for a while he examines nothing; forgets that he sees a picture, and feels the quickening within of the thoughts which such a scene might stir up. He can presently put aside all this and criticise if he cares to do so, just as the musician can cease from his tune and look to the strings or stops. For he is curious about the mechanism of the delightful delusion as the musician or the most enraptured of his audience may care to look into the arrangement of a musical instrument. But the picture like the violin, is not in operation at all while it is being examined.—Art Journal.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As vagabonds are frequently mentioned in this narrative, and Mokrievitch himself became one of them, it may be well to explain that the wanderers so designated are simply tramps unfurnished with passports. A double stream of these waifs is always on the move through Siberia—one towards the east, the other towards the west—the latter free, the former generally in bonds. Many of the involuntary settlers either do not take kindly to work, or find their lot intolerable, and so make off on the first opportunity, begging their way, and living on the charity of the peasants, who never refuse a destitute traveller a crust of bread and a night's lodging. Not a few of these wanderers sink under the hardships to which they are exposed, or freeze to death in the forests, and the survivors are nearly always arrested before they reach the frontier of European Russia; but they cause the police a world of trouble. Having no papers, they are able to give false names, and deny being fugitive transports—which they almost invariably do. There is then nothing for it but to write to whatever address a man may give—generally some remote village—and inquire if he is known there. Should the answer be in the negative, the fact is taken as proof of the paperless one's guilt, and he is sent back in chains to the interior of Siberia. As likely as not, however, it will be in the affirmative, for there prevails among these outcasts a strange yet regular trade in what the vagabonds call “nests.” For instance, Ivan Ivanovitch, being in want of money, sells to Peter Iliouschka, who has a few kopecs to spare, the name and address of some mujik of his acquaintance, who long ago left his native village for parts unknown—or, perhaps, his own name and address. This is Peter's nest, and when he falls into the hands of the police he tells them he is Paul Lubovitch, from, let us say, Teteriwino, in the government of Koursk. On this, a missive is sent to the starosta of Teteriwino, who replies, in due course, to the effect that the village did once possess a Paul Lubovitch, but whether the person in question be the same man he is unable to say. The next proceeding is to send the soi-disant Paul to Teteriwino for identification. This proceeding naturally results in the detection of the imposture, whereupon our friend Peter is condemned to a new term of exile, and sent back whence he came.

2 Admiration, Hope, and Love. Excursion, b. iv.

3 Admiration, Hope, and Love. Excursion, b. ix.

4 Not only the Ancient Mariner and the first part of Christabel, but also Kubla Khan were composed at Nether Stovey among the Quantock Hills in 1797. The second part of Christabel belongs to the year 1800, and was written at Keswick, although not published till 1816. Nothing of the same quality was ever produced by Coleridge, although he continued to write verses.

5 It is strange, however, to find Mr. Traill commending Coleridge's very last volume (1830) On the Constitution of Church and State, as “yielding a more characteristic flavor of the author's style” than the Aids to Reflection. Characteristic, no doubt, this volume is of the author's mode of thought; but in point of style, it and his Lay Sermon or Statesman's Manual in 1816 appear to us the most desultory and imperfect of all his writings.

6 By Dr. James Marsh, an American divine, whose preliminary essay is prefaced to the fifth English edition, and by Mr. Green in his Spiritual Philosophy (1865), founded on Coleridge's teaching.

7 Spiritual Philosophy, founded on the Teaching of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge. By Jos. Henry Green, F.R.S., D.C.L. 1865.

8 This was a favorite thought with Coleridge, as for example, in his Literary Remains (vol. i. p. 393-4): “The Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead would have been a necessary idea of my speculative reason. God must have had co-eternally an adequate idea of Himself in and through which He created all things. But this would only have been a speculative idea. Solely in consequence of our redemption does the Trinity become a doctrine, the belief of which as real is commanded by conscience.”

9 In his well-known translation of Wilhelm Meister.

10 Charles Hawley, Addresses before the Cayuga County Historical Society, 1883-84, p. 31.

11 The King Country; or, Explorations in New Zealand, by T. H. Kerry; see Nicholls in the Academy, Aug. 23, 1884, p. 113.

