Transcriber’s Note
  Italic text displayed as: _italic_




  SPIRIT

  OF

  CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL.




  SPIRIT

  OF

  CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL:

  ORIGINAL TALES, ESSAYS, AND SKETCHES,

  SELECTED FROM THAT WORK.


  BY

  WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.


  EDINBURGH:
  W. & R. CHAMBERS, WATERLOO PLACE; AND
  ORR & SMITH, LONDON.
  1834.




PRINTED BY W. & R. CHAMBERS, 19, WATERLOO PLACE, EDINBURGH.




NOTICE.


By the recommendation of a number of their friends and agents, MESSRS
CHAMBERS have been induced to reprint a selection of the principal
original articles of their JOURNAL; in order that such individuals as
might desire to possess those articles in a portable shape, distinct
from the mass of compilations and extracts with which they were
accompanied in the numbers, might be gratified in their wish; and in
order that this new series of Essays, in which an attempt has been
made, almost for the first time, to delineate the maxims and manners of
the middle ranks of society, might have an opportunity, in the shape
of a book, of attracting the attention of those by whom it might be
overlooked in its original form and progressive mode of publication.

The articles embodied in the present volume are chiefly selected from
the forty earliest numbers of the JOURNAL. Should it be favourably
received, the authors will probably, from time to time, throw further
selections into the same form.

 EDINBURGH, _February 12, 1834_.




CONTENTS.


                                                                    Page

  Lady Jean, a Tale,                                                   1

  Fallacies of the Young.—“Fathers have Flinty Hearts,”               27

  Bruntfield, a Tale of the Sixteenth Century,                        32

  The Passing Crowd,                                                  41

  A Tale of the Forty-Five,                                           44

  Removals,                                                           61

  Victims,                                                            71

  Fallacies of the Young.—“Acquaintances,”                            83

  Subjects of Conversation,                                           86

  Secure Ones,                                                        89

  To Scotland,                                                        98

  Story of Mrs Macfarlane,                                           100

  The Downdraught,                                                   118

  Tale of the Silver Heart,                                          134

  Cultivations,                                                      152

  Fits of Thrift,                                                    157

  Susan Hamilton, a Tale of Village Life,                            163

  Flitting Day,                                                      182

  Fallacies of the Young.—“Debtors and Creditors,”                   193

  General Invitations,                                               197

  Confessors,                                                        205

  A Chapter of Political Economy,                                    209

  The Drama,                                                         214

  Recognitions,                                                      218

  The Ladye that I Love,                                             226

  Pay your Debt!                                                     227

  Children,                                                          238

  Tea-Drinking,                                                      246

  Husbands and Wives,                                                249

  They,                                                              255

  Relations,                                                         258

  The Strangers’ Nook,                                               261

  Nobody to be Despised,                                             265

  Trust to Yourself,                                                 270

  Leisure,                                                           275

  My Native Bay,                                                     278

  Advancement in Life,                                               279

  Controllers-General,                                               286

  A Turn for Business,                                               291

  Setting up,                                                        296

  Consuls,                                                           303

  Country and Town Acquaintances,                                    309

  Where is my Trunk?                                                 314




SPIRIT

OF

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL.




LADY JEAN.—A TALE.

    The Yerl o’ Wigton had three dauchters,
      Oh, braw walie! they were bonnie!
    The youngest o’ them, and the bonniest too,
      Has fallen in love wi’ Richie Storie.
                                          _Old Ballad._


The Earl of Wigton, whose name figures in Scottish annals of the reign
of Charles the Second, had three daughters, named Lady Frances, Lady
Grizel, and Lady Jean—the last being by several years the youngest, and
by many degrees the most beautiful. All the three usually resided with
their mother at the chief seat of the family, Cumbernauld House, in
Stirlingshire; but the two eldest were occasionally permitted to attend
their father at Edinburgh, in order that they might have some chance
of obtaining lovers at the court held there by the Duke of Lauderdale,
while Lady Jean was kept constantly at home, and debarred from the
society of the capital, lest her superior beauty might interfere with,
and foil, the attractions of her sisters, who, according to the notion
of that age, had a sort of _right of primogeniture_ in matrimony, as
well as in what was called _heirship_.

It may be easily imagined that while the two marriageable ladies were
enjoying all the delights of a third flat in one of the _closes_ of
the Canongate, spending their days in seeing beaux, and their nights
in dreaming of them, Lady Jean led no pleasant life amidst the remote
and solitary splendours of Cumbernauld, where her chief employment
was the disagreeable one of attending her mother, a very infirm and
querulous old dame, much given (it was said) to strong waters. At the
period when our tale opens, Lady Jean’s charms, though never seen in
the capital, had begun to make some noise there; and the curiosity
excited respecting them amongst the juvenile party of the vice-regal
court, had induced Lord Wigton to confine her ladyship even more
strictly than heretofore, lest, perchance, some gallant might make a
pilgrimage to his country-seat in order to behold her, and, from less
to more, induce her to quit her retirement, in such a way as would
effectually discomfit his schemes for the pre-advancement of his elder
daughters. He had been at pains to send an express to Cumbernauld,
ordering Lady Jean to be confined to the precincts of the house and
the _terrace-garden_, and to be closely attended in all her movements
by a trusty domestic. The consequence was, that the young lady
complained most piteously to her deaf old lady-mother of the tedium and
listlessness of her life, and wished with all her heart that she were
as ugly, old, and happy as her sisters.

Lord Wigton was not insensible to the cruelty of his policy, however
well he might be convinced of its advantage and necessity; he loved his
youngest daughter more than the rest; and it was only in obedience to
what he conceived to be the commands of duty, that he subjected her to
this restraint. His lordship, therefore, felt anxious to alleviate in
some measure the _desagremens_ of her solitary confinement; and knowing
her to be fond of music, he had sent to her by the last messenger a
theorbo lute, with which he thought she would be able to amuse herself
in a way very much to her mind—not considering that, as she could not
play upon the instrument, it would be little better to her than an
unmeaning toy. By the return of his messenger, he received a letter
from Lady Jean, thanking him for the theorbo, but making him aware of
his oversight, and begging him to send some person who could teach her
to play.

The earl, whose acquirements in the philosophy of politics had never
been questioned, felt ashamed of having committed such a solecism in
so trivial a matter; and, like all men anxious to repair or conceal an
error in judgment, immediately ran into another of ten times greater
consequence and magnitude: he gratified his daughter in her wish.

The gentry of Scotland were at that time in the custom of occasionally
employing a species of servants, whose accomplishments and duties would
now appear of a very anomalous character, though at that time naturally
arising from the peculiar situation of this country, in respect to its
southern neighbour. They were, in general, humble men who had travelled
a good deal, and acquired many foreign accomplishments; who, returning
to their native country after an absence of a few years, usually
entered into the service of the higher class of families, partly as
ordinary livery-men, and partly with the purpose of instructing the
youth of both sexes, as they grew up and required such exercises, in
dancing, music, writing, &c., besides a vast variety of other arts,
comprehended in the general phrase of _breeding_. Though these men
received much higher wages, and were a thousand times more unmanageable
than common serving-men, they served a good purpose in those days,
when young people had scarcely any other opportunities of acquiring
the ornamental branches of education, except by going abroad. It so
happened, that not many days after Lord Wigton received his daughter’s
letter, he was applied to for employment by one of these useful
personages, a tall and handsome youth, apparently five-and-twenty, with
dark Italian-looking features, a slight moustache, and as much foreign
peculiarity in his dress as indicated that he was just returned from
his travels. After putting a few questions, his lordship discovered
that the youth was possessed of many agreeable accomplishments; was,
in particular, perfectly well qualified to teach the theorbo, and had
no objection to entering the service of a young lady of quality—only,
with the proviso that he was to be spared the disgrace of a livery.
Lord Wigton then made no scruple in engaging him for a certain period;
and next day saw the youth on the way to Cumbernauld, with a letter
from his lordship to Lady Jean, setting forth all his good qualities,
and containing among other endearing expressions, a hope that she would
both benefit by his instructions, and be in the meantime content on
their account with her present residence.

Any occurrence at Cumbernauld, of higher import than the breaking of
a needle in embroidering, or the miscarriage of a brewing of currant
wine, would have been quite an incident in the eyes of Lady Jean; and
even to have given alms at the castle-gate to an extraordinary beggar,
or to see so much as a stranger in the candle, might have supplied her
with amusement infinite, and speculation boundless. What, then, must
have been her delight, when the goodly and youthful figure of Richard
Storie alighted one dull summer afternoon at the gate, and when the
credentials he presented disclosed to her the agreeable purpose of his
mission! Her joy knew no bounds; nor did she know in what terms to
welcome the stranger: she ran from one end of the house to the other,
up stairs and down stairs, in search of she knew not what; and finally,
in her transports, she shook her mother out of a drunken slumber, which
the old lady was enjoying as usual in her large chair in the parlour.

Master Richard, as he was commonly designated, soon found himself
comfortably established in the good graces of the whole household of
Cumbernauld, and not less so in the particular favour of his young
mistress. Even the sour old lady of the large chair was pleased
with his handsome appearance, and was occasionally seen to give a
preternatural nod and smile at some of his musical exhibitions, as
much as to say she knew when he performed well, and was willing to
encourage humble merit. As for Lady Jean, whose disposition was equally
lively and generous, she could not express in sufficiently warm terms
her admiration of his performances, or the delight she experienced
from them. Nor was she ever content without having Master Richard in
her presence, either to play himself, or to teach her the enchanting
art. She was a most apt scholar—so apt, that in a few days she was
able to accompany him with the theorbo and voice, while he played
upon an ancient harpsichord belonging to the old lady, which he had
rescued from a lumber room, and been at some pains to repair. The
exclusive preference thus given to music, for the time, threw his other
accomplishments into the shade, while it, moreover, occasioned his more
constant presence in the apartments of the ladies than he would have
been otherwise entitled to. The consequence was, that in a short time
he almost ceased to be looked upon as a servant, and began gradually to
assume the more interesting character of a friend and equal.

It was Lady Jean’s practice to take a walk prescribed by her father,
every day in the garden, on which occasions the countess conceived
herself as acting up to the letter of her husband’s commands, when
she ordered Master Richard to attend his pupil. This arrangement
was exceedingly agreeable to Lady Jean, as they sometimes took out
the theorbo, and added music to the other pleasures of the walk.
Another out-of-doors amusement, in which music formed a chief part,
was suggested to them by the appropriate frontispiece of a book of
instruction for the theorbo, which Master Richard had brought with
him from Edinburgh. This engraving represented a beautiful young
shepherdess, dressed in the fashionable costume of that period—a
stupendous tower of hair hung round with diamonds, and a voluminous
silk gown with a jewel-adorned stomacher, a theorbo in her arms and a
crook by her side—sitting on a flowery bank under a tree, with sheep
planted at regular distances around her. At a little distance appeared
a shepherd with dressed hair, long-skirted coat, and silk stockings,
who seemed to survey his mistress with a languishing air of admiration,
that appeared singularly ridiculous, as contrasted with the coquettish
and contemptuous aspect of the lady. The plate referred to a particular
song in a book, entitled “A Dialogue betwixt Strephon and Lydia, or
the Proud Shepherdess’s Courtship,” the music of which was exceedingly
beautiful, while the verses were the tamest and most affected trash
imaginable. It occurred to Lady Jean’s lively fancy, that if she
and her teacher were to personify the shepherdess and shepherd, and
thus, as it were, to transform the song to a sort of opera, making
the terrace-garden the scene, not a little amusement might be added
to the pleasure she experienced from the mere music alone. This fancy
was easily reduced to execution; for, by seating herself under a
tree, in her ordinary dress, with the horticultural implement called
a rake by her side, she looked the very Lydia of the copper-plate;
while Richard, standing at his customary respectful distance, with his
handsome person, and somewhat foreign apparel, was a sufficiently good
representation of Strephon. After arranging themselves thus, Master
Richard opened the drama by addressing Lady Jean in the first verse
of the song, which contained, besides some description of sunrise, a
comparison between the beauties of nature at that delightful period,
and the charms of Lydia, the superiority being of course awarded to the
latter. Lady Jean, with the help of the theorbo, replied to this in
a very disdainful style, affecting to hold the compliments of lovers
very cheap, and asseverating that she had no regard for any being on
earth besides her father and mother, and no care but for these dear
innocent sheep (here she looked kindly aside upon a neighbouring bed
of cabbages), which they had entrusted to her charge. Other verses of
similar nonsense succeeded, during which the representative of the
fair Lydia could not help feeling rather more emotion at hearing the
ardent addresses of Strephon than was strictly consistent with her
part. At the last it was her duty to rise and walk softly away from her
swain, declaring herself utterly insensible to both his praises and his
passion, and her resolution never again to see or speak to him. This
she did in admirable style, though, perhaps, rather with the dignified
gait and sweeping majesty of tragedy-queen, than with any thing like
the pettish or sullen strut of a disdainful rustic; meanwhile Strephon
was supposed to be left inconsolable. Her ladyship continued to
support her assumed character for a few yards, till a turn of the walk
concealed her from Master Richard; when, resuming her natural manner,
she turned back, with sparkling eyes, in order to ask his opinion
of her performances; and it was with some confusion, and no little
surprise, that on bursting again into his sight, she discovered that
Richard had not yet thrown off his character. He was standing still,
as she had left him, fixed immovably upon the spot, in an attitude
expressive of sorrow for her departure, and bending forwards as if
imploring her return. It was the expression of his face that astonished
her most; for it was not at all an expression appropriate to either his
own character or to that which he had assumed. It was an expression of
earnest and impassioned admiration; his whole soul seemed thrown into
his face, which was directed towards her, or rather the place where she
had disappeared; and his eyes were projected in the same direction,
with such a look as that perhaps of an enraptured saint of old at
the moment when a divinity parted from his presence. This lasted,
however, but for a moment; for scarcely had that minute space of time
elapsed, before Richard, startled from his reverie by Lady Jean’s
sudden return, dismissed from his face all trace of any extraordinary
expression, and stood before her (endeavouring to appear) just what he
was, her ladyship’s respectful servant and teacher. Nevertheless, this
transformation did not take place so quickly as to prevent her ladyship
from observing the present expression, nor was it accomplished with
such address as to leave her room for passing it over as unobserved.
She was surprised—she hesitated—she seemed, in spite of herself,
conscious of something awkward—and finally she blushed slightly.
Richard caught the contagion of her confusion in a double degree; and
Lady Jean, again, became more confused on observing that he was aware
of her confusion. Richard was the first to recover himself and speak.
He made some remarks upon her singing and her acting—not, however,
upon her admirable performance of the latter part of the drama; this
encouraged her also to speak, and both soon became somewhat composed.
Shortly afterwards they returned to the house; but from that moment
a chain of the most delicate yet indissoluble sympathies began to
connect the hearts of these youthful beings, so alike in all natural
qualities, and so dissimilar in every extraneous thing which the world
is accustomed to value.

After this interview there took place a slight estrangement between
Master Richard and Lady Jean, that lasted a few days, during which they
had much less of both conversation and music than for some time before.
Both observed this circumstance; but each ascribed it to accident,
while it was in reality occasioned by mutual reserve. Master Richard
was afraid that Lady Jean might be offended were he to propose any
thing like a repetition of the garden drama; and Lady Jean, on her
part, could not, consistently with the rules of maidenly modesty, utter
even a hint at such a thing, however she might secretly wish or long
for it. The very consciousness, reciprocally felt, of having something
on their minds, of which neither durst speak, was sufficient to produce
the said reserve, though the emotions of “the tender passion” had not
come in, as they did, for a large share of the cause.

At length, however, this reserve was so far softened down, that they
began to resume their former practice of walking together in the
garden; but though the theorbo continued to make one of the party,
no more operatic performances took place. Nevertheless, the mutual
affection which had taken root in their hearts experienced on this
account no abatement, but, on the contrary, continued to increase.
As for Master Richard, it was no wonder that he should be deeply
smitten with the charms of his mistress; for ever as he stole a long,
furtive glance at her graceful form, he thought he had never seen,
in Spain or in Italy, any such specimens of female loveliness; and
(if we may let the reader as far into the secret) he had indeed come
to Cumbernauld with the very purpose of falling in love. Different
causes had operated upon Lady Jean. Richard being the first love-worthy
object she had seen since the period when the female heart becomes
most susceptible—the admiration with which she knew he beheld
her—his musical accomplishments, which had tended so much to her
gratification—all conspired to render him precious in her sight. In the
words of a beautiful modern ballad, “all impulses of soul and sense had
thrilled” her gentle and guileless heart—

    ——hopes, and fears that kindled hope,
      An undistinguishable throng,
    And gentle wishes, long subdued,
      Subdued and cherished long,

had exercised their tender and delightful influence over her; like a
flower thrown upon one of the streams of her own native land, whose
course was through the beauties, the splendours, and the terrors of
nature, she was borne away in a dream, the magic scenery of which was
alternately pleasing, fearful, and glorious, and from which she could
no more wake than could the flower restrain its course on the gliding
waters. The habit of contemplating her lover every day, and that in
the dignified character of an instructor, gradually blinded her in a
great measure to his humbler quality, and to the probable sentiments
of her father and the world upon the subject of her passion. If by
any chance such a consideration was forced upon her notice, and she
found occasion to tremble lest the sentiments in which she was so
luxuriously indulging should end in disgrace and disaster, she soon
quieted her fears, by reverting to an idea which had lately occurred
to her—namely, that _Richard was not what he seemed_. She had heard
and read of love assuming strange disguises. A Lord Belhaven, in the
immediately preceding period of the civil war, had taken refuge from
the fury of Cromwell in the service of an English nobleman, whose
daughter’s heart he won under the humble disguise of a gardener, and
whom, on the recurrence of better times, he carried home to Scotland
as his lady. This story was then quite popular, and at least one of
the parties still survived to attest its truth. But even in nursery
tales Lady Jean could find examples which justified her own passion.
The vilest animals, she knew, on finding some beautiful dame, who was
so disinterested as to fall in love with them, usually turned out to be
the most beautiful princes that ever were seen, and invariably married
and made happy the ladies whose affection had restored them to their
natural form and just inheritance. Who knows, she thought, but Richard
may some day, in a transport of passion, throw open his coat, exhibit
the star of nobility glittering on his breast, and ask me to become a
countess?

Such are the excuses which love suggests to reason, and which the
reason of lovers easily accepts; while those who are neither youthful
nor in love wonder at the hallucination of their impassioned juniors.
Experience soon teaches us that this world is not one of romance, and
that few incidents in life ever occur out of the ordinary way. But
before we acquire this experience by actual observation, we all of
us regard things in a very different light. The truth seems to be,
that, in the eyes of youth, “the days of chivalry” do not appear to be
“gone;” our ideas are then contemporary, or upon a par with the early
romantic ages of the world; and it is only by mingling with mature men,
and looking at things as they are, that we at length advance towards,
and ultimately settle down in, the _real era_ of our existence. Was
there ever yet youth who did not feel some chivalrous impulses—some
thirst for more glorious scenes than those around him—some aspirations
after lofty passion and supreme excellence—or who did not cherish some
pure first-love, that could not prudentially be gratified?

The greater part of the rest of the summer passed away before the
lovers came to an eclaircissement; and such, indeed, was their mutual
reserve upon the subject, that, had it not been for the occurrence
of a singular and deciding circumstance, there appeared little
probability of this ever otherwise taking place. The Earl of Home, a
gay and somewhat foolish young nobleman, one morning after attending
a convivial party where the charms of Lady Jean Fleming formed the
principal topic of discourse, left Edinburgh and took the way to
Cumbernauld, on the very pilgrimage, and with the very purpose which
Lord Wigton had before anticipated. Resolved first to see, then to
love, and lastly to run away with the young lady, his lordship skulked
about for a few days, and at last had the pleasure of seeing the hidden
beauty over the garden wall, as she was walking with Master Richard.
He thought he had never seen any lady who could be at all compared to
Lady Jean, and, as a matter of course, resolved to make her his own,
and surprise all his companions at Edinburgh with his success and
her beauty. He watched again next day, and happening to meet Master
Richard out of the bounds of _Cumbernauld policy_, accosted him, with
the intention of securing his services in making his way towards Lady
Jean. After a few words of course, he proposed the subject to Richard,
and offered a considerable bribe, to induce him to work for his
interest. Richard at first rejected the offer, but immediately after,
on bethinking himself, saw fit to accept it. He was to mention his
lordship’s purpose to Lady Jean, and to prepare the way for a private
interview with her. On the afternoon of the succeeding day, he was
to meet Lord Home at the same place, and tell him how Lady Jean had
received his proposals. With this they parted—Richard to muse on this
unexpected circumstance, which he saw might blast all his hopes unless
he should resolve upon prompt and active measures, and the Earl of Home
to enjoy himself at the humble inn of the village of Cumbernauld, where
he had for the last few days enacted the character of “the daft lad
frae Edinburch, that seemed to ha’e mair siller than sense.”

On the morning of the tenth day after Master Richard’s first interview
with Lord Home, that faithful serving-man found himself jogging swiftly
along the road to Edinburgh, mounted on a stout nag, with the fair
Lady Jean seated comfortably on a pillion behind him. It was a fine
morning in autumn, and the road had a peculiarly gay appearance from
the multitude of country-people, mounted and dismounted, who seemed
also hastening towards the capital. Master Richard, upon inquiry,
discovered that it was the _market-day_, a circumstance which seemed
favourable to his design, by the additional assurance it gave him of
not being recognised among the extraordinary number of strangers who
might be expected to crowd the city on such an occasion. The lovers
approached the city by the west, and the first street they entered
was the suburban one called Portsburgh, which leads towards the great
market-place of Edinburgh. Here Richard, impatient as he was, found
himself obliged, like many other rustic cavaliers, to reduce the pace
of his horse to a walk, on account of the narrowness and crowded state
of the street. This he felt the more disagreeable, as it subjected
him and his interesting companion to the close and leisurely scrutiny
of the inhabitants. Both had endeavoured to disguise every thing
remarkable in their appearance, so far as dress and demeanour could
be disguised; yet, as Lady Jean could not conceal her extraordinary
beauty, and Richard had not found it possible to part with a slight and
dearly-beloved moustache, it naturally followed that they were honoured
with a good deal of staring. Many an urchin upon the street threw
up his arms as they passed along, exclaiming “Oh! the black-bearded
man!” or, “Oh! the bonnie leddie!”—the men all admired Lady Jean, the
women Master Richard—and many an old shoemaker ogled them earnestly
over his half-door, with his spectacles pushed up above his dingy
cowl. The lovers, who had thus to run a sort of gauntlet of admiration
and remark, were glad when they reached an inn, which Richard, who
was slightly acquainted with the town, knew to be a proper place for
the performance of a _half-merk marriage_. They alighted, and were
civilly received by an obsequious landlady, who conducted them into an
apartment at the back of the house. There Lady Jean was for a short
time left to make some arrangements about her dress, while Richard
disclosed to the landlady in another room the purpose upon which he was
come to her house, and consulted her about procuring a clergyman. The
dame of the house, to whom a clandestine marriage was the merest matter
of course, showed the utmost willingness to facilitate the design of
her guests, and said that she believed a clerical official might be
procured in a few minutes, provided that neither had any scruples of
conscience, as “most part of fouk frae the west had,” in accepting the
services of an Episcopal clergyman. The lover assured her that, so far
from having any objection to “a government minister,” for so they were
sometimes termed, he would prefer such to any other, as both he and his
bride belonged to that persuasion. The landlady heard this declaration
with complacency, which showed that she loved her guests the better
for it; and told Richard that, if he pleased, she would immediately
introduce to him the Dean of St Giles, who, honest man, was just now
taking his _meridian_ in the little back garret parlour, along with
his friend and gossip, Bowed Andrew, the waiter of the West Port. To
this Richard joyfully assented, and speedily he and Lady Jean were
joined in their room by the said dean, a squat little gentleman, with
a drunken but important-looking face, and an air of consequentiality
even in his stagger, that was partly imposing and partly ridiculous. He
addressed his clients with a patronising simper, of which the effect
was grievously disconcerted by an unlucky hiccup, and in a speech which
might have had the intended tone of paternal and reverend authority,
had it not been smattered and degraded into shreds by the crapulous
insufficiency of his tongue. Richard cut short his ill-sustained
attempts at dignity, by requesting him to partake of some liquor. His
reverence almost leaped at the proffered jug, which contained ale. He
first took a tasting, then a sip—shaking his head between—next a small
draught, with a still more convulsion-like shake of the head; and
lastly, he took a hearty and persevering swill, from the effects of
which his lungs did not recover for at least twenty respirations. The
impatient lover then begged him to proceed with the ceremony, which he
forthwith commenced in presence of the landlady and the above-mentioned
Bowed Andrew; and in a few minutes, Richard and Lady Jean were united
in the holy bands of matrimony.

When the ceremony was concluded, and both the clergyman and the
witnesses had been satisfied and dismissed, the lovers left the house,
with the design of walking forwards into the city. In conformity to a
previous arrangement, Lady Jean walked first, like a lady of quality,
and Richard followed closely behind, with the dress and deportment of
her servant. Her ladyship was dressed in her finest suit, and adorned
with her finest jewels, all which she had brought from Cumbernauld on
purpose, in a mail or leathern trunk—for such was the name then given
to the convenience now entitled a portmanteau. Her step was light, and
her bearing gay, as she moved along—not on account of the success which
had attended her expedition, or her satisfaction in being now united
to the man of her choice, but because she anticipated the highest
pleasure in the sight of a place whereof she had heard such wonderful
stories, and from a participation in whose delights she had been so
long withheld. Like all persons educated in the country, she had been
regaled in her infancy with magnificent descriptions of the capital—of
its buildings, that seemed to mingle with the clouds—its shops, which
apparently contained more wealth than all the world beside—of its paved
streets (for paved streets were then wonders in Scotland)—and, above
all, of the grand folks who thronged its Highgates, its Canongates,
and its Cowgates—people whose lives seemed a perpetual holiday, whose
attire was ever new, and who all lived in their several palaces.
Though, of course, Edinburgh had then little to boast of, the country
people who occasionally visited it did not regard it with less
admiration than that with which the peasantry of our own day may be
supposed to view it now that it is something so very different. It was
then, as well as now, the capital of the country, and, as such, bore
the same disproportion in point of magnificence to inferior towns, and
to the country in general. In one respect, it was superior to what
it is at the present day—namely, in being the seat of government and
of a court. Lady Jean had often heard all its glorious peculiarities
described by her sisters, who, moreover, sometimes took occasion to
colour the picture too highly, in order to raise her envy, and make
themselves appear great in their alliance and association with so much
greatness. She was, therefore, prepared to see a scene of the utmost
splendour—a scene in which nothing horrible or paltry mingled, but
which was altogether calculated to awe or to delight the senses.

Her ladyship was destined to be disappointed at the commencement, at
least, of her acquaintance with the city. The first remarkable object
which struck her eye, after leaving the inn, was the high _bow_, or
arch, of the gate called the West Port. In this itself there was
nothing worthy of particular attention, and she rather directed her
eyes through the opening beneath, which half disclosed a wide space
beyond, apparently crowded with people. But when she came close up
to the gate, and cast, before passing, a last glance at the arch,
she shuddered at the sight then presented to her eyes. On the very
pinnacle of the arch were stuck the ghastly and weatherworn remains of
a human head, the features of which, half flesh half bone, were shaded,
and rendered still more indistinctly horrible by the long dark hair,
which hung in meagre tresses around them. “Oh, Richard, Richard!” she
exclaimed, stopping, and turning round, “what is that dreadful looking
thing?” “That, madam,” said Richard, without any emotion, “is the
broken remnant of a west country preacher, spiked up there to warn his
countrymen who may approach this port, against doing any thing to incur
the fate which has overtaken himself. Methinks he has preached to small
purpose, for yonder stands the gallows, ready, I suppose, to bring him
some brother in affliction.” “Horrible!” exclaimed Lady Jean; “and is
this really the fine town of Edinburgh, where I was taught to expect so
many grand sights? I thought it was just one universal palace, and it
turns out to be a great charnel-house!” “It is indeed more like that
than any thing else at times,” said Richard; “but, my dear Lady Jean,
you are not going to start at this bugbear, which the very children,
you see, do not heed in passing.” “Indeed I think, Richard,” answered
her ladyship, “if Edinburgh is to be all like this, it would be just as
good to turn back at once, and postpone our visit till better times.”
“But it is not all like this,” replied Richard; “I assure you it is
not. For heaven’s sake, my lady, move on. The people are beginning
to stare at us. You shall soon see grand sights enough, if we were
once fairly out of this place. Make for the opposite corner of the
Grassmarket, and ascend the street to the left of that horrible gibbet.
We may yet get past it before the criminals are produced.”

Thus admonished, Lady Jean passed, not without a shudder, under the
dreadful arch, and entered the spacious oblong square called the
Grassmarket. This place was crowded at the west end with rustics
engaged in all the bustle of a grain and cattle market, and at the
eastern and most distant extremity with a mob of idlers who had
gathered around the gibbet, in order to witness the awful ceremony
that was about to take place. The crowd, which was scarcely so dense
as that which attends the rarer scene of a modern execution, made way
on both sides for Lady Jean as she moved along; and wherever she went,
she left behind her a _wake_, as it were, of admiration and confusion.
So exquisite and so new a beauty, so splendid a suit of female attire,
and such a stout and handsome attendant—these were all alike calculated
to inspire reverence in the minds of the beholders. Her carriage at the
same time was so steady and so graceful, that no one could be so rude
as to interrupt or disturb it. The people, therefore, parted when she
approached, and left a free passage for her on all sides, as if she
had been an angel or a spirit come to walk amidst a mortal crowd, and
whose person could not be touched, and might scarcely be beheld—whose
motions were not to be interfered with by those among whom she chose
to walk—but who was to be received with prostration of spirit, and
permitted to depart as she had come, unquestioned and unapproached.
In traversing the Grassmarket, two or three young coxcombs, with
voluminous wigs, short cloaks, rapiers, and rose-knots at their knees
and shoes, who, on observing her at a distance, had prepared to treat
her with a condescending stare, fell back, awed and confounded, at her
near approach, and spent the gaze, perhaps, upon the humbler mark of
her follower, or upon vacancy.

Having at length passed the gibbet, Lady Jean began to ascend the
steep and tortuous street denominated the West Bow. She had hitherto
been unable to direct any attention to what she was most anxious to
behold—the scenic wonders of the capital. But having now got clear of
the crowd, and no longer fearing to see the gallows, she ventured to
lift up her eyes and look around. The tallness and massiveness of the
buildings, some of which bore the cross of the Knights Templars on
their pinnacles, while others seemed to be surmounted or overtopped
by still taller edifices beyond, impressed her imagination; and the
effect was rendered still more striking by the countless human figures
which crowded the windows, and even the roofs of the houses, all alike
bending their attention, as she thought, towards herself. The scene
before her looked like an amphitheatre filled with spectators, while
she and Richard seemed as the objects upon the arena. The thought
caused her to hurry on, and she soon found herself in a great measure
screened from observation by the overhanging projections of the
narrower part of the West Bow, which she now entered. With slow and
difficult, but stately and graceful steps, she then proceeded, till she
reached the upper angle of the street, where a novel and unexpected
scene awaited her. A sound like that of rushing waters seemed first
to proceed from the part of the street still concealed from her view,
and presently appeared round the angle the first rank of an impetuous
crowd, who, rushing downward with prodigious force, would certainly
have overwhelmed her delicate form, had she not dexterously avoided
them, by stepping aside upon a projecting stair, to which Richard also
sprung, just in time to save himself from a similar fate. From this
place of safety, which was not without its own crowd of children,
women, and sage-looking elderly mechanics, with Kilmarnock cowls, both
in the next moment saw the massive mob rush past, like the first wave
of a flood, bearing either _along_ or _down_ every thing that came in
their way. Immediately after, but at a more deliberate pace, followed
a procession of figures, which struck the heart of Lady Jean with as
heavy a sense of sorrow as the crowd had just impressed with terror and
surprise. First came a small company of the veterans of the city-guard,
some of whom had perhaps figured in the campaigns of Middleton and
Montrose, and whose bronzed inflexible faces bore on this melancholy
occasion precisely the same expression which they ordinarily exhibited
on the joyful one of attending the magistrates at the drinking of the
king’s health on the 29th of May. Behind these, and encircled by some
other soldiers of the same band, appeared two figures of a different
sort. One of them was a young-looking, but pale and woe-worn man, the
impressive wretchedness of whose appearance was strikingly increased
by the ghastly dress which he wore. He was attired from head to foot
in a white shroud, such as was sometimes worn in Scotland by criminals
at the gallows, but which was, in the present instance, partly assumed
as a badge of innocence. The excessive whiteness and emaciation of his
countenance suited well with this dismal apparel, and, with the wild
enthusiasm that kindled in his eyes, gave an almost supernatural effect
to the whole scene, which rather resembled a pageant of the dead than
a procession of earthly men. He was the only criminal; the person who
walked by his side, and occasionally supported his steps, being—as the
crowd whispered around, with many a varied expression of sympathy—his
father. The old man had the air of a devout Presbyterian, with harsh,
intelligent features, and a dress which bespoke his being a countryman
of the lower rank. According to the report of the bystanders, he had
educated this his only son for the unfortunate Church of Scotland, and
now attended him to the fate which his talents and violent temperament
had conspired to draw down upon his head. If he ever felt any pride in
the popular admiration with which his son was honoured, no traces of
such a sentiment now appeared. On the contrary, he seemed humbled to
the very earth with sorrow; and though he had perhaps contemplated the
issue now about to take place, with no small portion of satisfaction,
so long as it was at a distance and uncertain, the feelings of a
father had evidently proved too much for his fortitude when the event
approached in all its dreadful reality. The emotions perceptible in
that rough and rigid countenance were the more striking, as being so
much at variance with its natural and characteristic expression; and
the tear which gathered in his eye excited the greater commiseration,
in so far as it seemed a stranger there. But the hero and heroine of
our tale had little time to make observations on this piteous scene,
for the train passed quickly on, and was soon beyond their sight. When
it was gone, the people of the Bow, who seemed accustomed to such
sights, uttered various expressions of pity, indignation, and horror,
according to their respective feelings, and then slowly retired to
their dens in the stairs and booths which lined the whole of this
ancient and singular street.

Lady Jean, whose beautiful eyes were suffused with tears at beholding
so melancholy a spectacle, was then admonished by her attendant to
proceed. With a heart hardened to all sensations of wonder and delight,
she moved forward, and was soon ushered into the place called the
Lawnmarket, then perhaps the most fashionable district in Edinburgh,
but the grandeur and spaciousness of which she beheld almost without
admiration. The scene here was however much gayer, and approached more
nearly to her splendid preconceptions of the capital than any she had
yet seen. The shops were, in her estimation, very fine, and some of
the people on the street were of that noble description of which she
had believed all inhabitants of cities to be. There was no crowd on
the street, which, therefore, afforded room for a better display of
her stately and beautiful person; and as she walked steadily onwards,
still _ushed_ (for such was then the phrase) by her handsome and
noble-looking attendant, a greater degree of admiration was excited
amongst the gay idlers whom she passed, than even that which marked
her progress through the humbler crowd of the Grassmarket. Various
noblemen, in passing towards their homes in the Castle Hill, lifted
their feathered hats and bowed profoundly to the lovely vision; and
one or two magnificent dames, sweeping along with their long silk
trains, borne up by livery-men, stared at or eyed askance the charms
which threw their own so completely into shade. By the time Lady Jean
arrived at the bottom of the Lawnmarket, that is to say, where it
was partially closed up by the Tolbooth, she had in a great measure
recovered her spirits, and found herself prepared to enjoy the sight of
the public buildings, which were so thickly clustered together at this
central part of the city. She was directed by Richard to pass along the
narrow road which then led between the houses and the Tolbooth on the
south, and which, being continued by a still narrower passage skirting
the west end of St Giles’s church, formed the western approach to the
Parliament Close. Obeying his guidance in this tortuous passage, she
soon found herself at the opening or the square space, so styled on
account of its being closed on more than one side by the meeting-place
of the legislative assembly of Scotland. Here a splendid scene awaited
her. The whole square was filled with the members of the Scottish
Parliament, barons and commons, who had just left the house in which
they sat together—with ladies, who on days of unusual ceremony were
allowed to attend the house—and with horses richly caparisoned, and
covered with gold-embroidered foot-cloths, some of which were mounted
by their owners, while others were held in readiness by footmen. All
was bustle and magnificence. Noblemen and gentlemen in splendid attire
threaded the crowd in search of their horses; ladies tripped after them
with timid and careful steps, endeavouring, by all in their power, to
avoid contact with such objects as were calculated to injure their
fineries; grooms strode heavily about, and more nimble lacqueys jumped
every where, here and there, some of them as drunk as the Parliament
Close claret could make them, but all intent on doing the duties of
attendance and respect to their masters. Some smart and well-dressed
young gentlemen were arranging their cloaks and swords, and preparing
to leave the square on foot by the passage which had given entry to
Master Richard and Lady Jean.

At sight of our heroine, most of these gallants stood still in
admiration, and one of them, with the trained assurance of a rake,
observing her to be beautiful, a stranger, and not too well protected,
accosted her in a strain of language which caused her at once to blush
and tremble. Richard’s brow reddened with anger, as he hesitated not a
moment in stepping up and telling the offender to leave the lady alone,
on pain of certain consequences which might not prove agreeable. “And
who are you, my brave fellow?” said the youth, with bold assurance.
“Sirrah!” exclaimed Richard, so indignant as to forget himself, “I am
that lady’s husband—her servant, I mean;” and here he stopped short
in some confusion. “Admirable!” exclaimed the other. “Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Here, Sirs, is a lady lacquey, who does not know whether he is his
mistress’s servant or her husband. Let us give him up to the town-guard
to see whether the black-hole will make him remember the real state
of the case.” So saying, he attempted to push Richard aside, and take
hold of the lady. But he had not time to touch her garments with so
much as a finger, before her protector had a rapier flourishing in his
eyes, and threatened him with instant death, unless he desisted from
his profane purpose. At sight of the bright steel, he stepped back one
or two paces, drew his own sword, and was preparing to fight, when one
of his more grave associates called out, “For shame, Rollo!—with a
lady’s lacquey, too, and in the presence of the duke and duchess! I see
their royal highnesses, already alarmed, are inquiring the cause of the
disturbance.” It was even as this gentleman said, and presently came up
to the scene of contention some of the most distinguished personages
in the crowd, one of whom demanded from the parties an explanation
of so disgraceful an occurrence. “Why, here is a fellow, my lord,”
answered Rollo, “who says he is the husband of a lady whom he attends
as a livery-man, and a lady, too, the bonniest, I dare say, that has
been seen in Scotland since the days of Queen Magdalen!” “And what
matters it to you,” said the inquirer, who seemed to be a Judge of the
Session, “in what relation this man stands to his lady? Let the parties
both come forward, and tell their ain tale. May it please your royal
highness,” he continued, addressing a very grave dignitary who sat on
horseback behind him, as stiff and formal as a sign-post, “to hear the
_declaratur_ of thir twa strange incomers. But see—see—what is the
matter with Lord Wigton?” he added, pointing to an aged personage on
horseback, who had just pushed forward, and seemed about to faint, and
fall from his horse. The person alluded to, at sight of his daughter in
this unexpected place, was in reality confounded, and it was some time
before he mastered voice enough to ejaculate, “O, Jean, Jean! what’s
this ye’ve been about? or what has brocht you to Edinburgh?” “And
Lord have a care o’ us!” exclaimed at this juncture another venerable
peer, who had just come up, “what has brocht my sonsie son, Ritchie
Livingstone, to Edinburgh, when he should have been fechtin’ the Dutch
by this time in Pennsylvania?” The two lovers, thus recognised by their
respective parents, stood with downcast looks, and perfectly silent,
while all was buzz and confusion in the brilliant circle around them;
for the parties concerned were not more surprised at the aspect of
their affairs, than were all the rest at the beauty of the far-famed
but hitherto unseen Lady Jean Fleming. The Earl of Linlithgow,
Richard’s father, was the first to speak aloud, after the general
astonishment had for some time subsided; and this he did in a laconic
though important query, which he couched in the simple words, “Are
you married, bairns?” “Yes, dearest father,” said his son, gathering
courage, and coming close up to his saddle-bow; “and I beseech you to
extricate Lady Jean and me from this crowd, and I shall tell you all
when we are alone.” “A pretty man ye are, truly,” said the old man, who
never took any thing very seriously to heart, “to be staying at hame,
and getting yourself married, all the time you should have been abroad,
winning honour and wealth, as your gallant grand-uncle did wi’ Gustavus
i’ the thretties! Hooever, since better mayna be, I maun try and
console my Lord Wigton, who, I doot, has the worst o’ the bargain, ye
ne’er-do-weel!” He then went up to Lady Jean’s father, shook him by the
hand, and said, “that though they had been made relations against their
wills, he hoped they would continue good friends. The young people,” he
observed, “are no that ill matched; and it is not the first time that
the Flemings and the Livingstones have melled together, as witness the
blithe marriage of the Queen’s Marie to Lord Fleming, in the feifteen
saxty-five. At any rate, my lord, let us put a good face on the matter,
afore they glowering gentles and whipper-snapper duchesses. I’ll get
horses for the two, and they’ll join the ridin’ down the street; and
deil hae me if Lady Jean disna outshine them, the hale o’ them!” “My
Lord Linlithgow,” responded the graver and more implacable Earl of
Wigton, “it may set you to take this matter blithely; but, let me tell
you, it’s a muckle mair serious affair for me. What think ye am I to do
wi’ Kate and Grizzy noo?” “Hoot, toot, my lord,” said Linlithgow, with
a sly smile, “their chance is as gude as ever it was, I assure you, and
sae will every body think that kens them. I _maun_ ca’ horses though,
or the young folk will be ridden ower, afore ever they do mair gude, by
thae rampaugin’ young men.” So saying, and taking Lord Wigton’s moody
silence for assent, he proceeded to cry to his servants for the best
pair of horses they could get; and these being speedily procured, Lord
Richard and his bride were requested to mount; after which, they were
formally introduced to the gracious notice of the Duke and Duchess
of York, and the Princess Anne, who happened to attend Parliament on
this the last day of its session, when it was customary for all the
members to ride both to and from the house in an orderly cavalcade. The
order was now given to proceed, and the lovers were soon relieved,
in a great measure, from the embarrassing notice of the crowd, by
assuming a particular place in the procession, and finding themselves
confounded with more than three hundred equally splendid figures. As
the pageant, however, moved down the High Street, in a continuous and
open line, it was impossible not to distinguish the singular loveliness
of Lady Jean, and the gallant carriage of her husband, from all the
rest. Accordingly, the very trained bands and city-guard, who lined the
street, and who were, in general, quite as insensible to the splendours
of _the Riding_, as are the musicians in a modern orchestra to the
wonders of a melo-drama in its fortieth night—even _they_ perceived
and admired the graces of the young couple, whom they could not help
gazing after with a stupid and lingering delight. From the windows,
too, and the _stair-heads_, their beauty was well observed, and amply
conjectured and commented on; while many a young cavalier endeavoured,
by all sorts of pretences, to find occasion to break the order of the
cavalcade, and get himself haply placed nearer to the exquisite figure
of which he had got just one killing glance in the square. Slowly
and majestically the brilliant train paced down the great street of
Edinburgh, the acclamations of the multitude ceaselessly expressing
the delight which the people of Scotland felt in this sensible type
and emblem of their ancient independence. At length they reached the
court-yard of Holyrood-house, where the duke and duchess invited the
whole assemblage to a ball, which they designed to give that evening in
the hall of the palace; after which, all departed to their respective
residences throughout the town, Lords Wigton and Linlithgow taking
their young friends under their immediate protection, and seeking the
residence of the former nobleman, a little way up the Canongate. In
riding thither, the lovers had leisure to explain to their parents
the singular circumstances of their union, and address enough to
obtain unqualified forgiveness for their imprudence. On alighting at
Lord Wigton’s house, Lady Jean found her sisters confined to their
rooms with headaches, or some such serious indisposition, and in the
utmost dejection on account of having been thereby withheld from the
riding of the Parliament. Their spirits, as may be supposed, were not
much elevated, when, on coming forth in dishabille to welcome their
sister, they found she had had the good fortune to be married before
them. Their ill luck was, however, irremediable; and so, making a
merit of submitting to it, they condescended to be rather agreeable
during the dinner and the afternoon. It was not long before all parties
were perfectly reconciled to what had taken place; and by the time it
was necessary to dress for the ball, the elder young ladies declared
themselves so much recovered as to be able to accompany their happy
sister. The Earl of Linlithgow and his son then sent a servant for
proper dresses, and prepared themselves for the occasion without
leaving the house. When all were ready, a number of chairs were called
to transport their dainty persons down the street. The news of Lady
Jean’s arrival, and of her marriage, having now spread abroad, the
court in front of the house, the alley, and even the open street, were
crowded with people of all ranks, anxious to catch a passing glimpse
of the heroine of so strange a tale. As her chair was carried along, a
buzz of admiration from all who were so happy as to be near it, marked
its progress. Happy, too, was the gentleman who had the good luck to be
near her chair as it was set down at the palace gate, and assist her in
stepping from it upon the lighted pavement. From the outer gate, along
the piazza of the inner court, and all the way up the broad staircase
to the illuminated hall, two rows of noblemen and gentlemen formed a
brilliant avenue as she passed along, while a hundred plumed caps were
doffed in honour of so much beauty, and as many youthful eyes glanced
bright with satisfaction at beholding it. The object of all this
attention tripped modestly along in the hand of the Earl of Linlithgow,
acknowledging, with many a graceful flexure and undulation of person,
the compliments of the spectators. At length the company entered the
spacious and splendid room in which the ball was to be held. At the
extremity opposite to the entry, upon an elevated platform, sat the
three royal personages, all of whom, on Lady Jean’s introduction, rose
and came forward to welcome her and her husband to the entertainments
of Holyrood, and to hope that her ladyship would often adorn their
circle. In a short time the dancing commenced; and amidst all the
ladies who exhibited their charms and their magnificent attire in that
captivating exercise, who was, either in person or dress, half so
brilliant as Lady Jean?




FALLACIES OF THE YOUNG.

“FATHERS HAVE FLINTY HEARTS.”


I only quote this popular expression from a very popular play, in
order to warn my juvenile friends against being too much impressed
by it. It is a fatal error running through nearly the whole mass of
our fictitious literature, that parents are represented as invariably
adverse, through their own cruel and selfish views, to the inclinations
of their children: either the glowing ambition and high spirit of the
boy is repressed by the cold calculations of his father, who wishes him
to become a mere creature of the counting-room and shop like himself;
or the romantic attachment of the girl to some elegant Orlando,
procures her a confinement to her chamber, with no other alternative
than that of marrying a detestable suitor, whom her father prefers
to all others on account of his wealth. Then, the boy always runs
away from his father’s house, and, by following his own inclinations,
acquires fortune and fame; while the girl as invariably leaps a
three-pair-of-stairs window, and is happy for life with the man of her
choice. The same dangerous system pervades the stage, where, I am sorry
to remark, every vicious habit of society, and every impropriety in
manners and speech, is always sure to be latest abandoned.

I warn my juvenile readers most emphatically against the fallacy and
delusion which prevails upon this subject. Fathers, as a class, have
not flinty hearts, nor is it their wish or interest, in general, to
impose a cruel restraint upon their children. Young people would do
well to examine the circumstances in which they stand in regard to
their parents and guardians, before believing in the reality of that
schism which popular literature would represent as invariably existing
between their own class and that of their natural protectors. The
greater part, I am sure, of my young friends, must have observed,
that, so long as they can remember, they have been indebted for every
comfort, and for a thousand acts of kindness and marks of affection, to
those endeared beings—_their father and mother_. The very dawning light
of existence must have found them in the enjoyment of many blessings
procured to them solely by those two individuals. From them must have
been derived the food they ate, the bed they lay on, the learning at
school which enabled their minds to appreciate all the transactions
and all the wisdom of past times, and, greatest blessing of all, the
habits of devotional exercise which admitted them to commune with their
almighty Creator. Surely it is not to be supposed that, at a certain
time, the kindness and friendship of these two amiable persons is all
at once converted into a malignant contrariety to the interests of
their children. Is it not far more likely, my dear young friends, that
they continue, as ever, to be your well-wishers and benefactors: and
that the opposition which they seem to set up so ungraciously against
your inclinations, is only caused by their sense of the dangers which
threaten you in the event of your being indulged? It may appear to
you that no such danger exists: that your parents are actuated by
narrower and meaner views than your own, or that they do not allow for
the feelings of youth. But they are in reality deeply concerned for the
difference of _your_ feelings from _theirs_; they sympathise with them
in secret, from a recollection of what were their own at your period
of life; but know, from that very experience of your feelings, and of
their result, that it is not good for you that they should be indulged.
You are, then, called upon—and I do so now in the name of your best
feelings, and as you would wish for present or future happiness—to
trust in the reality of that parental tenderness which has never,
heretofore, known interruption, and in the superiority of that wisdom
with which years and acquaintance with the world have invested your
parents.

Perhaps, my young friends, you may have perceived, even in the midst of
your childish frolics and careless happiness, that your parents were
obliged to deny themselves many indulgences, and toil hard in their
respective duties, in order to obtain for you the comforts which you
enjoy. You may have perceived that your father, after he had returned
home from his daily employment, could hardly be prevailed upon to
enter, as you wished, into your sports, or to assist you with your
lessons, but would sit, in silent and abstracted reflection, with a
deep shade of care upon his brow. On these occasions, perhaps, your
amiable and kind protector is considering how difficult it is, even
with all his industry, and all his denial of indulgences to himself, to
procure for you an exemption from that wretchedness in which you see
thousands of other children every day involved. But though many are
the cares which your parents experience, in the duty of rearing you
to manhood, there is none so severe or so acute as that which comes
upon them at the period of your entering into life. Heretofore, you
were simple little children, with hardly a thought beyond the family
scene in which you have enjoyed so many comforts. Heretofore, with
the exception of occasional rebukes from your parents, and trifling
quarrels with your brothers and sisters, you have all been one family
of love, eating at the same board, kneeling in one common prayer,
loving one another, as the dearest of all friends. But now the scene
becomes very different. You begin to feel, within yourselves, separate
interests, and each thinks himself best qualified to judge for himself.
At that moment, my young friends, the anxiety of your parents is a
thousand times greater than it ever was before. Your father, probably,
is a man of formed habits and character; he occupies a certain
respectable station in the world; he has all his life been governed by
certain principles, which he found to be conducive to his comfort and
dignity. But though he has been able to conduct himself through the
world in this satisfactory manner, he is sensible, from the various and
perhaps altogether opposite characters which nature has implanted in
you, that you may go far wide of what have been his favourite objects,
and perhaps be the means of impairing that respectability which he, as
a single individual, has hitherto maintained. It is often observed in
life, that children who have been reared by poor but virtuous parents,
as if their minds had received in youth a horror for every attribute of
poverty, exert themselves with such vigorous and consistent fortitude,
as to end with fortune and dignity; while the children, perhaps, of
these individuals, being brought up without the same acquaintance with
want and hardship, are slothful through life, and soon bring back the
family to its original condition. If you then have been reared in easy
circumstances, you may believe what I now tell you, that your approach
to manhood or womanhood will produce a degree of anxiety in the breasts
of your parents, such as would, if you knew it, make your very heart
bleed for their distress, and cause you to appear as monsters to
yourselves if you were to act in any great degree differently from what
they wished.

How much, then, is it your duty, my young friends, to treat the advices
and wishes of your parents, at this period of life, with respect,
knowing, as you do, that the future happiness of those dear and kind
beings depends almost solely upon your conducting yourselves properly
in your first steps into life! Should you be so unfortunate as to be
beguiled into bad company, or to contract a disposition to indulgences
which are the very bane of existence, and the ruin of reputation, what
must be the agony of those individuals who have hitherto loved and
cherished you, and indulged, perhaps, in very different anticipations!
On the contrary, should you yield respect, as far as it is in your
nature, to the maxims which your father has endeavoured to impress,
with what delight does he look forward to your future success—with what
happy confidence does he rely upon your virtuous principles! And may
there be no happiness to _you_, in contemplating the happiness which
you have given to _him_? Yes, much, I am sure, and of a purer kind than
almost any which earthly things can confer upon you here below.

I have one word to add, and it is addressed to the female part of my
juvenile readers. Exactly as parents feel a concern for the first
appearance of their sons in the business of life, so do they experience
many anxious and fearful thoughts respecting the disposal of their
daughters in matrimony. Wedded life, I may inform them, is not the
simple matter which it appears prospectively in early and single life.
As it involves many serious duties and responsibilities, it must be
entered upon with a due regard to the means—above all things, the
pecuniary means—of discharging these in a style of respectability, such
as may be sufficient to support the dignity of the various connexions
of the parties. It is, therefore, necessary that no person of tender
years (this is most frequently the lot of the female) should contract
the obligations of matrimony, without, if possible, the entire sanction
of parents or other protectors. The people of this country happen to
entertain, upon this subject, notions of not so strict a kind as are
prevalent in most other nations. In almost all continental and all
eastern countries, the female is reared by her friends as the destined
bride of a particular individual, and till her marriage she is allowed
no opportunity of bestowing her affections upon any other. The custom
is so ancient and so invariable, that it is submitted to without any
feeling of hardship; and as prudence is the governing principle of the
relations, the matches are generally as happy as if they were more
free. Perhaps such a custom is inapplicable to this country, on account
of our different system of domestic life; but I may instance it, to
prove to my fair young readers, that the control of parents over their
choice of a husband ought to be looked upon as a more tolerable and
advantageous thing, than their inclinations might be disposed to allow,
or our popular literature represents it to be.




BRUNTFIELD,

A TALE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.


The war carried on in Scotland, by the friends and enemies of Queen
Mary, after her departure into England, was productive of an almost
complete dissolution of order, and laid the foundation of many feuds
which were kept up by private families and individuals long after all
political cause of hostility had ceased. Among the most remarkable
quarrels which history or tradition has recorded as arising out of that
civil broil, I know of none so deeply cherished, or accompanied by
so many romantic and peculiar circumstances, as one which took place
between two old families of gentry in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.
Stephen Bruntfield, laird of Craighouse, had been a zealous and
disinterested partisan of the queen. Robert Moubray of Barnbougle was
the friend successively of Murray and Morton, and distinguished himself
very highly in their cause. During the year 1572, when Edinburgh castle
was maintained by Kirkaldy of Grange in behalf of the queen, Stephen
Bruntfield held out Craighouse in the same interest, and suffered a
siege from a detachment of the forces of the regent, commanded by the
laird of Barnbougle. This latter baron, a man of fierce and brutal
nature, entered life as a younger brother, and at an early period chose
to cast his fate among the Protestant leaders, with a view of improving
his fortunes. The death of his elder brother in rebellion at Langside,
enabled the Regent Murray to reward his services with a grant of the
patrimonial estate, of which he did not scruple to take possession by
the strong hand, to the exclusion of his infant niece, the daughter of
the late proprietor. Some incidents which occurred in the course of the
war had inspired a mutual hatred of the most intense character into the
breasts of Bruntfield and Moubray; and it was therefore with a feeling
of strong personal animosity, as well as of political rancour, that
the latter undertook the task of watching the motions of Bruntfield at
Craighouse. Bruntfield, after holding out for many months, was obliged,
along with his friends in Edinburgh castle, to yield to the party of
the regent. Like Kirkaldy and Maitland of Lethington, he surrendered
upon a promise of life and estate; but while his two friends perished,
one by the hand of the executioner, the other by his own hand, he
fell a victim to the sateless spite of his personal enemy, who, in
conducting him to Edinburgh as a prisoner, took fire at some bitter
expression on the part of the captive, and smote him dead upon the spot.

Bruntfield left a widow and three infant sons. The lady of Craighouse
had been an intimate of the unfortunate Mary from her early years;
was educated with her in France, in the Catholic faith; and had left
her court to become the wife of Bruntfield. It was a time calculated
to change the natures of women, as well as of men. The severity with
which her religion was treated in Scotland, the wrongs of her royal
mistress, and finally the sufferings and death of her husband, acting
upon a mind naturally enthusiastic, all conspired to alter the
character of Marie Carmichael, and substitute for the rosy hues of
her early years, the gloom of the sepulchre and the penitentiary. She
continued, after the restoration of peace, to reside in the house of
her late husband; but though it was within two miles of the city, she
did not for many years re-appear in public. With no society but that
of her children, and the persons necessary to attend upon them, she
mourned in secret over past events, seldom stirring from a particular
apartment, which, in accordance with a fashion by no means uncommon,
she had caused to be hung with black, and which was solely illuminated
by a lamp. In the most rigorous observances of her faith, she was
assisted by a priest, whose occasional visits formed almost the only
intercourse which she maintained with the external world. One strong
passion gradually acquired a complete sway over her mind—REVENGE—a
passion which the practice of the age had invested with a conventional
respectability, and which no kind of religious feeling, then known,
was able either to check or soften. So entirely was she absorbed by
this fatal passion, that her very children, at length, ceased to have
interest or merit in her eyes, except in so far as they appeared
likely to be the means of gratifying it. One after another, as they
reached the age of fourteen, she sent them to France, in order to be
educated; but the accomplishment to which they were enjoined to direct
their principal attention was that of martial exercises. The eldest,
Stephen, returned, at eighteen, a strong and active youth, with a mind
of little polish or literary information, but considered a perfect
adept at sword-play. As his mother surveyed his noble form, a smile
stole into the desert of her wan and widowed face, as a winter sunbeam
wanders over a waste of snows. But it was a smile of more than motherly
pride: she was estimating the power which that frame would have in
contending with the murderous Moubray. She was not alone pleased with
the handsome figure of her first-born child; but she thought with a
fiercer and faster joy upon the appearance which it would make in
the single combat against the slayer of his father. Young Bruntfield,
who, having been from his earliest years trained to the purpose now
contemplated by his mother, rejoiced in the prospect, now lost no time
in preferring before the king a charge of murder against the laird of
Barnbougle, whom he at the same time challenged, according to a custom
then not altogether abrogated, to prove his innocence in single combat.
The king having granted the necessary licence, the fight took place in
the royal park, near the palace; and, to the surprise of all assembled,
young Bruntfield fell under the powerful sword of his adversary. The
intelligence was communicated to his mother at Craighouse, where she
was found in her darkened chamber, prostrate before an image of the
Virgin. The priest who had been commissioned to break the news, opened
his discourse in a tone intended to prepare her for the worst; but she
cut him short at the very beginning with a frantic exclamation—“I know
what you would tell—the murderer’s sword has prevailed, and there are
now but two instead of three, to redress their father’s wrongs!” The
melancholy incident, after the first burst of feeling, seemed only to
have concentrated and increased that passion by which she had been
engrossed for so many years. She appeared to feel that the death of
her eldest son only formed an addition to that debt which it was the
sole object of her existence to see discharged. “Roger,” she said,
“will have the death of his brother, as well as that of his father, to
avenge. Animated by such a double object, his arm can hardly fail to be
successful.”

Roger returned about two years after, a still handsomer, more athletic,
and more accomplished youth than his brother. Instead of being daunted
by the fate of Stephen, he burned but the more eagerly to wipe out the
injuries of his house with the blood of Moubray. On his application
for a licence being presented to the court, it was objected by the
crown lawyers, that the case had been already closed by _mal fortune_
of the former challenger. But while this was the subject of their
deliberation, the applicant caused so much annoyance and fear in the
court circle, by the threats which he gave out against the enemy of
his house, that the king, whose inability to procure respect either
for himself or for the law is well known, thought it best to decide
in favour of his claim. Roger Bruntfield, therefore, was permitted to
fight in barras with Moubray; but the same fortune attended him as that
which had already deprived the widow of her first child. Slipping his
foot in the midst of the combat, he reeled to the ground, embarrassed
by his cumbrous armour. Moubray, according to the barbarous practice
of the age, immediately sprang upon and despatched him. “Heaven’s will
be done!” said the widow, when she heard of the fatal incident; “but
_gratias Deo!_ there still remains another chance.”

Henry Bruntfield, the third and last surviving son, had all along been
the favourite of his mother. Though apparently cast in a softer mould
than his two elder brothers, and bearing all the marks of a gentler
and more amiable disposition, he in reality cherished the hope of
avenging his father’s death more deeply in the recesses of his heart,
and longed more ardently to accomplish that deed than any of his
brothers. His mind, naturally susceptible of the softest and tenderest
impressions, had contracted the enthusiasm of his mother’s wish in its
strongest shape; as the fairest garments are capable of the deepest
stain. The intelligence, which reached him in France, of the death of
his brothers, instead of bringing to his heart the alarm and horror
which might have been expected, only braced him to the adventure which
he now knew to be before him. From this period, he forsook the elegant
learning which he had heretofore delighted to cultivate. His nights
were spent in poring over the memoirs of distinguished knights—his days
were consumed in the tilt-yard of the sword-player. In due time he
entered the French army, in order to add to mere science that practical
hardihood, the want of which he conceived to be the cause of the death
of his brothers. Though the sun of chivalry was now declining far
in the occident, it was not yet altogether set: Montmorency was but
just dead; Bayard was still alive—Bayard, the knight of all others
who has merited the motto, “_sans peur et sans reproche_.” Of the
lives and actions of such men, Henry Bruntfield was a devout admirer
and imitator. No young knight kept a firmer seat upon his horse—none
complained less of the severities of campaigning—none cherished lady’s
love with a fonder, purer, or more devout sensation. On first being
introduced at the court of Henry the Third, he had signalised, as a
matter of course, Catherine Moubray, the disinherited niece of his
father’s murderer, who had been educated in a French convent by her
other relatives, and was now provided for in the household of the
queen. The connection of this young lady with the tale of his own
family, and the circumstance of her being a sufferer in common with
himself by the wickedness of one individual, would have been enough
to create a deep interest respecting her in his breast. But when, in
addition to these circumstances, we consider that she was beautiful,
was highly accomplished, and, in many other respects, qualified to
engage his affections, we can scarcely be surprised that _that_ was
the result of their acquaintance. Upon one point alone did these
two interesting persons ever think differently. Catherine, though
inspired by her friends from infancy with an entire hatred of her
cruel relative, contemplated, with fear and aversion, the prospect
of her lover being placed against him in deadly combat, and did all
in her power to dissuade him from his purpose. Love, however, was of
little avail against the still more deeply-rooted passion which had
previously occupied his breast. Flowers thrown upon a river might have
been as effectual in staying its course towards the cataract, as the
gentle entreaties of Catherine Moubray in withholding Henry Bruntfield
from the enterprise for which his mother had reared him—for which his
brothers had died—for which he had all along moved and breathed.

At length, accomplished with all the skill which could then be acquired
in arms, glowing with all the earnest feelings of youth, Henry returned
to Scotland. On reaching his mother’s dwelling, she clasped him, in
a transport of varied feeling, to her breast, and for a long time
could only gaze upon his elegant person. “My last and dearest,” she
at length said, “and thou too are to be adventured upon this perilous
course! Much have I bethought me of the purpose which now remains to be
accomplished. I have not been without a sense of dread lest I be only
doing that which is to sink my soul in flames at the day of reckoning;
but yet there has been that which comforts me also. Only yesternight
I dreamed that your father appeared before me. In his hand he held
a bow and three goodly shafts—at a distance appeared the fierce and
sanguinary Moubray. He desired me to shoot the arrows at that arch
traitor, and I gladly obeyed. A first and a second he caught in his
hand, broke, and trampled on with contempt. But the third shaft, which
was the fairest and goodliest of all, pierced his guilty bosom, and he
immediately expired. The revered shade at this gave me an encouraging
smile, and withdrew. My Henry, thou art that _third arrow_, which
is at length to avail against the shedder of our blood. The dream
seems a revelation, given especially that I may have comfort in this
enterprise, otherwise so revolting to a mother’s feelings.”

Young Bruntfield saw that his mother’s wishes had only imposed upon
her reason; but he made no attempt to break the charm by which she was
actuated, being glad, upon any terms, to obtain her sanction for that
adventure to which he was himself impelled by feelings considerably
different. He therefore began, in the most deliberate manner, to take
measures for bringing on the combat with Moubray. The same legal
objections which had stood against the second duel were maintained
against the third; but public feeling was too favourable to the object
to be easily withstood. The laird of Barnbougle, though somewhat past
the bloom of life, was still a powerful and active man, and, instead
of expressing any fear to meet this third and more redoubted warrior,
rather longed for a combat which promised, if successful, to make him
one of the most renowned swordsmen of his time. He had also heard of
the attachment which subsisted between Bruntfield and his niece; and,
in the contemplation of an alliance which might give some force to the
claims of that lady upon his estate, found a deeper and more selfish
reason for accepting the challenge of his youthful enemy. King James
himself protested against stretching the law of the _per duellum_ so
far; but, sensible that there would be no peace between either the
parties or their adherents till it should be decided in a fair combat,
he was fain to grant the required licence.

The fight was appointed to take place on Cramond Inch, a low grassy
island in the Frith of Forth, near the castle of Barnbougle. All the
preparations were made in the most approved manner by the young Duke
of Lennox, who had been the friend of Bruntfield in France. On a level
spot, close to the northern beach of the islet, a space was marked
off and strongly secured by a paling. The spectators, who were almost
exclusively gentlemen (the rabble not being permitted to approach),
sat upon a rising ground beside the enclosure, while the space towards
the sea was quite clear. At one end, surrounded by his friends, stood
the laird of Barnbougle, a huge and ungainly figure, whose features
displayed a mixture of ferocity and hypocrisy, in the highest degree
unpleasing. At the other, also attended by a host of family allies
and friends, stood the gallant Henry Bruntfield, who, if divested
of his armour, might have realised the idea of a winged Mercury. A
seat was erected close beside the barras for the Duke of Lennox and
other courtiers, who were to act as judges; and at a little distance
upon the sea lay a small decked vessel, with a single male figure on
board. After all the proper ceremonies which attended this strange
legal custom had been gone through, the combatants advanced into the
centre, and, planting foot to foot, each with his heavy sword in his
hand, awaited the command which should let them loose against each
other, in a combat which both knew would only be closed with the death
of one or other. The word being given, the fight commenced. Moubray,
almost at the first pass, gave his adversary a cut in the right limb,
from which the blood was seen to flow profusely. But Bruntfield was
enabled, by this mishap, to perceive the trick upon which his adversary
chiefly depended, and, by taking care to avoid it, put Moubray nearly
_hors de combat_. The fight then proceeded for a few minutes, without
either gaining the least advantage over the other. Moubray was able
to defend himself pretty successfully from the cuts and thrusts
of his antagonist, but he could make no impression in return. The
question then became one of time. It was evident that, if no lucky
stroke should take effect beforehand, he who first became fatigued
with the exertion would be the victim. Moubray felt his disadvantage
as the elder and bulkier man, and began to fight most desperately,
and with less caution. One tremendous blow, for which he seemed to
have gathered his last strength, took effect upon Bruntfield, and
brought him upon his knee, in a half-stupified state; but the elder
combatant had no strength to follow up the effort. He reeled towards
his youthful and sinking enemy, and stood for a few moments over him,
vainly endeavouring to raise his weapon for another and final blow.
Ere he could accomplish his wish, Bruntfield recovered sufficient
strength to draw his dagger, and thrust it up to the hilt beneath the
breastplate of his exhausted foe. The murderer of his race instantly
lay dead beside him, and a shout of joy from the spectators hailed him
as the victor. At the same instant, a scream of more than earthly note
arose from the vessel anchored near the island: a lady descended from
its side into a boat, and, rowing to the land, rushed up to the bloody
scene, where she fell upon the neck of the conqueror, and pressed him,
with the most frantic eagerness, to her bosom. The widow of Stephen
Bruntfield at length found the yearnings of twenty years fulfilled—she
saw the murderer of her husband, the slayer of her two sons, dead on
the sward before her, while there still survived to her as noble a
child as ever blessed a mother’s arms. But the revulsion of feeling
produced by the event was too much for her strength; or, rather,
Providence, in its righteous judgment, had resolved that so unholy a
feeling as that of revenge should not be too signally gratified. She
expired in the arms of her son, murmuring “_Nunc dimittis, Domine_,”
with her latest breath.

The remainder of the tale of Bruntfield may be easily told. After
a decent interval, the young laird of Craighouse married Catherine
Moubray; and as the king saw it right to restore that young lady to a
property originally forfeited for service to his mother, the happiness
of the parties might be considered as complete. A long life of
prosperity and peace was granted to them by the kindness of Heaven; and
at their death, they had the satisfaction of enjoying that greatest of
all earthly blessings, the love and respect of a numerous and virtuous
family.




THE PASSING CROWD.


“The Passing Crowd” is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference.
Yet, to a man of what Plato calls “universal sympathies,” and even to
the plain ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more interesting
than “the passing crowd?” Does not this tide of human beings, which
we daily see passing along the ways of this world, consist of persons
animated by the same spark of the divine essence, and partaking of
the same high destinies with ourselves? Let us stand still but for a
moment in the midst of this busy and seemingly careless scene, and
consider what they are or may be whom we see around us. In the hurry
of the passing show, and of our own sensations, we see but a series of
unknown faces; but this is no reason why we should regard them with
indifference. Many of these persons, if we knew their histories, would
rivet our admiration by the ability, worth, benevolence, or piety,
which they have displayed in their various paths through life. Many
would excite our warmest interest by their sufferings—sufferings,
perhaps, borne meekly and well, and more for the sake of others than
themselves. How many tales of human weal and woe, of glory and of
humiliation, could be told by those beings, whom, in passing, we
regard not! Unvalued as they are by us, how many as good as ourselves
repose upon them the affections of bounteous hearts, and would not
want them for any earthly compensation! Every one of these persons, in
all probability, retains in his bosom the cherished recollections of
early happy days, spent in some scene which “they ne’er forget, though
there they are forgot,” with friends and fellows who, though now far
removed in distance and in fortune, are never to be given up by the
heart. Every one of these individuals, in all probability, nurses still
deeper in the recesses of feeling, the remembrance of that chapter
of romance in the life of every man, an early earnest attachment,
conceived in the fervour of youth, unstained by the slightest thought
of self, and for a time purifying and elevating the character far above
its ordinary standard. Beneath all this gloss of the world—this cold
conventional aspect, which all more or less present, and which the
business of life renders necessary—there resides for certain a fountain
of goodness, pure in its inner depths as the lymph rock-distilled,
and ready on every proper occasion to well out in the exercise of the
noblest duties. Though all may seem but a hunt after worldly objects,
the great majority of these individuals can, at the proper time, cast
aside all earthly thoughts, and communicate directly with the Being
whom their fathers have taught them to worship, and whose will and
attributes have been taught to man immediately by Himself. Perhaps many
of these persons are of loftier aspect than ourselves, and belong to a
sphere removed above our own. But, nevertheless, if the barrier of mere
worldly form were taken out of the way, it is probable that we could
interchange sympathies with these persons as freely and cordially as
with any of our own class. Perhaps they are of an inferior order; but
they are only inferior in certain circumstances, which should never
interpose to prevent the flow of feeling for our kind. The great common
features of human nature remain; and let us never forget how much
respect is due to the very impress of humanity—the type of the divine
nature itself! Even where our fellow creatures are degraded by vice and
poverty, let us still be gentle in our judging. The various fortunes
which we every day see befalling the members of a single family, after
they part off in their several paths through life, teach us that it is
not to every one that success in the career of existence is destined.
Besides, do not the arrangements of society at once necessitate the
subjection of an immense multitude to humble toil, and give rise to
temptations, before which the weak and uninstructed can scarcely escape
falling? But even beneath the soiled face of the poor artizan, there
may be aspirations after some vague excellence, which hard fate has
denied him the means of attaining, though the very wish to obtain it is
itself ennobling. The very mendicant was not always so; he, too, has
had his undegraded and happier days, upon the recollection of which,
some remnant of better feeling may still repose.

These, I humbly think, are reasons why we should not look with coldness
upon any masses of men with whom it may be our lot to mingle. It is the
nature of a good man to conclude that others are like himself; and if
we take the crowd promiscuously, we can never be far wrong in thinking
that there are worthy and well-directed feelings in it as well as in
our own bosoms.




A TALE OF THE FORTY-FIVE.


Never, perhaps, did any city, upon the approach of a foreign enemy,
betray such symptoms of consternation and disorder, as did Edinburgh,
on the 16th of September 1745, when it was understood that Prince
Charles Edward, with his army of Highlanders, had reached a village
three miles to the westward, unresisted by the civic corps in which
the hapless city had placed its last hopes of defence. A regiment of
dragoons, which had retreated on the previous day from Stirling, and
another which happened to be encamped near Edinburgh, having joined
their strengths to that of the town-guard and volunteers, had that
forenoon marched boldly out of town, with the determined purpose of
opposing the rebels, and saving the town; but after standing very
bravely for a few hours at Corstorphine, the spectacle of a single
Highlander, who rode up towards them and fired off his pistol, caused
the whole of these gallant cavaliers to turn and fly; nor did they
stop till they had left Edinburgh itself twenty miles behind. The
precipitate flight of regular troops was the worst possible example for
a body of raw, undisciplined citizens, who were too much accustomed
to the secure comforts of their firesides, to have any relish for the
horrors of an out-of-doors war with the unscrupulous mountaineers. The
consequence was, that all retreated in confusion back to the city,
where their pusillanimity was the subject of triumphant ridicule to the
Jacobite party, and of shame and fear to the rest of the inhabitants.

In this dilemma, as band after band poured through the West Port, and
filled the ample area of the Grassmarket, the magistrates assembled in
their council chamber, for the purpose of “wondering what was to be
done.” The result of their deliberations was, that a full meeting of
the inhabitants should be held, in order that they might be enabled
to shape their course according to the general opinion. Orders were
immediately given to this effect, and in the course of an hour, they
found a respectable assemblage of citizens, prepared, in one of the
churches of St Giles’s, to consider the important question of the
defensibility of the town.

The appearance of the city, on this dreadful afternoon, was very
remarkable, and such as we hope it will never again exhibit. All the
streets to the west of St Giles’s were crowded with citizen volunteers,
apparently irresolute whether to lay down their arms or to retain them,
and whose anxious and crest-fallen looks communicated only despair
to the trembling citizens. The sound of hammers was heard at the
opening of every lane, and at the bottoms of all important _turnpike_
stairs, where workmen were busied in mounting strong doors, studded
thickly with nails, moving on immense hinges, and bearing bolts and
bars of no ordinary strength—the well-known rapacious character of
the Highlanders, not less than their present hostile purpose, having
suggested this feeble attempt at security. The principal street was
encumbered with the large, tall, pavilion-roofed family carriages of
people of distinction, judges, and officers of the crown, which, after
being hastily crammed with their proper burdens of live stock, and
laden atop with as much baggage as they could carry, one after another
wheeled off down the High Street, through the Netherbow, and so out of
town. A few scattered groups of women, children, and inferior citizens,
stood near that old-accustomed meeting place, the Cross, round the
tall form of which they seemed to gather, like a Catholic population
clinging to a sacred fabric, which they suppose to be endowed with some
protecting virtue.

At the ordinary dinner hour, when the streets were as usual in a great
measure deserted, and while the assemblage of citizens were still
deliberating in the New Church aisle, the people of the High Street
were thrown into a state of dreadful agitation, by a circumstance which
they witnessed from their windows. The accustomed silence of “the
hollow hungry hour” was suddenly broken by the clatter of a horse’s
feet upon the pavement; and on running to their windows, they were
prodigiously alarmed at the sight of one of their anticipated foes
riding boldly up the street. Yet this alarm subsided considerably, when
they observed that his purpose seemed pacific, and that he was not
followed by any companions. The horseman was a youth apparently about
twenty years of age, with a remarkably handsome figure and gallant
carriage, which did not fail in their effect upon at least the female
part of the beholders. The most robust Highland health was indicated in
his fair countenance and athletic form: and, in addition to this, his
appearance expressed just enough of polish not to destroy the romantic
effect produced by his wild habiliments and striking situation. The
tight tartan trews showed well upon a limb, of which the symmetry was
never equalled by David Allan, the national painter, so remarkable
for his handsome Highland limbs, and of which the effect, instead of
being impaired by the clumsy boot, was improved by the neat brogue,
fastened as it was to the foot by sparkling silver buckles. He wore
a smart round bonnet, adorned with his family cognisance—a bunch of
ivy—and from beneath which, a profusion of light brown tresses, tied
with dark ribbons, flowed, according to the fashion of the time, about
half way down his back. He carried a small white flag in his hand, and
bore about his person the full set of Highland arms—broadsword, dirk,
and two silver-mounted pistols. Many a warm Jacobite heart, male and
female, palpitated at sight of his graceful figure, and a considerable
crowd of idle admirers, or wonderers, followed him up the broad noble
expanse of the High Street.

By this crowd, who soon discovered that his purpose was the delivery of
a letter from the chevalier to the magistrates, he was ushered forward
to the opening of a narrow passage, which in those days led through a
pile of buildings called the Luckenbooths, towards the door of Haddo’s
Hole Church, a passage called in the old Scottish language a stile,
which, moreover, was traversed in 1628 by King Charles the First, when
he went to open the Scottish Parliament in the High Tolbooth. Here the
Highlander dismounted, and after throwing his bridle over the hook at a
saddler’s door close to the corner of the stile, was led forward into
the lobby of the church, from which the hum of active discussion was
heard to proceed. On requesting to be introduced to the magistrates, he
was informed, by an official wearing their livery, that the church was
so very much crowded, that “there would be nae possibility of either
getting him in to see the magistrates, or the magistrates out to see
him,” but that his letter might be handed into them over the heads of
the crowd. To this expedient the messenger consented, and accordingly
it was immediately put in execution. In a few moments after it had left
the keeper’s hands, a dead silence seemed to fall upon the company,
and, after a renewed tumult and a second silence, those who stood in
the lobby heard a voice reading a few words aloud, apparently those
of the letter. The voice was, however, interrupted in a few seconds
by the clamour of the whole assembled people, who presently rose in
confusion, and made a tumultuous rush towards the door. On hearing and
observing these alarming symptoms, the city officer, with inconsiderate
rashness, thought it his duty to seize the author of so much supposed
mischief, and accordingly made a dash at the stranger’s collar, calling
upon the town-guardsmen present to close in upon him, and intercept
his retreat. But the prompt and energetic Highlander was not to be so
betrayed. With a bound like the first movement of the startled deer,
he cleared the lobby, and made for his horse. Two dragoons standing
without, and who, observing the rush from the door, threw themselves
in the stranger’s way, were in the same instant felled to the ground;
and before any other person could lay hands upon him, the maltreated
messenger threw himself upon his horse, drew his sword, and in a
transport of rage shouted defiance to all around. Whirling his weapon
round his head, he stopped a few seconds amidst the terrified crowd;
and then, striking spurs into his horse’s sides, rode along the street,
still vociferating loud defiances to all the detached military parties
which he met. No attempt, however, was made to prevent his escape, or
to offer him farther violence. One symptom of offensive warfare alone
occurred, and that originated in an accident; for an old guardsman, who
was overturned on the causeway by the brush of the passing steed, could
not help discharging his redoubted piece; the shot, however, doing no
other harm than _winging_ a golden peacock, which overhung the window
of a fashionable milliner in the fourth flat of the Luckenbooths. After
clearing the narrow defile of the Luckenbooths, and getting into the
full open street, the Highland cavalier for once turned round, and,
with a voice broken by excess of indignation, uttered a thundering
malediction against all Edinburgh for its breach of the articles of
war, and a challenge to the prettiest man in it who would meet him
upon honourable terms. He then galloped briskly down the High Street,
still brandishing his broadsword, the people making way for him on all
sides, by running down the numerous alleys leading from the street, and
terminated his daring exploit, unscathed and undaunted, by passing out
at the Netherbow Port, of which the enormous folding doors, like the
turnpikes in John Gilpin, flew open at his approach.

It is irrelevant to our purpose to describe the consternation under
which the inhabitants of Edinburgh passed the whole of that evening
and night, or the real terror which next morning seized them, when
they understood that the insurgents were in possession of the town.
Moreover, as it would not be proper to encumber our narrative
with well-known historical details, we shall also pass over the
circumstances in this remarkable civil war which followed upon the
capture of the city, and content ourselves with relating the simple
events of a love tale, in which the hero just introduced to the notice
of our readers acted a conspicuous part.

About a month after the rebels had entered Edinburgh, and while Prince
Charles Edward was still fondly lingering in the palace which had
sheltered so many of his ancestors, a young gentlewoman, named Helen
Lindsay, the daughter of a whig writer to the signet in Edinburgh, was
one fine October evening taking a solitary walk in the King’s Park.
The sun had gone down over the castle, like the fire-shell dropping
into a devoted fortress, and the lofty edifices of the city presented,
on the eastern side, nothing but dark irregular masses of shade. The
park, which a little before had been crowded with idle and well-dressed
people, waiting perhaps for a sight of the prince, was now deserted by
all except a few Highland soldiers, hurrying to or from the camp at
Duddingston, and by the young lady above mentioned, who continued, in
spite of the deepening twilight, to saunter about, seeming to await
the hour of some assignation. As each single Highland officer or
group passed this lady, she contrived to elude their observation by
an adroit management of her plaid; and it was not till the gathering
darkness rendered her appearance at such a time and place absolutely
suspicious, that at length one gallant mountaineer made bold to accost
her. “Ah, Helen!” he exclaimed, “how delighted am I to find you here;
for I expected you to be waiting at the bottom of the Walk—and thus
I see you five minutes sooner than I otherwise would have done!” “I
would rather wait near the palace than at that fearsome place, at this
time o’ nicht, William,” said the young lady; “for, let me tell you,
you have been a great deal later o’ comin’ than you should have been.”
“Pardon me, my angel!” answered the youth; “I have been detained by the
prince till this instant. His royal highness has communicated to me no
very pleasant intelligence—he is decisive as to our march commencing on
the morning after to-morrow, and I am distracted to think of parting
with you. How shall I—how can I part with you?” “Oh! never mind that,
Willie,” cried the lady, in a tone quite different from his, which
was highly expressive of a lover’s misery; “if your enterprise prove
successful, and you do not get your head broken, or beauty spoilt, you
shall perhaps be made an earl, and marry some grand English countess;
and I shall then content myself with young Claver the advocate, who
has been already so warmly recommended to me by my father, and who
would instate me to-morrow, if I chose, as his wedded wife, in the fine
house he has just bought in Forrester’s Wynd.” “To the devil with that
beast!” cried the jealous lover in Gaelic. “Do you think, Helen, that I
could ever marry any one but you, even though it were the queen on the
throne? But perhaps you are not so very resolute in your love matters,
and could transfer your affections from one object to another as easily
and as quickly as you could your thoughts, or the glance of your eyes!”
“Ah, Willie, Willie,” said the lady, still in a jocular tone, “I see
you are a complete Hielanter—fiery and irritable. I might have kenned
that the first moment I ever saw ye, when ye bravadoed a’ Edinburgh,
because a silly toon-officer tried to touch ye. Wad ye flee up, man, on
your ain true love, when she merely jokes ye a wee?” “Oh! if that be
all, Helen,” said the youth humbly, “I beg your grace. Yet, methinks,
this is no time for merriment, when we are about to part, perhaps for
ever. How, dearest Helen, do you contrive to keep up your spirits under
such circumstances?” “Because,” said the young lady, “I know that there
is no necessity for us parting, at least for some time to come; for I
am willing to accompany you, if you will take me, to the very world’s
end. There’s sincerity and true love for you!” Surprised and delighted
with this frank offer, the lover strained his mistress passionately to
his bosom, and swore to protect her as his lawful wife till the latest
moment of his existence. “You shall travel,” he said, “in my sister
Lady Ogilvie’s carriage, and be one of the first British ladies to
attend the prince’s levee in St James’s at Christmas. Our marriage
shall be solemnized at the end of the first stage.” The project was
less than rational; but when was reason any thing to love? Many avowals
of mutual attachment passed between the parties; and, after projecting
a mode of elopement, they parted—William Douglas taking the road for
the camp at Duddingston, and Helen Lindsay hastily returning to the
town.

The morning of the 1st of November broke drearily upon Edinburgh,
showing a dull frosty atmosphere, and the ground covered with a thin
layer of snow. It was the morning of the march; and here and there
throughout the streets stood a few bagpipers, playing a reveillé before
the lodgings of the great officers of the clans. One or two chiefs
were already marching down the street, preceded by their pipers, and
followed by their men, in order to join the army, which was beginning
to move from Duddingston. The Highland guard, which had been stationed,
ever since the chevalier’s arrival, at the Weigh-house, was now leaving
its station, and moving down the Lawnmarket to the merry sound of the
bagpipe, when a strange circumstance occurred.

Just as the word of command had been given to the Weigh-house guard,
the sash of the window in the third floor of an adjacent house was
pushed up, and immediately after, a female figure was observed to
issue therefrom, and to descend rapidly along a rope towards the
pavement below. The commander of the guard no sooner perceived this,
than he sprang forwards to the place where the figure was to alight,
as if to receive her in his arms; but he did not reach it before the
lady, finding the rope too short by several yards, dropped with a
slight scream upon the ground, where she lay apparently lifeless.
The officer was instantly beside her—and words cannot describe the
consternation and sorrow depicted in his face, as he stooped, and
with gentle promptitude lifted the unfortunate lady from the ground.
She had fainted with the pain of what soon turned out to be a broken
limb; and as she lay over the Highlander’s arm, her travelling hood,
falling back from her head, disclosed a face which, though exquisitely
beautiful, was as pale and expressionless as death. A slight murmur
at length broke from her lips, and a tinge of red returned to her
cheeks, as she half articulated the word “William.” William Douglas,
for it was he, hung over her in silent despair for a few moments, and
was only recalled to recollection when his men gathered eagerly and
officiously around him, each loudly inquiring of the other the meaning
of this strange scene. The noise thus occasioned soon had the effect
of bringing all to an understanding; for the father of the lady, in
a nightcap and morning gown, was first observed to cast a hurried
glance over the still open window above, and was soon after in the
midst of the group, calling loudly and distractedly for his daughter,
and exclaiming vehemently against the person in whose arms he found
her, for having attempted to rob him of his natural property. Douglas
bethought himself for a moment, and, calling upon his men to close all
round him and the lady, began to move away with his beloved burden,
while the old gentleman loaded the air with his cries, and struggled
forward with the vain intention of rescuing his daughter. The lover
might soon have succeeded in his wishes, by ordering the remonstrant
to be withheld, and taken home by his men; but he speedily found that
to take away his mistress in her present condition, and without the
means of immediately relieving her, would be the height of cruelty;
and he therefore felt himself reluctantly compelled to resign her to
the charge of her parent, even at the risk of losing her for ever. Old
Mr Lindsay, overjoyed at this resolution, offered to take his daughter
into his own arms, and transport her back to the house; but Douglas,
heeding not his proposal, and apparently anxious to retain his mistress
as long as he could, saved him this trouble, by slowly and mournfully
retracing his steps, and carrying her up stairs to her bedchamber—his
company meanwhile remaining below. He there discovered that Helen had
been locked up by her father, who had found reason to suspect her
intention of eloping, and that this was what occasioned her departure
from the mode of escape previously agreed upon. After depositing her
still inanimate person carefully on a bed, he turned for a moment
towards her father, told him fiercely that if he exercised any cruelty
upon her in consequence of what had taken place, he should dearly rue
it; and then, alter taking another silent, lingering, farewell look of
his mistress, left the house in order to continue his march.

After this, another and longer interval occurs between the incidents of
our tale; and this may perhaps be profitably employed in illustrating
a few of the circumstances already laid partially before the reader.
William Douglas was a younger son of Sir Robert Douglas of Glenbervie,
the celebrated antiquary, and had been bred to the profession of a
writer, or attorney, under the auspices of a master of good practice in
Aberdeen. Being, however, a youth of sanguine temperament and romantic
spirit, he did not hesitate a moment, on hearing of the landing of
the chevalier, to break his apprenticeship, just on the point of
expiring, and set off to rank himself under the banners of him whom he
conceived entitled to the duty and assistance of all true Scotsmen.
In consideration of his birth, and his connection with some of the
very highest leaders in the enterprise, he was appointed aide-de-camp
to the prince, in which capacity he had been employed to communicate
with the city in the manner already described. As he rode up the High
Street, and, more than that, as he rode down again, he had been seen
and admired by Helen Lindsay, who happened to be then in the house of a
friend near the scene of his exploit. Soon after the Highland army had
taken possession of the city, they had met at the house of a Jacobite
aunt of the young lady, and a passion of the tenderest nature then
took place between them. To her father, who was her only surviving
parent, this was quite unknown till the day before the departure of the
Highlanders, when some circumstances having roused his suspicions, he
thought it necessary to lock her up in her own room, without, however,
securing the window—that part of a house, so useful and so interesting
above all others to youthful lovers, the chink of Pyramus and Thisbe
not excepted. It only remains to be stated, that though the young lady
recovered from the effects of her fall in a few weeks, she did not so
soon recover from her disappointment, and she was doomed to experience
a still greater affliction in the strange look with which she was
afterwards regarded by her father and all her own acquaintance.

William Douglas performed an active part in all the scenes of the
rebellion, and finally escaped the perils of Culloden almost without a
wound. He fled to his father’s house, where he was received joyfully,
and concealed for upwards of a twelvemonth, till the search of the
royal troops was no longer dangerous. His father frequently entreated
him to go abroad, but he would not consent to such a measure; and
at last, it being understood that government had passed an “act of
oblivion” in regard of the surviving rebels, he ventured gradually
and cautiously to appear again in society. All this time he had never
communicated with Helen Lindsay, but his thoughts had often, in the
solitude of his place of hiding, turned anxiously and fondly towards
her. At length, to the surprise of his father, he one day expressed
his desire of going to Edinburgh, and setting up there as a writer—the
profession to which he had been educated, and for which he could easily
complete his qualifications. Sir Robert was by no means averse to his
commencing business, but expressed his fears for the safety of his
son’s person in so conspicuous a situation in the capital, where the
eyes of justice were constantly wide open, and where he would certainly
meet with the most disagreeable recognitions. The lover overruled all
these obstructions, by asking the old gentleman whether he would wish
to see his son perish in the West Indies, or become a respectable and
pacific member of society in his own country; and it was speedily
arranged that both should set out for Edinburgh, in order to put
the youth’s purpose in execution, so soon as he should procure his
indenture from his late master. In this no difficulty was experienced;
and in a few weeks the aged baronet set forth, accompanied by his son,
on horseback, towards the city, which contained all the latter held
dear on earth.

On arriving at an inn in the Canongate, the first thing Sir Robert
did, was to send a card to his cousin, the Earl of ——, informing his
lordship of his arrival, and begging his company that evening at his
hotel. The earl soon made his appearance, heartily welcomed the old
gentleman to Edinburgh, and was introduced to young William. His
lordship was sorry, however, that he could not stay long with them,
as Lady —— was to have a ball that evening, where his presence was,
of course, indispensable. He begged, however, to have the pleasure of
_their_ company at his house so soon as they could dress, when he would
endeavour to entertain them, and, moreover, introduce his young kinsman
to the chief beauties of Edinburgh. When he was gone, Sir Robert,
alarmed at the idea of his son entering at once into an assemblage
where many would remember his face, attempted to dissuade him from
attending the ball, and offered to remain all the evening with him in
the inn. But William insisted upon going, holding all danger light, and
representing to his father, that, even though he were _recognised_,
no one, even an enemy, would think of _discovering_ him, that being
generally held as a sin of the deepest dye. The truth was, that the
earl’s mention of _beauties_ put him in mind of Miss Lindsay, and
inspired him with a notion that she would be of the party, and that
he might have an opportunity of renewing his acquaintance with her,
which he could not easily procure otherwise. Both, therefore, prepared
themselves for the ball, and, in a short time, set off in two chairs
for Gray’s Close, in which the earl’s house was situated.

That fine old spacious alley was found to be, on the present occasion,
as splendid as it was possible for any close in Auld Reekie to be,
under the double advantages of fashion and festivity. Two livery-men
stood at the head with torches, and served as a beacon to mark to the
gathering company the entrance of the strait into which they had to
steer their way. Between the head of the lane and the vestibule of his
lordship’s house, other servants were planted with torches, so as to
form an avenue of lights, along which the guests were ushered. All the
guests, as they successively arrived, were announced at the head of
the stair by a servant—a custom recently adopted from London, and of
little service in Edinburgh, where all people knew each other by sight.
It served, however, on the present occasion, to procure for Sir Robert
and his son, immediately on their entering the room, a general and
instantaneous attention, which they would rather have dispensed with,
and upon which they had not calculated. Both gentlemen were personally
presented by their kinsman, the earl, to many persons of distinction of
both sexes, among whom Sir Robert (though he had been for twenty years
estranged in a great measure from society, in the prosecution of his
studies, and the management of his gout) soon recognised and entered
into conversation with some old friends, while his son set himself to
observe if Miss Lindsay was in the room. She was not present; but,
as company continued still to arrive, he entertained hopes that she
would yet make her appearance. Disengaging himself, therefore, from
his father, he withdrew to a corner of the room, where he might see,
without being easily perceived by any person entering; and there, in
silence and abstraction, he awaited her probable arrival. Some minutes
had elapsed after the last announcement; and, in the idea that all were
assembled, the earl had stood up at the head of a long double line of
powdered beaux, and ladies with enormous hoops and high head-dresses,
in order to lead off the first dance, when William Douglas heard the
name of Mr and Miss Lindsay proclaimed at the head of the stair, and
presently after saw an old precise-looking gentleman lead into the
room the elegant figure of his long-lost mistress. He saw no more
for some time; for, while his blood rushed upwards to the heart in
tumultuous tide, a dimness came over his eyes, and obscured even the
brilliant chandeliers that hung over the company. On recovering his
powers of observation, the dance was done, and the floor cleared of
its revellers, who now sat all round in full view. Some of the ladies
were fanning themselves vehemently with their large Indian fans; others
were listening, with head awry, to the compliments of their partners;
not a few were talking and coquetting with the gentlemen near them,
and a great portion were sitting demurely and stiffly in groups,
like hedgerow elms, under the awful patronage of their mothers or
protectresses: all were companionable and looked happy, except one—a
silent and solitary one—who, less attractively dressed than any of the
rest, yet more beautiful than them all, sat pensively apart from the
throng, apparently taking little interest in what was going on. Douglas
needed no one to inform him that this was Helen Lindsay, though she
was very different from the vivacious, sparkling girl she had been
eighteen months before. He was shocked at the change he observed,
and hastened to discover the cause, by inquiring of a silly-looking
young man near him who she was. “Oh! that is Miss Lindsay,” quoth
the youth, who was no other than her ancient admirer, Claver, “said
to be the prettiest girl in Edinburgh, though Miss Pringle for my
money—her you see with a flame-coloured sack, sitting next to the Lord
Justice Clerk. To be sure, Miss Lindsay is not what she has been. I
was once thought in love with her (here he simpered), but she was
one morning found on the tramp with a rebel officer, who is said to
have been hanged, and she has never since then held up her head as
she used to do; for, indeed, let me tell you, some of our great dames
here affect to hold up their noses at her adventures; so that, what
with a lippit character and a hanged sweetheart, you see she looks
somewhat dismal on it.” Douglas durst make no farther inquiries, but
shrunk back in the seclusion and concealment afforded by a corner of
the room, from whence he continued, for some time longer, to watch
his unhappy mistress—his father, in the meantime, completely taken
off his hands by a spectacled old maiden of quality, who had engaged
him in a genealogical disquisition. By watching his opportunities, he
contrived to place himself almost close beside his mistress, without
being observed, and, gradually making still nearer approaches, he
had at last the happiness of finding himself upon the very next seat
to her’s. Whatever change disappointment and woe had wrought in her,
it did not amount to a fourth of that which William had achieved in
himself by a change of clothes, and taming down, to the expression of
domestic life, a visage which had showed somewhat fierce and soldierly
in the days of his acquaintance with Miss Lindsay. Instead of his
former gallant and robust air, he was now pale and elegant; and though
his eye still retained some of its fire, and his lip its wonted curve,
the general change was such, and, moreover, the circumstances under
which he was now seen were so different from those which surrounded and
characterised him, that before any but a lover’s eye, he might have
passed without recognition. As the case was, Miss Lindsay discovered
him at the first glance, and with difficulty suppressing a scream,
had nearly fainted with excessive emotion. In the words of Scotland’s
national poet—

    She gazed, she redden’d like a rose,
    Syne pale as ony lily.

But she expressed no farther emotion. With presence of mind which
was not singular in those times of danger, she instantly recovered
her tranquillity, though her eyes could not but express that she
half-believed herself to be in the presence of a being out of this
world. One affectionate look from William sufficed to put her alarm on
that score to rest; but she continued to feel the utmost apprehension
respecting his safety, as well as a multitude of other confused
emotions, which fast awakened in her heart, as from his imaginary
grave, where they had long been buried, and thronged tumultuously
through her breast. A few words, heard by no ears but hers, stealing
under cover of the noise made by the music and the dancers, like the
rill under a load of snow, conveyed to her the delightful intelligence
that he was still alive and her lover, and that he was come thus late,
when the days of peril seemed past, and under happier auspices than
before, to claim her affections. When the dancers next arose upon the
floor, he respectfully presented his hand, and led her, nothing loath,
into the midst of the splendid assemblage, where Lord ——, bustling
about as master of the ceremonies, assigned them an honourable place,
in spite of the surprised looks and reprobatory winks of not a few
matrons as well as young ladies. The handsome and well-matched pair
acquitted themselves to the admiration of the whole assemblage, except
the censorious and the envious; and when they sat down together upon
the same seats from which they had risen, the speculation excited among
the whole throng by the unexpected appearance of such a pair, was
beyond all precedent in the annals of gossip.