12 The League of the Iroquois, p. 12.

13 Hawley, l.c., p. 17.

14 See, however, Daniel Wilson, Pre-Aryan American Man, p. 47.

15 Unity of Nature, p. 393.

16 The Indians in the United States.—In an interesting paper read at a recent meeting of the Académie des Sciences, M. Paul Passy, who has recently returned from a visit to the North-Western States of America, endeavored to show that the generally accepted theory of the eventual disappearance of the “red man” is erroneous, and that though certain tribes have been exterminated in war and others decimated by disease and “firewater,” the contact of civilisation is not necessarily fatal to the Indians. M. Passy states that there are at present 376,000 Indians in the country, of whom 67,000 have become United States citizens. The Indians in the reserve territories are in part maintained by the Government, many of them, however, earning their living by shooting and fishing, and also by agriculture. The progress which they have made in farming is shown by the fact that they had under cultivation in 1882 more than 205,000 acres of land, as against 157,000 in India. Moreover, the total Indian population, exclusive of the Indians who are citizens of the United States and of those in Alaska, had increased during the same interval by more than 5,000. M. Passy says that the Federal Government, though not doing nearly so much as it should for the education of Indian children, devoted a sum of $365,515 to this purpose in 1882, and in the State of New York the six Iroquois “nations” settled there have excellent schools, which three-fourths of their children regularly attend. The five “nations” in Indian territory are also well cared for in this respect, having 11 schools for boarders, and 198 day schools attended by 6,183 children. In 1827, a Cherokee invented a syllabic alphabet of 85 letters, and this alphabet is now used for the publication of a newspaper in the Cherokee language. In addition to the tribes in cantonments, a great many children (about 8,000) are disseminated among the schools in the different States. There are also three normal and industrial schools in which, apart from elementary subjects, the boys are taught agriculture and different trades, and the girls sewing, cooking, and housekeeping. A journal in the Dakota tongue, called the Yapi Oaye, is published at Chicago for the benefit of the pupils in that region, and it is said that the Indians of the territories show themselves very anxious to learn, so much so that the Ometras of Nebraska have sold part of their territory so as to be able to keep up their schools. M. Passy adds that the Americans differ very much in their estimate of the sum required for providing all the young Indians with a sound education, some of them putting it as high as $10,000,000, while the lowest estimate is $3,000,000, or ten times as much as is now being spent. His conclusion is that if the Indians are destined to disappear, it will be because they become fused with the other citizens of the United States.—Times, Sept. 8, 1884.

17 See Hawley, l.c., p. 31.

18 Lectures on Science of Language, vol. i. p. 308.

19 See Giacomo Bove, Viaggio alla Patagonia ed alla Terra del Fuoco, in Nuova Antologia, Dec. 15, 1881.

20 Travels, Deutsch von Dieffenbach. Braunschweig, 1844, p. 229.

21 Darwin, Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.'s Ships “Adventure” and “Beagle,” 1839, vol. iii. p. 226.

22 D. Wilson, Pre-Aryan American Man, p. 4.

23 Rig-Veda-Sanhita, the Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans, translated by M. M., Vol. i. p. xxxix.

24 Tertullian, Apolog. 16: “rabula et mendaciorum loquacissimus.”

25 See Strabo, iv. 196; Plin. xvii. 12; Liv. xxxviii. 17.

26 The annual returns of the very necessary squirrel slaughter in the woods of Altyre, of Cawdor Castle, Beaufort Castle, and Darnaway Castle, each average one thousand squirrels. Thus these four estates might furnish four thousand tails per annum.

27 Lassalle was killed in a duel in 1864, at the age of thirty-nine.

28 In the play, Charles V. has a long conference with Franz, but ends by saying of him what Bismarck must have said to himself about Lassalle: “The man is great, but his is not the greatness which I seek, and which I can employ.”

“Der mann ist gross, doch ist es nicht die Grösse,

Welche ich suche und gebrauchen kann.”

29 Karl Sand, a student of Erlangen, assassinated Kotzebue at Manheim in 1819, and having ineffectually tried to commit suicide, was executed in the following year. In striking Kotzebue, he meant, as he said, “to exterminate the apologist of despotism.”