Not long after, supper was announced, and the company left the
dancing-room in order to go down stairs to the apartment where that
meal was laid out. A ludicrous circumstance now occurred, which we
shall relate, rather because it formed a part of the story, as told by
our informant, than from any connection it has with the main incident.

Sir Robert had all this time been so earnestly engaged in the
genealogical discussion alluded to, that, interesting as the word
supper always is on such occasions to those not given to dancing alone,
he did not hear it. It was not till all were gone that he and the old
spectacled lady discovered at what stage of the proceedings they were
arrived. Recollecting his old-fashioned politeness, however, in proper
time, the venerable antiquary made his _congé_, and offered his hand
to the tall, stiff, and rigid-looking dame, in order to escort her,
_more majorum_, down stairs. Sir Robert was a man somewhat of the
shortest, and, moreover, of the fattest, while a gouty foot, carefully
swaddled, gave an infirm and tottering air to his whole person. As
they moved along, the two antiques would have reminded one of Sancho
Panza leading the distressed old spectacled duenna through the dark
labyrinths of the duke’s castle. Thus they went along the room, down
the earl’s narrow spiral stair, and through an ill-lighted passage, he
cringing and limping, as gouty men are wont, and she sailing along,
erect and dignified, after the manner of an old maid of 1750, who had
seen good company at the Hunters’ Balls in Holyrood House. Now, it so
happened that a servant, or, as some editions have it, a baker, had set
down a small fruit pasty, contained in an oval dish, in a dark corner
of the passage, intending immediately to return from the supper-room,
to which he had carried some other dishes, in order to rescue it from
that dangerous situation—to which, indeed, he had been compelled to
consign it, on finding that his hands were already over-engaged. Before
he returned, as ill luck would have it, Sir Robert’s gouty and clouty
foot alighted full in the middle of the pasty, and stuck in it up to
the ancle—perfectly unconscious, however, in its swaddlings, of having
so shod itself, so that the good baronet walked on with it into the
room. What was his surprise, and what the mirth of the company, and
what the indignation of the old duenna, on finding that she shared in
the ridicule of her esquire, may perhaps be imagined, but cannot be
adequately described. Suffice it to say, that the whole assemblage were
so delighted with the amusing incident, that not one face exhibited
any thing of gloom during the subsequent part of the evening; and even
the young ladies were tempted to forget and forgive the good fortune
of Miss Lindsay, in having, to all appearance, so completely secured a
first-rate lover.

Our tale now draws to a conclusion, and may be summed up in a few
words. William Douglas soon settled in business as a writer to the
signet, and found no obstacle on the part of either his parent or his
mistress in uniting himself to that amiable young lady. It was known
to a few, and suspected by more, that under the decent habit he now
wore was concealed the very person who knocked down two of Gardener’s
dragoons in the Luckenbooths, and braved all Edinburgh to single
combat. But he was never molested on this account; and he therefore
continued to practise in the Court of Session for upwards of half a
century, with the success and with the credit of a respectable citizen.




REMOVALS.

    “Three removes are as bad as a fire.”
    “A rolling stone gathers no fog.”
                                   _Poor Richard._


There is an allegory in the Spectator, called, if I recollect rightly,
“The Mountain of Miseries.” It narrates how the human race were once
summoned by a good Genius to a particular spot, and each permitted to
cast down the misery which most afflicted him, taking up some one which
had belonged to a fellow-creature, and which he thought he should be
more able to endure. Some cast down diseased limbs, some bad wives,
and so forth; but the end of the story is, that after the exchange had
been made, all felt themselves a great deal more uneasy under their
adopted evils than they had ever felt under their natural ones, and,
accordingly, had to petition the Genius for permission to take back
each his own proper original misery. I have often thought that the
practice of removing from one house to another, in the hope of finding
better ease and accommodation, was not much unlike this grand general
interchange of personal distresses; and often on a Whitsunday in
Scotland, when I have seen people flying in all directions with old
tables and beds, that would have looked a great deal better in their
native homes than on the street, I have mentally compared the scene to
that which is so graphically described by Addison.

The English, it seems, are not much of a removing people. When a
Southron once settles himself down in a house, he only quits it with
the greatest reluctance. No matter for an increasing family—no matter
for bettered circumstances—no matter for the ambition of wife or
daughters to get into a genteeler neighbourhood. An Englishman has
naturally a strong feeling about his house: it is his castle, and he
never will abandon the fort so long as he can possibly retain it. Give
him but a few years’ associations to hallow the dwelling—let him have
been married in it, and there spent the years of the youth of his
children; and sooner than part from the dear little parlour where he
has enjoyed so many delightful evening scenes, with his young spouse
and his happy infants around him, he would almost part with life
itself. An Englishman gets accommodated to all the inconveniences of
his house, however great, as naturally as the fish with its shell,
however tortuous. Some strange angularity in his vestibule, which
nearly throws you down every time you visit him, may appear to you a
most disagreeable crook in his lot, and one that ought to make the
house intolerable to him; but, ten to one, he looks upon it as only
an amiable eccentricity in the plan of the mansion, and, so far from
taking ill with it, would feel like a fish out of water if it were
otherwise.

The Scotch, on the contrary, are an eminently migratory people. They
never are three months in any house till they wish that the annual
term were once more at hand, when they might remove to another. There
is no day in the year so important in their eyes as Whitsunday, when
almost the whole population of every considerable town is found to
be on the move, exchanging houses with each other. This is a curious
feature in the people, and seems as if it only could be accounted for
by supposing that the nation is totally deficient in the phrenological
organ called _inhabitiveness_. It is all to no use that experience is
constantly showing how vain are their expectations of better lodging.
Every disappointment seems to give them but a keener relish for a new
attempt.

The fact is this: A family always enters upon a new house in a state
of high hope as to its accommodations. So long as the recollection of
their deserted abode is still fresh, the new house appears a paradise;
for, mark, it has been selected on the express account of its not being
characterised by any one of the inconveniences alleged against the
old. By and bye, however, its own peculiar evils are felt; and, long
before Candlemas day, it has been found as disagreeable as the other.
Then a new one is selected, which, in its turn, is declared as bad
as any. So far as my observation has extended, the itch for removing
more generally prevails among the female than the male department of
the population. Husbands in general are too little in the house ever
to fall out of conceit with it; but the wife, as the more domestic
creature, has full opportunity to observe and feel its defects; and she
it is who most frequently urges and achieves the removal. There are
various things about a house in which the husband can never see any
importance, or feel any interest, but which appear to the wife as each
the most cardinal of all cardinal points. One of these, for instance,
is a back-green. “A back-green!” let the words be pronounced with a
solemnity befitting their awful import. Often, when a house has seemed
to the husband all that could be desired, he has been thrust out of
it, whether he would or not, all on account of a thing which was as
inexplicable to him as the mysteries of the Chinese faith—a back-green.
Perhaps you hear some day that your back-green lies totally out of
the sun, or that the right use to it is shared by some disagreeable
neighbours, or is naught for some other equally intelligible reason.
But you learn no more, and next Whitsunday you find yourself in the
horrors and agonies of a removal to some distant part of the town, all
on account of a little space of ground, of which you never yet could
guess the use or purpose. Very often you are removed from a comfortable
and every way excellent house, because it wants a back-green, and taken
to one every way inferior, and, indeed, utterly wretched, but which, in
the eyes of your sweet spouse, is rendered equal to a palace—because it
has a back-green. I would advise all husbands to keep a sharp look-out
after the back-greens, as well as several other things, which I shall
point out to them.

Let us suppose a case of proposed removal in the middle walks of life.
You are, say, the father of a rather numerous family, living very
contentedly in a _flat_ in not the least dense part of the town. For a
long time there have been grumblings, like distant thunder among the
mountains; but you have never yet heard any very strong reason urged
why you should remove. At length, about the New Year, these mutterings
begin to get voice; and your wife, some quiet evening, after all the
young people are gone to bed, opens a sudden and most tremendous attack
upon you, respecting the necessity of no longer keeping the children
pent up in this small dwelling, so far from any play-ground or fresh
air. And, really, she does not think it is good for her own health
that you should live any longer here. She has plenty of exercise, she
acknowledges, but no air. It is so far from public walks, that it makes
a toil of a pleasure before they can be reached. And then, no place
whatsoever to dry the clothes. Your own shirts are never properly
seen to, being only hung in an open garret, where they are exposed to
all the smoke of the town; at least, all that chooses to come in at
the skylights. And there is no such thing as a servant’s bed-room in
this house. The girl, I assure you, has her own complaints as to the
hardship of being obliged to sleep in that den above the kitchen door.
And as for the stair, is it not a thoroughfare to all the scum of the
town? Some of the neighbours, I assure you, are no better than they
should be, if all tales be true. There is even an old man in the garret
who is supposed to live by _Burking_. The fact is, we would now require
an additional bed-room for the boys—&c. &c.

Lectured up to removing point, you consent, unhappy man! to leave
your shop some forenoon, in order to take a walk with your wife about
the outskirts of the town, in search of a more airy, more spacious,
and more genteel abode. You are dragged “by the lug and the horn,”
as shepherds say, through multitudes of those “delightful small
_self-contained_ houses,” which offer, “within twenty minutes’ walk of
the college,” all the elegancies of Heriot Row and Great King Street,
at a tithe of the rent. You find them all as like each other in the
interior as if they had been made on the principle of chip-boxes; but
yet, to your wife, each seems to have its own peculiar merits. One
excels in the matter of a lobby; another has an extra closet; a third
affords a superior view from the drawing-room windows; and a fourth—O
merit above all merits!—transcends its fellows in the article of a
back-green. Every thing, however, is inspected—every thing is taken
into the general account; and the result of the whole is, that though
the rent is ten pounds higher, and the dining-room a thought less than
in your present abode, you _must_ remove. The carpets, with a very
little eeking and clipping, will all suit. Your sideboard, of which
your spouse has a measure in her reticule, will exactly answer the
recess devoted to it. The jack in the kitchen answers to a tee; and
even the scraper at the door has something about it that is singularly
appropriate, as if the builder at the very first had designed to
take the measure of your foot. All things appear, in the showing of
your good dame, to be so remarkably answerable and proper, that you
half believe it to be a matter of destiny, and, in completing your
arrangements, hardly bargain so much with the landlord as with Fate.

During the spring months which elapse before the day of removal, you
live in a state of dreamy bliss respecting your new house. Almost
every fine morning you rise about seven for a walk, and, by a strange
chance, you invariably take the house of promise in your way, and
enjoy a survey of its external excellencies. When you observe, from
the closed shutters, that its present occupants, so far from being
agog about it like yourself, are snugly snoozing in their beds, you
wonder at their indifference. If you were they, you would have been up
hours ago, enjoying the air in the back-green, or playing the king of
the Vandals in the front-plot. What a pity to see that splendid ruin
of a rhododendron drooping in that fashion! What a shame to pay so
little attention to the boxwood! At length, the 25th of May arrives.
You transfer yourself to the now vacated tenement, pitying with all
your heart the stupid people who have left it. For a time, a kind
of honeymoon delirium pervades the household. You certainly do find
some pleasure in contemplating from your drawing-room windows the
cattle in the neighbouring grass-park, even though sensible all the
time that they are only kept there _in petto_ by the exterminating
butcher at the end of “the Row.” Your wife, too, reposes upon the
joys of her back-green with a gratulation of spirit that seems as if
it could never know an end. And while the servant girl rejoices in a
chamber to herself, your boys have sport unceasing in pasting over
the kitchen door with pictures and excellent new songs. But all this
only holds good while summer lasts—summer, during which no house ever
appears inconvenient or disadvantageous. By and bye comes the winter
of your discontent. The views from the window are no longer fair; the
back-green, which already in autumn had begun to lose its character as
a play-ground, in consequence of the swarms of creeping things, which
covered the walls in such a way as if they had a design to form a
living entomological museum, and so fairly frightened the children into
the house, is now a sink of mud and melting snow; the serving-wench
finds that it was better to sleep in “that den above the kitchen
door”—in so far as the said den was very “cosey”—than to lie in a
chamber under the slates, exposed to the malevolence of the elements in
all its shapes. You find, too, that in the short days it is not very
agreeable to walk several times to and from town in the dark, through
a district which, in the language of house-proprietors, “has the
advantage of being out of the bounds of police.” The phrase, “within
twenty minutes’ walk of the College,” appears to you as only calculated
for the faculties of some itinerating prodigy, in as much as it never
takes you less than twice the time. The worthy housewife herself, after
long suffering in secret, and great reluctance to confess her counsel
wrong, has to complain at last of “the distance from the market,” which
obliges her to buy every thing from small dealers in the neighbourhood,
who necessarily must make up for uncertain custom by “two prices.” No
getting so much as a pennyworth of vegetables without sending for it
nearly a mile; and then “that creature Jenny,” there is no sending her
out, you know, even upon the shortest errand, but she stays an hour.
When we want even so much as change for a shilling, there is no getting
it nearer than Port Hopetoun, which is half a mile away. Then we are
such a distance from the kirk. It is only in fine weather we are able
to get that length, and at most only once in the day. I declare, if we
stay here much longer, we shall become absolute heathens. Although, to
be sure, we pay less taxes in this out-of-the-way place than we did
before, have we not lost a washing-tub, from there being no police?
And then, is there not a toll-bar betwixt us and the town, at which we
must pay one shilling every time we have to go out or come home in a
coach? And, above all things, we are cut off here from all our friends
and acquaintances. We do not know a soul nearer hand than the Duncans,
who live at the back of the Meadows. And there is no dropping in here,
in an easy way, upon a forenoon call, but the people, when they reach
us, are so much fatigued with the distance, that they must be asked
to stay to dinner: and the case ends, perhaps, with the good man being
obliged to walk three miles home with a young lady at twelve o’clock
at night! Only think of that! No, no, this cold, outlandish, genteel
place, will never do. Give me a good front door in the New Town, “with
all the conveniences,” and I’ll leave such places as this to them that
like them better.

When once a resolution is formed to leave a house, it is amazing how
many holes are picked in its character, many of them literal. The wind
gets in at a hundred places; we can see daylight through stone walls
and double-deafened ceilings. Then, there is such a draught up the
staircase, and into the best bed-room, that positively there is no
enduring it. I think another six months of this house would fairly make
an end of _me_. It’s not a house for tender folk. You might sometimes
as well sit in the open street, as by the fireside. You burn your
shins, and all the time your back is freezing. Upon my word, I think
we should save all the difference between this and a front door in
doctors’ bills!

A front door is then determined upon; and you think you have at length,
by a little stretch of your purse, reached the very perfection of
comfort. But alas! “_fronti nulla fides_,” which is as much as to say,
there is no reliance to be placed on a front door. It is true, you
escape all the evils of your former habitation, and that nothing can
match your back kitchen as a convenience to the servants. But then the
family living above you has twice your number of children; and these
imps seem to do nothing whatever the whole day long, from six in the
morning till seven at night, but run pat, pat, pat, along the floors
overhead, till they almost drive you mad, _non vi sed sæpe cadendo_.
Even the charms of a back-green, or a superior scullery, will not stand
against this; and so you determine at last to go to an upper flat in
the same neighbourhood, where you may have the pleasure of tormenting
some person below with _your_ children, without the risk of being
at the same time tormented yourself. The last selection is made upon
moderate and prudent principles; but yet hope is also even here upon
the wing. The house has no pretensions to style or external gentility,
but yet “Edwin was no vulgar boy.” The stair is remarkably spacious and
well lighted, and has, further, the advantage of a door at the bottom,
which can be opened by any inhabitant, by means of a pulley, without
the necessity of descending to the bottom. In fact, it is what I would
call a genteel stair. “The Stevensons” live in the first _flat_. The
kitchen door has a nice hole at the lower corner for the cat; and what
a delightful place there is by the side of the fire for the lamp, or
where we could keep our salt dry in a _pig_! The request of the Regent
Earl of Mar, as inscribed on the front of his house at Stirling,

    “I pray all lukaris on this ludging
     With gentil ee to gif their judging,”

comes powerfully into force in all cases where the tenant is just
entering upon his house. As in the other case every fault is
exaggerated, and made the subject of congratulatory disgust, so in
this, every fault is extenuated. “The ceilings are a little contracted,
I see, by the roof.” “Oh! a wee thought coomceyled—a very small matter;
these rooms are only intended for the children. We have some capital
_public_ rooms at the back, looking into the Queen Street gardens, and
have a little peep of the sea in the distance.” “Upper flats,” observes
your Malagrowther friend, “are very apt to smoke.” “Oh! not at all, I
assure you. But I have been assured that Dr Bonnyman cured this house
entirely some years ago, and since then there has never been a single
puff of smoke.” “Your nursery is in the garret; don’t you think the
children will feel it rather cold?” “Oh, the most comfortable nursery
in the world; and see, _only see_, what a nice door there is at the top
of the garret stair to prevent the bairns from tumbling down!” “I am
sorry, however, to see a green-wife established so close beneath the
door, at the bottom of your _common_ stair.” “Oh, Sir, but consider the
convenience of the greens.” In fact, there is no peculiarity about the
house, however trifling, but, in the eyes of a new tenant, it will seem
a beauty, as in those of a departing one it will constitute a disgrace.
And this is just the philosophy of the question, and the real cause why
there is so much useless tossing and tumbling of old furniture on each
25th of May.




VICTIMS.


The industrious classes of the middle rank are, on the one hand,
_attracted onwards_ to wealth and respectability, by contemplating men,
formerly of their own order, who having, as the saying is, feathered
their nests, now lie at ease, a kind of _conscripti patres_; while
they are, on the other hand, _repelled_ from the regions of poverty
and disgrace by the sight of a great many wretched persons, who
having, under the influence of some unhappy star, permitted their good
resolutions of industry and honour to give way, are sunk from their
former estate, and now live—if living it can be called—in a state of
misery and ignominy almost too painful to be thought of. There may be a
use in this—as there is a use for beacons and buoys at sea. But oh, the
desolation of such a fate! As different as the condition of a vessel
which ever bends its course freely and gallantly over the seas, on some
joyous expedition of profit or adventure, compared with one which has
been deprived of all the means of locomotion, and chained down upon
some reef of rocks, merely to tell its happier companions that it is to
be avoided; so different is the condition of a man still engaged in the
hopeful pursuits of life, and one who has lost all its prospects.

The progress of men who live by their daily industry, through this
world, may be likened, in some respects, to the march of an army
through an enemy’s country. He who, from fatigue, from disease, from
inebriety, from severe wounds, or whatever cause, falls out of the
line of march, and lays him down by the wayside, is sure, as a matter
of course, to be destroyed by the peasantry; once let the column he
belongs to pass on a little way ahead, and death is his sure portion.
It is a dreadful thing to fall behind the onward march of the world.

VICTIMS—the word placed at the head of this article—is a designation
for those woe-begone mortals who have had the misfortune to drop out of
the ranks of society. Every body must know more or less of _victims_,
for every body must have had to pay a smaller or greater number of
half-crowns in his time to keep them from starvation. It happens,
however, that the present writer has had _a great deal to do with
victims_; and he therefore conceives himself qualified to afford his
neighbours a little information upon the subject. It is a subject not
without its moral.

A _victim_ may become so from many causes. Some men are wrong placed in
the world by their friends, and ruin themselves. Some are ill married,
and lose heart. Others have tastes unsuited to the dull course of a man
of business, as for music, social pleasures, the company of men _out of
their own order_, and so forth. Other men have natural imperfections of
character, and sink down, from pure inability to compete with rivals of
more athletic constitution. But the grand cause of declension in life
is inability to accommodate circumstances and conduct.

Suppose a man to have broken credit with the world, and made that
treaty of perpetual hostility with it, which, _quasi lucus a non
lucendo_, is called a _cessio bonorum_—what is he to do next? One thing
is dead clear: he no more appears on Prince’s Street or the bridges.
They are to him as a native and once familiar land, from which he is
exiled for ever. His migrations from one side of the town to the other
are now accomplished by by-channels, which, however well known to
our ancestors, are in the present day dreamt of by nobody, except,
perhaps, the author of the Traditions of Edinburgh. I once came full
upon a _victim_ in Croftangry, a wretched alley near the Palace of
Holyrood House; he looked the very Genius of the place! But the ways
of _victims_ are in general very occult. Sometimes I have altogether
lost sight of one for several years, and given him up for dead. But
at length he would re-appear amidst the crowd at a midnight fire, as
salmon come from the deepest pools towards the lighted sheaf of the
fisherman, or as some old revolutionary names that had disappeared
from French history for a quarter of a century, came again above board
on the occasion of the late revolution at Paris. At one particular
conflagration, which happened some years ago, I observed several
_victims_, who had long vanished from the open daylight streets, come
out to glare with their bleared eyes upon the awful scene—perhaps
unroosted from their dens by the progress of the “devouring element.”
But—what is a _victim_ like?

The progress of a _victim’s_ gradual deterioration depends very
much upon the question, whether he has, according to the old
joke, failed with a waistcoat or a full suit. Suppose the latter
contingency: he keeps up a decent appearance for some months after
the fatal event, perhaps even making several attempts to keep up
a few of his old acquaintance. It won’t do, however; the clothes
get worn—threadbare—slit—torn—patched—darned; let ink, thread, and
judicious arrangement of person, do their best. The hat, the shoes, and
the gloves, fail first; he then begins to wear a suspicious deal of
whitey-brown linen in the way of cravat. Collars fail. Frills retire.
The vest is buttoned to the uppermost button, or even, perhaps, with
a supplementary pin (a pin is the most squalid object in nature or
art) at top. Still at this period he tries to carry a jaunty, genteel
air; he has not yet all forgot himself to rags. But, see, the buttons
begin to show something like new moons at one side; these moons
become _full_; they _change_; and then the button is only a little
wisp of thread and rags, deprived of all power of retention over the
button-hole. His watch has long been gone to supply the current wants
of the day. The vest by and bye retires from business, and the coat is
buttoned up to the chin. About this period, he perhaps appears in a
pair of nankeen trousers, which, notwithstanding the coldness of the
weather, he tries to sport in an easy, genteel fashion, as if it were
his taste. If you meet him at this time, and inquire how he is getting
on in the world, he speaks very confidently of some excellent situation
he has a prospect of, which will make him better than ever; it is
perhaps to superintend a large new blacking manufactory which is to be
set up at Portobello, and for which two acres of stone bottles, ten
feet deep, have already been collected from all the lumber-cellars in
the country; quite a nice easy business; nothing to do but collect the
orders and see them executed; good salary, free house, coal, candle,
and _blacking_; save a pound a-year on the article of blacking alone.
Or it is some other _concern_ equally absurd, but which the disordered
mind of the poor unfortunate is evidently rioting over with as much
enjoyment as if it were to make him once more what he had been in his
better days. At length—but not perhaps till two or three years have
elapsed—he becomes that lamentable picture of wretchedness which is his
ultimate destiny; a mere pile of clothes without pile—a deplorable—a
_victim_.

As a picture of an individual _victim_, take the following:—My earliest
recollections of Mr Kier refer to his keeping a seed-shop in the New
Town of Edinburgh. He was a remarkably smart active man, and could
tie up little parcels of seeds with an almost magical degree of
dispatch. When engaged in that duty, your eye lost sight of his fingers
altogether, as you cease to individualise the spokes of a wheel when it
is turned with great rapidity. He was the inventor of a curious tall
engine, with a peculiar pair of scissors at top, for cutting fruit off
trees. This he sent through Prince’s Street every day with one of his
boys, who was instructed every now and then to draw the string, so as
to make the scissors close as sharply as possible. The boy would watch
his men—broad-skirted men with top-boots—and, gliding in before them,
would make the thing play _clip_. “Boy, boy,” the country gentleman
would cry, “what’s that?” The boy would explain; the gentleman would
be delighted with the idea of cutting down any particular apple he
chose out of a thickly laden and unapproachable tree; and, after that,
nothing more was required than to give him the card of the shop. Mr
Kier, however, was not a man of correct or temperate conduct. He used
to indulge even in forenoon potations. Opposite to his shop there was a
tavern, to which he was in the habit of sending a boy every day for a
tumbler of spirits and water, which the wretch was carefully enjoined
to carry under his apron. One day the boy forgot the precaution, and
carried the infamous crystal quite exposed in his hand across the
open and crowded street. Mr Kier was surveying his progress both in
going and returning; and when he observed him coming towards the shop,
with so damnatory a proof of his malpractices holden forth to the
gaze of the world, he leaped and danced within his shop window like
a supplejack in a glass case. The poor boy came in quite innocently,
little woting of the crime he had committed, or the reception he was to
meet with, when, just as he had deposited the glass upon the counter, a
blow from the hand of his master stretched him insensibly in a remote
corner of the shop, among a parcel of seed-bags. As no qualities will
succeed in business unless perfectly good conduct be among the number,
and, above all things, an absence from tippling, Kier soon became a
_victim_. After he first took to the _bent_, to use Rob Roy’s phrase,
I lost sight of him for two or three years. At length I one day met
him on a road a little way out of town. He wore a coat buttoned to the
chin, and which, being also very long in the breast, according to a
fashion which obtained about the year 1813, seemed to enclose his whole
trunk from neck to groin. With the usual cataract of cravat, he wore a
hat the most woe-begone, the most dejected, the most melancholy I had
ever seen. His face was inflamed and agitated, and as he walked, he
swung out his arms with a strange emphatic expression, as if he were
saying, “I am an ill-used man, but I’ll tell it to the world.” Misery
had evidently given him a slight craze, as it almost always does when
it overtakes a man accustomed in early life to better things. Some
time afterwards I saw him a little revivified through the influence of
a _new second-hand coat_, and he seemed, from a small leathern parcel
which he bore under his arm, to be engaged in some small agency. But
this was a mere flash before utter expiration. He relapsed to the
Cowgate—to rags—to wretchedness—to madness—immediately after. When I
next saw him, it was in that street, the time midnight. He lay in the
bottom of a stair, more like a heap of mud than a man. A maniac curse,
uttered as I stumbled over him, was the means of my recognising it to
be Kier.

The system of life pursued by _victims_ in general, is worthy of being
inquired into. _Victims_ hang much about taverns in the outskirts of
the town. Perhaps a decent man from Pennycuik, with the honest rustic
name of Walter Brown, or James Gowans, migrates to the Candlemaker Row,
or the Grassmarket, and sets up a small public house. You may know
the man by his corduroy spatterdashes, and the latchets of his shoes
drawn through them by two pye-holes. He is an honest man, believing
every body to be as honest as himself. Perhaps he has some antiquated
and prescribed right to the stance of a hay-stack at Pennycuik, and
is not without his wishes to try his fortune in the Parliament House.
Well, the _victims_ soon scent out his house by the glare of his new
sign—the _novitas regni_—and upon him they fall tooth and nail. Partly
through simplicity, partly by having his feelings excited regarding
the stance of the hay-stack, he gives these gentlemen some credit. For
a while you may observe a flocking of _victims_ toward his doorway,
like the gathering of clean and unclean things to Noah’s ark. But it
is not altogether a case of deception. _Victims_, somehow or other,
occasionally _have_ money. True, it is seldom in greater sums than
sixpence. But then, consider the importance of sixpence to a flock of
_victims_. Such a sum, judiciously managed, may get the whole set meat
and drink for a day. At length, when Walter begins to find his barrels
run dry, with little return of money wherewithal to replenish them, and
when the joint influence of occasional apparitions of sixpence, and the
stance of the hay-stack at Pennycuik, has no longer any effect upon
him, why, what is to be done but fly to some other individual, equally
able and willing to bleed?

One thing is always very remarkable in _victims_, namely, their
extraordinary frankness and politeness. A _victim_ might have been
an absolute bear in his better days; but hunger, it is said, will
tame a lion, and it seems to have the same effect in subduing the
asperities of a _victim_. Meet a _victim_ where you will—that is,
before he has become altogether deplorable—and you are amazed at the
bland, confidential air which he has assumed; so different, perhaps,
from what he sported in better days. His manner, in fact, is most
insinuating—into your pocket; and if you do not get alarmed at the
symptoms, and break off in time, you are brought down for half a crown
as sure as you live. _Victims_ keep up a kind of constant _civil_
war with shops. They mark those which have been recently opened,
and where they see only young men behind the counter. They try to
establish a kind of credit of face, by now and then dropping in and
asking, in a genteel manner, for a sight of a Directory, or for a
bit of twine, or for “the _least_ slip of paper,” occasionally even
spending a halfpenny or a penny in a candid, honourable way, with all
the air of a person wishing to befriend the shop. In the course of
these “transactions,” they endeavour to excite a little conversation,
beginning with the weather, gradually expanding to a remark upon the
state of business; and, perhaps, ending with a sympathising inquiry
as to the prospects which the worthy shopkeeper himself may have of
succeeding in his present situation. At length, having laid down
what painters call a _priming_, they come in some day, in a hurried
fiddle-faddle kind of way, and hastily and confidentially ask across
the counter, “Mr——[victims are always particular in saying _Master_],
have you got such a thing as fourpence in ha’pence? I just want to
pay a porter, and happen to have no change.” The specification of
“fourpence in ha’pence,” though in reality nonsense, carries the day;
it gives a plausibility and credit-worthiness to the demand that could
not otherwise be obtained. The unfortunate shopkeeper, carried away
by the contagious bustle of the _victim_, plunges his hand, quick as
thought, into the till, and before he knows where he is, he is minus
a groat, and the _victim_ has vanished from before him—and the whole
transaction, reflected upon three minutes afterwards, seems as if it
had been a dream.

The existence of a _victim_ is the most precarious thing, perhaps, in
the world. He is a man with no continuing dinner-place. He dines, as
the poor old Earl of Findlater used to say, at the sign of the Mouth.
It is a very strange thing, and what no one could suppose _a priori_,
that the necessitous are greatly indebted to the necessitous. People
of this sort form a kind of community by themselves, and are more kind
to each other mutually than is any other particular branch of the
public to them as a class. Thus, the little that any one has, is apt
to be shared by a great many companions, and all have a mouthful. The
necessitous are also very much the dupes of the necessitous: they are
all, as it were, creatures of prey, the stronger constantly eating up
the weaker. Thus, a _victim_ in the last stage preys upon men who are
entering the set; and all prey more or less upon poor tradesmen, such
as the above Walter Brown or James Gowans, who are only liable to such
a spoliation because they are poor, and anxious for business. We have
known a _victim_, for instance, who had long passed the condition
of being _jail-worthy_, live in a great measure upon a man who had
just begun a career of victimization by being thrown into jail. This
creature was content to be a kind of voluntary prisoner for the sake of
sharing the victuals and bed of his patron. It would astonish any man,
accustomed, day after day, to go home to a spread table at a regular
hour, to know the strange shifts which victims have to make in order to
satisfy hunger—how much is done by raising small hard-wrung subsidies
from former acquaintance—how much by duping—how much by what the Scotch
people very expressively call _skeching_—how much by subdivision of
mites among the wretches themselves. Your _victim_ is often witty,
can sing one good comic song, has a turn for mimicry, or at least an
amusing smack of worldly knowledge; and he is sometimes so lucky as to
fall in with patrons little above himself in fortune, but still having
something to give, who afford him their protection on account of such
qualifications.

By way of illustrating these points, take the following instances of
what may be called the _fag-victim_.

Nisbet of ——, in Lanarkshire, originally a landed gentleman and an
advocate at the Scottish bar, was a blood of the first water in the
dissolute decade 1780-90, when, if we are to believe Provost Creech, it
was a gentleman’s highest ambition, in his street dress and manner of
walking, to give an exact personation of the character of Filch in the
Beggars’ Opera. Nisbet at that period dressed a good deal above Filch,
however he might resemble him in gait. He had a coat edged all round
with gold lace, wore a gold watch on each side (an extravagant fashion
then prevalent), and with his cane, bag-wig, and gold-buckled shoes,
was really a fine figure of the pre-revolutionary era. His house was
in the Canongate—a good flat in Chessels’s Court—garrisoned only by a
female servant called Nanny. Nisbet at length squandered away the whole
of his estate, and became a _victim_. All the world fell away from him;
but Nanny still remained. From the entailed family flat in Chessels’s
Court, he had to remove to a den somewhere about the Netherbow: Nanny
went with him. Then came the period of wretchedness: Nanny, however,
still stuck fast. The unfortunate gentleman could not himself appear in
his woe-begone attire upon those streets where he had formerly shone a
resplendent sun; neither could he bring his well-born face to solicit
his former friends for subsidies. Nanny did all that was necessary.
Foul day and fair day, she was to be seen gliding about the streets,
either petitioning tradesmen for goods to her master on credit, or
collecting food and money from the houses of his acquaintance. If
a liquid alms was offered, she had a white tankard, streaked with
smoky-looking cracks, for its reception; if the proffered article was
a mass of flesh, she had a plate or a towel. There never was such a
forager. Nisbet himself used to call her “true and trusty,” by way of
a compliment to her collective powers; and he finally found so much
reason to appreciate her disinterested attachment, that, on reaching
the usual fatal period of fifty, he made her his wife! What was the
catastrophe of their story, I never heard.

The second, and only other instance of the _fag-victim_ which can be
given here, is of a still more touching character than the above, and
seems to make it necessary for the writer of this trifling essay to
protest, beforehand, against being thought a scoffer at the misery of
his fellow creatures. He begs it to be understood, that, however light
be the language in which he speaks, he hopes that he can look with no
other than respectful feelings upon human nature, in a suffering, and,
more especially, a self-denying form.

Some years ago, there flourished, in one of the principal thoroughfares
of Edinburgh, a fashionable perfumer, the inheritor of an old business,
and a man of respectable connections, who, falling into dissolute
habits, became of course very much embarrassed, and, finally,
“unfortunate.” In his shop,

    “From youth to age a reverend ’_prentice_ grew;”

a man, at the time of his master’s failure, advanced to nearly middle
life, but who, having never been any where else since he was ten
or twelve years of age, than behind Finlay’s counter—Sundays and
meal-hours alone excepted—was still looked upon by his master as “the
boy of the shop,” and so styled accordingly. This worthy creature
had, in the course of time, become as a mere piece of furniture in
the shop; his soul had _fraternized_ (to use a modern French phrase)
with his situation. The drawers and shottles, the combs, brushes,
and bottles, had entered into and become part of his own existence;
he took them all under the wide-spreading boughs of his affections;
they were to him, as the infant to the mother, part of himself. He
was on the best terms with every thing about the shop; the handles of
all things were fitted to his hand; every thing came to him, to use
a proverbial expression of Scotland, like the bowl of a pint-stoup.
In fact, like a piece of wood placed in a petrifying spring, this man
might be said to have been transfigured out of his original flesh and
blood altogether, and changed into a creature participating in the
existence and qualities of certain essences, perfumes, wigs, pomades,
drawers, wig-blocks, glass cases, and counters forming the _materiel_
of Mr Finlay’s establishment. Such a being was, as may be supposed,
a useful servant. He knew all the customers; he knew his master’s
whole form of practice, all his habits, and every peculiarity of his
temper. And then the fidelity of the creature; but that was chiefly
shown in the latter evil days of the shop, and during the victimhood
of his master. As misfortune came on, the friendship of master and
man became more intensely familiar and intimate than it had ever been
before. As the proudest man, met by a lion in the desert, makes no
scruple to coalesce with his servant in resisting it, so was Finlay
induced, by the devouring monster Poverty, to descend to the level,
and make a companion, of his faithful “boy.” They would at last go
to the same tavern together, take the same Sunday walks—were, in
reality, boon companions. In all Finlay’s distresses, the “boy”
partook; if any thing “occurred about a bill,” as Crabbe says, it was
the “boy” who had the chief dolour of its accommodation; he would
scour the North and South Bridges, with his hat off, borrowing small
silver a _l’improviste_, as if to make up change to a customer, till
he had the necessary sum amassed. The “boy” at length became very
much demoralised: he grew vicious towards the world, to be the more
splendidly virtuous to his master: one grand redeeming quality, after
the manner of Moses’ serpent, had eaten up all the rest. It were
needless to pursue the history of the shop through all its stages
of declension. Through them all the “boy” survived, unshaken in his
attachment. The shop might fade, grow dim, and die, but the “boy”
never. The goods might be diminished, the Duke of Wellington might be
sold for whisky, and his lady companions pawn their wigs for mutton
pies; but the “boy” was a fixture. There was no pledging away his
devoted, inextinguishable friendship. The master at last _went to_ the
Canongate jail—I say _went to_, in order to inform the sentimental
part of mankind that imprisonment is seldom done in the active voice,
people generally incarcerating themselves with the most philosophical
deliberation, and not the least air of compulsion in the matter. The
shop was still kept open, and the “boy” attended it. But every evening
did he repair to the dreary mansion, to solace his master with the
news of the day, see after his comforts, and yield up the prey which,
jackall-like, he had collected during the preceding four-and-twenty
hours. This prey, be it remarked, was not raised from the sale of any
thing in the shop. Every saleable article had by this time been sold.
The only furniture was now a pair of scissors and a comb, together with
the announcement, “Hair-cutting rooms,” in the window. By means of
these three things, however, the “boy” contrived generally to _fleece_
the public of a few sixpences in the day; and all these sixpences, with
the exception of a small commission for his own meagre subsistence,
went to his master at the Canongate jail. Often, in the hour between
eight and nine in the evening, have they sat in that small dingy
back-room behind the large hall, enjoying a bottle of strong ale, drunk
out of stoneware tumblers—talking over all their embarrassments, and
speculating how to get clear of them. Other prisoners had their wives
or their brothers to see after them; but we question if any one had,
even in these relations of kindred, a friend so attached as the “boy.”
At length, after a certain period, this unfortunate tradesman was one
evening permitted to walk away, arm in arm, with his faithful “young
man,” and the world was all before them where to choose.

For a considerable period all trace of the attached pair is lost. No
doubt their course was through many scenes of poignant misery; for at
the only part of their career upon which I have happened to obtain any
light, the “boy” was wandering through the streets of Carlisle, in
the dress and appearance of a very old beggar, and singing the songs
wherewith he had formerly delighted the citizens of Edinburgh in Mrs
Manson’s or Johnnie Dowie’s, for the subsistence of his master, who, as
ascertained by my informant, was deposited in a state of sickness and
wretchedness transcending all description, in a low lodging-house in a
back street. Such is the fag-victim, following his master

    “To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty;”

and such, I may add, are the virtues which sometimes adorn the most
vicious and degraded walks of life, where, to the eyes of ordinary
observers, there appears no redeeming feature whatsoever.




FALLACIES OF THE YOUNG.

“ACQUAINTANCES.”


One of the most important concerns of young people is, the management
of themselves in respect of what are called “acquaintances.” To have
many friends is desirable, in a world where men are generally thrown
so much upon their own resources. But there is a distinction between
the friendship of a certain number of respectable persons, who are only
ready to exert themselves for us when called upon, and the acquaintance
of a circle of contemporaries, who are perpetually forcing themselves
upon our company for the mere purpose of mutual amusement. Taking the
words in their usual signification, a young man ought to wish for many
friends, but few acquaintances. There is something in the countenance
of a companion that cheers and supports the frailty of human nature.
One can speak and act more boldly with a friend by his side, than
when alone. But it is the good fortune of men of strong character,
and it ought to be the object of every one, to act well and boldly
by himself. One thing young people may be assured of, almost all the
great services which enlightened men have done for their race, were
performed alone. There was but one man, not two, at the discovery of
the Compass, of the Copernican System, of the Logarithms, and of the
principle of Vaccination. To descend to lesser things, ask any man who
has risen in worldly fortune, from small beginnings to great wealth and
honour, how he contrived to do so, and you will find that he carved
it all out for himself with his own hand. He will in all probability
inform you that he has reached the honourable station in society which
he now maintains, chiefly by narrowing the circle of his “private
acquaintances,” and extending that of his “public relations,” most
likely adding, that had he on all occasions “consulted” the persons
with whom he happened to be acquainted, as to his designs, he would,
by every calculation, have been still in the same obscure insignificant
situation he once was. The truth is, it is only when alone that we have
the ability to concentrate our minds upon any object; and it is only
when things are done with the full force of _one mind_ qualified for
the purpose, that they are done well.

It is the misfortune of young people, before they become fully engaged
in the relations of life and business, that they look too much to
“acquaintances” for encouragement, and make the amusement which
“acquaintances” can furnish too indispensable. The tender mind of
youth is reluctant, or unable, to stand alone; it needs to be one of
a class. Hence, the hours which ought to be spent in the acquisition
of that general knowledge which is so useful in after life, and which
can only be acquired in the vacant days of youth, are thrown away
in the most inglorious pursuits; for “acquaintances” are seldom the
companions of study, or the auxiliaries of business, but most generally
the associates of a debauch, the fellow-flutterers upon the Mall, the
companion-hounds in the chase of empty pleasure. It is amazing how much
a youth can endure of the company of his principal “acquaintance.”
Virgil’s expression, “_tecum consumerer ævo_,” is realised in his
case; for he veritably appears as if he could _spend his whole life_
in the society of the treasured individual. At the approach of that
person, every other matter is cast aside; the most important business
seems nothing in contrast with the interchange of a smile or a jest
with this duplicate of himself. The injunctions of the most valued
relations—even of father and mother—are scattered to the winds, if they
are at variance with the counsels or conduct of this precious person,
whom, after all, he perhaps met only last week at a club. The power of
an “acquaintance” of this kind, for good or evil, over the mind of his
friend, is so very great, that it may well give some concern to those
who are really interested in the prospects of youth. But every effort
to redeem a victim from the fascination, will be in vain, unless his
natural or habitual goodness be shocked by the further exposure of the
“acquaintance’s” character. The only safeguard, therefore, against this
mighty evil, is, _previously_ to accustom youth to depend much upon
themselves, and to endeavour to infuse into them a sufficient degree of
moral excellence, to be a protection to them against the worst vices
which “acquaintances” may attempt to impart to them.

There is a possibility, however, that the “acquaintance” may be no
worse than his fellow, and yet the two will do that together which they
could not do singly. Virtue is, upon the whole, a thing of solitude:
vice is a thing of the crowd. The individual will not dare to be
wicked, for the responsibility which he knows must be concentrated
upon himself; while the company, feeling that a divided responsibility
is hardly any responsibility at all, is under no such constraint.
There is much edification to the heart of the thoughtless and wicked
in the participation of companions; and even in large associations
of honourable men for honourable purposes, there is often wanting
that fine tone of feeling which governs the conduct of perhaps each
individual in the fraternity. Thus, an excessive indulgence in
the company of “acquaintances” is to be avoided, even where these
“acquaintances” are not inferior in moral worth to ourselves. There is
an easy kind of morality much in vogue among a great body of people,
that “what others do we may do,” as if higher standards had not been
handed down by God himself from heaven, or constructed in the course of
time by the wise and pure among men. This morality comes strongly into
play among youth in their intercourse with contemporaries; and as it
is always on rather a declining than an advancing scale, it soon leads
them a great way down the paths of vice.

It will be found, in general, that a considerable degree of abstinence
from this indulgence is required, even to secure the most ordinary
degree of success in life. But if great things be aimed at, if we
wish to surpass our fellows by many degrees, and to render ourselves
honourably conspicuous among men, we must abjure “acquaintances”
almost entirely. We must, for that purpose, withdraw ourselves from
all temptation to idle and futile amusement—we must, in the words of a
great poet, “shun delights, and live laborious days.”




SUBJECTS OF CONVERSATION.


Subjects of conversation are sometimes exceedingly difficult to be
had. I have known many a company of well-dressed men and women feel
themselves most awkwardly situated for want of something to talk
about. The weather, which is said to be a never-failing subject,
cannot hold out above a few minutes at a time. It will stand a round
or two rounds, but not more. It is then knocked up for the evening,
and cannot with decency be again brought forward. Being thus disposed
of, the subject of “news” is introduced; but, as a matter of course,
there being no “news stirring,” “not a word,” “nothing in the papers,”
that subject is soon also dispatched. If there happen to be any very
remarkable occurrence worth talking of, what a blessing it is on such
occasions! It is food for the company a whole night, and may be again
and again brought above board for their amusement. But it much more
frequently happens that there is no exciting event to talk about, and
then the condition of the company is truly miserable. There being
ladies present, or there being two factions in the room, politics are
proscribed. Every attempt at getting up a topic failing, the company
look into the fire, or in each other’s faces, or begin to examine
with much interest the pattern of the carpet; and the silence which
ensues is truly terrific. A slight whisper is the only sound in the
apartment, and is caught at or watched by the company, for it may
chance to be the commencement of a conversation in which they may join,
without exciting particular attention. But it, too, dies away. It was
only a passing under-current of remark between the two married ladies
in the blue and white turbans, on the dearth of coals, the difficulty
of getting good servants, or the utility of keeping children muffled in
flannel nightgowns from October till March. At length some good soul
makes an effort to brush away his diffidence. He projects a remark
across the room towards the little man with the smirking countenance,
about Mr This or Miss That, or Signor Such-a-thing, who are at present
enlivening the town with their exhibitions. The remark is in itself a
very ordinary remark, but it has its use: it quickens the intellects
of those who hear it, and the tongues of a number of individuals are
set a-going upon the subject of theatrical amusements, singing in the
Assembly Rooms, Pasta, Paganini, and private parties, so that the
original remark is lost sight of, and the company go on pretty well
with what it has produced for perhaps half an hour. All these topics
being exhausted, another horrible silence ensues. The company again
look into the fire, or in one another’s faces, and once more examine
the carpet. What _is_ to be said next? All think upon saying something,
yet nobody speaks. The national _mauvaise honte_ is now displayed
to the height of its perfection. The agony of the company, however,
approaches its crisis. The awful stillness is broken, and in a most
natural and unexpected manner. The young man in the starched cravat
sitting in a corner of the room, near the end of the piano, who has
been thinking what he should say or do for the last half hour, takes
heart of grace; he rises and snuffs the candles, going through the
self-imposed duty in as neat and elegant a style as he can possibly
affect. The snuffing of the candles is an operation which every member
of the company has seen performed ten thousand times; but it affords
interest for even the ten thousandth and first time. It may not
intrinsically be worth heeding, yet, in a case of this nature, it is
of very great importance. It suggests a new theme, and that is exactly
what was wanted, for one subject invariably leads to the discussion of
half a dozen others. The operation of snuffing the candles, therefore,
induces some one to remark, how beautiful gas-light is. Then this
brings on a disquisition on the danger of introducing it into private
houses; its cost in comparison with oil is next touched upon; then
follows an observation about the last illumination; which leads to
reminiscences of similar displays on the occasions of the great naval
victories—the victories lead to Nelson—Nelson to his biographer,
Southey—Southey to poetry—poetry to Byron—and Byron to Greece. This
whirl of conversation, however, also runs out; an accident jars it, and
it is all over. Suddenly the speakers pause, as if they had received
a galvanic shock; one small voice is alone left prominent above the
silence; but finding itself unsupported, it is immediately lowered to a
whisper, and the whisper subsides to a dead silence.

I have often pitied the host or hostess on occasions of this nature,
but I could not help blaming them for not providing against such
dismal pauses in the conversation of their parties. To guard against
these occurrences, I would recommend them to bring forward what I have
remarked to be never-failing sources of conversational entertainment,
namely, a tolerably good-looking cat, a lapdog, or a child. The last
is the best. It ought to be about two years of age, and be able to
walk. If adroitly played off, or permitted to play, it will amuse the
party for an hour at least. It must be placed on the hearth-rug, so as
to attract all eyes; and while in the room, no other subject will be
thought of. Any endeavour to draw off attention, by the relation of
some entertaining anecdote, will be deemed sedition against the majesty
of the household. If a cat, a dog, or an interesting child, cannot be
conveniently had, I would advise the invitation of some one who has a
loud voice, and the happy effrontery of speaking incessantly, however
ridiculously, on all subjects,—a person who can speak nonsense to any
extent, and has the reputation of being a most agreeable companion.
This man is of vast use in introducing subjects; for he has no
diffidence or modesty, and has a knack of turning every observation
to account. His voice also serves as a cover to much by conversation;
there being hundreds who would speak fluently enough, provided a
bagpipe were kept playing beside them, or who could have their voices
drowned by some other species of noise. The loud and voluble talker is
therefore an excellent shelter for those of weaker nerves, and will be
found a useful ingredient in all mixed companies.

The difficulty of starting subjects of conversation, as well as
the difficulty of sustaining them, is often as observable when two
acquaintances meet on the street, as when a roomful of company is
collected. The unhappy pair exhaust all that they can remember they
ought to say to each other in the space of a minute and a half, and
another minute may be consumed in going through the process of taking
a pinch of snuff; the next half minute is spent in mutual agony.
Neither knows how to separate. As the only chance of release, one of
the parties at last brings in a joke, or what is meant to be such, to
his aid. The other, of course, feels bound to laugh, and both seizing
the opportunity, escape in different directions under cover of the
witticism.




SECURE ONES.

“I MAK SICKER.”—_Motto of the Family of Kirkpatrick._


“Oh, he’s a sicker ane!” is a phrase used in Scotland in reference to
that class of people who make excessively sure about every thing, and
are in no manner of means to be imposed upon. I style such persons
Secure Ones, in order to be intelligible to southern as well as
northern readers. Every body must know a certain class of secure ones
by the timid cautiousness and exactness of their behaviour; by the
trim, unostentatious propriety of their external aspect. There is a
lambs’-woollery comfort and a broad-cloth completeness about this sort
of secure one, that nobody can mistake; he even seems to have made the
number of buttons in his vest, and the height to which that garment is
buttoned up, a matter of accurate calculation. He could not go abroad
under less than a certain press of flannel and great-coat for the
world; and you might almost as soon expect to meet him without his left
arm as minus the silk umbrella under it. (He carries the latter part
of himself, or fifth limb, at an angle of about sixty degrees to the
horizon, the handle down behind, and the point forked up in front.)
When he observes any part of the pavement railed off, in order to save
the passengers all danger from an occasional pelleting of stones and
bits of plaster which the slaters or chimney-doctors are producing
from above, he deploys into the street a good way before coming up to
the actual rail or rope, and, in passing, takes care to sweep several
good yards beyond the utmost range of shot. “Don’t like these things
coming peppering down that way; might almost dislocate one’s shoulder
if they were to fall upon it; perhaps we had better go over to the
other side of the street altogether. No need, you know, for running
into unnecessary danger.” When a secure one ascends a stair, he goes
step after step monotonously on, performing every move of his feet
with a sound, conscientious deliberation, and seems determined upon
doing full justice to every landing-place. He holds firmly, however
unnecessarily, by the baluster, since the baluster is there, and he
has an obvious satisfaction in the slight pant which he thinks himself
entitled to get up on the occasion. The secure one always shuts a door
carefully behind him. He takes off his hat softly, with a regard at
once to the smooth economy of his hair, and the pile of his chapeau.
He has a maxim that the hat should be first raised and loosened from
behind, where it slides up along the glossy hair, not from the front,
where it encounters a comparative obstruction from the fleshy brow.
He lays down his gloves neatly on the top of each other, and hangs up
his hat with an air of carefulness truly exemplary. The secure one is
a bit of an epicure. When out in the forenoon, he would not for any
consideration take lunch or wine. “Madam, would you have me spoil my
appetite for dinner?” This appetite he nurses and cherishes in the
course of his saunterings between two and five, as carefully as a miser
doting over his heap. He holds a telegraphic communion with his inner
man that passeth show; he coquets and dallies with his stomach; every
indescribable symptom is taken into account, and forms the subject
of unexpressed congratulation. “Dear tender flowers of appetite, it
would be sacrilege, or worse, to nip ye in the bud, by powdering over
you the baneful dew of a glass of Bucellas, or the still more odious
blight of a basin of mulligatawny. No, I will coax you, and protect
you, and _travel_ for you, in faithful love and kindness, even until
ye shall be fully fattened up for slaughter at five o’clock.” When the
secure one sits down to table, he painsfully and not unostentatiously
(to himself) relieves the one lowest button of his vest from the
thrall of button-hole, and with equally deliberate care arranges a
napkin over the front of his person. Dinner is a sacred ceremony,
and requires its canonicals. Being fully acquainted with the whole
planisphere of the table, he takes an exactly proportioned quantity
of each article, so as ultimately to have enjoyed each in its exact
proportion of merit, and to have precisely enough out of the whole.
A secure one is frequently an old respectable unmarried gentleman,
residing with a single servant—Jenny—in a “self-contained” house about
Stockbridge or Newington. Knowing the distance at which he lives from
the mercantile parts of the town, he takes care never to want what he
calls a pound of change, as well as a small stock of copper—at least
the value of a shilling—observing also that the change is not unmixed
with sixpences, so that when any shopkeeper’s boy calls for payment of
an account, or to take back the purchase-money of any article he has
bought that day in town, he may not have to trouble [_i. e._ trust]
the messenger with the duty of obtaining change for a bank note,
which would tend to occasion a more than necessary answering of the
bells at the door, besides keeping him in an agony of fiddle-faddle
till the little affair was settled. Jenny, who has been so long in
his service as to have become almost as secure as himself, never
opens the door o’ nights without putting on the chain; and she has a
standing order against all parleying with beggars, or poor women who
sell tapes and such things out of baskets. The secure one regards few
creatures in this world with a more jealous or malignant eye than these
personages. “Why, Sir, they want nothing but to make an opportunity
of stripping the lobby or the kitchen!” And such a story he can tell
of a missing hat-brush! “A woman seen that morning going about—sold a
pair of garters to the maid-servant three doors off at ten—front door
had been left open for a minute, not more, while Jenny ran after me
with something I had forgot—and in that time—it could have been at no
other—the deed was done. A hat-brush I had just got with my last hat
at Grieve and Scott’s; had a thing that screwed in at the one end,
so that it was a stretcher also; cost four and sixpence, even taking
the hat along with it.” And the secure one, without any premeditated
hard-heartedness, thinks nothing of making such an incident apologize
to himself for an habitual shutting of his door and his heart against
the poor for the next twelvemonth. There is never any imperfection
in the _externe_ of the secure one. He bears about him a certain
integrality of look that fills and satisfies the eye. From his good
well-brushed waterproof beaver, all along down by his roomy blue coat,
drab well-fledged, amply-trousered limbs, and so down to his _double_
shoes, not omitting such points as his voluminous white neckcloth
without collar, his large Cairngorm brooch, which looks as if a dish of
jelly had been inverted into his bosom, and his heavy, pursy bunch of
seals dangling, clearly defined and well relieved, from the precipice
of belly—every thing betokens the secure one. Clothes are not so much
clothes with him as they are a kind of defensive armour! The truth is,
the secure one lives in a state of constant warfare with the skiey
influences. The chief campaign is in winter. Instead of entering the
field, like Captain Bobadil, about the tenth of March, he opens the
trenches towards the twenty-fourth of October. He then invests himself
with a cuirass of wool almost thick enough to obstruct the passage
of a cannon-ball. For months after, he remains in arms, prepared to
stand out against the most violent attacks of the enemy, and, in
reality, there is hardly any advantage to be got of the secure one by
fair open storms or frosts. He bears a charmed life against all such
candid modes of warfare. He cannot be overthrown in a pitched battle.
It is only ambuscade draughts through open windows, and other kinds of
bush-fighting, that ever are of any effect against him. Like Hector
in the armour of Patroclus, he is invulnerable over almost all his
whole person; but an arrowy rheumatism, like the spear of Achilles,
will sometimes reach him through a very small chink. Like the mighty
Achilles himself, he is literally proof, perhaps, against every thing
but what assails him through the very lowest part of his person—he can
stand every thing but wet feet. There is an instance on record of his
having once been laid by the heels for three months, in consequence
of sitting one night in the pit of the Theatre with a slightly damp
umbrella between his knees. He was just about to get entirely better of
this disorder, when all at once he was thrown back for six weeks more,
by reason, as he himself related, of his having changed the wear (in
his sick-chamber) of a silk watch-riband for a chain! “All from the
imprudence of that rash girl Jenny, who thought the riband a little
shabby, and put on the chain instead. Why, Sir! a thick double riband,
more than an inch broad; only conceive what a material addition it must
have been to my ordinary clothing!” The chain, he might have added,
was apt to be worse than nothing, for it was of irregular application,
tattooing his person, as it were, with a minutely decussated exposure,
so that the cold was likely to have struck him as with the teeth of
a comb! The secure one has an anxiety peculiar to himself on the
subject of easy-chairs, nightgowns, and slippers. The easy-chair
must be exact in angle to a single minute of a degree; the nightgown
must be properly seen to in respect of fur and flannel; the slippers
must every night be placed for him at the proper place; and if Jenny
has been so inattentive as to place the left one on the right of the
other, he feels himself not a little discomposed. The secure one is
most pestilently and piquantly accurate about all things. He loves to
arrange, and arrange, and arrange, and over again arrange and settle
all the preliminaries and pertinents of any little matter which cannot
reasonably be done but one way. If he wishes, for instance, to confer
with an upholsterer respecting some alteration in the above easy-chair,
he first calls one forenoon, and inflicts an hour’s explanation upon
the unhappy man of wood—who is not all a man of wood, otherwise he
would, in such a case, be happy. It does not in the least matter at
what hour the tradesman should come to see this chair, for the secure
one is to be at home the whole day. Yet the very liberty at which he
stands produces a difficulty. It would be charity in Providence, by
any interference, “to give him not to choose.” “Say eleven; I shall
then be quite disengaged—will that hour suit you? Or make it any other
hour—say twelve—or say half-past eleven—half-past would do very well.”
[He recollects that he seldom gets the whole fiddle-faddle of feeding
the canaries over by _half-past_.] “Suppose it were a quarter to
twelve; that would answer me better still. I may, perhaps, take a walk
out at mid-day; would a quarter to twelve do? Or I might hurry the
canaries, and then the half-past might do. I dare say half-past will
do best after all; mind half-past eleven,” &c. &c. The man comes, and
the business of the chair is entered into. The whole affair is most
amply canvassed. The secure one sits down in it, and gives a lecture
in a very _ex-cathedra_ style upon all its properties and defects. He
complains of the back reclining a little too much back, or the bottom
showing too little bottom, or some other fault equally inappreciable;
and the upholsterer sees at once that the secure one only complains
of this, as he is apt to do of other things, for the very uneasiness
arising from its over-easiness.

    “Lulled on the rack of a too-easy chair.”

The fact is, the secure one has brought every appliance of life to such
an absolute exactitude and perfection, that, having no longer any thing
to give him pain, he becomes quite wretched. Secureness, it is evident,
may go too far. We may become actually frightened in this world at our
own caution. We may be shocked by the very unimpeachability of our own
virtue. We may become miserable through the extremity of our happiness.
In the same manner the secure one, when he has “got all things right,”
as he would say, finds himself, to his great disappointment, just at
the threshold of woe and evil. He has exactly got time to set his
house in order, before the proper consequence of such an event befalls
him; and he expires at the very moment when he has just completed his
preparations to live.

There is another order of secure ones, whose carefulness refers rather
to their wealth than their health. There is an awful inviolability of
pocket about such men—a provoking guardedness against all the possible
appeals of friendship, and all the impulses of benevolence. Such men
look as if they were all stanchioned over. _La Pucelle_ itself was
not more perfectly fortified than their breeches. A poorer man is apt
to feel in their presence as if he were under an indictment for an
intention either to beg or borrow, or, perhaps, to steal from them. He
sees something criminative against himself in every impregnable-looking
button. Secure ones of this class, perhaps, are bachelors under
forty—careful, circumspect men, that have passed through the ordeal
of a thousand evening parties without ever being in the least danger.
They abstain from marrying, from very fear lest any advantage should be
got of them. They cannot enter into the slightest intercourse with a
young lady, without letting it appear that they are perfectly on their
guard. The most undesigning girl, like the above poor man, feels in
their presence as if she were liable to be construed into an absolute
“drapery miss.” He is always quite civil, but that is from his very
_secureness_: he knows he is in no danger. An experienced woman gives
up a man of this kind at first sight. She sees he is cook’s meat, _i.
e._ that he is to marry a middle-aged kitchen woman at fifty, upon
the ground of her proficiency in preparing a beef-steak. The general
feeling of the sex regarding this sort of secure one is, “Confound the
fellow! does he think that any one cares for him, or would take him
though he were willing?”

    “Nobody wants you, Sir, she said.”

The secure one, however, does not appear ever to suppose that the
ladies have a veto in proposals of marriage. He looks upon them all as
a class so eager on capturing and entrapping men, that it never enters
into his head that there is such a thing as a rejected offer. The man
he considers to be the passive and accepting party; the lady is the
besieging enemy, and he is the fortress; the marriage takes place only
if _he_ chooses. It may be supposed, then, what would be the state of
a secure one’s mind, if he were to relent some fine day in a fit of
generosity (a thing only to be supposed in the event of his becoming
_fey_), and in a liberal, candid, honourable manner, offer his hand to
a young lady of little fortune, whom he was disposed to think suitable
on the score of personal merit alone, but who having some prior
attachment to a man one-half as old, and twice as generous, was under
the necessity of only thanking him for the honour. The cook or any
thing after that! And how the whole sex would rejoice in his calamity!!
“A fellow, forsooth, that has been a living insult to the tribe of
womankind all his days. He is well served.”

There is another kind of secure one, considerably different in
circumstances from the above—a married man about sixty, with a large
family, in which there are several grown daughters. These girls
are constantly under his eye. At church he puts them into a pew,
and sits down at the door himself, as if he were a kind of serpent
guarding the Hesperian fruit. To the eyes of hundreds of young men
under twenty, who are not yet considered to be sufficiently settled
in the world to marry, these young ladies seem unapproachable as
the top of the steeple. They look as if they were absolutely walled
round with jealous and _secure_ paternity. One after another they are
taken off by middle-aged cousins and other distant relations, about
whose “respectability” there can be no doubt; and the young men in
the back pew sigh to see that the family is determined upon being
self-contained. For it is one of those families, perhaps, who enjoy
the credit of a great deal of vague, and not very strictly apportioned
wealth, under the clause, “There’s plenty o’ siller amang them;” and
who seem as if they would consider the admission of a stranger into
the circle as a thing of some danger, however “respectable” he might
appear.




TO SCOTLAND.

    Scotland! the land of all I love,
      The land of all that love me;
    Land, whose green sod my youth has trod,
      Whose sod shall lie above me!
    Hail! country of the brave and good,
      Hail! land of song and story;
    Land of the uncorrupted heart,
      Of ancient faith and glory!

    Like mother’s bosom o’er her child,
      Thy sky is glowing o’er me;
    Like mother’s ever-smiling face,
      Thy land lies bright before me.
    Land of my home, my father’s land,
      Land where my soul was nourished;
    Land of anticipated joy,
      And all by memory cherish’d!

    Oh, Scotland, through thy wide domain,
      What hill, or vale, or river,
    But in this fond enthusiast heart
      Has found a place for ever?
    Nay, hast thou but a glen or shaw,
      To shelter farm or shieling,
    That is not garner’d fondly up
      Within its depths of feeling?

    Adown thy hills run countless rills,
      With noisy, ceaseless motion;
    Their waters join the rivers broad,
      Those rivers join the ocean:
    And many a sunny, flowery brae,
      Where childhood plays and ponders,
    Is freshen’d by the lightsome flood,
      As wimpling on it wanders.

    Within thy long-descending vales,
      And on the lonely mountain,
    How many wild spontaneous flowers
      Hang o’er each flood and fountain!
    The glowing furze—the “bonny broom,
      The thistle and the heather;
    The bluebell, and the gowan fair,
      Which childhood loves to gather.

    Oh, for that pipe of silver sound,
      On which the shepherd lover,
    In ancient days, breathed out his soul,
      Beneath the mountain’s cover!
    Oh, for that Great Lost Power of Song,
      So soft and melancholy,
    To make thy every hill and dale
      Poetically holy!

    And not alone each hill and dale,
      Fair as they are by nature,
    But every town and tower of thine,
      And every lesser feature;
    For where is there the spot of earth,
      Within my contemplation,
    But from some noble deed or thing
      Has taken consecration?

    First, I could sing how brave thy sons,
      How pious and true-hearted,
    Who saved a bloody heritage
      For us in times departed;
    Who, through a thousand years of wrong,
      Oppress’d and disrespected,
    Ever the generous, righteous cause
      Religiously protected.

    I’d sing of that old early time,
      When came the victor Roman,
    And, for the first time, found in them
      Uncompromising foemen;
    When that proud bird, which never stoop’d
      To foe, however fiery,
    Met eagles of a sterner brood
      In this our northern eyry.

    Next, of that better glorious time,
      When thy own patriot Wallace
    Repell’d and smote the myriad foe
      Which storm’d thy mountain palace;
    When on the sward of Bannockburn
      De Bruce his standard planted,
    And drove the proud Plantagenet
      Before him, pale and daunted.

    Next, how, through ages of despair,
      Thou brav’dst the English banner,
    Fighting like one who hopes to save
      No valued thing but honour.
    How thy own young and knightly kings,
      And their fair hapless daughter,
    Left but a tale of broken hearts
      To vary that of slaughter.

    How, in a later, darker time,
      When wicked men were reigning,
    Thy sons went to the wilderness,
      All but their God disdaining;
    There, hopeful only of the grave,
      To stand through morn and even,
    Where all on earth was black despair,
      And nothing bright but heaven.

    And, later still, when times were changed,
      And tend’rer thoughts came o’er thee,
    When abject, suppliant, and poor,
      Thy injurer came before thee.
    How thou did’st freely all forgive,
      Thy heart and sword presented,
    Although thou knew’st the deed must be
      In tears of blood repented.

    Scotland! the land of all I love,
      The land of all that love me;
    Land, whose green sod my youth has trod,
      Whose sod shall lie above me!
    Hail! country of the brave and good,
      Hail! land of song and story;
    Land of the uncorrupted heart,
      Of ancient faith and glory!

    R. C.




STORY OF MRS MACFARLANE.

 ——“Let them say I am romantic—so is every one said to be, that either
 admires a fine thing or does one. On my conscience, as the world goes,
 ’tis hardly worth any body’s while to do one for the honour of it.
 Glory, the only pay of generous actions, is now as ill paid as other
 great debts; and neither Mrs Macfarlane, for immolating her lover,
 nor you for constancy to your lord, must ever hope to be compared to
 Lucretia or Portia.”—_Pope, to Lady M. W. Montague._


It was formerly the fashion in Scotland for every father of a family to
take all the people under his care along with him to church, leaving
the house locked up till his return. No servant was left to cook
the dinner, for it was then judged improper to take a dinner which
required cooking. Neither, except in the case of a mere suckling,
was it considered necessary to leave any of the children; every brat
about the house was taken to church also; if they did not understand
what was said by the minister, they at least did not prevent the
attendance of those who did; and moreover—and this was always a great
consideration—they were out of harm’s way. One Sunday, in autumn 1719,
Sir John Swinton of Swinton, in Berwickshire, was obliged to omit his
little daughter Margaret from the flock which usually followed him to
church. The child was indisposed with some trifling ailment, which,
however, only rendered it necessary that she should keep her room. It
was not considered requisite that a servant should be left behind to
take charge of her, for she was too sagacious a child to require any
such guardianship; and Sir John and Lady Swinton naturally grudged,
with the scruples of the age, that the devotions of any adult member
of their household should be prevented on such an account. The child,
then, was left by herself in one of the upper bed-rooms of the old
baronial mansion of Swinton, no other measure being taken for her
protection than that of locking the outer door.

For a girl of ten years of age, Margaret Swinton was possessed of
much good sense and solidity of character. She heard herself doomed
to a solitary confinement of six hours without shrinking; or thought,
at least, that she would have no difficulty in beguiling the time by
means of her new book—the Pilgrim’s Progress. So long as the steps
and voices of her kindred were heard about the house, she felt quite
at her ease. But, in reality, the trial was too severe for the nerves
of a child of her tender age. When she heard the outer door locked by
the last person that left the house, she felt the sound as a knell.
The shot of the bolt echoed through the long passages of the empty
house with a supernatural loudness; and, next moment after, succeeded
that perceptible audible quiet, the breath-like voice of an untenanted
mansion, which, like the hum of the vacant shell, seems still as if
it were charged with sounds of life. There was no serious occasion
for fear, seeing that nothing like real danger could be apprehended;
nor was this the proper time for the appearance of supernatural
beings: yet the very loneliness of her situation, and the speaking
stillness of all around her, insensibly overspread her mind with
that vague negative sensation which is described by the native word
_eeriness_. From her window nothing was visible but the cold blue sky,
which was not enlivened by even the occasional transit of a cloud. By
and by the desolating wind of autumn began to break upon the moody
silence of the hour. It rose in low melancholy gusts, and, whistling
monotonously through every chink, spoke to the mind of this little
child, of withering woods, and the lengthened excursions of hosts of
leaves, hurried on from the scene of their summer pride into the dens
and hollows where they were to decay. The sound gradually became more
fitful and impetuous, and at last appeared to her imagination as if it
were the voice of an enemy who was running round and round the house,
in quest of admission—now and then going away as if disappointed and
foiled, and anon returning to the attack, and breathing his rage and
vexation in at every aperture. She soon found her mind possessed by a
numerous train of fantastic fancies and fearful associations, drawn
from the store of nursery legends and ballads which she was in the
habit of hearing night after night, at the fireside in the hall, and
which were infinitely more dreadful than the refined superstitions of
modern children. She thought of the black bull of Norway, which went
about the world destroying whatever of human life came within its
reach; of the weary well at the World’s End, which formed the entrance
into new regions, from whence no traveller ever returned; and of the
fairies or _good neighbours_, a small green-coated race of supernatural
creatures, who often came to the dwellings of mortals, and did them
many good and evil turns. She had been told of persons yet alive, who
in their childhood had been led away by these fays into the woods, and
fed for weeks with wild berries and the milk of nuts, till at length,
by the _po’orfu’_ preaching of some great country divine, they were
reclaimed to their parents, being in such cases generally found sitting
under a tree near their own homes. She had heard of a queen of these
people—the Queen of Elfinland—who occasionally took a fancy for fair
young maidens, and endeavoured to wile them into her service; and the
thought occurred to her, that, as the fairies could enter through the
smallest aperture, the house might be full of them at this moment.

For several hours the poor child suffered under these varied
apprehensions, till at last she became in some measure desperate, and
resolved at least to remove to another part of the house. The parlour
below stairs commanded from its window a view of the avenue by which
the house was approached; and she conceived that, by planting herself
in the embrasure of one of those windows, she would be at the very
border of the _eerie_ region within doors, and as near as possible to
the scene without, the familiarity of which was in itself calculated
to dispel her fears. From that point, also, she would catch the first
glimpse of the family returning from church, after which she would no
longer be in solitude. Trying, therefore, to think of a merry border
tune, she opened her own door, walked along the passage—making as much
noise as she could—and tramped sturdily and distinctly down stairs.
The room of which she intended to take possession was at the end of a
long passage leading from the back to the front of the house. This she
traversed slowly—not without fear of being caught from behind by some
unimaginable creature of horror; an idea which, on her reaching the
chamber door, so far operated upon her, that, yielding to her imaginary
terrors, and yet relying for safety upon getting into the parlour, she
in the same moment uttered a slight scream and burst half joyfully into
the room. Both of these actions scarcely took up more than the space
of a single moment, and in another instant she had the door closed and
bolted behind her. But what was her astonishment, her terror, and her
awe, when, on glancing round the room, she saw distinctly before her,
and relieved against the light of the window, the figure of a lady, in
splendid apparel, supernaturally tall, and upon whose countenance was
depicted a surprise not less than her own! The girl stood fixed to
the spot, her breath suspended, and her eyes wide open, surveying the
glorious apparition, whose beauty and fine attire, unlike aught earthly
she had ever seen, made her believe it to be an _enchanted queen_—an
imaginary being, of which the idea was suggested to her by one of
the nursery tales already alluded to. Fortunately, the associations
connected with this personage were rather of a pathetic than an
alarming character; and though she still trembled at the idea of being
in the presence of a supernatural object, yet as it was essentially
beautiful and pleasing, and supposed to be rather in a condition of
suffering than in the capacity of an injurer, Margaret Swinton did
not experience the extremity of terror, but stood for a few seconds
in innocent surprise, till at length the vision completely assured
her of its gentle and pacific character, by smiling upon her, and, in
a tone of the most winning sweetness, bidding her approach. She then
went forward, with timid and slow steps; and becoming convinced that
her enchanted queen was neither more nor less than a real lady of this
world, soon ceased to regard her with any other sentiment than that of
admiration. The lady took her hand, and addressed her by name—at first
asking a few unimportant questions, and concluding by telling her that
she might speak to her mother of what she had seen, but by no means to
say a word upon the subject to any other person, and that under pain
of her mother’s certain and severe displeasure. Margaret promised to
obey this injunction, and was then desired by the lady to go to the
window, to see if the family were yet returning from church. She did
so, and found that they were not as yet in sight; when, turning round
to give that information to the stranger, she found the room empty, and
the lady gone. Her fears then returned in full force, and she would
certainly have fainted, if she had not been all at once relieved by the
appearance of the family at the head of the avenue, along which the
dogs—as regular church-goers as their master—ran barking towards the
house, gratifying her with what she afterwards declared to have been
the most welcome sounds that ever saluted her ear.

Miss Swinton, being found out of her own room, was sharply reprimanded
by her mother, and taken up stairs to be again confined to the
sick-chamber. But before being left there, she found an opportunity
of whispering into her mother’s ear, that she had seen a lady in the
low parlour. Lady Swinton was arrested by the words, and, immediately
dismissing the servant, asked Margaret, in a kindly and confidential
tone, what she meant. The child repeated, that in the low parlour
she had seen a beautiful lady—an enchanted queen—who had afterwards
vanished, but not before having exacted from her a promise that
she would say nothing of what she had seen, except to her mother.
“Margaret,” said Lady Swinton, “I see you have been a very good girl;
and since you are so prudent, I will let you know a little more about
this enchanted queen, though her whole story cannot properly be
disclosed to you at present.” She then conducted Margaret back to the
parlour, pushed aside a sliding panel, and entered a secret chamber,
in which the child again saw the tall and beautiful woman, who was
now sitting at a table with a large prayer-book open before her. Lady
Swinton informed the stranger, that, as Margaret had kept her secret
so far according to her desire, she now brought her to learn more of
it. “My dear,” said her ladyship, “this lady is unfortunate—her life is
sought by certain men; and if you were to tell any of your companions
that you have seen her, it might perhaps be the cause of bringing her
to a violent death. You could not wish that the enchanted queen should
suffer from so silly an error on your part.” Margaret protested, with
tears, that she would speak to none of what she had seen; and after
some farther conversation, she and her mother retired.

Margaret Swinton never again saw this apparition; but some years
afterwards, when she had grown up, and all fears respecting the
unfortunate lady were at an end, she learned the particulars of her
story. She was the Mrs Macfarlane alluded to in the motto to this
paper; a person whose fatal history made a noise at the time over all
Britain, and interested alike the intelligent and the ignorant, the
noble and the mean.

Mrs Macfarlane was the only daughter of a gentleman of Roxburghshire,
who had perished in the insurrection of 1715. An attempt was made by
his surviving friends to save the estate from forfeiture, so that it
might have been enjoyed by his orphan daughter, then just emerged
into womanhood. But almost all hope of that consummation was soon
closed, and, in the meantime, the unfortunate young lady remained in a
destitute situation. The only arrangement that could be devised by the
generosity of her friends, was to permit her to reside periodically
for a certain time in each of their houses—a mode of subsistence from
which her spirit recoiled, but to which, for a little while, she was
obliged to submit. It was while experiencing all the bitter pangs of
a dependent situation, encountered for the first time, and altogether
unexpectedly, that Mr Macfarlane, a respectable and elderly law agent,
who had been employed by her father, came forward and made an offer of
his hand. Glad to escape from the immediate pain of dependency, even
at the hazard of permanent unhappiness, she accepted the proposal,
although her relations did every thing they could to dissuade her
from a match so much beneath her rank. The proud spirit of Elizabeth
Ker swelled almost to bursting, when she entered the dwelling of her
low-born husband; and the humble marriage-feast which was there placed
before her, seemed in her eyes as the first wages of her degradation.
But her own reflections might have been endured, and in time subdued,
if they had not been kept awake by the ungenerous treatment which she
received from all her former friends. The pride of caste was at this
period unbroken in Scotland, and it rigorously demanded the exclusion
of “the doer’s wife” from all the circles in which she had previously
moved. The stars made a conspiracy to banish the sun. If Mrs Macfarlane
had been educated properly, she would have been able to repel scorn
with scorn, and, in these tergiversations of the narrow-spirited great,
would have only seen their degradation, not her own. But under her
deceased mother, a scion of a better house than even her father’s,
she had grown up in the full participation of all the ridiculous
notions as to caste, and of course was herself deeply sensible of the
advantages she had forfeited. Rendered irritable in the highest degree
by consciousness of her own loss, she received every slight thrown upon
her by society into her innermost heart, where it festered and fed
upon her very vitals. She found that she had fallen, that the step was
irretrievable; and as factitious degradation, imposed by the forms of
society, always in a short time becomes real, her character suffered
a material deterioration. She took refuge from offended self-love in
a spirit of hatred and contempt for her fellow-matrons, and began to
entertain feelings from which, in earlier and happier years, she would
have shrunk as from actual crime.

There was at least one branch of the better sort of Edinburgh society
which never manifested any disinclination to her acquaintance. This was
the class of loose young men of good birth, who daily paraded at the
Cross with flowing periwigs and glancing canes, and nightly drowned
their senses in a vulgar debauch, from which they occasionally awoke
in the morning with the duty of settling scores by a rencontre in St
Ann’s Yards, or at St Leonard’s Crags. This set of brawlers, the proper
successors of those drunken cavaliers who disgraced a preceding age,
subsisted in a state of pure antagonism to the stayed and decorous
habits of the general community; many of them were literally the
children of cavaliers, and indebted in a great measure for their idle
way of life to the circumstances of the government, which dictated an
exclusive distribution of its patronage among its own adherents, and
of course left the poor Jacobites exposed to all the temptations of
idleness. Dicing and golfing were the employments of their forenoons;
in the evening they would stagger from table into Heriot’s Green, or
Lady Murray’s garden in the Canongate, where they would make a point
of staring out of countenance such sober citizens and their daughters
as ventured to frequent those fashionable promenades. According to a
Presbyterian writer of the day, they sent to London regularly for the
last fashions and the newest oaths; but perhaps the latter part of the
report is only a scandal. If such personages were to revive now-a-days,
and appear some forenoon among the modern _beaux esprits_ of Prince’s
Street, they would be looked upon, with their long wide-skirted
coats, and buckles, and cravats, as a set of the most solemn looking
gentlemen; but in their own time, there were no ideas associated with
them but those of reckless, hot-headed youth, and daily habits the most
opposite to those of decency and virtue.

Mrs Macfarlane, while she sunk from the society of gentlewomen of her
own rank, still retained such acquaintance as she had ever happened
to possess, of their wild sons and brothers. With them, she was in
her turn an object of great interest, on account of her transcendant
beauty, or rather its fame—for the fame with such persons is of far
more importance than the reality. It was not disagreeable to Mrs
Macfarlane, when she walked with her husband on the Castle Hill, and
found herself passed with dry recognition by persons of her own sex, to
be made up to by some long-waisted Sir Harry Wildair, who, in language
borrowed from Congreve or Farquhar, protested that the sun was much
aided in his efforts to illuminate the world by the light of her eyes.
A rattle of the fan was the least favour that could be dispensed in
reward for such a compliment; and then would ensue a conversation,
perhaps only interrupted by a declaration from Mr Macfarlane, that he
felt the air getting rather cold, and was afraid to stay out any longer
on account of his rheumatism. The society of these fops was never
farther encouraged by Mrs Macfarlane; indeed, it was only agreeable to
her in public places, where it consoled her a little for the ungenerous
slights of more respectable persons. Yet it had some effect upon her
reputation, and was partly the cause of all her misfortunes.

About two years after the insurrection of 1715, the host of Edinburgh
fops received an important accession in Mr George Cayley, a young
English gentleman, who was sent down as one of the commissioners upon
the forfeited estates. Cayley brought with him a considerable stock
of cash, an oath of recent coinage, said to be very fashionable in
Pall Mall, and a vest of peculiar cut, which he had lately got copied
at Paris from an original belonging to the Regent Orleans. As he also
brought a full complement of the most dissolute personal habits, he
might be considered as recommended in the strongest manner to the
friendship of the native beaux; if, indeed, his accomplishments were
not apt rather to produce displeasure from their superiority. Some days
after his arrival, he was introduced to Mrs Macfarlane, to whom he was
an object of some interest on account of his concern in the disposal of
her father’s estate. If she felt an interest in him on this account, he
was not the less struck by her surpassing beauty and elegant manners,
which appeared to him alike thrown away upon her husband, and the
city in which she dwelt. He rushed home from the first interview in a
state of mind scarcely to be imagined. That such a glorious creature
should squander her light upon the humble house of an attorney, when
she seemed equally fit to illuminate the halls of a palace, was in his
eyes a perversion of the designs of nature. He wished that it was in
his power to fly with her away—away from all the scenes where either
was known, to some place far over this world’s wilderness, where every
consciousness might be lost, except that of mutual love. Over and over
again he deplored the artificial bonds imposed by human laws, and
protected by the virtuous part of the human race, by which hearts the
most devoted to each other were often condemned to eternal separation.
His heart, he found, was possessed by sensations such as had never
before moved it. It worshipped its object as a kind of idol, instead
of, as formerly, regarding it as a toy. He flung himself in idea before
the shrine of her splendour, in breathless, boundless, despairing
passion.

It is probable that if Cayley had been fortunate enough to meet Mrs
Macfarlane before she was married, he might have been inspired with an
attachment equally devoted, and which, being indulged innocently, might
have had the effect of purifying him from all his degrading vices, and
raising him into a worthy member of society. As it was, the passion
which, in proper circumstances, is apt to refine and humanise, only
lent a frantic earnestness to his usual folly. He made it his endeavour
to obtain as much of her society as possible—an object in which he was
greatly favoured by his official character, which caused him to be
treated with much less coolness by Mr Macfarlane than was otherwise to
have been expected. That individual had not altogether lost hope of
regaining the property to which his wife was entitled, and he therefore
met Mr Cayley’s advances with more than corresponding warmth, every
other sentiment being for the time subordinate to this important
object. The young Englishman, in order to cultivate this delightful
intimacy with the greater convenience, removed from his former lodgings
to a house directly opposite to Mrs Macfarlane’s, in the High Street,
where, at such times as a visit was out of the question, he would sit
for hours watching patiently for the slightest glimpse of her through
the windows, and judging even a momentary gleam of her figure within
the dim glass as an ample compensation for his pains. He now became
much less lively than before—forsook, in some measure, the company of
his gay contemporaries—and seemed, in short, the complete _beau ideal_
of the melancholy, abstracted lover. It was his custom to spend most of
his evenings in Mrs Macfarlane’s house; and, except during those too
quickly flying hours, time was to him the greatest misery. Existence
was only existence in that loved presence; the rest was a state of
dormancy or watchfulness only to be spent in pain. If he applied at
all to the business for which he was commissioned by the government,
it was only to that part of it which related to the inheritance of
Mrs Macfarlane, in order that he might every night have an excuse for
calling upon that lady, to inform her of the progress he was making in
her cause. His attachment in that quarter was soon whispered abroad in
society; and while it served as a grateful theme for the tongues of Mrs
Macfarlane’s former compeers, the favour with which he seemed to be
received was equally the subject of envy to the young men, few of whom
had ever found much countenance in her house, for want of something to
recommend them equally to her husband.

Scarcely any thing is calculated to have so deteriorating an effect
upon the mind as the constant fret of an unlawful passion. In every
one of the clandestine and stealthy operations by which it is
sought to be gratified, a step is gained in the downward descent
towards destruction. Cayley, who was not naturally a man of wicked
dispositions, and who might have been reclaimed by this passion, had it
been virtuous, from all his trivial follies, gradually became prepared,
by the emotions which convulsed his bosom, for an attempt involving the
honour of his adored mistress, and, consequently, her whole happiness
in life, as well as that of many innocent individuals with whom she was
connected. This he now only waited for an opportunity of carrying into
effect, and it was not long ere it was afforded.

Called by the urgent request of a Highland client, Mr Macfarlane
had left town somewhat suddenly, and was not expected to return for
upwards of a week. During his absence, Mrs Macfarlane endeavoured to
repress the attentions of Mr Cayley as much as possible, from a sense
of propriety, and contented herself with a kind of society—dumb, yet
eloquent—which she felt to be much more fit for her situation—the
society of her infant child. One evening, however, as she sat with
her tender charge hushed to sleep upon her bosom, Mr Cayley was
unexpectedly ushered in, notwithstanding that she had given directions
for his exclusion after a certain hour, now past. To add to her
distress, he appeared a little excited, as she thought, by liquor, but,
in reality, by nothing but the burning and madly imprudent passion
which had taken possession of him. He sat down, and gazed at her for
a few moments without speaking, while she remonstrated against this
unseasonable intrusion. She then rung her bell, in order to chide her
servant for disobedience of her orders; but Mr Cayley tranquilly told
her, that he had taken the liberty of sending the girl away upon an
errand.

“In the name of heaven,” said the lady, “what do you mean?”

“I mean, my dear Madam,” answered he, “to have a little conversation
with you upon a subject of great importance to us both, and which I
should like to discuss without the possibility of interruption. Know,
Madam, that, ever since I first saw you, I have fondly, madly loved
you. You are become indispensable to my existence; and it depends upon
you whether I shall hereafter be the most happy or the most miserable
of men.”

“Mr Cayley,” cried the lady, “what foolery is this? You are not in your
senses—you have indulged too much in liquor. For heaven’s sake, go
home; and to-morrow you will have forgot that such ideas ever possessed
your brain.”

“No, never, my angel!” cried he, “can I forget that I have seen and
loved you. I might sleep for ages; and, if I awakened at all, it would
be with your image imprinted as strongly as ever upon my heart. You
now see a man prepared for the most desperate courses in order to
obtain you. Listen for a moment. In the neighbourhood, a coach stands
ready to carry us far from every scene where you have hitherto been
known. Consent, and I procure for you (which is now within my power)
a reversal of your father’s attainder. You shall again possess the
domains where your fathers for ages back have been held in almost
regal veneration, and where you spent the pleasant years of your own
youth. Deny me, and to-morrow your reputation is blasted for ever. The
least plausible tale, you well know, would be received and believed by
society, if told respecting Mrs Macfarlane.”

“Profligate wretch!” exclaimed the unfortunate lady; “can I believe my
ears when they tell me that such wickedness exists in a human bosom?
Look, Sir, at this infant—were there no principles of virtue within me
to dictate a contemptuous rejection of your proposals, do you think
that I could leave this innocent to pine and die under the cold neglect
of strangers, or to survive to a less blessed life with the stigma of a
disgraced mother fixed for ever upon her? Were I the basest woman that
ever lived, as you seem to think me, would nature permit so awful a
violation of her laws? Could I leave my child, and not next moment be
struck dead by fire from heaven for my crime? The alternative, indeed,
is awful. Well you know the point upon which I am most easily affected.
Base, however, as you avow yourself, I cannot yet suppose that you
could be guilty of a trick so worthy of the devil himself, as to blast
the reputation, where you could not fix the real cause of infamy.”

“Do not flatter yourself too much on that score,” rejoined Cayley; “you
do not now see a man actuated by ordinary principles. I am tortured and
confounded by an impetuous passion, which you have excited. If you take
from me all hope of a consent to my first proposal, I must endeavour
to bring you into my power by the second. To-morrow, did I say? Nay, I
will go this night, and tell every man I know that you are the slave
of my passion. Not a lady in Edinburgh but will know of it to-morrow
before she has left her pillow. You will _then_, I think, see the
necessity of consenting to the scheme of flight which I now put into
your power.”

He pronounced these words in such a disordered and violent manner,
that the unhappy lady sat for some time unable to reply. She hardly
recovered her senses till she heard the outer door clang behind him, as
he went upon the demoniac purpose which he had threatened.

The first place that Mr Cayley went to was John’s Coffeehouse, a
fashionable tavern in the Parliament Square, where he found a large
group of his dissolute young friends, drinking claret out of silver
stoups. The company was in an advanced stage of intoxication and riot,
very much to the annoyance, apparently, of a few smaller knots of
decent citizens, who were indulging in some more moderate potations
after the fatigues of the day, and endeavouring to understand as
much as they could of the London Intelligencer, the Flying Post, and
other little sheets of news which lay upon the various tables. “Well,
Cayley,” cried one of the young roisterers, “come and tell us how
you are getting on now with the fair lady over the way—husband not
at home—must be making great advances, I suppose?” “Make yourself
quite at ease on that subject; I _am_ so, I assure you.” This he said
in so significant a tone, that it was at once understood. A flood
of raillery, however, was immediately opened upon him; no one would
believe what he said, or rather implied; and thus, as they designed,
he was drawn to make much more explicit declarations of his supposed
triumph. No attempt was made by himself or others to conceal the
subject of their conversation from the rest of the individuals present.
It was understood distinctly by the sober citizens above mentioned,
some of whom shrugged their shoulders, knocked their cocked hats firmly
down upon their heads, took staff in hand, and strode consequentially
and indignantly out of the room. As Cayley had predicted, the whole
affair was blazoned abroad before next morning.

Mrs Macfarlane, as might be supposed, enjoyed little sleep after the
agitations of the preceding evening. She could hardly believe that
anything so wicked as what had been threatened by Mr Cayley could
be perpetrated by a being in human shape; but yet, recollecting the
extraordinary state in which he seemed to be, she could not altogether
assure herself of the contrary. In the forenoon she went to pay a visit
in a distant part of the town; and she could not help remarking, that
while she seemed to have become an object of additional interest to
the male sex, the ladies, even those with whom she had formerly been
on terms of civil recognition, averted their eyes from her, with an
expression, as she thought, of contempt.

The lady upon whom she called received her in the coldest manner, and,
on an explanation being asked, did not hesitate to mention what she had
heard as the town’s talk that morning, namely, that Mr Cayley professed
himself to be her favoured lover. The unfortunate lady burst into a
passion of tears and lamentations at this intelligence, protested her
innocence a thousand times, and declared herself to be only the victim
of a profligate; but still she saw that she did not produce an entirely
exculpatory effect upon the mind of her friend. She went home in a
state of distress bordering on despair. Her early misfortunes through
the severity of the government; her dependent situation in the houses
of her kinsfolk; her unhappy marriage to a man she could never love;
and, finally, the cruel coldness with which she had been treated by her
former friends in the days of her depression, all recurred upon her
mind, and united with the more awful grief which had now overtaken her,
prepared her mind for the most desperate resolutions.

Early in the afternoon she sent a note to Mr Cayley, requesting, in
the usual terms, the favour of his company. The receipt of her billet
threw him into transports of joy, for he believed that his scheme had
already taken effect, and that she was now prepared to accede to his
proposals. He therefore dressed himself in his best style, and at
the proper hour (he felt too secure of his prey to go sooner) walked
across the street to his appointment. He was shown into a room at the
back of the house, where he had never before been, and where there
was little furniture besides a picture of Mrs Macfarlane, painted by
Sir John Medina, an Italian artist who long practised his trade at
the Scottish capital. This portrait, which he began to gaze upon with
all the enthusiasm of a lover, represented his mistress in a style
and manner strikingly beautiful. The utmost serenity, united with the
utmost innocence, shone in those sweetly noble features. The fair open
brow glowed like the summer sky, calmly and cloudlessly beautiful.
The eyes shone with the lustre of gladness and intelligence, and the
whole expression was resolved into an exquisite and killing smile. The
lover stood in a sort of transport before this image of all he held
dear on earth, as if he were yielding to an idolatrous contemplation of
its extraordinary loveliness, when the door was opened—and behold the
original! Instead of the voluptuous smile which shone on the canvass of
Medina, a Beautiful Fury stood before him—a Hecate not yet grown old.
He started with horror; for not only did she bear in her countenance
the most threatening ensigns of passion, but she carried in her hand
two large pistols, one of which she held extended to him, while with
the other hand she locked the door behind her, at the same time keeping
a watchful and glaring eye upon her victim.

“Wretch,” she said, “you have ruined one who never did you wrong. You
have destroyed me as completely as if you had stretched me lifeless
beneath your hand. More than this, you have rendered others who are
dear to me unhappy for ever. My child—you have deprived her of the
nurture of a mother; you have fixed upon her name a stain which will
never be washed out. And yet for all this, society, cruel as it is to
the victims, provides no punishment—hardly even any censure—to the
criminal. Were it now my will to permit you, you might walk away
scatheless from the fair scene you have ravaged, with nothing to
disturb your triumph, but the lamentations of so many broken hearts.
You shall not, however, enjoy this triumph—for here you shall die!”

Cayley had stood for a few moments, gazing alternately at her face and
at the weapon she held extended towards him. He heard her address as
if he had heard it not. But at the last word, he recovered a little of
his presence of mind, and made an effort to approach her. She at that
moment fired, but without effect. The effort of drawing the trigger had
depressed the muzzle of the weapon, and the ball entered the floor at
his feet. She lost not an instant to present and fire the other, the
shot of which penetrated his breast, and he fell next moment before
her, with but one indistinct murmur of agony—and then all was still.

One brief embrace to her child—a moment at the toilet to arrange her
travelling dress, which she had previously prepared, and the beautiful
murderess was ready to fly. She instantly left town for the south,
and, as already mentioned, received shelter and concealment in the
house of her distant kinsman, Sir John Swinton. How long she was there
protected, is not known, but it was probably as long as the search of
justice continued to be in the least eager. It was always understood,
by those aged persons who knew her story, and from whom the preceding
facts have chiefly been derived, that she ultimately escaped to some
remote continental state, where she was supported by contributions from
her relations. So closes one of the most tragical tales that stain the
domestic annals of Scotland during the last century.




THE DOWNDRAUGHT.

Side by side with _victims_, might be placed the kindred species
_downdraughts_, who are only different from the accident of their
having friends who will rather be _weighed down_ by them to the very
earth—to the grave itself—than permit them to sink by themselves. The
downdraught is in reality a victim, and one of the darkest shade,
being generally a person totally worthless in character, and abandoned
in habits; but then he has not altogether cut the cables which bound
him to his native grade in society—he has not all forgot himself to
disgrace—he is still domesticated with his friends—he has a mother, or
a wife, or a brother, or a sister, or perhaps an old aunt, who will
try to keep him in food and clean linen, and, having lost all hope of
his ever being actively good, will do anything for him, if he will
only preserve a neutrality, and not be positively evil. He is a victim
in appearance (always excepting the clean shirt), but he enjoys the
happy superiority over that class, of having an open door to fly to
when he pleases, and either a kind relation, who considers him “only a
little wild in the meantime,” or else one who, for the sake of decent
appearances, will endeavour to patch up all his peccadiloes, and
even be tyrannised over by him, rather than shock society by an open
rupture. The personal tendencies of a downdraught to victimization
are strong as the currents of the great deep, but he is withheld from
it by others. He has always some anchorage or other upon decent life,
to keep him back from the gulf to which he would otherwise hurry on.
In many cases, the very kindness and indulgence of friends was the
original cause of his becoming a downdraught. He had every thing held
to his head. He was encouraged in his pretences of headaches as an
excuse for staying away from school. When afterwards an apprentice,
he was permitted to break off, on the score of being compelled to
put on fires and sweep out the shop. Or, perhaps, it was from none of
those causes. Possibly, he was just one of those persons who seem to
be totally destitute of all perception of the terms upon which men are
permitted to exist in this world; that is, that they are either to be
so fortunate as to have “their fathers born before them,” so that they
may accede to wealth without exertion, or must else do something to
induce their fellow-creatures to accord them the means of livelihood
without beggary. That many persons are really born without this great
leading faculty, is unfortunately but too indisputable; and, assuredly,
they are as proper inmates for a lunatic asylum as more frantic madmen;
for what is the use of reason, or even of talent, without the desire of
exerting it, either in one’s own behalf, or in behalf of mankind? The
terms of existence we allude to are expressed in the text of Scripture,
“By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt earn thy bread;” so that the man
must be considered a kind of heretic, as well as a fool, who will not,
or can not, understand them. Yet the fact is so, that many men arrive
at maturity with either a sense of these conditions of life, more or
less imperfect, or no sense of them at all. They perhaps conceive
themselves to be born to keep down the pavement of Prince’s Street with
boots one inch and a half deep in the heel, or to fumigate the air of
that elegant street with cigars at three shillings per dozen; but that
is the utmost extent to which their notions of the purposes of life
ever extend. These men, of course, are predestined downdraughts. We see
them already with our mind’s eye, exhausting the kindness and patience
of a brother, or a wife, yea almost of a mother, with their idle and
dissolute habits—dragging those relations slowly but surely down into
misery and disgrace—and only in the meantime saved from being kicked
out of doors, as they deserve, not by any regard for merits of their
own, for they have none, but by the tenderness of those relations for
their own reputation.