30 “Personne n'a de l'esprit, comme tout le monde.” “On peut avoir plus d'esprit qu'un autre, mais non plus d'esprit que tous les autres.”

31 Prince Bismarck does not care much about the theatre, and it may be mentioned that when he visited Paris in 1867, Offenbach's “Grande Duchesse,” which, as a skit upon militaryism, made so many laugh, excited in him only anger. He was especially indignant at the song of “Here is the Sabre of my Sire.” “You can't expect a pair of Jews (Offenbach and Ludovic Halévy) to feel any reverence for military traditions,” he said; “but now 'Le Sabre de mon Père' will be associated with ludicrous ideas in the minds of Frenchmen, and old generals will be ashamed to give their swords to their sons on account of this odious jingle.” At this same visit to Paris, however, Bismarck saw a performance of Sardou's “Nos bons Villageois” at the Gymnase, and he laughed loudly at the scene in which a Colonel, who is Mayor of his village, makes all the municipal Councillors sign a document acknowledging that they are “a troop of donkeys.”

32 Two of Bismarck's heroes in history are Wallenstein and William the Silent. He once said of Marshal von Moltke: “Lucky man, he need only make his one speech a year in the Reichstag and then the echoes of cannon seem to be speaking for him!” Marshal von Moltke, however, speaks as well as he writes. His Letters to his late wife, while he was travelling in Turkey and the Danubian Provinces, are faultless in their composition, instructive, amusing, and models of style. All the qualities which distinguish them are to be found in the Marshal's speeches, which are clear, short, and captivate the attention, not less by what they contain than by the tuneful voice in which they are uttered.

33 Some years ago, when a young Prussian officer of noble family was turned out of the army for declining a challenge on conscientious grounds, an English clergyman sent Prince Bismarck a copy of the Diary of Mr. Adams, who was American Minister of the Court of St. James's at the beginning of this century. Mr. Adams speaks with admiration of the efforts which were being made to put down duelling in England by force of public opinion. Prince Bismarck, in courteously acknowledging the book, wrote: “There is much good sense in England, but you have not done away with duelling, as you suppose. There is more of it among your schoolboys, who fight with fists, than among those of any other country; and this may prevent the necessity for much fighting in after-life. English boys take rank at school according to their pluck, and hold that rank afterwards.”

34 M. Teste had been one of Louis Philippe's Ministers. Getting into disgrace through financial jobberies, which subjected him to criminal proceedings, he had to resign his portfolio and retire altogether from public life. To revenge himself on Louis Philippe's family (though no member of it had had any share in his ruin) he privately drew up for Napoleon III. the report that was required to justify the seizure of the Orleans property. No respectable lawyer could be found to do this work.

35 After a dinner at Count Lehndorff's the conversation once fell upon religious topics, and Bismarck exclaimed: “I cannot understand how without faith in a revealed religion we can believe in God; nor do I see how, without faith in a God, Dispenser of all good and Supreme Judge, a man can do his duty. If I were not a Christian, I should not remain at my post. It can yield me nothing more in the way of honors; the exercise of power is no longer a pleasure but a worry, since I can never carry out the simplest scheme without struggles, trying to a man of my age and weak health. If I were ambitious of popularity, I could get it by retiring. All men would speak well of me if I lived in retirement. I should then perhaps have more real power than I have now. I should certainly have more power to help my friends. But it is because I believe in a Divine dispensation which has marked out Germany for great destinies that I remain at my post. I have a duty to perform and must continue to do it so long as I am permitted. If I am stricken down and rendered incapable for work, then I shall know that my time of rest has come; but not till then.”

36 Bismarck has never had much veneration either for diplomatists or diplomacy. Here is an extract of a letter which he wrote to his wife in 1851 when he was at Frankfort: “In the art of saying nothing and in a great many words, I am making rapid progress. I write many pages of letters which read like leading articles, and if Manteuffel, after perusing them, can tell what they are about, he certainly knows more than I. Every one of us pretends to believe that his colleagues are full of ideas and plans; and yet all the time the whole body of us knows nothing, and each is aware that the others know nothing. No man, not even the most malicious sceptic of a democrat, can believe what charlatanism and big pretence is all this diplomacy.”