A decent citizen, of the name of Farney, retired about five-and-twenty
years ago from active life, and, planting himself in a neat villa a
little way beyond the southern suburbs of Edinburgh, resolved to do
nothing all the rest of his life but enjoy the ten or twelve thousand
pounds which he had made by business. He was a placid, inoffensive old
man, only somewhat easy in his disposition, and, therefore, too much
under the control of his wife, who unfortunately was a person of a
vulgarly ambitious character. The pair had but one child—a daughter,
Eliza Farney—the toast of all the apprentices in the South Bridge, and
really an elegant, and not unaccomplished young lady. The only object
which Mr and Mrs Farney now had in life, besides that of enjoying
all its comforts, was the disposal of this young lady in marriage.
Whenever there is such a thing as ten thousand pounds connected with
the name of a young lady, there is generally a great deal more fuss
made about it than when the sum is said to exist in any other shape or
circumstances. It is important in the eyes of all the young men who
think themselves within shot of it. It is important in the eyes of all
the young women who have to lament that they do not possess similar
advantages. It is important in the eyes of all the fathers and mothers
of sons, who think themselves within range of it. And, lastly, it is
important, immensely important indeed, in the eyes of parties, young
lady, mother and father, sister or brother, who have anything to say
in the disposal of it. Money in this shape, one would almost think, is
of a different value from money in any other: the exchange it bears
against cash in business, or cash in the prospect of him who knows he
can win it, is prodigious. At the very lowest computation, a thousand
pounds in the purse of a young lady is worth ten thousand in the stock
of a man of trade. Nay, it is astonishing what airs we have known a few
hundred pounds of this kind put on in respect, or rather disrespect, of
decent people, who were almost winning as much in the year. In fact,
the fiddle-faddle about the disposal of an heiress is a great farce,
and never fails to put either the parties concerned in the disposal,
or else the candidates for the acquisition, into a thousand shabby
and selfish attitudes. It is hard to say if the young lady herself is
the better for it all. The only _certain_ effect of her possessing
a fortune, is, that it deprives her of ever having the pleasing
assurance, given to most other women, that she is married for her own
sake alone. Sincere love is apt to retire from such a competition,
through the pure force of modesty, its natural accompaniment; and the
man most apt to be successful is he who, looking upon the affair as
only a mercantile adventure, pursues it as such, and only hopes to be
able to fall in love after marriage.

It happened that Eliza Farney was loved, truly and tenderly loved, by
a young man of the name of Russell, whose parents had been acquainted
with the Farneys in their earlier and less prosperous days, but were
now left a little behind them. Young Russell had been the playmate
of Eliza in their days of childhood; he had read books with her, and
taught her to draw, in their riper youth; and all the neighbours said,
that, but for the brilliant prospects of Miss Farney, she could not
have found a more eligible match. Russell, however, was still but the
son of a poor man. He was himself struggling in the commencement of a
business, which he had begun with slender means, in order to sustain
the declining fortunes of his parents. His walk in life was much
beneath the scope of his abilities, much beneath his moral deserts;
but, under a strong impulse of duty, he had narrowed his mind to the
path allotted to him, instead of attempting to do justice to his
talents by entering upon any higher and more perilous pursuit. Thus, as
often happens, an intellect and character, which might have brightened
the highest destinies, were doomed to a sphere all unmeet for them,
where they were in a manner worse than lost, as they only led to a
suspicion which was apt to be unfavourable to the prospects of their
possessor, namely, that he was likely to be led, by his superior
tastes, into pursuits to which his fortune was inadequate, or into
habits which would shipwreck it altogether. Russell looked upon Eliza
Farney, and despaired. He saw her, as she advanced into womanhood,
recede gradually from his sphere in society, and enter into one more
suitable to her father’s improving fortunes, into which it was not for
him to intrude. Eliza had, perhaps, entertained at one time a girlish
fondness for him; but it was not of so strong a character as to resist
the ambitious maxims of her mother, and the sense of her own importance
and prospects, which began to act upon her in her riper years.

    “Amongst the rest young Edwin sighed,
      But never talked of love.”

Some appearance of coldness, which he saw, or fancied he saw, in her
conduct towards him, caused his proud and pure nature to shrink back
from the vulgar competition which he saw going forward for the hand of
“the heiress.” It was not that the fondest wishes of his heart were met
with disappointment—perhaps he could have endured that—but he writhed
under the reflection, that external circumstances should separate
hearts that once were allied, and that no conscious purity of feeling,
no hope of hereafter distinguishing himself by his abilities, was of
avail against the selfish and worldly philosophy which dictated his
rejection. It was only left for him to retire into the chambers of his
own thoughts, and there form such solemn resolutions for improving his
circumstances and distinguishing his character, as might hereafter,
perhaps, enable him to prove to the cold being who now despised him,
how worthy, how more than worthy, perhaps, he was of having enjoyed
her affections, even upon the mean calculations by which he was now
measured and found wanting.

The mother, to whom this rupture was chiefly owing, now applied
herself heartily to the grand task of getting her daughter “properly
disposed of.” Every month or so, her house was turned topsy-turvy,
for the purpose of showing off the young lady in gay assemblies.
Care was taken that no one should be invited to these assemblies who
was merely of their own rank. Unless some capture could be made in a
loftier, or what appeared a loftier circle, it was all as nothing. The
human race hang all in a concatenation at each other’s skirts, those
before kicking with all their might to drive off those behind them,
at the same time that they are struggling might and main, despite of
corresponding kicks, to hold fast, and pull themselves up by means of
their own predecessors. This is particularly the case where a mother
has a daughter to dispose of with the reversion of a few thousands.
Money under these circumstances, as already explained, would be
absolutely thrown away if given only to a person who estimated it at
its ordinary value; it must be given to one who will appreciate it as
it ought to be, and sell pounds of free-will and honourable manhood for
shillings of the vile dross. At length, at a ball held in the Archers’
Hall—a kind of Almack’s in the east—the very man was met with—a genteel
young spark, said to be grand-nephew to a baronet in the north, and who
was hand in glove with the Greigsons, a family of _quis quis_ gentility
in the New Town, but who loomed very large in the eyes of a person
dwelling in the south side. This fellow, a mere loose adventurer,
whose highest destiny seemed to be to carry a pair of colours if he
could get them, and who positively had no claims upon consideration
whatsoever, except that he kept a decent suit of clothes upon his back,
and was on terms of intimacy with a family supposed to belong to the
_haut ton_—this poor unanealed wretch, recommended by impudence and
a moustache, which he amiably swore he would take off when married,
gained the prize from which the modest merit of Russell was repelled.
In a perfect fluster of delight with the attentions he paid to her
daughter, terrified lest he should change his mind, or any unforeseen
event prevent the consummation so devoutly to be wished, the managing
mother presented no obstruction to the courtship. “Such a genteel
young man!” she would say to her husband. “He is greatly taken out in
good company. Just the night before last, he was at the Honourable Mrs
——’s party in Oman’s Rooms. He danced with Miss Forster, the great
heiress, who, they say, is distractedly in love with him. But he says
she has naething like the elegant carriage o’ our ’Liza. Indeed,
between you and me, says he, jokingly, to me the other day, she’s
splay-footed. He could make his fortune at once, you see, however, and
I’m sure it’s really extraordinary o’ him to particulareese the like
o’ us in the way he’s doing”—and so forth. The old man sat twirling
his thumbs and saying nothing, but having his own fears all the time
that all was not really gold that glittered. He was, however, one of
those people who, upon habit and principle, never say a single word
about any speculative thing that is proposed to them, till the result
has been decided, and then they can tell that they all along thought it
would turn out so. It was untelling the prescience and wisdom that old
Farney believed himself to be thus possessed of. Suffice it to say, the
managing mother, within the month, made out a mittimus of destruction
in favour of her daughter, Eliza Farney, spinster, consigning her to
the custody of William Dempster, Esq., blackguard by commission, and
downdraught by destiny.

The fortune of Miss Farney was not exactly of the kind that suited Mr
Dempster’s views. It was only payable after the death of her father.
Mr Dempster, therefore, saw it to be necessary to take expedients for
obtaining the use of it by anticipation. He commenced a large concern
in some mercantile line, obtaining money in advance from the old
gentleman, in order to set the establishment on foot. He also procured
his signature to innumerable bills, to enable him to carry it on.
The business, in reality, was a mere mask for obtaining the means of
supporting his own depraved tastes and appetites. There was hardly any
kind of extravagance, any kind of vice, which he did not indulge in
at the expense of old Farney. The result was what might be expected
from such premises. Exactly a twelvemonth after the marriage, Dempster
stopped payment, and absconded without so much as even taking leave of
his wife. His folly and profligacy together had already absorbed the
whole fortune with which Mr Farney had retired from business, besides a
good deal more for which the unfortunate old man was security. He was
in consequence totally ruined, left destitute in old age, without the
least resource; while the young elegant female, who a short year before
was the admiration and envy of glittering circles, had just become a
mother, upon the bed which only waited for her convalescence to be sold
for behoof of her husband’s creditors.

Farney found refuge—and considered himself most fortunate in finding
it—in a beneficiary institution for decayed citizens, of which he had
himself, in better days, been one of the managers, but which he did
not live long to enjoy. His wife, about the same time, died of one of
those numberless and varied diseases which can only be traced to what
is called a broken heart. The daughter—the unhappy, and, in a great
measure, guiltless victim of her wretched ambition—had no eventual
resource, for the support of herself and her infant, but to open a
small school, in which she taught female children the elements of
reading, writing, and sewing. The striking infelicity of her fate,
joined to her own well-known taste and industrious habits, in time
obtained for her considerable patronage in this humble occupation; and
she would eventually have been restored to something like comfort,
but for the unhallowed wretch whose fate had become identified with
her own. Where this fellow went, or how he subsisted, for the three
years during which he was absent, no one ever knew. He was heard to
talk of the smugglers in the Isle of Man, but it can only be surmised
that he joined that respectable corps. One day, as Mrs Dempster sat in
the midst of her little flock of pupils, the door was opened, and in
crawled her prodigal husband, emaciated, travel-worn, and beggar-like,
with a large black spot upon one of his cheeks, the result of some
unimaginably low and scoundrelly brawl. The moment she recognised him,
she fainted in her chair; the children dispersed and fled from the
house, like a flock of chickens at sight of the impending hawk; and
when the unfortunate woman recovered, she found herself alone with
this transcendant wretch, the breaker of the peace of her family, the
murderer of her mother. He accosted her in the coolest manner possible,
said he was glad to see her so comfortably situated, and expressed an
anxiety for food and liquor. She went with tottering steps to purvey
what he wanted; and while she was busied in her little kitchen, he sat
down by her parlour fire, and commenced smoking from a nasty black
pipe, after the manner of the lowest mendicants. When food and drink
were set before him, he partook of both with voracious appetite. Mrs
Dempster sat looking on in despair, for she saw that the presence of
this being must entirely blight the pleasant scene which her industry
had created around her. She afterwards said, however, that she could
have perhaps overlooked all, and even again loved this deplorable
wretch, if he had inquired for his child, or expressed a desire to see
him. He did neither—he seemed altogether bent on satisfying his own
gross appetites. After spending a few hours in sulky unintermitted
smoking and drinking, he was conveyed to a pallet in the garret, there
to sleep off his debauch.

It were needless to go through all the distressing details of what
ensued. Dempster henceforth became a _downdraught_ on his wife. This
forlorn woman often confessed to her friends that she was perfectly
willing to support her husband, provided he would be but content
with the plain fare she could offer him, and just walk about and do
nothing. But he was not of a temper to endure this listlessness. He
required excitement. Instead of quietly spending his forenoons in the
arbour, called _the Cage_, in the Meadows, among decayed military
pensioners, and other harmless old men, he prowled about the crowded
mean thoroughfares, drinking where he could get liquor for nothing, and
roistering in companies of the most debased description. He incurred
debts in all directions on the strength of his wife’s character, and
she was necessarily compelled to liquidate them. The struggles which
she at this time made were very great. Like the mother of Gray the
poet, she endured all kinds of ill usage, and persevered under every
difficulty to give her son a respectable education, in order that he
might have an opportunity of wiping away the stains of his father’s
vices, and be a comfort to his mother in the decline of life. To do
this, and at the same time continue paying the vile debts of her
profligate husband, was altogether impossible. She exhausted the
beneficence, and even tired the pity of her friends. It need hardly be
mentioned, that the creditors of a husband have an undeniable claim
upon the effects of his wife. It unfortunately happened that the
wretches with whom Dempster contracted his debts, were as worthless as
himself. After draining every resource which his wife could command, he
summed up his villainy by giving a promissory note for fifteen pounds
to one of his lowest associates. It is supposed that he struck the
bargain for a couple of guineas, for with this sum he again absconded
from Edinburgh, and, taking his way to Greenock, shipped himself on
board of a vessel for America. At first, his wife was thankful for the
relief; she again breathed freely; but her joy was soon turned into
mourning. The promissory note made its appearance; she had just scraped
up and paid her rent; she had not therefore a farthing in the world.
In a fortnight, the whole of her effects were sold upon distraint. She
was turned to the street a second time, almost bent to the dust with
the burden of her miseries. The first night she received shelter in
the house of a respectable “much-tried” widow, who was the only person
she could freely speak to about her destitute condition. Next day, by
the advice of this good woman, she took a room in the neighbourhood,
and endeavoured to gather together her pupils, who, it seems, did not
desert her, but took a deep interest in her misfortunes. She had also
the good fortune to get her boy into one of the educational hospitals,
and she therefore expressed herself thankful for the mercies she still
received.

An interval of many years now occurs in the story of Mrs Dempster,
during which she heard nothing of her husband, except a rumour that he
was drowned on a lumbering excursion in the rapids of the St Lawrence.
Through the influence of her pitiable tale and real merit, she obtained
the situation of superintendant of a large public seminary for young
ladies in a country town. Here she lived in peace, comfort, and honour,
for some years, till she had almost forgot that ever such a wretch
as Dempster existed. What was her horror one day, when, as she was
entertaining a large party of respectable people at tea, the demon
of her fate stood once more before her, not the mere squalid beggar
which he formerly appeared, but a concentration of blackguardism and
shabbiness, of utterly ruined and broken-down humanity, such as was
never perhaps surpassed, even in the sinks of London and Parisian vice.
There was now more than mendicancy in his aspect—there was robbery,
murder, and every kind of desperate deed. The wan face, blackened and
battered with bruises and wounds—the troubled eye, bespeaking the
troubled spirit—the ropy, sooty attire, through which peeped the hardly
whiter skin—the feet bare, and ulcerated with walking—every thing
told but one tale of unutterable sin and misery. The guests shrunk
aghast from this hideous spectre, and the hostess shrieked outright.
Little regarding the alarm which he had occasioned, he exclaimed, in
a hollow and scarcely earthly voice, “Give me meat—give me drink—give
me clothing—I am destitute of all; there you sit in enjoyment of
every luxury, while your husband, who is flesh of your flesh, has not
known what it is to eat heartily, or to be covered from the piercing
wind, for weeks and months. Shrink not from me. Wretched as I seem, I
am still your husband. Nothing on earth can break that tie. Meat, I
say—drink—I am in my own house, and will be obeyed. For you, gentles,
get you gone; your company is not now agreeable.” The company dispersed
without farther ceremony, leaving the unhappy woman alone with her
husband.

Next day, the stranger appeared abroad in a decent suit of clothes,
and Mrs Dempster seemed to have recovered a little of her equanimity.
Every sacrifice, however, which she could make for this wretch, was
in vain, or only encouraged him to demand greater indulgences. An
unlimited supply of liquor in his own house would not satisfy him.
He required large sums wherewith to treat all the _canaille_ of the
town. Entreaties, indulgences, every thing that could be devised
to gratify him, were unavailing to impress him with a sense of his
wife’s situation. He intruded his unhallowed front into her school,
and insulted her before her pupils. Those who laughed at his antics
he would seize by the shoulders, and turn out of doors. He had also a
most perverse desire of pushing himself into her presence, whenever he
thought she was conversing with any of her employers, before whom an
observance of propriety and decorum was most particularly necessary.
Indeed, he just delighted to do exactly what his wife wished him not
to do, the grand object of his low mind being to show how much he had
her comfort and welfare in his power. At length, with every feeling
of respect for Mrs Dempster, her employers, the magistrates, found it
necessary to inform her, that they could not permit her to retain the
school any longer under such circumstances, as it was threatened with
utter annihilation by the gradual diminution of the number of pupils.
She proposed to her husband to allow him regularly the full half of
her earnings, if he would only stay in some other place, and never
again intrude upon her. But he scorned to be bought off, as he said. He
insisted rather upon her giving up the school, and accompanying him to
Edinburgh, where, with the little sum she had saved, and what besides
they could raise by the sale of her superfluous furniture, he would
enter into business on his own account, and she should never again be
obliged to work for either herself or for him. The poor woman had no
alternative. She was compelled to abandon the scene, where for so many
years she had enjoyed the comforts of life and the respect of society,
in order to be dragged at the chariot wheels, or rather at the cart’s
tail, of her husband’s vices and fortunes, through scenes to which she
shuddered to look forward.

In the capital, Dempster’s design of entering into business, if he
ever seriously entertained it, was no more talked of. Fleshed once
again with a taste of his former indulgences, he rushed headlong into
that infamous career, which already had twice ended in voluntary
banishment. His wife’s finances were soon exhausted; but, with the
barbarity of a demon taskmaster, he would every day leave her with a
threat, which she but too well knew he would execute, of beating her,
if she should not be able to produce next morning a sum necessary for
the gratification of his wretched appetites. It was now in vain to
attempt that mode of subsistence by which she had hitherto supported
herself. So long as she was haunted by this evil genius, _that_ was
impracticable. By the interest, however, of some of her former friends,
she obtained a scanty and precarious employment for her needle, by
which she endeavoured to supply the cravings of her husband, and her
own simpler wants. From morning early, through the whole day, and till
long after midnight, this modest and virtuous woman would sit in her
humble lodging, painfully exerting herself at a tedious and monotonous
task, that she might be able to give to her husband in the morning that
sum, without which she feared he would only rush into greater mischief,
if not into absolute crime. No vigils were grudged, if she only had
the gratification at last of seeing him return. Though he often staid
away the whole night, she never could permit herself to suppose that
he would do so again, but she would sit bending over her work, or, if
she could work no more from positive fatigue, gazing into the dying
embers of her fire, watching and watching for the late and solitary
foot, which, by a strange exertion of the sense, she could hear and
distinguish long ere any sound would have been perceptible to another
person. Alas, for the sleepless nights which woman so often endures for
the sake of her cruel helpmate! Alas, for the generous and enduring
affection which woman cherishes so often for the selfish heart by which
it is enslaved!

A time at length arrived when the supplies purveyed by Mrs Dempster
from her own earnings were quite incompetent to satisfy this living
vampire. She saw him daily rush from her presence, threatening that
he would bring her to the extremity of disgrace by the methods he
would take to obtain money. She lived for weeks in the agonising
fear that the next moment would bring her news of some awful crime
committed by his hand, and for which he was likely to suffer the last
penalty of the law. She hardly knew who or what were his associates;
but occasionally she learned, from mutterings in his sleep, that his
practices were of the most flagitious and debased kind. He seemed to be
the leader or director of a set of wretches who made a livelihood by
midnight burglary. At length, one day he came home at an unusual hour,
accompanied by three strangers, with whom he entered into conversation
in the next room. Between that apartment and the room in which he was
sitting, there was a door, which, being never used, was locked up.
Through the thin panels, she overheard a scheme laid for entering the
house of ——, a villa in the neighbourhood, in order to rob the tenant,
whom they described as a gentleman just returned from the East Indies,
with a great quantity of plate and other valuables. One of the persons
in conference had visited the house, through the kindness of a servant,
to whom he had made up as a sweetheart; and he therefore was able
to lead the attack through such a channel as rendered success almost
certain. “The nabob,” said this person, “sleeps in a part of the house
distant from the room in which his boxes are for the present deposited.
But should he attempt to give us any disturbance, we have a remedy for
that, you know.” And here the listener’s blood ran cold at hearing a
pistol cocked. From all that she could gather, her husband was only to
keep watch at the outside of the house, while the rest should enter
in search of the booty. It is impossible to describe the horror with
which she heard the details of the plot. Her mind was at first in such
a whirl of distracted feeling, that she hardly knew where she stood;
but as the scheme was to be executed that very evening, she saw it
necessary to exert herself quickly and decisively, and, therefore, she
immediately went to the house of a friend, and wrote an anonymous note
to the person most concerned, warning him of a design (she could use
no more specific language) which she knew was entertained against a
certain part of his property, and recommending him to have it removed
to some more secure part of his house. To make quite sure of this note
being delivered in time, she took it herself to the gate, and left it
with the porter, whom she strictly enjoined to give it immediately
into the hands of his master. She then went home, and spent an evening
of misery more bitter than the cup of death itself. She had formerly
passed many a lonely night at her cheerless fireside, while waiting
for the return of her wretched husband; but she never spent one like
this. When she reflected upon the happiness of her early days, and
the splendid prospects which were then said to lie before her, and
contrasted them with the misery into which she had been so suddenly
plunged, not by any fault of her own, but, as it appeared, by the mere
course of destiny, she could have almost questioned the justice of
that supreme power, by which she piously believed the concerns of this
lower world to be adjusted. What dire calamities had sprung to her from
one unfortunate step! What persecutions she had innocently endured!
How hopeless was her every virtuous exertion against the perverse
counteraction of a being from whom society could not permit her to be
disjoined! And, finally, what an awful outburst of wretchedness was
at this moment, to appearance, impending over her! Then she recalled
one gentle recollection, which occasionally would steal into her mind,
even in her darkest hours, and fill it with an agreeable but still
painful light—the thought of Russell—Russell, the kind and good, whom,
in a moment of girlish vanity, she had treated harshly, so that he
vanished from her presence for ever, and even from the place where he
had suffered her scorn. Had fate decreed that she should have been
united to that endeared mate of her childhood, how different might
have been her lot!—how different, also, perhaps, might have been his
course of life!—for she feared that her ungenerous cruelty had also
made shipwreck of his noble nature. These meditations were suddenly
disturbed by the entrance of Dempster, who rushed into her room,
holding a handkerchief upon his side, and, pale, gory, and breathless,
fell upon the ground before her. Almost ere she had time to ascertain
the reality of this horrid vision, quick footsteps were heard upon the
stair. The open door gave free admission, and in a moment the room was
half filled with watchmen, at the head of whom appeared a middle-aged
gentleman, of a prepossessing though somewhat disordered exterior.
“This,” he exclaimed, “is the villain; secure him, if he be yet alive,
but I fear he has already met the punishment which is his due.” The
watchmen raised Dempster from the ground, and, holding his face to the
light, found that the glaze of death was just taking effect upon his
eyes. The unhappy woman shrieked as she beheld the dreadful spectacle,
and would have fallen upon the ground if she had not been prevented by
the stranger, who caught her in his arms. Her eyes, when they first
re-opened, were met by those of RUSSELL.

It would be difficult to describe the feelings with which these
long-severed hearts again recognised each other, the wretchedness into
which she was plunged, by learning that her well-intended efforts had
unexpectedly led to the death of her husband, or the returning tide of
grateful and affectionate emotion which possessed his bosom, on being
informed that those efforts had saved his life, not to speak of the
deep sensation of pity with which he listened to the tale of her life.
A tenderer feeling than friendship was now impossible, and, if it could
have existed, would have hardly been in good taste; but Russell, now
endowed with that wealth which, when he had it not, would have been
of so much avail, contented himself to use it in the pious task of
rendering the declining years of Eliza Farney as happy as her past life
had been miserable.




TALE OF THE SILVER HEART.


In the course of a ramble through the western part of Fife, I descended
one evening upon the ancient burgh of Culross, which is situated on a
low stripe of land beside the sea-shore, with a line of high grounds
rising behind it, upon which are situated the old abbey church and the
ruins of a very fine mansion-house, once the residence of the lords
of the manor. On stepping forth next morning from the little inn, I
found that the night had been stormy, and that the waves of the Forth
were still rolling with considerable violence, so as to delay the
usual passage of the ferry-boat to Borrowstouness. Having resolved to
cross to that part of the opposite shore, I found that I should have
ample time, before the boat could proceed, to inspect those remains of
antiquity, which now give the burgh almost its only importance in the
eyes of a traveller. The state of the atmosphere was in the highest
degree calculated to increase the interest of these objects. It was
a day of gloom, scarcely different from night. The sky displayed that
fixed dulness which so often succeeds a nocturnal tempest; the sea was
one sheet of turbid darkness, save where chequered by the breaking
wave. The streets and paths of the little village-burgh showed, each by
its deep and pebbly seam, how much rain had fallen during the night;
and all the foliage of the gardens and woods around, as well as the
walls of the houses, were still drenched with wet. Having secured
the services of the official called the _bedral_, I was conducted to
the abbey church, which is a very old Gothic structure, but recently
repaired and fitted up as a parochial place of worship. It was fitting,
in such a gloomy day, to inspect the outlines of abbots and crusaders
which still deck the pavement of this ancient temple; and there was
matter, perhaps, for still more solemn reflection in the view of the
adjacent mansion-house. Culross Abbey, as this structure is called, was
finished so lately as the reign of Charles the Second, and by the same
architect with Holyrood House, which it far exceeded in magnificence.
Yet, as the premature ruin of youthful health is a more affecting
object than the ripe decline of age, so did this roofless modern
palace, with the wallflower waving from its elegant Grecian windows,
present a more dismal aspect than could have been expected from any
ruin of more hoary antiquity. The tale which it told of the extinction
of modern grandeur, and the decline of recently flourishing families,
appealed more immediately and more powerfully to the sympathies than
that of remote and more barbarous greatness, which is to be read in
the sterner battlements of a border tower, or an ancient national
fortress. The site had been chosen upon a lofty terrace overlooking the
sea, in order that the inmates might be enlivened by the ever-changing
aspect of that element, and the constant transit of its ships; but now
all useless was this peculiarity of situation, except to serve to the
mariner as a kind of landmark, or to supply the more contemplative
voyager with the subject of a sigh. With a mind attuned by this object
to the most melancholy reflections, I was conducted to what is called
an aisle or burial vault, projecting from the north side of the church,
and which contains the remains of the former lords of Culross. There
images are shown, cut in beautiful Italian marble, of Sir —— Bruce,
his lady, and several children, all of which must have been procured
from the Continent at a great expense; for this honourable knight and
his family flourished in the early part of the seventeenth century,
when no such art was practised in Scotland. The images, however, and
the whole sepulchre, had a neglected and desolate appearance, as may
be expected by the greatest of personages, when their race has become
unknown at the scene of their repose. In this gloomy chamber of the
heirless dead, I was shown a projection from one of the side-walls,
much like an altar, over which was painted on the wall the mournfully
appropriate and expressive word “FUIMUS.” Below was an inscription on
a brass plate, importing that this was the resting place of the heart
of Edward Lord Bruce of Kinloss, formerly proprietor of the princely
estate of Culross; and that the story connected with it was to be found
related in the Guardian, and alluded to in Clarendon’s History of the
Great Rebellion. It was stated that the heart was enclosed in a silver
case of its own shape, which had reposed here ever since it ceased to
beat with the tide of mortal life in the year 1613, except that it was
raised from its cell for a brief space in 1808, in the course of some
repairs upon the sepulchre. As I had a perfect recollection of the
story told by Steele, which indeed had made a deep impression upon me
in boyhood, it was with no small interest that I beheld the final abode
of an object so immediately connected with it. It seemed as if time
had been betrayed, and two centuries annihilated, when I thus found
myself in presence of the actual membrane, in bodily substance entire,
which had, by its proud passions, brought about the catastrophe of that
piteous tale. What! thought I, and does the heart of Edward Bruce,
which beat so long ago with emotions now hardly known among men, still
exist at this spot, as if the friends of its owner had resolved that
so noble a thing should never find decay? The idea had in it something
so truly captivating, that it was long ere I could quit the place, or
return to the feelings of immediate existence. The whole scene around,
and the little neglected burgh itself, had now become invested with a
fascinating power over me; and I did not depart till I had gathered,
from the traditions of the inhabitants, the principal materials of the
following story, aiding them, after I had reached home, by reference to
more authentic documents:—

Edward Lord Bruce of Kinloss, the second who bore the title, was the
son of the first lord, who is so memorable in history as a serviceable
minister to King James the Sixth during the latter years of his
Scottish reign, having been chiefly instrumental, along with the
Earl of Mar, in smoothing the way for his majesty’s succession to
Queen Elizabeth. After the death of his father, the young Lord Bruce
continued, along with his mother, to enjoy high consideration in the
English court. He was a contemporary and playmate of Henry Prince of
Wales, whom he almost equalled in the performance of all noble sports
and exercises, while, from his less cold character, he was perhaps
a greater favourite among those who were not prepossessed in favour
of youthful royalty. There was not, perhaps, in the whole of the
English court, any young person of greater promise, or more endearing
qualities, than Lord Bruce, though, in respect of mere external
accomplishments, he was certainly rivalled by his friend Sir George
Sackville, a younger son of the Earl of Dorset. This young gentleman,
who was the grandson of one poet,[1] and destined to be the grandsire
of another,[2] was one of those free and dashing spirits, who,
according to the accounts of contemporary writers, kept the streets
of London in an almost perpetual brawl, by night and by day, with
their extravagant frolics, or, more generally, the feuds arising out
of them. His heart and genius were naturally good, but the influence
of less innocent companions gradually betrayed him into evil habits;
and thus many generous faculties, which might have adorned the highest
profession, were in him perverted to the basest uses. It was often a
subject of wonder that the pure and elevated nature of young Lord Bruce
should tolerate the reckless profligacy of Sackville; but those who
were surprised did not take a very extended view of human nature. The
truth is, that real goodness is often imposed upon by vice, and sees
in it more to attract and delight than it does in goodness similar to
itself. The gentle character of Bruce clung to the fierce and turbulent
nature of Sackville, as if it found in that nature a protection and
comfort which it needed. Perhaps there was something, also, in the
early date of their intimacy, which might tend to fix the friendship
of these dissimilar minds. From their earliest boyhood they had been
thrown together as pages in the household of the prince, where their
education proceeded, step by step, in union, and every action and every
duty was the same. It was further remarked, that, while the character
of Bruce appeared always to be bolder in the presence of Sackville
than on other occasions, that of Sackville was invariably softened by
juxtaposition with Bruce; so that they had something more like a common
ground to meet upon than could previously have been suspected.

When the two young men were about fourteen, and as yet displayed little
more than the common features of innocent boyhood, Sackville was
permitted by his parents to accompany Bruce on a summer visit to the
paternal estates of the young nobleman in Scotland. There they enjoyed
together, for some weeks, all the sports of the season and place, which
seemed to be as untiring as their own mutual friendship. One day, as
they were preparing to go out a-hunting, an aged woman, who exercised
the trade of _spaewife_, or fortune-teller, came up to the gate. The
horses upon which they had just mounted were startled by the uncouth
appearance of the stranger, and that ridden by Sackville was so very
restive as nearly to throw him off. This caused the young Englishman
to address her in language of not the most respectful kind; nor could
all the efforts of Lord Bruce, who was actuated by different feelings,
prevent him from aiming at her once or twice with his whip.

“For heaven’s sake, Sackville,” said Lord Bruce, “take care lest she
make us all repent of this. Don’t you see that she is a spaewife?”

“What care I for your spaewives?” cried Sackville. “All I know is, that
she is a cursed old beggar or gipsy, and has nearly caused me break my
neck!”

“I tell you she is a witch and a fortune-teller,” said his gentler
companion; “and there is not a man in the country but would rather have
his neck broken than say any thing to offend her.”

The woman, who had hitherto stood with a face beaming with indignation,
now broke out—

“Ride on to your hunting, young man,” addressing Sackville; “you will
not have the better sport for abusing the helpless infirmities of old
age. Some day you two will go out to a different kind of sport, and one
only will come back alive; alive, but wishing that he rather had been
doomed to the fate of his companion.”

Both Sackville and Bruce were for the time deeply impressed with this
denunciation, to which the superstitious feelings of the age gave
greater weight than can now be imagined; and even while they mutually
swore that hostility between them was impossible, they each secretly
wished that the doom could be unsaid. Its chief immediate effect was
to deepen and strengthen their friendship. Each seemed to wish, by
bestowing more and more affection upon his companion, at once to give
to himself a better assurance of his own disposition to quarrel, and
to his friend a stronger reason for banishing the painful impression
from his mind. Perhaps this was one reason—and one not the less strong
that it was in some measure unconscious—why, on the separation of their
characters in ripening manhood, they still clung to each other with
such devoted attachment.

In process of time, a new and more tender relation arose between these
two young men, to give them mutually better assurance against the
doom which had been pronounced upon them. Lady Clementina Sackville,
eldest daughter of the Earl of Dorset, was just two years younger
than Sir George and his friend, and there was not a more beautiful or
accomplished gentlewoman in the court of Queen Anne. Whether in the
walking of a minuet, or in the personation of a divine beauty in one
of Ben Jonson’s court masks, Lady Clementina was alike distinguished;
while her manners, so far from betraying that pride which so often
attends the triumphs of united beauty and talent, were of the most
unassuming and amiable character. It was not possible that two such
natures as those of Lord Bruce and Lady Clementina Sackville should
be frequently in communion, as was their case, without contracting a
mutual affection of the strongest kind. Accordingly, it soon became
understood that the only obstacle to their union was their extreme
youth, which rendered it proper that they should wait for one or
two years, before their fortunes, like their hearts, should be made
one. It unfortunately happened that this was the very time when the
habits of Sir George Sackville made their greatest decline, and
when, consequently, it was most difficult for Bruce to maintain the
friendship which hitherto subsisted between them. The household of
Lord Dorset was one of that sober cast, which, in the next age, was
characterised by the epithet puritanical. As such, of course, it suited
with the temper of Lord Bruce, who, though not educated in Scotland,
had been impressed by his mother with the grave sentiments and habits
of his native country. Often then did he mourn with the amiable family
of Dorset over the errors of his friend; and many was the night which
he spent innocently in that peaceful circle, while Sir George roamed
about, in company with the most wicked and wayward spirits of the time.

One night, after he had enjoyed with Lady Clementina a long and
delightful conversation respecting their united prospects, Sir George
came home in a state of high intoxication and excitement, exclaiming
loudly against a Scotch gentleman with whom he had had a street
quarrel, and who had been rescued, as he said, from his sword, only
by the unfair interference of some other “beggarly Scots.” It was
impossible for a Scotsman of Bruce’s years to hear his countrymen
spoken of in this way without anger; but he repressed every emotion,
till his friend proceeded to generalise upon the character of these
“beggarly Scots,” and extended his obloquy from the individuals to the
nation. Lord Bruce then gently repelled his insinuations, and said,
that surely there was one person at least whom he would exempt from
the charge brought against his country. “I will make no exemptions,”
said the infatuated Sackville, “and least of all in favour of a cullion
who sits in his friend’s house, and talks of him puritanically behind
his back.” Bruce felt very bitterly the injustice of this reproach;
but the difficulty of shaping a vindication rendered his answer more
passionate than he wished; and it was immediately replied to by
Sackville with a contemptuous blow upon the face. There, in a moment,
fell the friendship of years, and deadly gall usurped the place where
nothing before had been but “the milk of kindness.” Lady Clementina,
to whom the whole affair seemed a freak of a hurried and unnatural
dream, was shocked beyond measure by the violence of her brother; but
she was partly consoled by the demeanour of Bruce, who had the address
entirely to disguise his feelings in her presence, and to seem as if he
looked upon the insult as only a frolic. But though he appeared quite
cool, the blow and words of Sackville had sunk deep into his soul; and
after brooding over the event for a few hours, he found that his very
nature had become, as it were, changed. That bitterest of pains—the
pain of an unrequited blow—possessed and tortured his breast; nor was
the reflection that the injurer was his friend, and not at the time
under the control of reason, of much avail in allaying his misery.
Strange though it be, the unkindness of a friend is the most sensibly
felt and most promptly resented; and we are never so near becoming the
irreconcilable enemies of any fellow-creature, as at the moment when we
are interchanging with him the most earnest and confiding affection.
Similar feelings possessed Sackville, who had really felt of late some
resentment at Lord Bruce, on account of certain references which had
been made by his parents to the regret expressed by this young nobleman
respecting his present course of life. To apologise for his rudeness
was not to be thought of; and, accordingly, these two hearts, which for
years had beat in unison, became parted at once, like rocks split by
one of the convulsions of nature, and a yawning and impassable gulf was
left between.

For some weeks after, the young men never met; Sackville took care
never to intrude into the family circle, and Bruce did not seek his
company. It appeared as if the unfortunate incident had been forgotten
by the parties themselves, and totally unknown to the world. One day,
however, Bruce was met in Paul’s Walk by a young friend and countryman,
of the name of Crawford, a rambling slip of Scottish nobility, whose
very sword seemed, from the loose easy way in which it was disposed by
his side, to have a particular aptitude for starting up in a quarrel.
After some miscellaneous conversation, Crawford expressed his regret at
a story which had lately come to his ears, respecting a disagreement
between Sackville and Bruce. “What!” he said, “one might have as
well expected Castor and Pollux to rise from their graves and fall
a-fighting, as that you two should have had a tussle! But, of course,
the affair was confined merely to words, which, we all know, matter
little between friends. The story about the batter on the face must be
a neat figment clapped upon the adventure by Lady Fame.”

“Have you indeed heard,” asked Bruce, in some agitation, “that any such
incident took place?”

“Oh, to be sure,” replied his companion; “the whole Temple has been
ringing with it for the last few days, as I am assured by my friend
Jack Topper. And I heard it myself spoken of last week to the west of
Temple Bar. Indeed, I believe it was Sackville himself who told the
tale at first among some of his revellers; but, for my part, I think it
not a whit the more true or likely on that account.”

“It is,” said Bruce, with deep emotion, “too true. He did strike me,
and I, for sake of friendship and love, did not resent it. But what,
Crawford, could I do in the presence of my appointed bride, to right
myself with her brother?”

“Oh, to be sure,” said Crawford, “that is all very true as to the time
when the blow was given; but then, you know, there has been a great
deal of time since. And, love here or love there, people will speak of
such a thing in their ordinary way. The story was told the other day
in my presence to the French ambassador; and Monsieur’s first question
was, ‘Doth the man yet live?’ When told that he was both living and
life-like, he shrugged his shoulders, and looked more than I can tell.”

“Oh, Crawford,” said Bruce, “you agonise me. I hoped that this painful
tale would be kept between ourselves, and that there would be no more
of it. I still hoped, although tremblingly, that my union with the
woman I love would be accomplished, and that all should then be made
up. But now I feel that I have been but too truly foredoomed. That
union must be anticipated by a very different event.”

“You know best,” said the careless Crawford, “what is best for your own
honour.” And away he tripped, leaving the flames of hell in a breast
where hitherto every gentle feeling had resided.

The light talk of Crawford was soon confirmed in import by the
treatment which Bruce began to experience in society. It was the
fashion of the age that every injury, however trifling, should be
expiated by an ample revenge; that nothing should be forgiven to any
one, however previously endeared. Accordingly, no distinction was
made between the case of Bruce and any other; no allowance was made
for the circumstances in which he stood respecting the family of his
injurer, nor for their former extraordinary friendship. The public,
with a feeling of which too much still exists, seemed to think itself
defrauded of something which was its right, in the continued impunity
of Sackville’s insolence. It cried for blood to satisfy _itself_, if
not to restore the honour of the injured party. Bruce, of course,
suffered dreadfully from this sentiment wherever he appeared; insomuch
that, even though he might have been still disposed to forgive his
enemy, he saw that to do so would only be to encounter greater misery
than could accrue from any attempt at revenge, even though that attempt
were certain to end in his own destruction.

It happened that just at this time Bruce and Sackville had occasion,
along with many other _attachés_ of the court, to attend the Elector
Palatine out of the country, with his newly-married bride, Elizabeth,
the daughter of the king and queen. The two young men kept apart till
they came to Canterbury, where, as the royal train was viewing the
cathedral, it chanced that they saw each other very near. The elector,
who knew a little of their story, immediately called Sackville up to
him, and requested his sword, enjoining him, at the same time, in a
friendly manner, to beware of falling out with Bruce so long as he was
in attendance upon the court. His highness said, farther, that he had
heard his royal father-in-law speak of their quarrel, and express his
resolution to visit any transgression of the laws by either of them
with his severest displeasure. Sackville obeyed the command of the
elector, and withdrew to a part of the cortege remote from the place
where Bruce was standing. However, it happened, that, in surveying
the curiosities of that gorgeous architectural scene, they came to
the monument of a Scottish crusader, who had died here on his way
back from the Holy Land. Sackville muttered something respecting this
object, in which the words “beggarly Scot” were alone overheard by
Bruce, who stood at no great distance, and who immediately recriminated
by using some corresponding phrase of obloquy applicable to England,
to which Sackville replied by striking his former friend once more
upon the face. Before another word or blow could pass between them, a
number of courtiers had rushed forward to separate them, and they were
immediately borne back to a distance from each other, each, however,
glaring upon the other with a look of concentrated scorn and hate. The
elector thought it necessary, after what had taken place, that they
should be confined for a time to their apartments. But no interval of
time could restore amity to those bosoms where formerly it had reigned
supreme. It was now felt by both that nothing but blood could wipe
out the sense of wrong which they mutually felt; and, therefore, as
the strictness of the king regarding personal quarrels rendered it
impossible to fight in Britain, without danger of interruption, Bruce
resolved to go beyond seas, and thence send a challenge requesting
Sackville to follow him.

In forming this purpose, Bruce felt entirely like a doomed man. He
recollected the prediction of the old woman at Culross Abbey, which
had always appeared to him, somehow, as implying that Sackville should
be the unhappy survivor. Already, he reflected, the least probable
part of the prediction had been fulfilled by their having quarrelled.
Under this impression, he found it indispensable to his peace that he
should return to London, and take leave of two individuals in whom
he felt the deepest interest—his mother and his once-intended bride.
Notwithstanding the painful nature of his sensations, he found it would
be necessary to assume a forced ease of demeanour in the presence
of these beloved persons, lest he should cause them to interpose
themselves between him and his purpose. The first visit was paid to
his mother, who resided at his own house. He had received, he said,
some news from Scotland, which rendered it necessary that he should
immediately proceed thither; and he briefly detailed a story which he
had previously framed in his own mind for the purpose of deceiving
her. After having made some preparations for his journey, he came to
take leave of her; but his first precautions having escaped from his
mind during the interval, his forehead now bore a gloom as deep as the
shade of an approaching funeral. When his mother remarked this, he
explained it, not perfectly to her satisfaction, but yet sufficiently
so to avert farther question, by reference to the pain of parting with
his mistress on a long and dangerous journey, when just about to be
united to her for life. As he pronounced the words “long and dangerous
journey,” his voice faltered with tenderness; but there was so much
truth in the real meaning of the phrase (however little there might be
now), that no metaphorical interpretation occurred to the mind of Lady
Bruce. He even spoke of his will without exciting her suspicions. There
was but one point in it, he said, that he thought it worth while to
allude to. Wherever or whensoever it might please fate to remove him
from the coil of mortal life, he wished his mother, or whoever might
survive him, to recollect that his dying spirit reverted to the scenes
of his infancy, and that his heart wished in life that it might never
in death be parted from that spot. These words, of course, communicated
to Lady Bruce’s spirit that gravity which the mention of mortal things
must ever carry; but yet nothing seemed amiss in what she heard. It
was not till after she had parted with her son—not till she felt the
blank impression of his last embrace lingering on her bosom, and
thought of him as an absent being, whom it would be long before she saw
again—that his final words had their full force upon her mind. Those
words, like a sweet tune heard in a crowd with indifference, but which
afterwards in solitude steals into and melts the soul, then revived
upon her mind, and were pondered upon for days afterwards with a deep
and unaccountable sadness of spirit.

It now only remained that he should take leave of his mistress. She
was in the garden when he arrived, and no sooner did she obtain a
glimpse of his person, than she ran gaily and swiftly towards him,
with a face beaming with joy, exclaiming that she had such good news
to tell him as he had not ever heard before. This turned out, upon
inquiry, to be the permission of her father that their nuptials should
take place that day month. The intelligence fell upon Bruce’s heart
like a stab, and it was some moments ere he could collect himself to
make an appropriate answer. Lady Clementina observed his discomposure,
and, with a half-alarmed feeling, asked its cause. He explained it as
occasioned by regret for his necessary absence in Scotland, to which he
was called by some very urgent business, so as to render it necessary
that the commencement of their mutual happiness should be put off for
some time longer. “Thus,” he said, “to be obstructed by an affair of
my own, after all the objections of others had been removed with so
much difficulty, is particularly galling.” The disappointment of the
young lady was more deeply felt than it was strongly expressed. She was
reassured, however, by a fervent and solemn promise from her lover,
that, as soon as possible, he would return to make her his own. After
taking leave of her parents, he clasped her in one last fond embrace,
during which every moment seemed an age of enjoyment, as if all the
felicity of which he was about to be defrauded had been concentrated
and squandered in that brief space. At one moment, he felt the warm
pressure of a being beloved above all earthly objects, and from whom
he had expected a whole life of happiness; at another, he had turned
away towards the emptiness of desolation, and the cold breath of the
grave.

One hour did he give to reflection upon all he left behind—an hour such
as those which sometimes turn men’s hair gray—the next, and all after
it, he devoted to the enterprise upon which he was entering. Crawford,
whom he requested to become his second, readily agreed to accompany him
for that purpose; and they immediately set out for the Netherlands,
leaving a challenge for Sackville in the hands of a friend, along with
directions as to the proposed place of meeting.

The remainder of this lamentable tale may be best told in the words of
Sir George Sackville. That unhappy young man, some months after the
fatal tragedy, wrote an account of it to a friend, for the purpose of
clearing himself from certain aspersions which had been cast upon him.
The language is somewhat quaint, but it gives a more forcible idea than
could otherwise be conveyed of the frenzied feelings of Bruce, under
the wrongs which he had suffered from his antagonist, as well as of the
actual circumstances of the combat.

“——We met at Tergosa, in Zealand, it being the place allotted for
rendezvous; he being accompanied with one Mr Crawford, a Scotch
gentleman, for his second, a surgeon, and a man. There having rendered
himself, I addressed my second, Sir John Heidon, to let him understand
that now all following should be done by consent, as concerning the
terms whereon we should fight, as also the place. To our seconds we
gave power for their appointments, who agreed we should go to Antwerp,
from thence to Bergen-op-Zoom, where in the midway but a village
divides the states’ territories from the archduke’s. And there was
the destined stage, to the end that, having ended, he that could
might presently exempt himself from the justice of the country, by
retiring into the dominion not offended. It was farther concluded,
that, in case any should fall or slip, that then the combat should
cease, and he whose ill-fortune had subjected him, was to acknowledge
his life to have been in the other’s hands. But in case one party’s
sword should break, because that could only chance by hazard, it
was agreed that the other should take no advantage, but either then
be made friends, or else upon even terms go to it again. Thus these
conclusions being each of them related to his party, was by us both
approved, and assented to. Accordingly, we embarked for Antwerp. And
by reason, as I conceive, he could not handsomely, without danger of
discovery, had not paired the sword I sent him to Paris; bringing one
of the same length, but twice as broad; my second excepted against
it, and advised me to match my own, and send him the choice, which I
obeyed; it being, you know, the privilege of the challenged to elect
his weapon. At the delivery of the swords, which was performed by Sir
John Heidon, it pleased the Lord Bruce to choose my own, and then, past
expectation, he told him that a little of my blood would not serve his
turn; and, therefore, he was now resolved to have me alone, because he
knew (for I will use his own words) ‘that so worthy a gentleman, and
my friend, could not endure to stand by and see him do that which he
must, to satisfy himself and his honour.’ Therefore, Sir John Heidon
replied, that such intentions were bloody and butcherly, far unfitting
so noble a personage, who should desire to bleed for reputation, not
for life; withal adding, he thought himself injured, being come thus
far, now to be prohibited from executing those honourable offices he
came for. The lord, for answer, only reiterated his former resolutions;
whereupon Sir John, leaving him the sword he had elected, delivered
me the other, with his determinations. The which, not for matter but
manner, so moved me, as though to my remembrance I had not for a long
while eaten more liberally than at dinner, and therefore unfit for
such an action (seeing the surgeons hold a wound upon the full stomach
more dangerous than otherwise), I requested my second to certify
him I would presently decide the difference, and therefore he should
presently meet me on horseback, only waited on by our surgeons, they
being unarmed. Together we rode, but one before the other some twelve
score paces, for about two English miles; and then passion having so
weak an enemy to assail as my discretion, easily became the victor,
and, using his power, made me obedient to his commands. I being verily
mad with anger that the Lord Bruce should thirst after my life with a
kind of assuredness, seeing I had come so far and needlessly to give
him leave to regain his lost reputation, I bade him alight, which with
willingness he quickly granted, and there in a meadow, ancle deep in
water at the least, bidding farewell to our doublets, in our shirts
began to charge each other; having afore commanded our surgeons to
withdraw themselves a pretty distance from us, conjuring them, besides,
as they respected our favours, or their own safeties, not to stir,
but suffer us to execute our pleasure; we being fully resolved (God
forgive us!) to dispatch each other by what means we could. I made
a thrust at my enemy, but was short, and, in drawing back my arm, I
received a great wound thereon, which I interpreted as a reward for my
short shooting; but in my revenge, I pressed into him, though I then
missed him also, and received a wound in my right pap, which passed
level through my body, and almost to my back. And there we wrestled
for the two greatest and dearest prizes we could ever expect trial
for—honour and life. In which struggling, my hand, having but an
ordinary glove upon it, lost one of her servants, though the meanest.
But at last breathless, yet keeping our hold, there passed on both
sides propositions of quitting each other’s swords. But when amity was
dead, confidence could not live, and who should quit first was the
question, which on neither part either would perform; and restriving
again afresh, with a kick and a wrench I freed my long captive weapon,
which incontinently levying at his throat, being master still of his,
I demanded if he would ask his life, or yield his sword, both which,
though in that imminent danger, he bravely denied to do. Myself being
wounded, and feeling loss of blood, having three conduits running on
me, which began to make me faint, and he courageously persisting not to
accede to either of my propositions, through remembrance of his former
bloody desire, and feeling of my present estate, I struck at his heart,
but, with his avoiding, missed my aim, yet passed through the body, and
drawing out my sword, repassed it again through another place, when he
cried, ‘Oh! I am slain!’ seconding his speech with all the force he
had to cast me. But being too weak, after I had defended his assault,
I easily became master of him, laying him on his back—when being upon
him, I redemanded if he would request his life; but it seemed he prized
it not at so dear a rate to be beholden for it, bravely replying, ‘He
scorned it.’ Which answer of his was so noble and worthy, as I protest
I could not find in my heart to offer him any more violence, only
keeping him down until at length his surgeon afar off cried, ‘He would
immediately die, if his wounds were not stopped.’ Whereupon I asked if
he desired his surgeon should come, which he accepted of; and so, being
drawn away, I never offered to take his sword, accounting it inhuman to
rob a dead man, for so I held him to be. This thus ended, I retired to
my surgeon, in whose arms, after I had remained a while, for want of
blood, I lost my sight, and withal, as I then thought, my life also.
But strong water and his diligence quickly recovered me; when I escaped
a great danger; for my lord’s surgeon, when nobody dreamt of it, came
full at me with his lord’s sword; and had not mine with my sword
interposed himself, I had been slain by those base hands; although my
Lord Bruce, weltering in his blood, and past all expectation of life,
conformable to all his former carriage, which was undoubtedly noble,
cried out, ‘Rascal, hold thy hand!’ So may I prosper, as I have dealt
sincerely with you in this relation.

“Louvain, September 8, 1613.”

Such is the melancholy story of Edward Lord Bruce, a young nobleman,
who, but for a false point of honour, arising from the incorrect
judging of the world, might have lived to make many fellow-creatures
happy, and adorn the annals of his country. The sacred griefs of those
to whom he was most peculiarly endeared, it would be vain to paint. A
mistress who wore mourning, and lived single for his sake all the rest
of her life—a mother, who survived him only to mourn his irreparable
loss—upon such holy sorrow it is not for me to intrude. It may be
only mentioned, that the latter individual, recollecting the last
parting words of her son, caused his heart to be embalmed, and brought
to her in a silver case (the body being buried in the cathedral of
Bergen-op-Zoom), and carried it with her to Culross, where she spent
the remainder of her life in gloomy solitude, with that object always
before her upon her table. After her death, it was deposited in the
family vault already described, where it has ever since remained, the
best monument of its own fatal history.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lord Buckhurst.

[2] The Earl of Dorset, a poetical ornament of the court of Charles the
Second.




CULTIVATIONS.


All men are not agriculturists, horticulturists, or arboriculturists;
but yet almost all men are _cultivators_. By this it is meant that men
in general cultivate, or coax, or unduly appreciate and fondle, some
particular feature of their persons, or else, perhaps, some integument
connected with their persons, to such a degree as to be rather
conspicuous, while to every thing else they only give the ordinary
degree of attention. There are many features of human nature which
remain to be detected and described; and this is one—_Cultivations_.
So far as I am aware, no one ever thought of pointing it out to
mankind: the subject of cultivation has hitherto remained totally
_uncultivated_. So it shall be no longer.

Hair, as the only part of the person which actually grows like a
vegetable, is naturally a large subject of cultivation. The Cavaliers
long ago cultivated love-locks, which they kept hanging down in
graceful fashion from their temples. These locks, or curls, are now
changed for tufts or bunches of hair, which the young men cultivate
at the same place, and are ever shaking up and tedding, exactly as
if it were a crop of hay instead of hair. Mark a modern beau as he
walks along the street, and you will observe at one glance that the
principal part of the man—the heart—the sensorium—the cynosure—the
point from which all the rest evolves—the root of the man, in short,
is the tuft under the right rim of his hat. All the rest of him is a
mere pendulum, vibrating from this axis. As he walks along, he hardly
feels that any other part of him is in existence, besides that. But
he feels his tuft most intensely. Thought, feeling, every thing, lies
concentrated in that: head, body, and limbs, are all alike mere members
devolved from it. If you were to cut off the side-bunch of a modern
beau in his sleep, he would, for the time, be utterly ruined. It would
be like the polypus, deprived of every thing but a single leg; and he
would require several months of dormant existence—that is, retirement
from the streets—to let the better part of him grow out again from the
worse, which had remained behind. Let not the demure Puritan, however,
think that the joke lies all against the gay Cavalier or beau. There
may be as much of the sin of cultivation in the stroked and glossy hair
of the Roundhead or _plain man_, as in the love-locks and bunches of
their antipodes in sentiment. I have seen some men, who affected to be
very unaffected, cultivate a peak on the top and centre of their brows
as sedulously, and with as much inward gratulation on account of it,
as ever I saw a dandy cultivate a tuft, or train a side-curl. It must
be understood that there are cultivations of a negative character,
as well as of a positive, and he who is guiltless of cultivation in
his heart is alone guiltless. Next to curls stand whiskers. What
a field of cultivation have we there! The whisker is a bounty of
nature, which man does not like to refuse taking advantage of. The
thing presses upon him—it is _there_; and to put it altogether aside,
except upon the demand of temporary fashion, is scarcely to be thought
of. Some men, however, are more able to resist the demon of whiskers
than others. There are some men so prone to the temptations of this
fiend, that they enlarge and enlarge their field of cultivation, by
small and imperceptible degrees, till at length the whole chin falls
a prey, excepting, perhaps, a small bit about the mouth, just enough
to preserve the cultivator within the pale of the Christian church.
Sometimes the Whisker Fiend makes an insidious advance or sally up
towards the corners of the mouth; and there—in those small creeks or
promontories—does the sin of cultivation invariably flourish more proud
and rampant than any where else. The whisker of the cheek is a broad,
honest, candid, downright cultivation, but that down about the corners
of the mouth is a sly and most impish one—a little pet sin, apt to
beset its cultivator in a far less resistible fashion than any other;
and it may indeed be said, that he who has given himself fairly up to
this crime is almost beyond redemption.

There are some men who cultivate white hands, with long fair nails.
For nothing else do they care very particularly—all is well, if only
their hands be neat. There is even a ridiculous notion that elegant
hands are the most unequivocal test of what is called good birth. I
can say, for my own part, that the finest hands I ever saw belonged
to a woman who kept a butcher’s shop in Musselburgh. So much for the
nonsense about fine hands. Then there is a set of people who cultivate
a ring on a particular finger—evidently regretting, from their manner
of managing it, that the South Sea fashion of wearing such ornaments in
the nose has not ever come into this country. Some men cultivate neat
ebony canes with golden heads, which, they tell you, cost a guinea.
Some cultivate a lisp. A few, who fall under the denomination of
stout gentlemen, rejoice in a respectable swell of the haunch, with
three wrinkles of the coat lying upon it in majestic repose. Some
cultivate a neckcloth—some a shirt-breast—some a jewelled pin, with
a lesser pin at a little distance, which serves to it as a kind of
anchor. There has also of late been a great fashion of cultivating
chains about the waistcoat. Some only show about two inches of a
gold or silver one between the buttons and the pocket; others, less
modest, have themselves almost laced round and round with this kind of
tracery. There is also to be detected, occasionally, a small patch of
cultivation in the shape of a curious watch-key or seal, which depends
from part of the chain, and is evidently a great pet. A not uncommon
subject of cultivation is a gold watch.

There is a class who cultivate silk umbrellas. It is a prevalent idea
among many men that a silk umbrella is an exceedingly _genteel_ thing.
They therefore have an article of this kind, which they are always
carrying in a neat careful manner, so as to show that it is silk. They
seem to feel as if they thought all right when they have their silk
umbrella in their hand: it is a kind of patent of respectability. With
a silk umbrella they could meet the highest personages in the land,
and not be abashed. A silk umbrella is, indeed, a thing of such vast
effect, that they would be content to go in humble guise in every other
respect, provided they only had this saving clause to protect them.
Nay, it is not too much to suppose them entertaining this belief, that
five-and-twenty shillings put forth on a good silk umbrella produces as
much value in dignity as five pounds spent upon good broad-cloth. How
some men do fondle and cultivate silk umbrellas!

There is a species of cultivators who may in some cases be very
respectable, and entitled to our forbearance, but are, in others,
worthy of a little ridicule. I mean the health-seekers; the men who
go out at five in the morning to cultivate an appetite, and regularly
chill every sharp-set evening party they attend, by sitting like
Melancholy retired, ostentatiously insisting that they “never take
supper.” When a health-seeker takes a walk, he keeps his coat wide
open, his vest half open—seems, in short, to woo the contact of the
air—and evidently regrets very much that he cannot enjoy it in the
manner of a bath. As he proceeds, he consumes air, as a steam-boat
consumes coal; insomuch that, when he leaves the place, you would
actually think the atmosphere has a fatigued and exhausted look,
as if the whole oxygen had been absorbed to supply his individual
necessities. Wherever this man goes, the wind rises behind him, by
reason of the vacuum which he has produced. He puffs, pants, fights,
strives, struggles for health. When he returns from his morning walk,
he first looks in the glass to congratulate himself on the bloom which
he has been cultivating in his cheek, and thereafter sits down to
solace the appetite which he finds he has nursed into a kind of fury.
At any ordinary time, he could spring from his bed at nine o’clock,
and devour four cups of tea, with bread, ham, eggs, and haddocks,
beyond reckoning. But he thinks it necessary to walk four hours, for
the purpose of enabling himself to take eight cups, and a still more
unconscionable proportion of bread, ham, eggs, and haddocks. He may be
compared, in some measure, to the fat oxen which are sometimes shown
about as wonders, though apparently there is nothing less wonderful,
the obvious natural means being taken. These oxen, if left to
themselves in a good park, would become very respectable oxen—a little
_en-bon-point_, perhaps, but no more. But, being treated otherwise,
they are rendered unnecessarily fat and unwieldy; and so it is with the
appetite of the health cultivator.

CULTIVATIONS, it will thus be observed, is a subject of vast extent,
and of great importance, not only to the _landed_ interest, but to
all the other interests of the country. I should be glad to treat it
at full length in a separate volume, for which, I doubt not, ample
materials might be found. But I must content myself with giving it in
the meantime only a kind of topping, as the farmers say; and perhaps I
may return to it next harvest.




FITS OF THRIFT.


Nothing is more common in the middle ranks of life than to find
housewives taking what may be called _fits of thrift_. Though sensible
women in their way, excellent advisers and charming gossips, and though
by no means spenders on a great scale, they have no enduring principle
of economy, but are only frugal by fits and starts. They take qualms of
thriftiness now and then—sometimes from reading a string of plausible
receipts for cookery on a cheap scale, or from being struck with the
excellent arrangements in the household of a friend, who tells her
that, by managing in such and such a manner, salting all her own beef,
and making all her own preserves, she has, one way and another, saved
a good deal of money, which is really a thing of some consequence in
these bad times, when so little is coming in. This chronic frugality
is common to single ladies, under as well as above one-and-twenty,
and to married ladies with large families. The fits have different
tendencies, although the prevailing symptoms are the same. Occasionally
the furor seizes one single young lady in a family of sisters; and I
have seen that it comes on most commonly in the spring. In such cases
the disease perhaps takes the direction of butter and eggs. Some day
about the month of April or May, and when breakfast is on the table,
the young lady begins to make observations on the dearth and rancidity
of the butter. “I declare for my part,” says she, “we have been
poisoned for the last six months with that stuff that we get from the
woman who keeps the little shop in the area on the opposite side of
the street. You know it was only out of pity to her when her husband
was burnt to death at the distillery, that we said that we would take
some small things from her; but you see she does not keep wholesome
articles; and really, in my opinion, it is high time we were looking
about for something we can trust to.” With this sort of discourse the
young notable opens the plan of her campaign. She says she is resolved
to rise every morning at seven, and go with a basket herself to the
market. The mornings, she says, are now greatly lengthened out, and,
besides saving a penny a pound on the butter, and getting a better
article, she is confident the walk will prove of great benefit to her
health. It may always be observed, that the husband, father, or elder
brother of the notable, never makes any objections when such schemes
of saving are propounded. They know intuitively that the whole is a
delusion, which will work itself off in a week or two; that the same
disease has visited the family once every year about the same period
ever since they can recollect, and that it will now, as formerly, only
furnish a little harmless temporary excitement in the house. Armed
with a negative approval from these relations, together with a pound
note, the young notable starts next Saturday morning between seven
and eight o’clock; and after taking half an hour to array herself in
an undress, studiously selecting for the occasion a shabbyish shawl,
and a pair of shoes that she puts on, only on “bad days,” also a straw
bonnet faded both in the material and in the riband, she sallies forth
with her basket to the market. With what an air of knowingness she
goes from cart to cart, examining, and tasting, and smelling their
contents! How she tries to elicit, by cross-questioning the man in the
sky-blue coat, or the blowsky girl in the dimity head-gear, sitting
amidst their savoury boxes with leather hinges, every particular in the
history of the butter; where and when it was made, and why it happens
to be up this morning, and so forth. How she wanders amidst the egg
women, holding up the eggs between her and the light, asking if they
be sure they are not Orkney eggs, and what their probable age may
be? What with toiling up and down the market for three quarters of an
hour, and beating down the prices in a most exemplary manner, she at
last accomplishes her purchases, and brings home her cargo of native
produce. When you come down to breakfast, you will be at once reminded
of what has been going on, by the air of superiority and triumph
assumed by Miss Notable. She thinks that by rising an hour sooner than
any body else, and saving, as she thinks, the sum of twopence, she has
purchased the character of a thrifty personage, and, consequently, is
entitled to look down upon the whole house. There is no end to her
account of how she managed to find out the best butter in the cart,
and how she higgled the man out of a halfpenny in the pound. When she
places a slice of this extraordinary butter before you, she takes care
to show you how fresh the colour is, and waits with impatience to hear
your expected, and not to be dispensed with, praise of its taste. The
butter she has bought is, in fact, her pet for the whole week. She
considers it as her butter: and if any visitor slight it, by not paying
it the necessary compliments, he is of course not indebted to her for
any future invitation to the house.

A fit of thrift of this nature lasts generally three or four weeks,
seldom more. I have seen it continue a fortnight in tolerable strength;
it then declines, and wears off towards the fourth Saturday. The
decline of this household disease is as amusing in its way as its
increase. The young lady begins to find, that, so far from improving
her health or strength by such morning exercise, she only “makes
herself out,” and is unfit to do any thing else the whole day. And then
it is, after all, only to save a few halfpence. She also finds that her
purchases do not always turn well out, and that she cannot coax her
father, or the rest of them, to be perpetual admirers of her butter and
eggs. As a get-off, she commences an eulogy on her butter, which, she
says, is sold by a man in Rose Street—a person who was once a farmer,
but was reduced by misfortunes to open a small shop in the town, and
sell dairy produce. This man she says, is _experienced_ in butter, and
imports every week as much as will serve a dozen families. She has made
interest with him through the servant to be counted one of his regular
customers, and he will supply the family at all times exactly at the
market price, not a farthing more. This new plan helps greatly as a
solace to the conscience in abandoning her morning airings with her
basket and dishabille; and so she gradually subsides into the ordinary
routine of domestic arrangements.

The married notable is subject to fits of thrift in a greater or less
degree about the months of October and November. Some day at dinner,
when there happens to be rather a poorish leg of lamb on the table,
and not much else, she opens her attack by saying, in a peevishly
authoritative manner, that really the family has been long enough on
fresh meat; that, for her part, the lamb that they have had so often
does not agree with her, and that she would rather prefer a good salt
herring. “Mrs Lockhart has just been telling me that the doctor has
advised them to eat twice or thrice a-week a piece of salt meat—that
is to say, a piece of beef newly powdered, just the fresh taste off
it, and hardly having the appearance of the saltpetre at the bone;
and I _do_ think that we cannot do better than just follow such a
sensible man’s advice, and get two or three pieces next Wednesday for
salting—you know it will be a great saving of money.” The drift of
all this is, that the husband shall forthwith exhibit on the table
a couple of twenty shilling notes; but as he knows that these handy
pieces of paper are sometimes not very easily got, he perhaps tries to
throw an obstacle or two in the way of the salting project, and, for
instance, mentions that his wife has no convenience for curing beef.
“You observe,” says he, “it requires a tub, or something of that sort,
and, besides, there is a great knack in curing the meat thoroughly;
and if you do not take care, you will spoil the whole.” As a matter of
course, these or similar observations cannot hold good in the face of
a wife under a fit of thrift. All you can say is borne down, and the
money is at length consigned with a groan to the steel purse of the
good lady, who, next day—for she is in the fidgets till her purpose
is executed—sets out in her muff and shawl (the first time for the
season) on an expedition, first to lay in her beef, and then to buy a
sufficient and commodious _salting can_. Well, the _can_, that darling
object of a notable’s ambition, _is_ purchased. The beef _is_ salted;
and the goodman and his family are shortly put on salt meat, whether
they like such fare or otherwise. The thrifty lady all this time takes
care, on every occasion, to show off her beef as well worthy of being
tasted by visitors; and the short and long of it is, that the said beef
is eaten up in half the time it is expected to last; fresh meat begins
to show itself more frequently at your table, and the fit is put aside
till another opportunity occurs of playing it off.

These are very ordinary instances of fits of thrift, but there are
hundreds of the same description which I could mention. Sometimes the
fit takes the direction of a new gown for going out with on bad days,
to save others of a better sort; at another time it is “a house gown,”
as “really my best black silk one is absolutely getting wasted with
having to go so often into the kitchen.” Occasionally it is the hiring
of two maid-servants, “so that the washings need not any longer be
given out;” at other times it is the buying of a crumb-cloth, to save
the carpet, or the purchasing of loads of old china and crockery at
auctions. I have seen all the ladies in the house manifest this frenzy
by working their own lace, or painting pictures which had to be hung
in dear gilded frames. Again, I have noticed it in great vigour in a
family in town resolving to have a garden, so as to grow their own
vegetables. It comes on very frequently in a desire to dye old ribands,
or feathers, or “dress” shawls; in which case the lady who is affected
sets out on a voyage of discovery through all the obscure courts and
alleys about the town, seeking for some old woman whom they have heard
of as being “the best” at these processes of renovation. It may be
remarked, that the fit visits the nation, like an epidemic, towards
the end of July. Almost every house in the kingdom is then thrown into
an uproar by the ladies, young and old, confederating to manufacture
gooseberry jam or currant jelly. Such a requisition is there then in
all quarters for “brass pans,” and such a deal of money is spent in
this popular confectionary! At the approach and during the continuance
of the epidemic, the husbands very wisely make no remonstrance, well
knowing that such would be utterly thrown away. “You know, my dear,”
would say the thrifty spouse, “we shall require at least two dozen
pints this season; for nothing is more useful in a house, in case of
colds; and you will remember how much good a spoonful or two did little
George last February, when we thought he was going to take the fever;
indeed, the doctor said it had been the very saving of his life.”
Nothing, of course, can withstand an appeal to such authority; so the
money is disbursed for the purchase of the fruit and other materials,
although the goodman never can exactly see now some pounds’ worth of
jelly should be laid up in store, all for the sake of needing two
tea-spoonfuls.

Sometimes the family is so unfortunate as to get an oven, and a
particularly economical Miss undertakes to bake what is called family
bread. A great saving is expected from this source; but it soon turns
out that so much of the article is given away to friends, as a kind of
curiosity, or to impress them with a sense of the economy practised in
the house, that a great deal more is lost than gained by the novelty.
In fact, it always turns out, as in the case of the Vicar of Wakefield
and his thrice notable spouse, that these chronic economists are not
observed to make their husbands any richer by their contrivances, so
much is lost by the expense of the experiment, compared with what is
gained by the short duration of the practice.




SUSAN HAMILTON,

A TALE OF VILLAGE LIFE.


The village of Daldaff lay in a nook of the hills, in one of the most
rural districts of Scotland. Far from any of the great thoroughfares,
or any of the large manufacturing towns, it continued, down even to
the beginning of the present century, to be one of the most entire
specimens in existence of all that a Scotch village used to be. Its
situation was a deep hollow, upon the banks of a mountain stream,
and it looked from some points of view as if a parcel of children’s
toy-houses had been shaken promiscuously in a bowl, and suddenly fixed
in the way they happened to arrange themselves at the bottom. It was
all a confused mixture of gray old walls and brown thatch, with green
gardens, and arbours, and mountain-ash trees. When you looked down
from any of the surrounding heights, you wondered how communication
was carried on amongst neighbours, or how strangers found an entrance
into the village; for you saw no trace of streets, paths, or ways.
It was only when you descended into the place, that you saw here and
there a narrow road threading its way among the houses, somewhat after
the manner of the puzzle called the walls of Troy. Most of the little
dwellings had a long stripe of garden, running from behind them up the
hill; other houses had their sides or backs placed close against the
bank, so that you might have walked off the ground upon their roofs
without perceiving it—while the gardens spread downwards before them,
like aprons. These gardens bore large beds of refulgent cabbages, with
gooseberry bushes between; and always in some sunny and sheltered
place there were a few bee-hives, the tops of which were kept warm
either with a crown of straw or a mantle of turf. At morning hour you
would have seen the honest weavers, who peopled most of the houses,
busying themselves in delving and dibbling in these little patches
of ground. During the long day, perhaps nothing of life was to be
seen about them, except the circumspect and decent hen walking up the
avenue with her chirping brood, or the cock flapping his wings from
the top of the wall, and crowing a defiance to some distant foe of his
own kind: or the bees, as they one by one made themselves visible out
of the universal sunniness, in the immediate shadow of the hive. At
night, however, the weaver would be seen walking forth with his pipe
in his mouth, his Kilmarnock cowl brushed back from his forehead, and
his clothes loose at the knees, to observe the growth of the berries,
or pull a bunch of lily-oak for his children, who came prattling
behind him; or to hold converse through the evening stillness with a
neighbour perhaps four gardens off, respecting the last proceedings
of “that dreedfu’ fallow, Bonyparty.” When standing in the centre of
the village, you might have almost been persuaded that there was no
other place in the world. The rim of the horizon was within two hundred
yards of the eye all round, and nothing besides was to be seen but
the contracted sky. On the top of the bank, in one direction, stood
the church, with its little docked steeple, and its body-guard of old
trees. In another direction there was a peep of the turrets of an old
half-ruined mansion-house, which had not been occupied for many years,
except by the spirit of a murdered man, which was understood to occupy
a particular room, and always went by the horribly descriptive name
of _Spotty_. Beyond the edge of the surrounding banks, the country
swept downwards in extensive flats, generally sterile, but here and
there showing fine spots of pastoral green. Over these downs, groups
of children would sometimes be seen rambling hand in hand, in those
adventurous journeys of half a mile from home, which children are so
fond of taking; sometimes talking to each other of the novelties of the
created world, which were every now and then striking their eyes and
their imaginations; at other times pondering in silent and infantine
abstraction on the beauty of the gowans which grew by their sides, and
in the bosoms of which, as they gazed into them, they saw, reflected as
in a mirror, their own fairness and innocence. There, also, while the
wind even of summer carried its chill, the little neat-herd boy would
be seen sitting on the leeward side of the green knoll, with his sister
by his side, and a plaid drawn all around them, their arms laced round
each other’s necks, and their cheeks laid close together, as both read
from the same tattered story book, or partook of the same pease-bread
and milk, which served as their afternoon meal. Within the village all
was primeval simplicity. The houses already mentioned were arranged
without the least regard to each other’s convenience—some back to back,
some shoulder to shoulder, but as generally front to back, and shoulder
to front. The white manse sat half way up the bank, overlooking the
whole, like an idol presiding over a crowded group of worshippers. On
what might be considered the principal thoroughfare in the village,
stood the inn, a house distinguished from all the rest, by its being
two stories in height, not to speak of the still more remarkable
distinction of a hanging sign, on which was painted something dark
and grim, meant for a black bull, besides the frequent apparition of
a carrier’s cart resting with its beams high and rampant into the
air. Another house, rather better than the rest, was occupied by “a
merchant,” a man originally a haberdashery pedlar, but who, having here
at last set up his ellwand of rest, dealt not only in women’s attire,
but in a thousand things else besides, as if he had been

    “Not one, but all _shopkeepers’_ epitome.”

Then there was the modest tenement of Luckie Smytrie, with its window
of four panes, showing to the passing traveller two biscuits on edge,
and as many dark green bottles filled with comfits; while within, if
you had chosen to enter, you would have found at one end of the room
in which the decent woman lived, a large cupboard and a small table
forming her mercantile establishment for the sale of all kinds of
small wares. Were you to lounge a little in this humble retreat of
commerce, you might see children coming in every now and then asking
for such things as an ounce of soap, a quarter of an ounce of tea,
a halfpenny-worth of whipcord, or, perhaps (what would astonish you
most of all), change of a penny—viz. two halfpence. Luckie Smytrie
was a woman who had experienced great trials in early life, had had
husbands killed by accidents, sons enlisted for soldiers and slain in
battle, and daughters that died in the morn and liquid dew of youth,
innumerable. Her shop was therefore patronised by all the villagers, to
the prejudice, in some articles, of the more ambitious establishment
of the retired packman; but yet the old woman, like all shopkeepers
who have little rivalry, was as much offended at losing any partial or
occasional custom in favour of that individual, as if she had had a far
stronger and more prescriptive right to the business of the place. For
instance, you might see a boy come in with a small cotton handkerchief
in his hand, and say that his mother had sent him for a halfpenny-worth
of thread, matching with that piece of attire, which she wished to
hem. To which Mrs Smytrie would respond, in a cool voice, but intended
to convey the most cutting sarcasm, “Gang back, hinny, and tell your
mother that it would be far better to get her thread where she got her
napkin.” Or, perhaps, it was an order for bread on a Sunday evening,
from some one who had had an unexpected crowd of visitors at tea. The
request was then put in the following terms:—“Mrs Smytrie [on other
occasions it was plain Tibbie], my mother has her compliments t’ye, and
she wad be muckle obleeged for twa tippeny bricks (loaves), as there’s
some folk come upon her to their four-hours that she didna expeck.” To
the which Mrs Smytrie would answer, in the same cruelly tranquil voice,
“Tell your mother, my woman, that she had better get her bread on the
Sabbath night where she gets’t on the Saturday’t e’en,” well knowing
all the while that the shop referred to was not open, and that there
was no other besides her own in the whole village, or within ten miles
round. Perhaps a child would come in for a halfpenny-worth of paper,
namely, writing-paper; but Mrs Smytrie, mistaking the word, would set
about the elaborate ceremony of weighing out what she supposed the
required quantity of pepper. The boy would look on, not knowing what
to think of it, till at last he was roused from his reverie by having
a neat little conical parcel, with a twist at the point, presented
to him instead of the roll of paper which he had expected. He would
then murmur out, with a ludicrous mixture of stupidity and terror, “It
was paper I was wanting;” at which the old widow would break out with
the anticipated torrent of invective, “Hech! dyted thing, could ye no
speak plainer? What for did ye let me be makin’ up the pepper for ye,
and no tell me it was paper? Niff-naffin!” There was hardly any other
house in the village in the least distinguished from its fellows.
The most of them were occupied by a race of decent weavers—for this,
indeed, was the staple employment of Daldaff. Through almost every
lattice you heard the constant sound of the shuttle and lay, mixed
with the voices of the honest operatives, as they sung at their work.
In a preceding age, the village contained only three or four of this
class of men, who employed themselves in weaving the homely woollen
cloth and sheeting which were then used by the country people, being
formed out of materials supplied immediately by themselves. But these
kinds of manufacture had, in a great measure, given way in favour of
the lighter _fabrics_ of Glasgow. Cottons were now supplied from that
immense mart, to be woven into showy webs; and as the trade offered
far superior remuneration to what had ever been known in the village,
not only the old serge-weavers had changed the one employment for the
other, but a vast flock of their sons and connexions, and many of the
country people around, had rushed into it, so that the primitive little
village of Daldaff became neither more nor less than a kind of colony
or dependency of the great western capital.

This revolution was at first productive of a great increase of comfort
in the village, without materially altering the primeval virtues of its
inhabitants. Old men began to lay by blue bonnets in favour of hats. A
few old hereditary black coats, which had been worn from youth to age,
were at last rescued from the twilight of a Sabbath fame, and consigned
ungrudgingly to a general use throughout the week. Young men began to
abandon hodden gray for Galashiels blue; young women got straw bonnets
to cover locks heretofore exposed in cockernonnies, and there were two
if not three green gauze veils in the village. In respect of domestic
economy, almost every housewife had the pot on three times a-week, so
that third day’s kail was beginning to be a thing almost unknown. Tea
was also intruding its outlandish face into scenes where bread and milk
was erst the only luxury. Some of the husbands held long out against
it, but at length they almost all sneaked into a liking for it, and no
more thought of wanting it at the end of their day’s work, than they
thought of wanting their halesome porridge at the beginning. It was
sometimes lamented by the excellent old minister, that family worship
was a usage not favoured by this change of circumstances; but still,
both at nine in the morning, and about the same hour in the evening,
you might have heard, in passing some of the houses, either the rude
and tremulous psalmody raised by the father of the household, or the
low and earnest prayer which he was pouring forth, with his knees and
those of all his family resting upon his clay floor. Then all the good
old sports were kept up. The boys, instead of being confined, like
those of larger manufacturing towns, in unhealthy cotton mills, were
permitted at all hours, except those during which they were engaged at
school, to play at the golf and shinty, or at bows and arrows, upon
the common haugh by the burn side, or else to roam farther a-field in
search of birds’ nests, or to harry the crows in the woods. On the same
haugh, in the summer evenings, after work was done, the young men would
be seen “putting the stane,” or playing at “the pennystanes” (quoits),
or perhaps amusing themselves with the more energetic game of football,
while their cowled fathers would walk forth to sympathise in and judge
of their feats, and enjoy a hearty unmeasured laugh at every unharming
“mischanter” which might befall them. Thither also would repair the
trig shortgowned lass, just newly “redd up,” as she would style it,
her curls shining in their recent release from paper, over a face to
which a good washing had lent a richer glow, and her _tout-ensemble_
in every respect greatly improved—as female figures, somehow or other,
always are—by being seen in the declining light of the golden eve.
There, while the young of the different sexes interchanged their joke
and their gibe, and the old raised the still heartier laugh at every
feat in the game, and children shouted and dogs barked from the mere
contagion of joy, while, moreover, the sun sent his last rich rays
through the trees above the village, whence the

    “——Sweet mellow crush of the wood-pigeon’s note,
     Made music that sweetened the calm;”

there a stranger might have supposed that happiness had found her last
abode on earth, ere for ever winging her flight to her native skies.

Many villages in Scotland enjoy a humble local fame for some particular
custom or sport, which is understood to reign there in supremacy over
all others. If Daldaff was celebrated for any form of fun more than
another, it was for curling—a sport peculiar to Scotland, and which may
be best described to southern readers, by the simple statement, that
it employs large smooth stones upon the ice, much after the manner of
bowls upon a bowling-green. The game can only be practised after a very
hard frost, as it requires the strongest ice to bear the numbers who
usually assemble either to play or look on. Curling is a game relished
so keenly in Scotland, that, like other common appetites, it levels
all distinctions of station and rank. In a rural and thinly-peopled
district like that around Daldaff, the laird might be seen mingling
with not only his farmers, but his cottagers, interchanging the
broad jest at his own failures, and giving applause wherever it was
due. The minister might also be seen driving his stone with as much
anxiety of eye as any one, and occasionally, perhaps, envying the
good fortune of an unlettered peasant, whom, on another occasion, he
would have to chide for his backwardness in the Single Catechism.
Daldaff was fortunately situated for this game, as, less than a mile
below the village, the mountain stream spread out into a little lake
sufficient to have afforded room for half a dozen “rinks.” There one
Saturday afternoon the people of Daldaff had a _bonspiel_, or grand
contest, with the inhabitants of the adjacent parish of Sarkinholm,
who had long disputed with them the palm of superiority. A bonspiel
is not appointed to take place every day; neither is Saturday like
any other day of the week. Hence, although an unfortunate thaw was
just commencing, the disputants resolved to have out their game,
trusting that the ice would at least last long enough to do their
turn. Notwithstanding the unfavourable state of the ice, the bonspiel
passed off with great eclat. Nearly all Daldaff and Sarkinholm were
collected to witness the sport; and the _certaminis gaudia_, or joys
of the combat, were felt perhaps as keenly in the hearts of the women
and children of these respective places, as in those of the curlers
themselves. Before the game was done, the men were standing inch deep
in water, and the stones, as they came up to the rink, sent the spray
high into the air before them, like shavings from a joiner’s plane. The
short day of January was also drawing very near to a close, and a deep
dark cloud had settled down upon the mountains to the west, betokening
a thorough change in the weather. At length victory declared itself in
favour of Daldaff, and the parties “quat their roaring play,” to betake
themselves to their respective homes. All in a short time had left the
place, except a small band of boys and girls, who continued to enjoy a
pair of slides on a somewhat higher and drier part of the ice.

The rivulet connected with this little lake was one of those which,
rising in a large basin of hilly country, are liable to be swelled
occasionally in a very short space of time, so that, though at one
hour they may scarcely show a rill among the channel-stones, they
are the next raging like a large and impetuous river. On the present
occasion, being fed by the cloud just spoken of, it came down in one
of its most awful forms, and in one instant broke up the ice upon the
peaceful lake with a noise like thunder. The children who had been
sliding, though they scarcely had a moment of warning, escaped from
the ice—all except one, Susan Hamilton, the daughter of the leading
manufacturer in the village. She had been the last to approach a gulf
which had been leaped by all the rest, and, her heart failing her at
the moment, she was immediately carried off from the land upon a large
board of ice. What had lately been the solid surface of the lake was
now gathered in a large glacier of peaky fragments at the bottom, while
all around the water was extending far beyond its usual limits. Susan
Hamilton was soon drifted down to this mass of ice, where, from the
top of a lofty pinnacle, she cried loudly for help, which, however,
was every moment becoming more difficult to be rendered. The most of
her companions had fled in childish terror to the village; but as the
danger was instant, there seemed little chance of rescue from that
quarter. Fortunately a young man who had accompanied some friends to
Sarkinholm happened to be returning to Daldaff, and, hearing cries of
distress, rushed up to the spot. Though the twilight was now deepening,
he perceived the situation of the child, and being perfectly acquainted
with the ground, he immediately resolved upon a plan of rescue. A
large board of ice happened to be lying in a creek near the place
where he stood. Upon this he fearlessly embarked, and, guiding it by
means of his curling-brush, he soon reached the iceberg to which Susan
Hamilton was clinging. Having prevailed upon her to leap down into his
arms, he placed her carefully on board his icy raft, and then steered
back towards the shore, where by this time a few of the villagers,
including the child’s father, were collected. He was so fortunate as
to return in safety, and had the satisfaction—which Bishop Burnet
considered to be the greatest on earth—of rendering a man truly happy.
The joy of the father was speechless; but the other villagers raised
a shout of admiration in honour of his heroic conduct. Nor was the
general feeling abated, when, immediately after he had regained the
shore, the vast glacier, loosed from its confinement at the bottom of
the lake, was precipitated down the channel of the stream, where it
tumbled and dashed along with the resistless force of rocks thrown down
a hill-side, and the noise of a hurricane in a forest. It was seen that
if he had hesitated but for a minute to adventure upon his perilous
task, the child must have perished, almost before her father’s eyes.

James Hamilton, who had this evening experienced the opposites of
extreme agony and extreme happiness, was only a mere long-headed
specimen of the weavers of Daldaff. Having saved a little money, and
acquired a reputation for prudence and honesty, he had been able, when
the Glasgow work was first introduced into the village, to get himself
appointed by a manufacturing house in that city as agent for supplying
employment to his brethren; and as he not only enjoyed a commission
upon the labours of his neighbours, but also kept a number of looms
going upon his own account, he might be considered the most prosperous
man in the village. He had been married for many years, but was blessed
with only one child, the fair young girl who was rescued from death
in the manner above described. He was one of those individuals, who,
though entitled to praise for their correct dealings and sagacious
conduct in life, are yet apt to excite dislike by their contenting
themselves too exclusively with those properties, and not showing
enough of the amenity and friendliness of disposition, by which alone
society at large is rendered agreeable. You could always make sure that
James Hamilton would do you no wrong, but you were also impressed
with the certainty that neither would he do you any good; and if it be
possible that there can be an excess of circumspection and prudence, he
erred in that excess. Rarely giving way to feeling himself, he could
hardly believe that it existed in others, or, if he did acknowledge
its existence, he despised it as only the symptom of an unworldly
character. Even on seeing a single and beloved child rescued from
destruction, though he could not repress the first gush of grateful and
joyful emotion, he almost immediately after relapsed into his usual
coldness, and seemed to chide himself for having been betrayed into
that excitement.

Adam Cuthbertson, who had done for him almost the greatest service that
one man could do to another, was the son of a poor widow in Sarkinholm,
and now resided with a relation at Daldaff, under whom he was acquiring
the universal craft of the district. Though graced with only a very
limited education, and condemned to almost unceasing toil, Adam was
a youth of some spirit and ingenuity. An old _black buke_ of Scotch
songs lay constantly on the beam at his left hand, and the rush of the
shuttle and the dunt of the lay went in unison with as clear a pipe
as ever lilted up the notes of our national minstrelsy. It was even
whispered that Adam had himself composed a few songs, or there were at
least certain ditties which the lasses of Daldaff might occasionally be
heard singing at their washings on the haugh, and which were privately
attributed to his pen—though, it is to be remarked, his modesty would
never permit him to confess the soft impeachment. Adam also contrived
to obtain some scientific books, which he pored over at night by his
uncle’s fireside, or, in summer, beneath a little bower which he had
constructed in the garden. He was thought to be less steady at his work
than some duller lads, and the case was not mended by a particular
improvement which he had carried into effect upon the machinery of his
loom. Although he practically demonstrated that he could work more with
the same trouble by means of this alteration, the old workmen only
shook their heads at it, and wished he might work as much with it in
the long-run. It happened one day, that, as he was _dressing_ his web
with the brushes, he lost his balance by mere accident, and fell head
foremost through the white expanse before him, producing, of course,
irremediable ruin. “Ay, ay,” remarked some of the old stagers, “I never
thought ony gude would come o’ thae improvements. Wha ever heard o’
ony _ordinar_ workman playing sic a plisky?” Others, less disposed to
observe the strict doctrines of causation, would ask what else could
be expected of “that newfangled way o’ working the hiddles.” The very
minister, honest man, was heard to hazard a quiet witticism on the
subject, not from any ill-will towards his young parishioner, but just
because the joke could hardly be avoided: “I was aye jalousing,” said
the worthy divine one day to his elder, James Hamilton, “that Yedie wad
some day or other fa’ through his wark.” It is to be mentioned with
regret that Hamilton, notwithstanding his obligations to the young
man, was one of those who regarded his frank-spirited character and
forward genius with least favour. This did not appear to be solely the
result of the opposition of their characters. Hamilton, who, in any
circumstances, would have been sure to disapprove of the qualities
manifested by Adam Cuthbertson, appeared almost to have contracted an
additional dislike for him, on account of the very obligation which
ought to have made him his friend. He seemed to dread the claims which
the rescue of his child might establish, and acted as if he thought it
necessary to give as little encouragement to those claims as possible.

There was, however, _one_ individual who did full justice both to the
superior character and the gallant achievement of Cuthbertson. This
was Susan Hamilton, the fair young girl whom he had saved. Susan at
the time of her rescue was too young to regard her deliverer with
any other feeling than that of grateful respect. But as she advanced
towards womanhood, the childish feeling of awe with which she had
always beheld him when they chanced to meet, became gradually exchanged
for a sentiment of a softer and tenderer character, though not less
bashful and abased. Adam’s feelings towards her experienced a similar
change. Ever after the day when he saved her life, he had taken
rather more interest in that fair head and those sweet blue eyes,
than in the features of any other child of the same age whom he saw
tripping to school. But this feeling was merely one of circumstances.
It solely referred to the adventure by which he had been so happy as
to restore her to the arms of her father. Susan, however, in a very
few years, ceased to be a little girl tripping to school. Her figure
became considerably taller, and more attractive. Her blue eyes became
filled with deeper and more thoughtful meanings. Her cheek, when she
approached her deliverer, assumed a richer hue; and her voice, when it
addressed him, surprised him with new tones. Sometimes he would hardly
_permit himself to think_ that she was in the least different from
what she had been. He would still speak to her as a man addressing a
child. But after they had parted, he would feel his soul troubled with
a delight he had never before experienced. He would _feel_, though he
did not think, that she was different. Need any more be said than that
he in time found himself at once loving and beloved? The sun never set
with a richer glow, nor did the flowers ever give out a richer perfume,
than on the evening, when, in the woods of Craigcross, Adam Cuthbertson
and Susan Hamilton first confessed their mutual attachment.

But fate was adverse to the passion of these amiable beings. James
Hamilton, with all his homely wisdom, had so far given way to a
wretched ambition as to wish his daughter to match in a sphere above
his own rank. Laird Ganderson, of Windigate, had marked out Susan
at church as a very proper person to undertake the management of
his household, an office just become vacant in consequence of the
death of his mother. Being arrived at the full and perfect age of
forty-seven years, the beauty of the young lady was perhaps a smaller
consideration with the laird, than the contiguity of a few fields
lately purchased by her father, to his own somewhat dilapidated
property. He therefore made some overtures to James Hamilton, which
that individual listened to in a manner far from unfavourable. It was
soon made up between them that Susan was to become Mrs Ganderson: all
that remained to be done was to gain the approbation of the young woman
herself towards the scheme. Susan, who, in addition to many better
qualities, possessed a gift of rustic humour, endeavoured to convey
her sentiments to the laird in a delicate way, by one evening frying
him a dish of sliced peats instead of Scotch collops; but the laird
took it all as a good joke, and said he only liked her the better for
her waggery. In fact, being anxious to have her only on the ordinary
principles of a mercantile speculation, he was not to be turned aside
by any nice delicacy, any more than he would have been prevented from
buying a horse at a fair, by the animal showing a reluctance to part
with its former proprietor. On the other hand, Cuthbertson felt in a
manner entirely different. A taunt which he received one night from the
father, respecting the narrowness of his circumstances and prospects,
determined him to quit Daldaff in search of fortune, taking no care but
first to interchange with Susan a vow of eternal fidelity.

For one full year Susan was enabled to parry the addresses of the
laird and the entreaties of her father. The former spent a great part
of every day at James Hamilton’s, where he smoked incessantly, or, if
he ceased at all, it was only to ask for liquor, or to utter a ribald
jest. By this familiarity he only rendered himself the more intolerable
to Susan. But it had a different effect upon the father. The laird
became so thoroughly ingratiated with that individual, that there was
no exertion of friendship which Hamilton would not make in his behalf.
In fact, in order to secure to his daughter the eclat of being lady of
Windigate, he was understood to have compromised all that he was worth
in the world in securities for the behoof of his future son-in-law,
whose fortune was suspected to be in no very flourishing condition.
The unfortunate weaver exemplified a very common failing in the most
sagacious characters, namely, a disposition, after a whole lifetime
of prudence, to give way to some notably ridiculous error, which
is rendered unalarming to them from its being totally different in
character and tendency from any that they have been accustomed to avoid.

At length came evil days. Owing to some turn of affairs in the progress
of the war, cotton-weaving experienced a severe shock, by which many
of the best Glasgow houses were materially damaged, and thousands of
operatives throughout the country were thrown out of work. The very
respectable establishment for which Hamilton had long acted as agent,
lingered for a time in existence, and was able occasionally to send a
small scantling of work, hardly enough to employ a tenth part of the
population of the village. When the carrier was expected to come with
these small supplies, numbers of poor men, attended by their wives and
children, all of whom were alike unemployed, would go out for miles to
meet the eagerly expected vehicle, to learn how much work was brought,
and what prospect there was of more. On the small bag being opened
by Hamilton, and perhaps only three webs being displayed, the grief
of the poor people was beyond all description. The married men would
then, by Hamilton’s directions, draw lots for those precious morsels
of employment. While this process went forward, what eager breathless
hope in the faces of both men and women, tempered, at the same time,
by a religious sense of the misery which each man knew that his own
success would inflict upon some equally deserving neighbour! What
despair was depicted in each honest homely face, as it turned from
the fatal lottery, upon the unhappy family group, which, more eagerly
than himself, had watched the result of his throw! With what joy,
mingled with sad sympathies for the rest, would the successful man
bear home his load, though he knew that the price of his labour would
hardly be sufficient to supply the food necessary to support him, even
though he were to work sixteen hours a-day! At length, towards winter,
even these wretchedly insufficient supplies were stopped. Hamilton’s
employers, after every effort to keep themselves afloat, were obliged
to give way also; and, consequently, the Daldaff agency became at once
a dead letter. People talk of the exemption of the present generation
from disasters by fire and sword, which so frequently befell their
ancestors; but what calamity was ever inflicted upon the poor, even in
the most lawless days of past history, equal to the desolation which is
now so often occasioned in a large district, by a total cessation of
the staple employment? The cots which gave shelter to our ancestors,
were rebuilt in three days, after even the most savage invasion;
the herds, which had been gathered off to some place of security,
were restored to their indestructible pastures. The calamity, if
unaccompanied by severe loss of life, must have been only, in general,
an exciting adventure. But what retreat, what consolation is there for
the hordes of poor artizans, who, by some commercial accident, arising,
perhaps, from the imprudence of a few merchants, or some political or
warlike movement, are deprived of the customary weekly pittance? It may
be relied on, that such disasters exceed in measure of sorrow almost
any kind of historical distress, except those of plague or famine. No
other accident but these last ever introduced such coldness to the poor
man’s hearth, such despair to his heart, or made him regret with so
bitter a pang that he had others to care for besides himself.

Amidst the public calamity, one of a most grievous nature overtook the
father of our heroine. The affairs of the laird, which had long been
desperately out of order, and for some time were only sustained by the
aid of his intended father-in-law, came to a complete stand-still;
and, the whole wealth of James Hamilton being engaged in securities,
he was at once reduced to the condition in which he had entered life.
The stroke at first seemed likely to be fatal. Thus to lose the whole
earnings of a laborious life—to forfeit, at the eleventh hour, by one
miserable piece of imprudence, all the honours of the wisely spent day,
was more, almost, than he could bear. He had, however, two comforters
in his affliction—the worthy old minister, who in these calamitous
times had been a succouring angel to his flock—and his daughter, an
angel of a still more gracious kind, who, forgetting all the severities
with which she had been treated, and thinking only of his present
affliction, applied herself to the sacred task of soothing his wounded
mind, and inspiring him with hopes of better times. The change of his
circumstances produced a complete change in the mind of Hamilton.
Having no longer wealth to care for, the jealous sentinels with which
he had guarded it were withdrawn. The crust of worldly selfishness was
broken off his character, and all its better affections were again
called into free play. His eyes were now opened to the wickedness of
which he had been guilty, in endeavouring to force the affections of
his daughter, and he only wished that he were again as he had been a
twelvemonth before, in order to make her happy with the man of her
heart.

Weeks of partial famine passed on, and now the distresses of the
villagers were suddenly doubled by the premature commencement of a very
severe winter. With the exception of their small patches of potatoes
and garden vegetables, there seemed hardly any resource for them
during the whole winter. The minister, whose own income was exhausted
in providing for their wants, thought it necessary, under these
distressing circumstances, to call them all together, and join them in
one solemn exercise of humiliation appropriate to the occasion. Just as
this was concluded, a boy belonging to an inn about ten miles distant
upon the Glasgow road, arrived, after a toilsome journey through the
snow, and gave the joyful news that a cart filled with webs was
storm-stayed at his master’s house, on its way to the village, the
trade having suddenly experienced a slight revival. Transported with
this intelligence, though no one could guess by whom the work could
have been sent, they one and all resolved to proceed to Redcraigs,
where the cart was lying, and aid in clearing a way for it through the
snow. Every spade and semblance of a spade was then put in requisition,
and the half of the bannocks in the village were brought forward,
without the least regard to individual property, to provision the troop
of pioneers. Thirty men set out early next morning on this expedition,
graced with the blessings and prayers of all who saw them depart.