It may be remarked, in view of Prince Bismarck's opinions on duelling, that for an affront like that which he offered to the young attaché, a French Admiral, the Bailli de Suffren, was killed by a lieutenant. The affront was offered on the high seas; the subaltern bore it at the time without a murmur, but on returning to France he resigned and sent the admiral a challenge, saying: “You are no longer my superior now. We are both gentlemen and you owe me a reparation.” In Germany this would have been impossible, for the attaché must have belonged either to the Landwehr or the Landsturm, so that the Chancellor as a general of the Landwehr remained always his superior. Thus in military countries one of the chief excuses for duelling—namely, that it enables a man to punish the insolence of office—cannot be urged.

37 A fact that speaks well for Prince Bismarck is that ladies are not afraid of him. Napoleon I. made women cower; they knew that his Corsican spitefulness would disdain no means of retaliation for a slight or an injury. But ladies have often been maliciously epigrammatical, or downright saucy to the Chancellor, without having anything worse to fear from him than scowls and grumbles.

38 The process of obtaining an engagement is the same for a lady as a gentleman, i.e. a visit to an agent's office, &c., &c. Here is an advertisement which evidently offers a rare chance:—

“Wanted, ladies of attractive appearance, with good singing voices. Can be received for long pantomime season. Dresses found. Salaried engagement (an exceptionable opportunity for clever amateurs desirous of adopting the profession).”

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885

Eclectic Magazine
OF
FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

FROM SIBERIA TO SWITZERLAND.
The Story of an Escape.

The Arrest.

The Sentence.

Sent to Siberia.

The Convoy.

The Substitution.

The Flight.

Liberty.

COLERIDGE AS A SPIRITUAL THINKER.

THE PORTRAIT.
A Story of the Seen and the Unseen.

DELLA CRUSCA AND ANNA MATILDA:
An Episode in English Literature.

THE SAVAGE.

LE BONHOMME CORNEILLE.

CHARLES DICKENS AT HOME.
With Especial Reference to His Relations with Children.

THE SUMMER PALACE, PEKING.

THE CAMORRA.

THE DECAY OF IRISH HUMOR.

PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER.

A FEW NOTES ON PERSIAN ART.

HOW INSECTS BREATHE.

PIERRE'S MOTTO:
A CHACUN SELON SON TRAVAIL.

BEHIND THE SCENES.

GO TO THE ANT.

LITERARY NOTICES.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

MISCELLANY.

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber's Notes

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885

Eclectic Magazine OF FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

FROM SIBERIA TO SWITZERLAND. The Story of an Escape.

The Arrest.

The Sentence.

Sent to Siberia.

The Convoy.

The Substitution.

The Flight.

Liberty.

COLERIDGE AS A SPIRITUAL THINKER.

THE PORTRAIT. A Story of the Seen and the Unseen.

DELLA CRUSCA AND ANNA MATILDA: An Episode in English Literature.

THE SAVAGE.

LE BONHOMME CORNEILLE.

CHARLES DICKENS AT HOME. With Especial Reference to His Relations with Children.

THE SUMMER PALACE, PEKING.

THE CAMORRA.

THE DECAY OF IRISH HUMOR.

PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER.

A FEW NOTES ON PERSIAN ART.

HOW INSECTS BREATHE.

PIERRE'S MOTTO: A CHACUN SELON SON TRAVAIL.

BEHIND THE SCENES.

GO TO THE ANT.

LITERARY NOTICES.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

MISCELLANY.

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber's Notes

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

Eclectic Magazine
OF
FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

FROM SIBERIA TO SWITZERLAND.
The Story of an Escape.

THE PORTRAIT.
A Story of the Seen and the Unseen.

DELLA CRUSCA AND ANNA MATILDA:
An Episode in English Literature.

CHARLES DICKENS AT HOME.
With Especial Reference to His Relations with Children.

PIERRE'S MOTTO:
A CHACUN SELON SON TRAVAIL.