The snow, it was found, had only fallen to the depth of three feet,
but it was drifted in many hollow parts of the road to six times that
depth, so as to present an insurmountable obstacle to the progress of
a cart. At all those places the weavers exerted themselves as they
advanced to clear away the gelid heaps. The toil was most severe;
but what these poor starved men wanted in strength, they made up by
zeal—that zeal, above all others, which is inspired by the wish of
answering the clamour of a hungry family circle with the necessary
bite. The thought that work was before them, that money would again be
procured, and, for that money, food to supply “the bairns at hame,”
nerved every arm with superhuman energy; and as the country people
every where lent a willing, though less enthusiastic assistance, the
party had before mid-day cleared their way to Redcraigs. What was
their surprise on being met there by their friend Adam Cuthbertson,
of whom they had not heard ever since he left Daldaff, and who now
informed them, with ineffable pleasure beaming in his eyes, that he
had been the happy means of procuring them this supply of work. He had
entered, he said, into the service of a manufacturer at Glasgow, and
having divulged to him a plan of improving the loom, had been advanced
to a very onerous place of trust in the factory. His employer having
weathered on till the present revival of trade, he had used the little
influence he had, to get his old master, of whose misfortunes he had
heard, appointed to an agency, and was favoured with one of the very
first parcels of work that was to be had, which he was now conveying to
the relief of his old friends at Daldaff. “Let us on now, my friends,”
cried Adam; “and, before night is far spent, we shall be able to tell
the women and the bairns that the bad times are now blown by, and that
every one will get his porridge and his broth as he used to do.” The
cavalcade then set forward, the cart drawn by three horses in line, and
every man more ready than another, either to clear away the drifted
heap that lay before it, or to urge it with his desperate shoulder over
every such impediment that might happen to be left. Though the way
was long, and the labour severe, and the strength of the poor weavers
not very great, yet every eye and voice maintained its cheerfulness,
and the song, the jest, and the merry tale, were kept up to the very
last. The wintry sun had set upon the snowy hills ere the procession
came within sight of Daldaff; yet all the women and children were
collected at the Loanbraehead, near the village, to see it approach;
and when the cart was first discerned turning a neighbouring height,
with its large attendant train, a shout of natural joy arose through
the clear air, such as might burst from those who gaze from the shore
upon a wreck, and see the crew, one by one, make their escape from
destruction. James Hamilton was there, though much reduced by a recent
illness; and the joy which seized him on being informed by the workmen
of his appointment, was almost too much for his frame. He looked in
vain, however, for Cuthbertson, to pour before him the thanks of a
repentant spirit. That excellent young man had eluded the observation
of all, and, diving through some of the lanes of the village, had taken
refuge in the house of his uncle. He found that much as he had longed
to see gladness once more restored to these poor villagers, he could
not endure the scene at last. He had therefore escaped from their
gratitude; and it was not till Hamilton sought him in his old lodgings,
that he was at length discovered. The old man took him warmly by the
hand, which he did not quit, till, leading him to his own house, he
deposited it in that of his fair daughter. “Susan Hamilton,” said he,
“twice have you been saved by this good youth; you are now fairly his
own property—you are no longer mine. May you both be happy!”




FLITTING DAY.


Our readers will perhaps recollect a former article, in which we
treated of the subject of removals—that is to say, the practice so
general in Scotland (though otherwise in England) of shifting almost
every year from one house to another, in a constant expectation
of finding the TO KALON, as the Greeks call it, or, as we shall
rather style it, the QUITE THE THING of house accommodation, which,
however, is discovered at one year’s end to be exactly as remote as
it was a twelvemonth before, and still, like general happiness, is
“on before”—far looming over the horizon, like a vessel bound for
some distant part of the globe, and not to be caught or overtaken,
let us speed after it as we may. We have heard various individuals
acknowledge that there were some good _home truths_ in that article,
though we rather believe the housewives in general were surprised at
our blindness to the beauties of a good back-green. Let that be as it
may, there was one thing in which that article was totally deficient—to
wit, an account of the particular horrors of _removing day_ itself, or,
as we in Scotland call it, _flitting day_—a day styled in the calendar
Whitsunday, and dedicated to we don’t know what sacred use, but which,
without regard to its sacred use, whatever that may be, we think men
might wish that, above all others, it were fairly blotted out of the
calendar—expunged from the very year itself—utterly annihilated and
forgotten, because of the unhappy secular use to which it has been
put from time immemorial. The 25th of May, or Whitsunday old style,
is indeed a day of peculiar agony amongst us. It is a day consecrated
to the disruption of all local ties, to the rending of every kind of
pleasant association, to the discomfiture of all the household goods.
The very week in which it occurs, is black with its atmosphere of pain.

It may be surprising to persons unacquainted with Scotland, that the
people should be so fond of removing, since the day on which that event
takes place is apt to be so very disagreeable. They might as well
wonder that people should ever marry, when they know so very well that
the charge of a family is apt to be burdensome. Candlemas day, on which
people take their houses, is a day of heedless joy, a day of fond and
delirious anticipation; and Whitsunday is to it what execution-day is
to the particular time when an unfortunate man was tempted to enrich
himself at some other body’s expense. “On Wednesday I killed my wife,
on Saturday I was hanged,” as the child’s rhyme goes: no one can doubt
that Wednesday was in this case a very pleasant day, whatever might
be the state of the honest man’s feelings at the end of the week. So
it is with Candlemas and Whitsunday. On the former of these days we
are actuated by a spirit of spite and dissatisfaction with our present
abode; it is every thing that is disagreeable, and we must at all
hazards get quit of it. Accordingly, the taking of another, and, as we
think, better habitation, naturally appears as the opening of a haven
of relief, and, of course, we have a great deal of either positive or
negative pleasure in the day. Nor is this satisfaction confined to
the day on which the new house is leased: it extends up to the very
commencement of that week of suffering which involves Whitsunday—up
to the first material disarrangement of furniture preparatory to
removal. During the time which elapses between the leasing of the new
habitation and our removal to it, we abandon all care for our present
abode. Any thing that goes wrong about it must just remain so. If a
lock were required for the door, we would scarcely put ourselves to
the trouble of getting it, but remain content with some provisional
system of security, such as putting a table behind it. A large piece of
plaster might fall down from the ceiling, or half of the floor of the
dining-room sink into the kitchen—a whole gable or side-wall, almost,
might fall away, but we would never think of troubling ourselves
with any attempt at repairs. It is a horrid house at any rate, and,
for all the time we are to be in it, it does not matter. We’ll soon
be getting into our nice new house, and I’ll warrant you no plaster
will fall down from the ceiling _there_, nor either floor or gable
give way. Every thing will be right when we get to —— Street. The
house, under this system of feeling, begins to wear a desolate look.
Every thing is permitted, according to the old Scottish phrase, just
to hang as it grows. The whole bonds of household discipline are
relaxed. The servants, who are to be changed too perhaps, as well as
the house, begin to do things _any way_, and yet the mistress hardly
chides them. The fact is, she has given up all idea of comfort in
the condemned house, and lives entirely on the hope of seeing every
thing trig in her new abode. She would make no great complaint, as we
verily believe, if the servants obliged her by their carelessness to
spend all the remaining part of the lease up to her knees in water.
Every thing will be right when we get to —— Street, so we’ll just put
up with it. Every now and then one of the children comes in, like the
messengers in Macbeth, to tell her of the progress of mischief. One
has to mention, that a boy throwing stones has just broken two panes
in the drawing-room window, the lower chess having been up at the
time. No matter; all will be right when we get to —— Street. Another
“cream-faced loon” rushes in to say, that the girls in the kitchen
have just broken down the grate, and snapped the poker in two. No
matter; all will be right when we get to —— Street. Nay, it is not
too much to suppose that, although she were told of the house having
just begun to sink into the earth, she would take it all with the most
philosophic coolness, and console herself for every present mishap by
a reference to the joys which are to be experienced in that home of
promise. The prospect of a removal, it will be observed, is thus enough
even to revolutionise human nature. People abandon their most cherished
objects of care, and disregard that of which they are in general most
solicitous, under the influence of this prospect. Like the pilgrim of
Bunyan (not to speak it profanely), they thrust their fingers in their
ears, in order to shut out all lateral subjects of thought, and rush
on—on—on towards the new house.

At last the throes of actual removal begin to be felt, and, for the
time, all happy anticipation is deadened within us. You have long ago
ascertained, by a ceremonious call upon the present tenants of your new
mansion, that they cannot remove an hour before Whitsunday at noon,
which gives you the comfortable assurance that your flitting will be,
like a sharp fever, soon over. The lady who is coming to _your_ house
soon after makes a ceremonious call upon _you_, and ascertains, of
course, that you can only remove at that hour also. If matters should
happen otherwise—if you are either going to a house altogether new, or
to one which can be vacated a short while before the term-day, then
what a convenience it is!—we shall have the painters in, and get it
all put to rights before we flit a single stick; and after it is all
right, we shall remove quite at our leisure. By this plan we shall
not only avoid the risk of breaking things, which is always the case
in a hurried flitting, but we shall get porters and carters a great
deal cheaper, for these fellows, you know, charge three wages on the
actual term-day, when every body is flitting. But if it should happen,
as above mentioned, that you are limited to a few hours, so that
your furniture, as it goes out, will meet the furniture of another
person coming in, and, as it goes in, will meet, in tug of war, that
of another person coming out, then the blessed anticipation of your
future comforts in “that nice house” reconciles you to every thing, and
you make yourself think that, after all, it is better, when one _is_
flitting, to have it all over in the shortest possible space of time.

Sometimes, even when you have a vantage space, you are strangely
jockeyed out of it before you are aware. Say the house is to be painted
before you go into it. Being quite at your ease, you are satisfied
that the painters are engaged about two months before the term. You
know very well that these men are the greatest of all rascals; that,
indeed, they have no other principle within them but just to put
people to as much trouble as possible. But two months! that must
surely be sufficient. Well, the painters come all this time before the
term, and, like the ancient Spanish navigators, take possession of a
newly-discovered country, mark the job for their own, by planting a
nasty pail in one room, and setting up a brush on end against the wall
in another. You look in about a week after, and see the pail and the
brush _in statu quo_: the fellows have as yet done nothing but taken
_seisin_.[3] You think this is not just quite right, and calling in a
cool easy way at the master’s as you go home, express your wish that
the job should be immediately proceeded with, being anxious to get
into the house as long before the term as possible. The painter is all
politeness, and promises to _put men upon the house_ next morning, so
that it will be got ready for your reception in _no time_—by which he
appears to mean a space of time so brief as not to be worth defining,
but which you eventually find to have signified that the job would be
finished _not at all in time_. As you come home to your dinner next
afternoon, you take a turn that way to see how “the men” are getting
on. The house is as empty and desolate as ever; but, from a change in
the relative situations of the pail and the brush, you see that they
_have_ been there. On inspecting things more minutely, you find that
one bed-room has been washed down, and is now, to use a kitchen phrase,
_swimming_. Well, this is a beginning, you think. “The men” have been
doing what they could to-day, and to-morrow they would be a good way
advanced. On this supposition, you take no more thought about the
house for three or four days more, when, dropping in as before, you
have the satisfaction of seeing that there is _another pail_, and that
the ceiling of the dining-room has been whitewashed. Still, dilatory
as the rascals evidently are, you hardly think there is a sufficient
_casus fœderis_, or breach of treaty, to entitle you to go and blow
up the polite man at head-quarters. You suffer for another day; and
then, dropping in again, you find a little Flibbertigibbet of a boy
exerting himself with his tiny arms to whitewash the ceiling of the
parlour. Well, my boy, where are “the men?” This is your question; but
for answer you only learn that there have never been any men in the
matter—nobody has ever been here but Flibbertigibbet himself. You feel,
at this intelligence, almost as much bewildered and obfusculated as
George the Second was when he asked an Irish sergeant at a review after
the seven years’ war, where was the —— regiment? and was answered,
“Please your majesty, I’se the —— regiment;” the Hibernian being in
reality the only man that had survived the last campaign. Is this _the
men_, you say to yourself, that Mr —— promised to put upon the house?
You go of course instantly, and, Mr —— being, by his own good fortune,
from home, you leave a note for him, expressed in such terms as you
are sure must bring him to his senses, if any thing will. Dropping in
next day to see the effect, your ire is soothed at finding three men at
work besides Flibbertigibbet, and every thing seems going on so well,
that you trouble them no more for a week. But it is needless to pursue
this painful theme any farther. Suffice it to say, that, having once
got these artists into the house, you feel by and by as if they were
never again to be got out; you fear that, contrary to the catastrophe
of the well-known jest, there will be no letting go the painter. Their
pails, and buckets, and brushes, and all their slopery, are just as
rife in the house a week before the term as they were a month earlier;
and still to every remonstrance Mr —— replies, that all he can do is to
_put on more men next Monday morning_. It is all you can do, perhaps,
to get the odious varlets trundled out, “pots and all,” on the very day
before you are compelled to remove; so that, instead of having ample
scope and verge enough, as you expected, you find that you will be just
as much hurried and flurried as if you had been going to a house not
previously vacated.

Well, whatever be the foregoing circumstances, flitting day at last
arrives in all its horrors. The lady of the household has for several
days been storing all kinds of small things by into drawers and boxes,
that they might the more safely be transported, so that the family
finds itself already deprived of the half of those things which are
necessary to comfort, and the whole of what minister to luxury. Your
shaving-box is amissing two mornings before flitting day, and has to
be fished up, like a “drowned honour,” from the bottom of some abyss
of well-regarded trifles. When you come home to dinner on flitting day
eve, it is any money for a boot-jack. You take your meals that evening
without table-cloths; and unless you can bring down your proud stomach
to a brown kitchen bowl, any thing like a comforting drink is out of
the question. The crepuscular anguish of the day is already felt. You
go to your bed that night off an uncarpeted floor, and in the midst
of all kinds of tubs covered up with packsheet, and looking-glasses
swaddled up in linen. If you get a nightcap, you may consider yourself
lucky above all mortal men. You go to bed, but sleep there is none,
for you have to rise next morning long before the usual hour, and
the anticipatory sense of what you have to go through that day fills
every nook and cranny of your mind. You awake to a rush of children
and servants on the stairs; and though you exert every nerve of your
memory to recollect the new geography of things in the room, it is ten
to one but you stumble over some tub or chest in the dark, where you
thought no tub should be; and, upon the whole, the feeling with which
you thrust your poor cold distressed shanks into your vestments, is
not much short of that which must possess a man about to walk to the
scaffold. A breakfast composed of every thing but the proper materials,
and taken out of every thing but the proper vessels, collects such a
group of shabby slatternly figures as you did not before think yourself
husband, or father, or master to. The meal is gulped in agonies of
haste, for the carts were to be at the door at seven exactly, and it
is now within a few minutes of the hour. Well, the carts come; one by
one are your household goods displaced and packed up on those vehicles.
Grates are placed on the breadth of their backs at the bottom, by way
of ballast. Then mattresses go over them, to make an agreeable flooring
for other things. Tables are tumbled a-top, with their legs reared
high in the air, like cart-horses enjoying themselves in their Sunday
pastures; and to the ropes with which the heaps are bound down, are
attached fry-pans, children’s toys, and other light articles, all by
way of garnishing. Though far above such things in general, you are
obliged on this occasion to see after very mean details, lest your
property should suffer some dreadful damage. The more delicate articles
are necessarily entrusted to porters or other serviceable individuals,
who carry them separately to your new house. “The boys,” glad to escape
the school for a day, are employed, to their great satisfaction, in
transporting single things, “which don’t break;” and the servants see
after certain baskets of crystal and crockery, “which do.” To see all
things properly disposed of—each to the individual best fitted for
it—is your business, and no easy one it is. At length, after every
thing is fairly packed off, the lady and yourself walk away together,
the cat following in a pillow-slip under the charge of your second
eldest daughter.

Before three in the afternoon, the whole of your furniture, broken and
whole, has been thrust, higglety-pigglety, into your new house, where
you find all things in the most chaotic state of confusion. Kitchen
things repose in the dining-room; drawing-room chairs are deposited in
the kitchen; and a huge chest of drawers stands in the vestibule, with
a shoulder thrust so far out into the _fair way_ as to render it almost
impossible to pass. The kitchen grate is only to be built in after six
o’clock in the evening, when the masons are released from their day’s
work; so there is no possibility of cooking any thing. A _provisional_
arrangement is therefore made on this point. You, and your wife, and
your children, and all your assistants, bivouac in some shabby parlour,
and regale yourselves (_absit elegantia_) with rolls and porter.
Henry, your eldest son, who has wrought like a Turk all day, leads
the feast with his coat off, and the scene can only be compared to a
rough-and-tumbling in the back woods of America. No ceremony as to
knives. Rolls, and even large loaves, are torn through the middle, and
large mouthfuls dug out from the mass by the thumb or forefinger. The
liquor goes round in some ordinary vessel, never before appropriated
to such a purpose, and all feeling of discomfort being stolen away by
the novelty and strong natural feeling of the occasion, the jest and
laugh abound. Even in the midst of all the disarray, great hopes and
expectations are expressed regarding the new mansion. Such capital high
ceilings! Such a broad elegant lobby! So different from that dismal
hole we have left! Or, if the ceilings are low, and the lobby narrow,
while in the former house they were the reverse, the contrast is drawn
in reference to some other points where superiority is indisputable,
while the demerits of the new abode are cast discreetly into shade,
only to be brought out and complained of at the approach of next
Candlemas. You either have left a good view from the windows, or you
are entering upon one. Suppose your former house, being in the centre
of the town, had hardly any view, then your wife thus comments upon
it:—“Such a dark confined place! Nothing to be seen from the windows,
but the opposite houses, or else the chimney-stalks and _old wives_.
Now, here we are quite in the country. The drawing-room commands Fife
and North Berwick Law, and even from the bed-rooms we catch a great
lump of the Dalmahoy hills. If we just step to the end of the house,
we are into the fields; and then we’ll be so very quiet here, compared
with what we were. Not a carriage or a cart passing from morning till
night. We’ll get some rest at last; and truth to tell, my health is
in great need of it. How truly delightful thus to get fairly out of
that black, smoky, noisy town, to a place where we can enjoy all the
pleasures of the country, and yet be within reach of every convenience
of the city! And just consider how much benefit the walk must be to
your own health. We formerly lived so near your place of business, that
you got no exercise at all, seeing that I never could prevail upon
you to take a walk on purpose. But here you _must_ walk, and the good
it must do you will be visible in a week’s time,”—&c. &c. &c. If the
case has been totally the reverse, you are addressed as follows:—“How
delightful to get fairly away from that cold, out-of-the-world,
dull place, and once more feel ourselves snug in the town! We’ve no
prospects here from the windows; but, ’deed, when folk have prospects,
I never see that they make much use of them. For my part, I never
looked out of the drawing-room windows once in the month; for what
are the Fife hills or North Berwick Law after one has once seen them?
[What philosophy we have here!] And then, what good did we get from the
garden? It was just a fash to keep right; and I’m sure, when we had
paid the gardener, we did not make a penny off the vegetables. Now,
here, although there be little prospect from any of the windows, we’re
at least a great deal better protected from the wind. If we have not a
garden of our own, have we not the green market almost at the door? And
such a weary distance you had to walk every day! No more of that now.
Here, when you want a walk, you can take one; and when you don’t like,
you can let it alone. Walks are very well, perhaps, in good summer
weather; but I’ve no idea of seeing you plash through a long dirty road
twice every day through the whole winter. Whenever we want either a
walk or a prospect, we’ll get it in the Queen Street gardens; for you
know Mrs —— has told me that we may have her key whenever we like. In
our old ill-contrived house, we had no place to put any thing off our
hand; not so much as a cupboard in the whole house; but now, you see,
we have as many presses as rooms, and a capital cellar for coals and
lumber. And how near we are here to all the best shops! If it were for
nothing but the convenience of getting tea-bread at a minute’s warning
from Mr Littlejohn, the baker, whenever any person calls upon us in the
evening, it would have been worth while to remove to this house. The
lass likewise tells me that there is a very obliging woman, quite at
hand, who keeps a mangle for the use of the neighbourhood, which will
be a great convenience to the family; and that she will take in hand to
supply us with milk or cream at any hour of the day,”—&c. &c. &c. Thus,
it will be observed, neither the spirit of discontent nor the spirit of
hope is ever without material for feeding its particular necessities.

You have now got fairly into your new house, bag and baggage. It is
after the manner, however, of a certain pound of comfits which a
carrier once brought from a city confectioner to a country customer.
The paper bag having proved insufficient in the journey, the contents
had dispersed themselves throughout all the other packages in the cart.
Every parcel, and bag, and box, had to be shaken clear of the lurking
carvy, till, the whole of the bulky articles having been discharged
and laid off, the little white particles were found at the bottom
mingled with straws, fragments of rope, and paper, and all other kinds
of trash. The whole having been swept out, however, the honest old
carrier brought them to the owner in a large platter, saying, with
the air of a man who has relieved his conscience of some uncommon
weight, “Here they are, mistress; ye hae them a’ for me.” Just like the
comfits are all your goods and chattels—your ox, and your ass, and your
children, and your every thing else—the whole are there; but in such a
state! Perhaps, to add to your distresses, you have to delay putting
the principal rooms to rights till the painters have to be with you.
This, of course, adjourns the termination of your agonies _sine die_.
Perhaps, about three months after, when you have battled the rascals
out of one room into another, much after the manner of the siege of St
Sebastian, you get at last into the enviable attitude “as you were,”
resolving of course never again to remove as long as you live, but
still as ready before next 2d of February to take that step as ever.


FOOTNOTES:

[3] A ceremony in the law of Scotland, by which a man becomes invested
with a piece of land or house property.




FALLACIES OF THE YOUNG.

“DEBTORS AND CREDITORS.”


The common feeling respecting debtors and creditors is very erroneous,
and, as is common with popular fallacies, it imposes with double
force upon the young and inexperienced. Debtors are represented in
all works of fiction, and in the ordinary language of a large portion
of society, as a set of amiable, unfortunate, and most interesting
persons: Creditors, on the other hand, as an unmingled generation of
execrable wretches, with a hardness of heart that would not disgrace
an executioner, and indeed only one remove from another stony class of
men, the much misrepresented jailers. Now, the person who writes this
article has known many debtors and creditors, and he can say that, in
by far the most of cases, the latter were the better class of men. He
alludes, of course, not to commercial men at large, who are in their
own persons, in general, as much of the one thing as the other, but to
cases where the creditor is a tradesman, and the debtor a customer;
that is, where the debt is not incurred in the intercourse of business,
but for the personal use and benefit of the debtor. In these cases,
so far from the creditor being an unfeeling and relentless tyrant, as
he is generally represented, he is only the indignant victim of the
imprudence or guilt of the debtor. The latter may be an amiable and
interesting person, for we often find these characteristics united
to consummate folly and disregard of the rights of others. But the
young must beware how they set down debtors, in a class, as purely
estimable and entitled to sympathy, while they at the same time look
upon creditors as only ruthless persecutors, worthy of the bitterest
execration. They may depend upon it, that no notion could be more
erroneous, no error more apt to be fatal to them in their course
through life. They must be informed that to incur debt for their own
gratifications, without the ability to discharge it, is just another
thing for selling themselves as slaves to their creditors. After doing
so, they are no longer entirely free: part of themselves becomes the
property of another, and thus they lose the respect of the world,
which cannot see one man indulge in enjoyments at the expense of his
fellow, without thinking of him very meanly. The incurring of debt for
personal gratification is odious, for many reasons. In the first place,
it violates that rule of nature which appoints every man to work for
himself, and only enjoy as he works. It also tends to occasion the
ruin of innocent persons. Creditors are not invariably rich, as one
would suppose them to be, from reading novels. They are more frequently
poor, industrious persons, who, in losing money by their debtors, are
apt to be made debtors themselves, and thereby ruined. In fact, the
case stands generally thus: An idle or extravagant person procures
support for his bad appetites, and is enabled to show himself off as
a very fine fellow, at the expense of a humble-minded honest trader,
who confines himself constantly to his business, and forbids himself
almost every indulgence, in order that he may be able to pay every
one to whom _he_ is indebted, and discharge all the other duties of a
good citizen. Now, if young people will bring their naturally generous
feelings to bear upon this point, they will see that the debtor,
and not the creditor, is alone worthy of execration. And they may
be assured, that, where creditors show a severity to their debtors,
it is generally either merited by the latter, or is dictated by a
justifiable consideration of the danger into which they are thrown by
the non-payment of the money which is their due, and which they may be
owing in their turn to some other person.

In every rule there are exceptions; but it is necessary to guard
against the breaking down of _great rules_ by allowing for _trifling
exceptions_. Because good men sometimes incur debt, and become
insolvent, through no fault of theirs, we must not infringe upon the
majesty of the great maxim, that debt ought to be paid, and that its
non-payment is an evil. Young people, if they wish to prosper in the
world, will do well not to excuse all contraction of debt for the sake
of the few who contract it innocently. They must have it impressed
forcibly upon their minds, that every pleasure in which they indulge
themselves, without the reasonable prospect of paying for it, though it
be but to the amount of one penny, is a step in error, and apt to be
the beginning of their destruction. They must have it impressed upon
their minds, that no man of good feelings can enjoy the least comfort,
if he be not conscious of working for, or being honestly come into
the possession of, fully as much as he spends. To persist in living
beyond our incomes, is to live a life of dishonesty; and to subsist on
the industry of relatives, as is sometimes the case with the idle and
the dissolute, is worse still, for it involves an excessive meanness
of spirit, ingratitude, and hard-heartedness—thus adding depth to the
crime, and will be sure to be visited some day with feelings of anguish
and remorse.

A predominating error among the junior classes of society, is a
disinclination to wait for a short time till they be enabled to compete
in the enjoyment of luxuries with others they see around them, and
who, it is more than probable, have toiled long and painfully before
they arrived at their present apparently prosperous condition. This
impatience of reaching a certain height in the ladder of fortune,
without taking deliberation to mount a number of preliminary and
difficult steps, cannot, indeed, be sufficiently reprehended, where
it occurs, as it leads to that fatal resource of incurring debts
never to be paid, and that supposed harshness of creditors, which a
disordered process of reasoning brings into view. I would here tenderly
admonish the youthful part of the community to refrain from indulgences
they cannot honestly command. Let them believe one who has had some
experience, when he tells them that there is not the least chance
of the world running away from them; that the present generation of
grown men will not consume _all_ earthly enjoyments, but will leave a
boundless variety of everything which can please the senses, or gratify
an honourable ambition. They need, therefore, be in no hurry whatever,
and take time to build their fortune on a firm and secure basis. The
rising generation cannot lay these things sufficiently to heart. They
cannot be sufficiently taught, that suffering under the consequences of
imprudently-incurred debts does not necessarily make them heroes—is not
entitled to unmingled sympathy, no more than a robber at the gallows
is a martyr; but that, while pity is perhaps due to them, as to all
who err in this frail world, the larger share of sympathy ought to be
bestowed on their unfortunate victims, the creditors, whose families
may be suffering from their criminal follies, and who are apt to be by
far the better and honester men.




GENERAL INVITATIONS.


“Pray, do call in an easy way some evening, you and Mrs Balderstone;
we are sure to be at home, and shall be most happy to see you.” Such
is the kind of invitation one is apt to get from considerably intimate
acquaintances, who, equally resolved against the formality and the
expense of a particular entertainment on your account, hope to avoid
both evils by making your visit a matter of accident. If you be a man
of some experience, you will know that all such attempts to make bread
and cheese do that which is more properly the business of a pair of
fowls, end in disappointment; and you will, therefore, take care to
wait till the general invitation becomes a particular one. But there
are inexperienced people in this world who think every thing is as it
seems, and are apt to be greatly deceived regarding this accidental
mode of visiting. For the sake of these last, I shall relate the
following adventure:—

I had been remarkably busy one summer, and, consequently, obliged to
refuse all kinds of invitations, general and particular. The kind
wishes of my friends had accumulated upon me somewhat after the manner
of the tunes frozen up in Baron Munchausen’s French horn; and it seemed
as if a whole month would have been necessary to thaw out and discharge
the whole of these obligations. A beginning, however, is always
something; and, accordingly, one rather splashy evening in November, I
can’t tell how it was, but a desire came simultaneously over myself and
Mrs Balderstone—it seemed to be by sympathy—of stepping out to see Mr
and Mrs Currie, a married pair, who had been considerably more pressing
in their general invitations than any other of our friends. We both
knew that there was a cold duck in the house, besides a bit of cheese
just sent home by Nicholson, and understood to be more than excellent.
But, as the old Scots song says, the _tid_ had come over us, and
forth we must go. No sooner said than done. Five minutes more saw us
leaving our comfortable home, my wife carrying a cap pinned under her
cloak, while to my pocket was consigned her umbrageous comb. As we
paced along, we speculated only on the pleasure which we should give
to our kind friends by thus at last paying them a visit, when perhaps
all hope of our ever doing so was dead within them. Nor was it possible
altogether to omit reflecting, like the dog invited by his friend to
sup, upon the entertainment which lay before us; for certainly on such
an occasion the fatted calf could hardly expect to be spared.

Full of the satisfaction which we were to give and receive, we were
fully into the house before we thought it necessary to inquire if any
body was at home. The servant girl, surprised by the forward confidence
of our entrée, evidently forgot her duty, and acknowledged, when she
should have denied, the presence of her master and mistress in the
house. We were shown into a dining-room as clean, cold, and stately as
an alabaster cave, and which had the appearance of being but rarely
lighted by the blaze of hospitality. My first impulse was to relieve
my pocket, before sitting down, of the comb, which I thought was now
about being put to its proper use; but the chill of the room stayed my
hand. I observed, at the same time, that my wife, like the man under
the influence of Eolus in the fable, manifested no symptom of parting
with her cloak. Ere we could communicate our mutual sensations of
incipient disappointment, Mrs Currie entered with a flurried, surprised
air, and made a prodigious effort to give us welcome. But, alas! poor
Mr Currie; he had been seized in the afternoon with a strange vertigo
and sickness, and was now endeavouring, by the advice of Dr Boak, to
get some repose. “It will be _such_ a disappointment to him when he
learns that you were here, for he would have been so happy to see
you. We must just entertain the hope, however, to see you some other
night.” Although the primary idea in our minds at this moment was
unquestionably the _desperatio cibi_—the utter hopelessness of supper
in this quarter—we betrayed, of course, no feeling but sympathy in
the illness of our unfortunate friend, and a regret for having called
at so inauspicious a moment. Had any unconcerned person witnessed
our protestations, he could have formed no suspicion that we ever
contemplated supper, or were now in the least disappointed. We felt
anxious about nothing but to relieve Mrs Currie, as soon as possible,
of the inconvenience of our visit, more especially as the chill of
the room was now piercing us to the bone. We therefore retired, under
a shower of mutual compliments and condolences, and “hopes,” and
“sorries,” and “have the pleasures;” the door at last slamming after us
with a noise which seemed to say, “How very glad I am to get quit of
you!”

When we got to the street, we certainly did not feel quite so mortified
as the dog already alluded to, seeing that we had not, like him, been
tossed over the window. But, still the reverse of prospect was so very
bitter, that for some time we could hardly believe that the adventure
was real. By this time we had expected to be seated snug at supper,
side by side with two friends, who, we anticipated, would almost expire
with pleasure at seeing us. But here, on the contrary, we were turned
out upon the cold inhospitable street, without a friend’s face to cheer
us. We still recollected that the cold duck remained as a fortress to
fall back upon; but, being now fairly agog in the adventure, the idea
of returning home, _re infecta_, was not to be thought of. Supper we
must have in some other house than our own, let it cost what it may.
“Well,” said Mrs Balderstone, “there are the Jacksons! They live not
far from this—suppose we drop in upon them. I’m sure we have had enough
of invitations to their house. The very last time I met Mrs Jackson
on the street, she told me she was never going to ask us again—we had
refused so long—she was going, she said, just to let us come _if_
we liked, and _when_ we liked.” Off we went, therefore, to try the
Jacksons.

On applying at the door of this house, it flew open, as it were, by
enchantment, and the servant girl, so far from hesitating like the
other, seemed to expect no question to be asked on entrée. We moved
into the lobby, and inquired if Mr and Mrs Jackson were at home,
which was answered by the girl with a surprised affirmative. We now
perceived, from the pile of hats and cloaks in the lobby, as well as
a humming noise from one of the rooms, that the Jacksons had a large
company, and that we were understood by the servant to be part of
it. The Jacksons, thought we (I know my wife thought so, although I
never asked), give _some_ people particular invitations. Her object
was now to make an honourable retreat, for, although my dress was not
entirely a walking one, and my wife’s cap was brought with the prospect
of making an appearance of dress, we were by no means fit to match
with those who had dressed on purpose for the party, even although we
were asked to join them. Just at this moment, Mrs Jackson happened to
cross the lobby, on hospitable thoughts intent, and saw us, than whom,
perhaps, she would rather have seen a basilisk. “Oh, Mrs Balderstone,
how do you do? How are you, Mr Balderstone? I’m so delighted that you
have come in this easy way at last. A few of the neighbours have just
dropped in upon us, and it will be so delightful if you will join them.
Come into this room and take off your bonnet; and you, Mr Balderstone,
just you be so good as step up to the drawing-room. You’ll find numbers
there that you know. And Mr Jackson will be so happy to see you,”—&c.
All this, however, would not do. Mrs Balderstone and I not only felt
a little hurt at the want of speciality in our invitations to this
house, but could not endure the idea of mingling in a crowd better
dressed and more regularly invited than ourselves. We therefore begged
Mrs Jackson to excuse us for this night. We had just called in an easy
way in passing, and, indeed, we never attended ceremonious parties
at any time. We would see her some other evening, when she was less
engaged—that is to say, “we would rather see you and Mr Jackson at
Jericho than darken your doors again.” And so off we came, with the
blandest and most complimentary language upon our tongues, and the most
piqued and scornful feelings in our hearts.

Again upon the street—yea, once again. What was to be done now? Why,
said Mrs Balderstone, there is excellent old Mrs Smiles, who lives
in the next street. I have not seen her or the Misses Smiles for six
months; but the last time they were so pressing for us to return their
visit (you remember they supped with us in spring), that I think we
cannot do better than take this opportunity of clearing scores.

Mrs Smiles, a respectable widow, lived with her five daughters in a
third floor in —— Street. Thither we marched, with a hope, undiminished
by the two preceding disappointments, that here at length we would find
supper. Our knock at Mrs Smiles’s hospitable portal produced a strange
rushing noise within; and when the servant appeared, I observed in the
far, dim vista of the passage, one or two slip-slop figures darting
across out of one door into another, and others again crossing in the
opposite direction; and then there was heard a low anxious whispering,
while a single dishevelled head peeped out from one of the doors, and
then the head was withdrawn, and all was still. We were introduced into
a room which had evidently been the scene of some recent turmoil of no
ordinary kind, for female clothes lay scattered in every direction,
besides some articles which more properly belong to a dressing-room. We
had not been here above a minute, when we heard our advent announced
by the servant in an adjoining apartment to Mrs Smiles herself, and
some of her young ladies. A flood of obloquy was instantly opened upon
the girl by one of her young mistresses—Miss Eliza, we thought—for
having given admission to any body at this late hour, especially when
she knew that they were to be up early next morning to commence their
journey, and had still a great many of their things to pack. “And such
a room you have shown them into, you goose!” said the enraged Miss.
The girl was questioned as to our appearance, for she had neglected to
ask our name; and then we heard one young lady say, “It must be these
Balderstones. What can have set them a-gadding to-night? I suppose we
_must_ ask them to stay to supper, for they’ll have come for nothing
else—confound them! Mary, you are in best trim; will you go in and
speak to them till we get ourselves ready? The cold meat will do, with
a few eggs. I’m sure they could not have come at a worse time.” Miss
Mary accordingly came hastily in after a few minutes, and received
us with a thousand protestations of welcome. Her mother would be so
truly delighted to see us, for she had fairly given up all hope of our
ever visiting her again. She was just getting ready, and would be here
immediately. “In the meantime, Mrs Balderstone, you will lay by your
cloak and bonnet. Let me assist you,”—&c. We had got enough, however,
of the Smileses. We saw we had dropped into the midst of a scene of
easy dishabille, and surprised it with unexpected ceremony. It would
have been cruel to the Smileses to put them about at such a time, and
ten times more cruel to ourselves to sit in friendly intercourse with
a family who had treated us in such a manner behind our backs. “_These
Balderstones!_” The phrase was wormwood. My wife, therefore, made up a
story to the effect that we had only called in going home from another
friend’s house, in order to inquire after the character of a servant.
As Mrs Smiles was out of order, we would not disturb her that evening,
but call on some other occasion. Of course, the more that we declaimed
about the impossibility of remaining to supper, the more earnestly did
Miss Smiles entreat us to remain. It would be such a disappointment
to her mother, and still more to Eliza and the rest of them. She was
obliged, however, with well-affected reluctance, to give way to our
impetuous desire of escaping.

Having once more stepped forth into the cold blast of November,
we began to feel that supper was becoming a thing which we could
not much longer, with comfort, trust to the contingency of _general
invitations_. We therefore sent home our thoughts to the excellent
cold duck and green cheese which lay in our larder, and, picturing to
ourselves the comfort of our parlour fireside, with a good bottle of
ale toasting within the fender, resolved no more to wander abroad in
search of happiness, unless there should be something like a certainty
of good fare and a hearty welcome elsewhere.

Thus it is always with general invitations. “Do call on us some
evening, Miss Duncan, just in an easy way, and, pray, bring your seam
with you, for there is nothing I hate so much as ceremonious set
calls,” is the sort of invitations you will hear in the middle ranks
of life, given to some good-natured female acquaintance, while you
yourself, if a bachelor, will in the same way be bidden to call “just
after you are done with business, and any night in the week; it is
all the same, for you can never catch us unprepared.” The deuce is in
these general invitations. People give them without reflecting that
they cannot be at all times ready to entertain visitors; cannot be so
much as at home to have the chance of doing so. Other people accept and
act upon them, at the risk of either putting their visitors dreadfully
about, or receiving a very poor entertainment. The sudden arrival of
an unexpected guest who has come on the faith of one of these delusive
roving invitations, indeed, in many instances, disorganises the economy
of a whole household. Nothing tries a housewife so much. The state of
her larder or cupboard instantaneously flashes on her mind; and if she
do not happen to be a notable, and, consequently, not a regular curer
of beef, or curious in the matter of fresh eggs, a hundred to one but
she feels herself in an awkward dilemma, and, I have no doubt, would
wish the visitor any where but where he is. The truth is, by these
general invitations you may chance to arrive at a death or a marriage,
a period of mourning or rejoicing, when the sympathies of the family
are all engaged with matters of their own.

If people will have their friends beside them, let them, for the sake
of all that is comfortable, give them a definite invitation at once;
a general invitation is much worse than no invitation at all; it is
little else than an insult, however unintentional; for it is as much as
to say that the person is not worth inviting in a regular manner. In
“good” society, a conventional understanding obtains in the delicate
point of invitations; there is an established scale of the value of
the different meals adapted to the rank of the invited. I advise all
my friends to follow this invaluable code of civility. By all means
let your invitations have a special reference to time. On the other
hand, if a friend comes plump down with a request that you will favour
him with your company at a certain hour of the day, why, go without
hesitation. The man deserves your company for his honesty, and you will
be sure to put him to no more trouble than what he directly calculates
on. But turn a deaf ear, if you be wise, to _general_ invitations; they
are nets spread out to ensnare your comfort. Rather content yourself
with the good old maxim, which somebody has inscribed over an ancient
doorway in one of the old streets of Edinburgh, TECUM HABITA—_Keep at
Home_.




CONFESSORS.


It is a very general impression that the system of auricular confession
was given up at the Reformation. Such is by no means the case; every
man and mother’s son in the country still keeps his _confessor_. By
this epithet, it may be guessed, I mean that chief and most particular
friend whom every man keeps about him—who stands his best man when he
is married, and becomes his second when he fights a duel—his double,
in short, or second self—a creature whom you almost always find with
him when you call, and who either walks under his arm in the street, or
is found waiting for him while he steps into some neighbouring shop,
or, as the case may happen, is waited for by him.

I make bold to say, there is not a trader any where who does not keep
his confessor. The creature haunts the shop, till he almost seems the
Genius of the Place, to the grievous prepossession of newspapers,
and, what is more intolerable still, to the exclusive occupation of
the ear of the worthy shopkeeper himself. The evening is the grand
revel-time for confessors of this genus. Between eight and nine, you
see them gathering to the shops of their respective victims, like fowl
to roost. As you pass about nine, you observe, on looking in, that the
discipline and rigour of shop-life has dissolved. Master, men, and
boys, feel the approach of the moment of emancipation, with a peculiar
salience of thought, alternating with a deep and tranquil delight. The
confessor reigns in the spirit of this glorious hour, and his laugh,
and his joke, and his news, and his proffered pinch, are listened to,
re-echoed, and partaken of by his devotee, with a pleasure of the
keenest nature, and ominous, you may make sure, of oysters and gin
punch on the way home.

In some shops, confessors cluster like grapes over a vintner’s door.
They block up the way of custom; and it is evident, in many cases, that
the devotee would rather lose the chance of a penny from a customer, by
omitting opportunities of attack, temptation, and inveiglement, than
lose the joke that is passing in the merry circle of his confessors,
which his ear drinks in as a precious _aside_, while he only can spare
a mere fragment of his attention—a corner of one auditory organ—the
front shop of his mind—to the real business before him. In some shops,
confessors get no encouragement before dinner. The broad eye of garish
day, in those fastidious establishments, could no more endure such
a walking personification of idle gossip, than a ball-room, at high
twelve, could tolerate the intrusion of a man in a short coat, with a
pen stuck in his ear. But this is by no means the general case; and
even in some instances, where the front shop will not admit of such an
appendage, ten to one but, if the premises were well ransacked, you
would find a specimen of the class snug in some out-of-the-way corner,
filling up the greater part of his time with a newspaper, but every
now and then resorted to by his votary, in the intervals of actual
employment, like an Egeria receiving the visits of a Numa, and no doubt
administering equally precious counsel.

The more common position of a shopkeeper’s confessor is a chair
opposite the door, whence he may command a view of all that passes
on the street, with a full front inspection of every individual that
makes bold to enter. Into this chair the confessor invariably glides
as a matter of course. There he sits down, and, throwing one limb
over the other, considers himself entitled to inflict his company
upon the unhappy shopkeeper for any length of time. He notices, as if
he were not noticing, all that goes on in the premises. Not an order
is given for goods, not a payment made, or a pennyworth sold, but it
is seen, and very likely made the subject of after comment. It is of
no consequence to the confessor what description of customers enter
the place. Were a princess of the blood to come in, he would keep his
seat and his countenance equally unmoved, and a whole band of ladies,
driven in to escape a shower of rain, will not stir him from the
chair, to which he seems nailed, like the marble prince of the Black
Islands, in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. The customers very
naturally feel disinclined to patronise a shop which is thus, as it
were, haunted by an evil spirit. “Oh, how I do hate to enter that shop
of Mr Such-a-thing,” says one young lady to another, “for every thing
you do or say is noticed by that odious person who is always lounging
there.” And in this manner Mr Such-a-thing loses his business, almost
without the possibility of recalling it. He longs to discover a means
of disposing of the confessor, but he finds a great difficulty in
accomplishing his purpose. He is disinclined to be churlish to a
person to whom he has confessed himself for years. Still he makes an
effort. He grows cool in his civility, and makes a point of being
always busy on his arrival. Perhaps he has the good luck, at length,
to shake off this pest of his premises; but it is more than probable
that he submits to the terrific infliction for life, his confessor only
leaving him when he is fairly in his grave. I once knew a dreadful
case of confessorship, in which the shopkeeper had the hardihood to
expel his visitant, and by a plan so ingenious that I think it worth
while to advert to it. The shop contained four chairs, including the
confessional, which stood opposite the door. One day when the confessor
arrived, and, as usual, proceeded to his seat, he was a little
surprised in remarking that it was filled to a pretty good height with
parcels of some kind or other. But as this appeared naturally enough to
be caused by a press in the stock of goods, no observation took place
regarding it, and another chair was selected. However, next day when he
again appeared, another chair was found covered up in a similar manner.
The following day, he even found a third filled with parcels; and on
the fourth day the whole were thus engaged. The confessor now saw that
a conspiracy had been formed to destroy his functions, and to expel
him from his ancient settlements. Like the unhappy antediluvians, who,
as the flood arose, were driven from one spot of earth to another, and
at last did not find a dry piece of ground whereon to rest their foot,
so the unhappy confessor had been driven from chair to chair, till at
last he could not discover a place whereon he could plant himself.
A pang of vexation shot through his heart; a gleam of mingled shame
and indignation passed over his countenance; and, with a last look of
despair, he burst from the shop, and “ne’er was heard of more.”

It must be allowed that some men do not stand so much in need of
confessors, or do not indulge so much in them, as others; but, upon the
whole, it may be taken as a general rule, that no man can altogether
do without such an official. In the fair on-going business of life,
one acts _suo more solito_, according to one’s regular custom of
trade, or by the common rules of the world. But occasions occur, where
common practice does not furnish a rule. You are in love, and wish
to interest a friend in your passion; you are about to marry, and
require information about arrangements, and also some one to stand
beside you, and pull off your glove, preparatory to the ceremony; you
have a quarrel, and need a third party to tell you that you are in the
right; you are about to enter into some commercial or other enterprise
a little beyond your usual depth, and find it necessary to fortify
your resolution by the sanction of a friend; or you write a poem or a
novel, and require to have somebody to read the manuscript, and tell
you that it is sure of success. In all these cases, the confessor
is indispensable. _Without him_, you would be crossed in love; get
stranded in the straits of matrimony; permit yourself, after giving
offence and insult, to let off the object of it with impunity for his
remonstrance; break down in your new business scheme; and let your
manuscript waste its sweetness on the desert scrutoire. But _with him_
all goes smooth.

Upon the whole, it is better that one’s confessor should be a little
poorer, as well as a little more plausible in speech, than one’s
self: he ought to be a man to whom meat and drink are things of some
account—a broken-down Scotch licentiate—an author who has published
respectable books which have never sold; in short, some idle, poor,
servile individual, to whom it is of the last importance to get a good
grazing ground in the back premises of a substantial trader, upon whom
he may revenge that partiality of fortune, which decrees all the real
comforts of life to the mercantile and common-place, while the real
“clever fellows” starve.

But, after all, it must be allowed that there is a great deal of
confessorship in the world, independent of a regard to cake and
pudding. It is in many cases simply a fascination exerted over one
mind by another; in others, the result of that very common failing,
the want of confidence in one’s own resources. Young men—by which,
I mean men in the mason-lodge time of life, say between twenty and
five-and-twenty—are most apt to indulge in confession. _They_ think
friends all in all, and for friends would give up every thing. All
business and duty is to them an episode, only consented to because
it is unavoidable; while the enjoyment of the countenance of their
friends seems the main and true concern of life. Then are the joys
of confession truly relished. Then does the vampire confessor suck
deepest into the vitals of his devotee. Happy delusion—sweet morning
dream—alas! too certain to awake to the conviction that it is “but a
dream!”




A CHAPTER OF POLITICAL ECONOMY,

WRITTEN FOR THE BRITISH PEASANTRY.


The monstrous absurdity, that there is a principle in the economy of
nature by which population increases beyond the means of support, has
been stated by men eminent in various departments of political economy,
and countenanced by individuals in whom the soundest reasoning and
farsightedness might have been expected. There is _not_ a principle
in nature having a tendency to increase population beyond the means
of subsistence, or to overpeople the world. To suppose that there is,
is to impugn the magnificent designs of the Creator, and to call in
question his vigilant and ever-sustaining providence. When the globe
which we inhabit, and all that it sustains in the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, was called into existence, and sent forth fresh from the
hands of its Divine Constructor, certain fixed principles were ordained
and put into unintermitting action, by which all were to be sustained,
and prevented alike from coming to a stand, or into collision. These
principles involved the production and reproduction of food for man
and beast through an incalculable series of ages; and this process
of production was left to be excited or retarded in a great measure
by man, for whose convenience all subordinate parts were organised,
and by whose thinking faculties the increase or decrease of food was
apparently to be proportioned. In a word, it was left to our free-will
whether to cultivate the soil, or leave it in its rude and unproductive
condition.

It has happened in the course of some five or six thousand years after
the creation of the world, that a small island, lying in the seas which
border on the northern part of Europe—a spot of earth so comparatively
small that it may be traversed from one end to the other in the
space of little more than a week—has, by the artificial state of its
society, and a concourse of injudicious regulations, increased in its
population to about seventeen millions of inhabitants; and because, as
must necessarily be the case from the influence of these regulations,
a number of the people are in impoverished circumstances, and are not
so well fed as their neighbours, it has, forsooth, pleased a few men in
this large mass of humanity to impeach the God of the universe, and to
tell us that He creates millions of thinking beings only to put them to
death by starvation.

To show the utter fallacy of this detestable theory, I need only
bring under your notice two simple facts, in which all such vicious
and shallow-minded reasoning finds an insurmountable obstacle to its
establishment. It is a great, a comforting, and an undeniable fact,
that there are immense tracts of land, islands, and even continents,
which till this hour are lying in nearly their primeval state, with the
soil untouched since the beginning of the world. So boundless are these
almost uninhabited territories, so capable are they of sustaining
human life, that, if the proper means were used, they would yield food,
clothing, and a place of residence to more people than all that the
ancient settlements of the human race at present contain. They could
hold all the existing population of the earth, and not be filled.
Canada itself could receive and maintain the whole of the population
of Europe; and the seventeen millions of human beings belonging to the
little island which has raised such alarm, might be transported to the
banks of one of the mighty rivers in the United States, and it would
hardly be known that they had taken up their residence in the country.
“Send us over your whole population (says an American writer); we have
plenty of room for you all, and a hundred millions more.” But such a
gratifying fact as this gives but a faint idea of the vastness, the
capabilities of the world beyond the waters of the Atlantic. In one
of the numbers of the Journal, I presented the account given by the
ingenious naturalist Audubon, of the wild pigeons of America. Have my
readers any recollection of the extraordinary number of these animals,
and the calculation made regarding the quantity of their daily food?
Let me here repeat and extend the calculation. The number of pigeons
seen on the wing by Audubon, as computed by allowing two pigeons to
the square yard, was _one billion, one hundred and fifteen millions,
one hundred and thirty-six thousand_, and “as every pigeon (says he)
daily consumes fully half a pint of food, the quantity necessary for
supplying this vast multitude must be _eight millions seven hundred
and twelve thousand bushels per day_.” The species of food used is the
produce of the trees. We thus find, that by a moderate calculation a
single flock of pigeons in the back woods of America consumes in one
day as great an amount of food, whether by weight or measure, as would
support the whole seventeen millions of people in Great Britain for
at least a week. The mind is lost in wonder in contemplation of so
magnificent a fact. The faculty of thought is bewildered in pondering
on so striking an instance of the astonishing bounty of the great
Author of Nature in providing for the wants of his creatures. Where,
where, may we then ask, have the predicters of famine been examining
the sources of food for man? On what have their eyes and their thoughts
been fixed, that they have passed over this prospect of inexhaustible
plenty? It would seem that they have never looked beyond the confines
of that little spot of land in the ocean, which I have alluded to,
and whose superabundant thousands require only to be transferred to
that division on the earth’s surface holding out food, raiment, and
residence for their gratuitous acceptance, in order that society may
right itself.

The above is the _first_ fact I have to offer in the elucidation of
this important question; and I maintain, in direct opposition to
those who have taken a contrary view of the subject—among whom I am
sorry to include persons otherwise distinguished for the clearness
and comprehensiveness of their views of the social compact—that until
the _whole_ earth has been peopled, and until it can hold no more, it
cannot rationally be said that the means of subsistence are inadequate
for the wants of the population. These means are no more inadequate
than that the produce of a kitchen-garden is insufficient to support
the family to which it belongs; and if this family be prevented from
seeking its subsistence beyond its garden walls, and so be half
starved, their miserable case is exactly parallel with that of this
over-populated island. Remove, I would say, all restrictions of a
certain description; do not unnaturally foster population either in a
particular part of the country, or at a particular time; LET MANKIND
ALONE: and, in the same manner that fluids find their level, so will
the redundant population of Great Britain and Ireland be profitably
dispersed over territories hitherto untrodden by the footsteps of
civilised men.

My _second_ fact is more hypothetical, but not less obvious to our
understanding. It is an old proverbial expression, that “necessity
is the mother of invention.” Now, in this sentiment we discover one
of the wisest provisions of Providence. It is only by necessity that
mankind, in a savage state, are compelled to hunt, or otherwise toil,
for their subsistence. The same feeling predominates through all the
ramifications of civilised society. In proportion as the necessities of
men spur them on to seek out new means of subsistence, so do these new
means of subsistence open upon their view. If we cast a retrospective
glance upon those steps which society has traced from its infancy to
manhood—from a state of barbaric rudeness to a condition of luxury and
splendour—we invariably find that all improvements have originated in
the wants of the people; and that, in proportion as they increased in
number, so did they whet their invention, and contrive additional means
of support. It is from this cause that Scotland, for instance, had no
greater overplus of food when it had only a million of inhabitants than
it has now, when it supports nearly three times the number. Nay, it had
much less food in proportion when it had only a million of people; and
hence it is proved that mankind, by their inventions and improvements,
greatly increase the means of support beyond the point at which they
formerly stood. The power of seeking out, or inventing, new means of
subsistence, just as the old ones are perceived to be inadequate, has
been actively at work since the beginning of time, and will operate
for the benefit of our race as long as sun and moon endure. It is
in the exercise of this transcendent faculty of the human mind that
we see the beneficence of the Creator in providing unseen means of
subsistence; and it is in it that we find the cheering hope, that at no
period, however distant, even _when_ the _whole_ earth shall have been
covered with inhabitants, shall mankind languish for lack of food. As
they go on increasing in number, so will they go on perfecting their
contrivances; every succeeding generation may labour under some new
difficulty, but so will it be endowed with the faculty of releasing
itself from it.




THE DRAMA.


Theatricals are said to be losing public favour in almost every place
where they are known, and public writers are puzzled to account for it.

When the buckle-trade declined some years ago, the cause was at once
seen to be the ascendency of buttons. But it would appear that the
cause of the decline of theatricals, though almost equally obvious,
is more a subject of dispute. It is only so because the subject is
larger, and composed of more parts. We think, however, that a little
discussion will suffice to show, with equal clearness, what causes the
failure of dramatic amusements, as a part of the great system of public
entertainment.

Taking the middle of the last century as a period when dramatic
exhibitions were generally well attended, let us inquire what there
was in the condition and circumstances of the theatre at that period
to have rendered this a matter of course. We reply at once, that plays
were then as well written, as well _got up_, and as well acted, as any
picture was then painted, or any novel or poem written. The drama was
at that time on a perfect level with, or perhaps even superior to,
the current literature of the day, or any other instrument of public
amusement which existed. Nor was it beneath the standard of the general
manners of society. It exhibited, in a gross enough manner, the vices
of the age; but the people whose vices were exhibited were rendered
insensible by those very vices to the grossness of the scene.

The theatre is now in quite a different condition from what it was
in then. Whether owing to the want of legislative enactments, which
might encourage literary men in writing for the theatre, or to some
other cause, our dramatic entertainments are now of a character much
beneath or behind the age. Our acting plays are either the old stock,
displeasing us with the exhibition of obsolete vices; or modern trash,
full of exaggerated character and sentiment, trusting for success,
perhaps, to romantic scenery and machinery; or literal transcripts of
nursery fables. Our drama, overlooking some better qualities, is, in a
great measure, a compound of childishness, indecency, buffoonery, and,
to no small extent, of profanity; in every point of view fifty years in
taste behind our current fictitious literature, which, in itself, is
susceptible of great amendment.

In Great Britain the drama has always appealed to the less serious
and virtuous part of the community. At the time of the civil war,
and after the re-establishment of the theatre at the Restoration,
it was altogether a Cavalier thing, and, like the Cavalier party in
general, too apt to make debauchery a mark of rectitude in politics.
This character it has never entirely shaken off. With the exception
of a certain number of mawkish and tawdry aphorisms scattered over
our modern plays, they still maintain, in some measure, their old
war against the decencies and proprieties of life. The truth is, the
theatre has become so exclusively resorted to by a less serious part
of the community, that it could hardly attempt to conciliate the other
class, lest, in the vain effort, it lose the customers it has.

If the players thus produce an article of entertainment inferior
both in talent and in taste to the other things which compete for
the business of amusing the public, it is not to be wondered at that
their houses are deserted. For the crown which at present purchases
a night’s entertainment at the theatre to one member of a family—an
entertainment partly childish, perhaps, and almost certain to be
somewhat immoral—that whole family can be supplied for a whole month
with the best literary productions of the day from a circulating
library, or it can purchase a single volume, which not only gives it
rational entertainment and instruction for several nights, but remains
a constant and ready instrument for repeating this entertainment and
instruction whenever it is required. If we coolly reflect on the
respective reputations which the drama and literature bear in the
world, we will find that only a certain number of people wish well
to the former, while the latter is an object of almost universal
attachment and national pride. The fact is, that the drama has shut
itself out by its own misconduct from the sympathies of half the
public, if not a much larger portion. It is still dabbling in the
low vices and mean order of feelings which prevailed in the reign
of George the Second, or else in the nursery tales which lulled our
cradles; while literature, shooting far ahead, is replete with the
superior virtues and extensive benevolences of the present age. And
not only does _literature_ compete with the stage. Music, and other
accomplishments of private life, are also now resorted to, for the
purpose of furnishing an innocent amusement to the family circle—an
amusement less attractive, perhaps, than the theatre, which, with
all its errors, has still a powerful inherent charm, but preferred,
nevertheless, as making up in simplicity, harmlessness, and cheapness,
what it wants in the power of excitement.

When we speak of the stupidity and bad taste of the plays, we do not
enumerate all the disadvantages of the theatre. As if every thing
connected with the establishment were doomed to be of the same order,
we find the players also exciting disgust in all well-regulated
minds by the strange code of morality which they have been pleased
to set up for themselves. Of course, we do not shut our eyes to the
numerous instances of respectable and well-behaved actors, which
occur nowhere, perhaps, so frequently as in the minor capital which
we inhabit. But, as we remarked in a former paper, we must not have
great generalities ruined or broken down by unimportant exceptions.
Taken as a whole, the players are a more dissolute fraternity than
the members of any other profession; while some of them, ranking as
the very highest in professional merit, commit transcendent breaches
of the most sacred moral laws, as if to show how independent they
are of all the rules of decent society. We would not gratify the
wretched vanity which perhaps is one of the principal causes of those
errors, by mentioning particular cases; but they are too notorious to
require being specified. It is sometimes set forward as a plea for
the extenuation of those offences, that the life of a player is more
beset with temptations than any other. But what an argument is here
against the whole system of play-acting! Another plea is, that the
public has no business with any thing but the public appearance of a
player—has no right to think of their private lives; as if a person
doing all he can to destroy the safeguards of domestic happiness by
action and example, were to be equally well treated by society, as a
person who does what is in his power to contribute to its happiness.
Society must, in the eyes of these pleaders, be a slavish thing indeed,
if it is supposed that it must patiently submit to every insult and
injury which it may please the sublime caprice of a buffoon to inflict
upon it. And is the player judged less leniently than an offender in
any other walk of life? When a tradesman commits an outrage on public
decency, is he cherished on account of it by society? Is he not scouted
for it, exactly as the player is, or, we should rather say, _ought
to be_—for it can hardly be said that _he_ is ever condemned for his
offences by the regular friends of the stage, though the theatre is,
on his account, still more resolutely abstained from by the good, who
abstained from it before.

If the players thus debase themselves by the impurity of their lives,
and thereby render themselves unfit to be looked upon or listened to
by the majority of society—if they continue to represent dramas suited
to the taste of a past age, or else adapted only to the sympathies of
children—if they persist in retaining about their whole system vicious
forms of speech, indelicate gestures, and a code of moral feeling
and action, all of which have long been pronounced intolerable in
good society, how can they expect their theatres to be so prosperous
as they once were, more especially when purer and better modes of
entertainment are every where rising into competition with them? The
person who pens these thoughts is by no means an enemy to theatricals
in the abstract. With the most respectful deference to those who see
in dramatic entertainments an express hostility to the divine law, he
retains the conviction that they might be rendered as good and innocent
a means as any other for producing that great end—the diversion of
the public mind by amusement from the follies and vices of absolute
vacuity. He does not consider the theatre, or any other amusement, so
much with a reference to the good which it may do, as with respect to
the evil which it may prevent. It is clear, however, that the really
good and pure can never become the friends of the theatre, so long as
it remains unreformed. There must be a combination among the virtuous
actors to exclude the vicious from their body. A number of antiquated
and absurd fashions of the stage must be brought nearer to the standard
of ordinary natural life. And the best literary men of the day must be
encouraged by legislative enactments to produce a crop of new plays
with a stronger moral bent than the generality of those now existing.
Till all this is done, and the theatre become as noted in public
fame for a friendliness to what is good, as it has hitherto been for
the reverse, it must be content to occupy its present degraded place
amongst our prevailing modes of public entertainment.




RECOGNITIONS.

    “Dignus vindice _nod_-us.”——


If you be a person that have lived for a long time in any large town,
you must have ere this felt the dreadful inconvenience of knowing
and being known by every body. The courtesy of society demands that,
on meeting any one in the street, of whom you have the slightest
acquaintance, you must _not_ “affect to nod,” like Alexander, but give
a real _bona fide_ nod, or, if you please, a bow, as a mark of respect
or regard—a practice which leads to a thousand disagreeable sensations
in the day, till at last you almost resolve that your progress shall
be like that of a British war-chariot—CUTTING right and left, without
regard to man, woman, or child. It is not that you have any abstract
disinclination to pay this tribute to friendship; it is the frequency
and the iteration of the thing that annoys you. You could tolerate,
perhaps, a certain number of nods in the day—_I_ would willingly
compound for twenty—and it would be all very well if you only met a
friend on the street once in the month or so. But this is not the way
of it: you cannot be abroad two hours (supposing that you are of long
standing in the town) without meeting fifty people and upwards, to
whom you must “vail your haughty head,” and, what is worst of all, the
half of these are people whom you met and nodded to yesterday, and
the day before, and every day before that again, back to the creation
of the world. With many of these persons, your acquaintance at first
was of the very slightest nature. You met the man in a steam-boat,
and had your respective names mentioned by a friend. You left a room
one day as he was entering, and you were introduced, and, after
exchanging only three words, made a friendly bow to each other, and
parted. Perhaps he was introduced to you passingly on the street by
some person to whom you had been introduced several years before, in
the same transient way, by an individual whose acquaintance of you was
originally of so slight a character that you had even then forgot for
some years how it commenced. Your reminiscences upon the whole subject
are a Generation of Shadows, traced back to Nothing. Possibly you sat
next to him one night, “consule Planco,” at a mason-lodge, and to this
blessed hour have never so much as learned his name. When it happens
that you do not see or meet these acquaintances for six months after
your first rencontre, the affair has by that time got cool enough
to justify you mutually in cutting each other. But in most cases it
happens quite differently. On the very morning, perhaps, after having
scraped acquaintance with a merry fellow in some promiscuous company,
you meet him going abroad, like yourself, to his place of business.
As nothing of the world, or its concerns, has as yet got between you
and your recollections of last night’s conviviality, you pull up with
him for a minute, shake hands, laugh cordially in each other’s faces,
hope each other is quite well after yesternight’s business, remark
what a deal of fun there was, what a deuced funny fellow that was who
sung the comic songs, and so forth; and then, with another cordial
shake of each other’s hands, you part off, each to the serious duties
of the day. Unfortunately, it happens that this new acquaintance of
yours has to go to his place of business exactly at the same time
in the morning with yourself, and that your places of residence and
business are co-relatively in opposite situations. It is, therefore,
your doom to cross each other’s path regularly every morning at ten
minutes before ten, for all the rest of your natural lives. Your eyes
begin to open upon this appalling fact on the second day. You meet your
man _then_, exactly at the same spot as on the morning before; when,
the conviviality of the penult evening being totally spent, both in
respect of its effect on your mind, and as a subject of conversation,
you stand in an agony of a minute’s duration, talking to each other of
you know not what, till, fortunately, perhaps, a friend comes up who
is going your way, and you hook yourself upon him, and take a hurried
leave of your new acquaintance. Next morning you content yourself
with shaking your friend by the hand cordially without stopping. Next
morning, again, the affair has degenerated into a laughing nod. Next,
it is an ordinary nod; at which point it continues ever after, till it
is evident to both of you, as you approach each other, that you are
beginning to be fairly tired of existence, and wish, mutually, that
it were all well over with you, so far as this breathing world is
concerned, and the whole affair hushed up in the silence of the grave.

It is not alone in the monotony of this system of recognition that the
misery lies. You are also put to a great deal of pain and difficulty,
in many cases, by the rank of the individuals to be recognised. Every
man of the world has occasion to be brought into contact now and then
with persons superior to himself, but who do not scruple to make
themselves familiar with him in his own house or place of business.
Now, the plague is, how to treat these people on the street. If their
rank be very far above your own, the case is comparatively easy; for
a bow, with an elevation of the hat, is readily awarded on your part,
and graciously received on his. But should his place in society be
just a little above your own, or such as you expect to attain very
speedily—or should he be just a little longer started in the general
race of prosperity than yourself—then it is perplexing indeed. Man has
no antipathy to the brother worms who are so far beneath his own level
as never to be brought into contrast with him. A nobleman is quite at
his ease with his tailor. But it is very different with the individuals
who are just a little lower than ourselves, and liable to be confounded
with us. We could tolerate the _profanum et ignobile vulgus_ itself,
rather than the people whose manners and circumstances in life are but
one step beneath our own. Hence, one is liable to perpetual grievances
on the street, through, what he thinks, the forwardness of some people,
and the haughtiness of others. Alternately cutting and cut, on he
goes, in a state of unhappiness beyond all description. Sometimes he
avoids recognizing, through fear of its being offensive, a person who
was fondly anxious to have his nod, and takes it very ill that he does
not get it. Sometimes he is in the reverse predicament, and proffers
a condescending bow, or intends to do so, to one who, putting quite
a different construction on their respective degrees of consequence,
coolly overlooks him.

In short, what with one thing and another, walking on the street is
an exceedingly disagreeable exercise. For my part, having been long
connected with the city I inhabit, I am obliged to take a thousand
ingenious expedients in order to get along with any degree of comfort.
For one thing, I would sooner walk some miles barefooted over broken
glass, than parade on the principal streets of the city at high twelve.
If I were to attempt a passage that way, I might go as I have been told
Oechlenschlager the Danish poet does through the streets of Copenhagen,
my hat in my hand, and my body in a perpetual inclination. I have
to seek all possible kinds of by-ways, through alleys profound and
obscure; and when I cross a thoroughfare, it is with the same dogged
straight-forward look with which a man swims across a dangerous river.
When I do happen, in a moment of facility or confidence, to venture
upon an open street, I have all kinds of expedients for avoiding and
diminishing the pains of recognition. When you see an acquaintance
approaching, you must consider the relative circumstances. Much depends
on the place of meeting—much on the time—much on the crowded or empty
state of the streets, and much, of course, on the degree of your
intimacy with him, and the distance of time since you last met. If it
be a vacant street, and not a business time of the day, and six months
since you last met him, you are in for a quarter of an hour’s palaver
as sure as you live, and hardly even a parting _then_, unless you can
either of you manage to get up a good witticism, under cover of which
you may escape. If the street be crowded, and the time a busy one, you
are tolerably safe, even although it should have been a twelvemonth
since you met before. In this case, you fly past with a hurried nod,
which seems to say, “We are busy just now, but will have another
opportunity of stopping to speak.” This is a nod of adjournment, as
it were, and it is one of great satisfaction to both parties, for
both argue, of course—though they don’t put that into the nod—that,
as it is a twelvemonth since they last met, it may be another before
they meet again. Should you meet a man in a vacant street, even in
the busiest part of the day, then the former circumstance annuls the
latter, and you must stand and deliver, even although you be too late
for an appointment of the most interesting character. On the other
hand, if you meet your man in the leisurely part of the day, in a
crowded street, you get off with a nod, pretending to yourself that you
are carried away by the current. Sometimes you may not take advantage
of your good fortune in this last case, but so bring it about that
you get into collision with your friend, and begin a conversation.
In this case, even although you have only asked him how he does—not
caring in the least what he has to answer—and though you positively
have not another idea to interchange with him, he finds it necessary
to disengage himself from the throng in order to reply. You now get
upon the curb-stone, or upon the causeway, where, of course, you have
no more advantage from the crowded state of the street than a fish has
of a river after it has been thrown upon the bank. You are now in the
same predicament as if you had met your friend in the same cool part
of the day _in a perfectly empty street_, and therefore, when he has
answered your precious question as to his health, you are as fairly in
for a quarter of an hour of wretched, bald, wishy-washy conversation
about all kinds of nothings that you don’t care one farthing about, as
ever you were in your life. The only thing that can now save you is
either a joke to laugh yourselves asunder upon, a crowd raised at a
distant part of the street by some such matter as a child ridden over
by a coach, or else, what is not a bad means of separation, though
sometimes dangerous, you cut off one grievous encumbrance by taking
on another; that is, you see another friend coming up your way, and,
pretending you have something to say to him, shake off the old love and
take on with the new: in which case it is not improbable that you spend
longer time at the end of the street with this last individual than you
might have had to spend with the former one if you had continued with
him, and only given the other man a passing nod; but, of course, that
is all the fortune of war, and, having done what seemed best under the
circumstances, you must rather blame fate than your own imprudence.
Consider well, however, in such a case, whether you are likely to get
soonest off with the new or the old love; for if you take on with a
bore of ten minutes’ power, in order to get off with one of only five,
merely because he is going your way, and promises no interruption in
the first instance, you may only fall into Scylla, seeking to avoid
Charybdis.

After all, as in every matter arising from the affairs of this world,
a great deal of our happiness, so far as it is concerned by the system
of recognition, lies with ourselves. If we are prudent, and take
counsel from experience, we may avoid much of this nodding and bowing
misery which would otherwise fall to our share. A man, for instance,
should not be always goggling and staring about him; otherwise he will
be sure to fall in with flying nods, which he could as well dispense
with, if he does not even hit some person, perhaps, on the other side
of the way, who, not having seen him for a long time, thinks it is
duty—Lord confound him!—to come across the Hellespont of mud, and
shake the spirits out of him with half an hour of tediousness and
common-place. When you debouch from your door, never look along the
street in the direction you are not to travel, or ten to one but you
see some one who, having the infelicity, poor devil, to catch your
eye, must put himself on to a canter to come up to you; and so you
get mutually entangled, perhaps for half the day. I give this caution
with a particular emphasis; for I have observed that nine out of
every ten men look back in the way described, as if it were one of
the involuntary motions or inclinations of human nature. As you are
walking along, never cast your regards upon any one coming obliquely
across the street, or in all probability you are shot dead by an eye of
your acquaintance, which, if it had not hit you, would have passed on
innocuous. The eye is the principal mischief in all these cases. A man
is often snared by that part of him, and dragged a hundred yards along
a dirty street, for all the world like a silly salmon hooked by the
nose, and laid, after half a mile of tugging and hauling, exhausted on
the shore. Keep your eye well to yourself, and you are tolerably safe;
for of this you may be assured, no man will come up to attract your
attention, unless he be a country cousin, who was just looking about
for you. Every mother’s son of them is actuated by the same principles
with yourself, and is glad to escape all the nodding he can. So
reciprocal is this feeling, that many persons whom you are taking means
to avoid, will, if you observe them narrowly, be found to be doing all
they can to assist in the process. If you pretend, for instance, that
you cannot see that gentleman there coming aslant the way, on account
of the intense brightness of the sun, you will see out at the tail of
your eye that he is pretending to be as much put about by the sunshine
as yourself, and is doing all he can to shade his eyes from Phœbus
and you, exactly in the same fashion with yourself. If you walk, as
you ought to do, with your eyes fixed below what painters call the
point of sight, but suddenly raise them for a moment, in order to look
about you, it is ten to one but you see your very bosom friend—your
confessor—the man whom you wear in your heart of hearts—in the act of
sneakingly withdrawing his eye from your countenance, for the purpose
of getting past you unnoticed. Take no scorn on account of these
things, but put it all down rather to the strength of friendship; for
can there be any stronger test of that sentiment, than the desire of
saving those whom we love from any thing that is disagreeable to them?

It has been already remarked, that if you be in the regular habit of
meeting and nodding to a person every now and then, the system is kept
up till death do you part. On the other hand, if you can avoid seeing a
person for some considerable time, the nod becomes _efféte_, and you
ever after see, as if you saw not, each other. Sometimes, however,
one gets a great relief in the midst of a fixed and hopeless nodding
acquaintance, by happening to meet once more at the social board in
some friend’s house, when you re-invigorate the principle, gather fresh
intimacy, and perhaps, after all, take refuge from the unnecessary
monotony of nodding terms in a serious friendship.

If you can help yourself by this means, it may be all very well, though
certainly it is rather hard that one should be forced into an intimacy
with a man merely because he crosses your path rather oftener than
the most of your other slight acquaintances. The best way, however,
to lessen this part of the evils of life, is to walk with _as little
circumspection as possible_. So ends my preachment about RECOGNITIONS.




THE LADYE THAT I LOVE.


    Were I a doughty cavalier,
      On fire for high-born dame,
    To win her smile, with sword and spear,
      I’d seek a warrior’s fame;
    But since no more stern deeds of blood
      The gentle fair may move,
    I’ll woo in softer—better mood,
      The ladye that I love.

    For helmet bright with steel and gold,
      And plumes that flout the sky,
    I’ll bear a mind of hardier mould,
      And thoughts that sweep as high.
    For scarf athwart my corslet cast,
      With her fair name y-wove,
    I’ll have her pictured in my breast—
      The ladye that I love.

    No mettled steed through battle-throng,
      Shall bear me bravely on,
    But pride shall make my spirit strong,
      Where honours may be won:
    Among the great of mind and heart,
      My prowess I will prove;
    And thus I’ll win, by gentler art,
      The ladye that I love.

                                       R. C.




PAY YOUR DEBT!


Jock Colquhoun was a clever journeyman painter of the famous Old Town
of Edinburgh, very much given, unfortunately, to Saturday evening
potations, which was the cause why he never found himself, poor fellow,
any richer one Monday than another, and generally lived during the rest
of the week in, to say the least of it, a very desultory manner. Jock
was a long slip of a lad, with a bright intelligent face and a wofully
battered hat, and the whole man of him was encased, from neck to
heel, in one glazed suit—I was going to say, of clothes, but I should
rather say, of oil-paint; for, to tell the truth, his attire consisted
rather more of the one material than the other. He was universally
reputed as a very clever workman; but, then, every body said, what
matters it that he can make five shillings a-week more than any of
his fellow-journeymen, if he is sure every Saturday, when he gets his
wages, _to go upon the scuff_, and so pass the half of the week in
spending, not in gaining? Jock, however, had many good points about
him; and it was, perhaps, less owing to his own dispositions than to
the influence of evil company, that he got into such bad habits. He was
such a good fellow that he would at any time part his money with an old
crony out of bread, or treat to a can or a bottle any working brother
who had got through his money a little before him, and who happened to
feel rather dry upon some sunshiny Wednesday. In his profession he was
matchless at all superior kinds of work. If his employers had any thing
to do that required an extraordinary degree of taste or dexterity, Jock
was set to it, and he invariably managed it (beer and whisky aside) to
their entire satisfaction. Jock might have long ago been foreman to
his masters: nay, he might have set up as a general artist, and, with
perseverance equal to his talent, would have been sure to do well. But
gill-stoups were his lions in the way, and the deceitfulness of drink
had beset him; and Jock, from year to year, was just the same glazed
and battered, but withal rather spruce-looking fellow, as ever.

It would have been altogether impossible for any such man as Jock to
carry on the war, if he had not had one howff,[4] above all others,
where he enjoyed a little credit. This was an eating-house in the
Canongate, kept by one Luckie Wishart, a decent widow of about forty,
with four or five children, who had been pleased to cast an eye of
particular favour upon the shining exterior of our hero. A pot sable
upon a ground argent pointed out this house to the passers by, even
if they had not been informed of its character by the savoury steam
which always proceeded from it between the hours of one and five P. M.,
and certain spectral and unfinished pies which ran in a row along the
sole of her little window, level with the street, as well as a larger
display of the same article on a board half way down her somewhat
steep and whitewashed stair. Luckie Wishart also sold liquors; but she
was far too respectable a person to let Jock spend his wages at one
bouse in her house. She always, as she said, shanked him off, whenever
he came there of a Saturday night, and it was only when his pockets
were empty, and no provisions to be had for the working days of the
week, that he resorted to her. Generally about the Tuesdays, Jock came
briskly down into her culinary Tartarus, quite sobered and hungry,
sending his voice briskly along the passage before him, as if defending
himself by anticipation from a shower of reproaches which he knew she
would bestow upon him:—“Nothing of the kind,” he would cry; “nothing
of the kind—all a mistake—’pon my honour.” There was generally, it
may be supposed, fully as much scolding and railing as he could have
anticipated; but the end of the jest always was, that Jock got snug
into some corner of Luckie’s own particular den, where he was regaled
with a plate of something or other, garnished always with a few last
words of rebuke from the lady, like the droppings after a thunderstorm,
which he always contrived, however, to stomach with his beef, without
manifesting any very great degree of irritation. There is something
ominous in the act of drawing in one’s stool at the fireside of a
comfortable widow. It is apt to make a young man feel rather ticklish,
even although he may never have thought of her before, except as a
good cook. So it was with Jock, and the idea might have been fatal to
his visits to Luckie Wishart’s (for, to speak the truth, she was no
great beauty), if dire hunger, which tames lions, had not absolutely
compelled him to continue the practice. In general, when Jock came in
with his week’s gains, he flung a few shillings upon the dresser, as
part payment of what he had ate and drank during the past few days,
reserving the rest for the bouse-royal. But, notwithstanding all these
occasional deposits to account, his score got always the longer the
longer, until it at last went fairly off at the bottom of a cupboard
door, and had to be “brought forward” on the end of a chest of drawers.

“That’s a shocking bad hat you’ve got,” said Luckie to him one day,
without any idea that she was anticipating a favourite English phrase
by some years. “Of course, there’s nae chance of such a drucken
blackguard as you ever being able to buy a new ane. But what wad you
say, John, if I were to gie ye ane mysel’?”

“I would say, much oblige t’ye, ma’am,” answered Jock, now for the
first time in his life called by his proper Christian name.

“Here is one, then,” said the widow, and at the same time produced a
decent-looking chapeau, which, she said, had belonged to _him that was
away_—meaning her late husband—and had only been three times on his
head at the kirk, when, puir man, he was carried without it to the
kirk-yard.

Jock accepted the hat with great thankfulness, and made his old one
skimmer into Luckie’s fire, where, it is needless to say, it was
speedily roasted in its own grease.

“Dear sake, Jock, man,” said Mrs Wishart, some days afterwards, “what
kind o’ a landlady hae ye got at hame? She maun be nae hand at the
shirts, I reckon; for fient a bit can ane ken ye on a Monday frae what
ye are on a Saturday. Ye may be as touzly as ye like i’ the outside o’
your claes, but I wad aye like to see a man decent-like next the skin.”

“Deed, mistress,” said Jock, “to let ye into a secret, I have nae great
stock o’ linen, and whiles Mrs Ormiston’s a wee hurried in getting a
shirt ready for me. I’m a gude deal between the hand and the mouth in
that respect.”

“Ye’re just the greatest ne’er-do-weel ever I kenned,” replied Mrs
Wishart; “but yet, reprobate as ye are, I canna think o’ seeing ye gaun
that gate frae ae week’s end to anither. Here’s four gude shirts that
I hae unco little use for now-a-days. Better ye should wear them, than
that they should gang to the moths. Tak them hame wi’ ye, man, and mak
yoursel’ something trig, and dinna gang to think that I’m aye to be
gi’ing ye the buffet without the bite.”

Jock did as he was bid, and towards the end of the week Luckie Wishart
asked him “if he ever thought o’ taking a walk on a Sunday evening wi’
his lass to Restalrig, to treat her wi’ curds and cream, or ony thing
o’ that kind?”

“Oh, I daresay I have, mistress,” said Jock, “in my day. But,” added
he, looking askance at his resplendent sleeves, “somehow or other I’ve
fallen out of a suit of Sunday claes, and, of course, nae lass ’ll gang
wi’ a chiel like a beggar.”

“Weel, Jock,” said the lady, “I think ye canna do better than just step
into my auld gudeman’s claes bodily, and let us hae nae mair wark about
it.”

This was accompanied with a look so significant, that Jock could not
pretend to misunderstand it. He all at once felt as if the stool which
he had drawn in towards the fireside was burning under him, while all
the burnished covers on the opposite wall looked like so many moons
dancing in troubled water. “Od, mistress,” he stammered out, “are ye
serious?”

“Ay, that I am,” answered she; “and dinna let your modesty wrang ye, my
man, an’ ye be wise. Ye see every thing here ready to your hand; and if
ye just be steady a bit, as I’m sure ye will be, wi’ me to look after
baith your meat and your winnings, ye may be the snuggest painter lad
in the town. What wi’ what _ye_ can make, and what wi’ what _I_ can
make, we’ll be very weel, or I’m muckle mista’en.”

“But, Luckie,” said Jock, “I maun get my ain consent first; and that,
I’m feared, it’ll not be sae easy to get. There was a lass ——”

“Oh, very weel, John,” said Mrs Wishart; “of course ae man may lead a
horse to the water, but twenty winna gar him drink. There’s some folk
that dinna ken what’s gude for them, and ye’re ane o’ them. But see,
lad,” she added, opening up the cupboard door, “what a score ye hae
here! Twa pounds fifteen shillings and eightpence. When will ye be gaun
to pay that?”

“I suppose I maun pay’t when I can,” said Jock, striding sturdily up
stairs into the street.

Next day he was served with a summons to the sheriff’s court for two
pounds fifteen shillings and eightpence, and as he never appeared to
dispute the claim, a writ was allowed against him, warranting either
the incarceration of his person, or the distraining of his goods. Goods
Jock had none; his person therefore came into immediate request among
certain individuals of whose companionship he was not ambitious. It
would be vain to tell all the strange miracles by which he was enabled
for some weeks to elude the pursuit instituted against him. Sometimes
as the officers were entering at the door, he was escaping by the back
window. Once he had to drop himself down two stories into an alley.
At another time, he sprang across a gulf about ten feet wide, between
two garret windows, nine floors from the ground. This course of life
could not continue long. He could not get rest any where to pursue his
ordinary business, and of course he soon found himself upon very short
allowance both as to meat and drink. Just at this crisis, Jock heard
of an expedition which was about to sail from Leith, for the purpose
of colonising Poyais, and through the intervention of an old chum, who
was going thither, he was permitted to join the corps. On the night
before the vessel was to sail, he skulked down to Newhaven, and got
on board along with the family of his friend. He now, for the first
time during three weeks, found himself, as he thought, safe from the
avenging persecution of Luckie Wishart. For one happy night he slept
amidst a parcel of sacks in a corner of the cabin, surrounded on all
hands by squalid and squalling children, whose cries, however, were
nothing to the dread which he had recently entertained for the fell
Dido of the Canongate. Next morning, the sun rose bright, the sails
were set loose, the heart of every man on board beat high with hope,
and Jock’s bosom’s lord sat lightly on his throne—when, oh manacles and
fetters! a boat came alongside, containing a whole bevy of sheriff’s
officers. Jock now thought that it was all over with him; for, simple
man, he believed that he was the sole individual in request. The case,
however, was quite different. On a demand being made for admission
into the vessel, the whole of the passengers, with one consent, raised
their voices against it. “What! let these fellows in!—as well give
up the whole expedition!” The officers pleaded to have at least a
representative sent on board, to show their case to the captain, which,
after a great deal of difficulty, was consented to. One messenger
was accordingly hoisted on board, and proceeded to call the names
of the persons for whom they had captions—Jock Colquhoun among the
number. But personalities of this kind were not to be endured. The
passengers rose in absolute mutiny against the captain, demanded that
he should instantly proceed on the voyage, even although one member
of the expedition was yet to join; and as they feared to let the boat
once more approach the vessel, they insisted that the messenger should
be retained where he was, and carried out to Poyais and back again,
as a punishment for his temerity. It was a mad affair altogether,
and so small an addition to the general frenzy was of little moment.
So the boatswain, or somebody else, “gave the dreadful word,” and,
notwithstanding all the remonstrances of the _detenú_, which were both
loud and vehement, the lessening boat of the officers was soon seen
unwillingly rowing to land, while, instead of any white hand to wave
adieu to those on board, the fist of big Pate Forsyth, the chief of the
fraternity, was observed shaking in impotent rage over the stern, as
much as to say to the captain, “If ever you come back to Leith, ye ken
what ye’ll get.”

Jock soon found himself tolerably comfortable in his new situation.
He had, no doubt, come on board without much luggage, and he was
still the same greasy Pict as ever in respect of his attire. But
then he was not, after all, much behind his neighbours; for if ever
a fit garrison for the care of Adullam was collected since the days
of King David, it was this ship’s company. The whole set resembled a
troop of strolling players, going to act a grand historical drama in
some country town. A gentleman in tartan trousers was to be a kind of
Cincinnatus, alternating between the plough and the cares of state.
A young lad, in a blue bonnet, was to be Chamberlain, and Supreme
Director of Literature and the Arts. Another carried with him all the
materials of a bank, except credit and specie. The other _characters_
and _properties_, to speak theatrically, were all on the same scale;
and if a state could have been founded as easily as a castle of cards
is built, or a puppet-show set in motion, Poyais could have immediately
taken its place among the nations of the earth. In such a system it
was easy to find a place for Jock. The Chamberlain was good enough
to divest himself, in favour of this new friend, of that part of his
commission which referred to the fine arts. Jock was therefore styled
from this day forward, Director Colquhoun; and every one, including
himself, agreed that the case could have only been improved, if he had
happened to have any paints. However, nobody pretended to doubt that,
so far as the fine arts could be cultivated without materials, Mr
Colquhoun would prove himself an efficient member of the corps.

The voyage was a pleasant one, and during the whole time nothing was to
be heard in the vessel but pæans of homage and gratitude to the Cazique
Macgregor, who had sent them out to take possession of his territories.
The only individual who did not partake of the general joy was the
poor _detenú_, whose long gaunt person did not agree with a tropical
climate, and who, therefore, sickened, and threatened to die before
reaching the land. It was in vain that the Chamberlain promised to make
him Lord High Constable of the Kingdom, if he would only keep up his
spirits. Like the poor sparrow, who, in its last moment, refuses the
very finest crumbs held to its mouth, he said it was all humbug to make
him these offers, when it was clear he could never live in such a hot
part of the world as this. He would lay his death, he said, to their
door, and, if at all possible, he would be sure to haunt them after
death. To the great grief of the company, the unfortunate messenger
died on the very day when they cast anchor off the shores of Poyais.

About seventy or eighty individuals, from the Old Town of
Edinburgh—forming the staff of a great empire—now landed on a flat
bushy part of the Mosquito Territory—ominous name!—in the Bay of
Honduras, with the expectation of immediately falling into the
enjoyment of all the luxuries and pleasures which this world can
bestow. They were, indeed, somewhat surprised to find that every thing
was still in its primeval state, and that even their houses were as
yet to be built. However, having found one small opening in the forest
of brushwood, they established themselves there, with such goods and
chattels as they had; and their first duty was to give a decent burial
to the _detenú_, whose body they had brought ashore for that purpose. A
grave having been dug, the Chamberlain, assuming the character of High
Priest of the Kingdom, for want of a better, mounted an old shirt over
his clothes, by way of sacerdotal vestment, and proceeded to read the
funeral service of the church of England over the body. In the very
middle of the most solemn part of this ceremony, a large bird, with a
curious beaky face, somewhat resembling that of the deceased, alighted
upon a tree immediately above the funeral group, and cried, with a loud
shrill voice, what was interpreted by all present (with the aid, no
doubt, of a stricken conscience) into the phrase, “Pay your debt!”

The colonists saw and heard with terror, believing that the spirit
which had lately animated the body before them was now addressing them
in character, according to his threat before death; and, but for the
protection which daylight always gives to the superstitious, the whole
set, including both the civil and military departments of the state,
would have fled from the spot. The Chamberlain saw the nature of the
case, and drew hurriedly towards a conclusion; but yet, at every brief
pause of his voice, there still came in the ear-piercing cry, “Pay your
debt!” Before the grave had been closed, another and another bird of
the same species drew towards the spot, and each lifted up his voice
to the same tune—“Pay your debt”—“Pay your debt”—“Pay your debt”—till
the whole forest seemed possessed by one spirit, and the ghost of the
sheriff’s officer appeared to the distracted senses of the settlers to
have dispersed itself into a whole legion of harpies. The fact was,
that the birds were brought forth by the coolness of the evening,
according to their usual habits, and were now innocently amusing
themselves with their accustomed cry, without the least idea of any
personality towards the Poyaisians. The Chamberlain of the colonists,
who had learned from books of travels that many American birds uttered
something like a sentence of English as their habitual cry, endeavoured
to assuage the alarm of his companions; but, nevertheless, a very
general sense of terror remained.

“It may be all very true,” said Jock Colquhoun, “that the birds of this
country have each a particular word to say; but, od, it’s gayan queer
that the Poyais bird should have pitched upon a thing that jags our
consciences sae sair.”

The first night was spent in a very uncomfortable manner. To a day of
intense heat succeeded a cold dewy night, which struck the limbs of
the unprotected settlers with such severe cramps, that hardly a man
could stir next morning. Their sleep, moreover, was broken occasionally
by the cry of “Pay your debt!” which a few of their feathered friends
kept up at intervals all night. Next day, instead of setting about
the erection of their metropolis and sea-port, as was intended, they
had to attend each other’s sick-beds. Before night several of the
women and children had expired. Next day, and the next again, the same
sickness continued; and in less than a week, half their number were
under the earth. Jock, who had fortunately escaped every mishap except
a rheumatic shoulder, now began to think how much more comfortable he
would have been in Luckie Wishart’s _laigh shop_ in the Canongate of
Edinburgh, than he was on this inhospitable coast, where there was
no prospect of raising so much as a potato for a twelvemonth. “What
a fool I was,” said he, “not to make my quarters good there, as the
honest woman proposed! Oh, to be walking wi’ her down the King’s Park
on a Sunday nicht, even wi’ a’ the five bairns running after us! I’se
warrant the gardens at Restalrig hae nae birds about the bushes that
tell folk to pay their debt; naething o’ the kind there, unless it
be the boord, black letters on a white ground, that says, ‘Pay on
delivery.’”

Hardship had now dispelled from every mind the magnificent ideas with
which they had hitherto been inspired. If the vessel had yet remained
on the coast, the whole of the surviving company, prime minister and
all, would have willingly exchanged their brilliant appointments under
the Cazique for a snug berth on board. But it had departed immediately
after landing them; and there only remained the chance that some other
vessel would pass that way, and take pity on their distress. This,
fortunately, happened in the course of a few days. A vessel bound to
Belize came along the shore, and, on a signal from the unfortunate
Poyaisians, sent a boat to inquire into their case. As only a few
remained alive, it was soon arranged that they should be carried to the
port for which the vessel was bound. With grateful and subdued hearts,
and casting many a mournful glance towards the graves of their friends,
the small remnant of the Poyais expedition betook themselves to the
boat, and sailed off to the vessel. As a sort of parting admonition,
a bird came up at the moment of their departure from the land, and,
pronouncing one shrill, clear “Pay your debt!” flew off into the
interior.

It were needless to relate the various hardships and adventures which
befel Jock Colquhoun before he regained his native shore. Be it enough,
that he immediately sought the cozy den of Luckie Wishart, and _paid
his debt_ in the way originally desired by the lady, who, under the
name of Mrs Colquhoun, continued for many years, with the assistance of
her reformed husband, to regale the good people of the Canongate.

“A flichty chield,” she used to remark to her female friends, “was
whyles the better o’ finding the grund o’ his stamack.”


FOOTNOTES:

[4] Alehouse of particular resort.




CHILDREN.


I may begin with the question of Henry the Fourth of France, when
found by an ambassador at romps with his children, “Are you a father?”
If you are, we may go on with the game—if not, you must pass to the
next article. A curious thing it is, this same fact, that children in
general are only interesting in the eyes of those who are parents,
while brats in particular are held as pests by all but their immediate
father and mother. Some lightheaded author has compared the rush of
children which takes place at the conclusion of family dinners, to
the incursion of the Goths and Vandals. Perhaps it is all true, that
children out of place are not agreeable; but is any thing agreeable
that is out of place? Children, abstracted from the homely details
of their management, and the anxiety which they always occasion, are
a delightful study—a study, I maintain, fitted alike to engage the
speculations of the philosophic, and the affections of the benevolent,
mind. I cannot, I must say, form the idea of a man of extended views
and sympathies, who does not like children.

Among the grown-up part of mankind, there is always abundance of
envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness. This fact I consider with
reference to the circumstances in which men are placed, and I plainly
conceive that where existence is only to be supported by an unceasing
struggle, and where self-love is so perpetually receiving injury, it
is needless to expect that men should be much better than they are. In
children, however, we see no possibility of any rivalship: they are
a harmless little people at _this_ moment, and we run no chance of
being jostled by them in our course of life, for many years to come.
There is, therefore, no reason for envy, hatred, or uncharitableness
with them. On the contrary, in our intercourse with children, our
self-love is undergoing a perpetual compliment. The appeal which they
are constantly making from their own silently-confessed weakness,
to our tacitly-acknowledged strength, soothes and delights us. A
fellow-creature lies unconsciously abandoned to our mercy—unconsciously
unable to resist. It asks for nothing, for it cannot; but it does not
expect harm. There is the charm. It imputes to us none of our original
sins of envy, hatred, and uncharitableness, but seems to take it for
granted that we are blanch and stainless like itself. It puts forth its
little arms to us, with a perfect confidence in our gentler and better
nature, and we feel it impossible to be evil when we are so sincerely
understood to be good. We give, then, the love and faith that are
demanded, and press the offenceless type of our original and perfect
nature, with all the hues and all the odours of paradise rife around
it, to our heart of hearts.

The whole external deportment of a child is delightful. Its
smile—always so ready when there is no distress, and so soon recurring
when that distress has passed away—is like an opening of the sky,
showing heaven beyond. Tales are told of murderers, who, after
revelling in the blood of many adults, were at length arrested by the
smile of a child, and suddenly became innocent, because they were
supposed to be so. The grasp of its little hand around one of our
fingers—its mighty little crow when excited by the playfulness of its
nurse—its manful spring upon the little woolpack legs that refuse to
bear its weight—are all traits of more or less pleasantness. Then,
the eye of a child—who can look unmoved into that “well undefiled,”
in which heaven itself seems to be reflected? Whether the gem be of
sweet pellucid blue, or of the mysterious and unsearchable black,
what meanings unexpressed, unintelligible, reside within! the germ
of a whole life of feelings and ideas. Human nature is familiar in
all its bearings to most men; yet how novel does every symptom of
it appear, as first shown forth by a child! Every little imperfect
function—every step in the attainment of physical power—every new trait
of intelligence, as they one by one arise in the infantine intellect,
like the glory of night, starting star by star into the sky, is hailed
with a heart-burst of rapture and surprise, as if we had never known
any thing so clever or so captivating before. The point thus gained
is never lost. The darling child is reminded perpetually of the idea
he lately seemed to comprehend, or of the word he seemed nearly able
to pronounce, or of the little action he attempted to perform; and
thus the whole of his little stock of accomplishments is carefully
kept together, liable to a constant increase. Hosannas of affection
celebrate every step of his progress towards maturity, and fresh
blessings are showered upon his holy and harmless head, for every
manifestation of the presence of the godlike mind. Nor is this interest
in his advance confined to those whose daily joy it is to fold him to
the beatings of a kindred heart. Almost every one who has occasion to
observe the march of infant intellect feels an instinctive satisfaction
in the contemplation. It seems, indeed, to be part of the grand and
wise design, that all the mature of the human race should be concerned
respecting the progress of the young: it is the silent working of
nature towards the general good. Without a principle of this kind
constantly at work—and it _is_ always at work, in the attentions of the
reflecting and grave, as well as in the apparently senseless prattle of
the nurse—the moral world would be in danger of standing still.

The love of parents for their children—so far as it is not a
sentiment arising from the contemplation of beauty, or innocence,
or helplessness—is a kind of self-love. Yet no one ever thinks of
imputing to a parent, as a fault, that he has a high appreciation of
his children. The truth is, though in one sense self-love, it is, in
another, the most generous and self-abandoning feeling in nature. The
world is also aware instinctively, that the fondness of parents for
their children is necessary for their protection and education; and,
therefore, if there were no other palliation of the passion, it would
at least be convenient. In virtue of these excuses, a parent can
indulge in all the pleasures of the most intense, devoted, devouring,
self-appreciation, and yet have none of the usual reproach attending
it. He can admire himself in his children, to a greater extent than
ever did Narcissus in the fountain, and yet there is no chance that he
changes into a daffodil. He can call himself every pretty name in the
nurse’s vocabulary, and yet no one will ever accuse him of flattering
his own person. He may fondle and hug himself till his miniature
counterpart loses both breath and patience; he may expend upon his
little self a thousand compliments and praises; and yet it will never
be insinuated that Mr —— is on uncommonly good terms with Mr ——. This,
it must be remarked, is one of the compensations allowed by Providence
for the anxiety and pains attendant upon the keeping of a child.

It is a very common impression among those who are practically
unacquainted with children, that there is an immense deal of trouble
incurred in their management. There is, no doubt, much trouble, but
there is also much to alleviate it. Women, to whom, as mothers or as
nurses, this trouble chiefly falls, are rarely heard to complain of it.
The labour is either kindly and agreeable in itself, or it is rewarded
by the generous pleasure of knowing that those are helped who cannot
help themselves. There are few duties, it may be said, by which women
appear to feel less oppressed, than the labour of managing children.
What is very strange, it seems equally lightsome to the hired attendant
as to the mother herself. There appears to be a general feeling among
women that the neglect of, or the least cruelty, to a child, is the
most monstrous offence in nature: it is the high treason of the sex.
In the more refined circles of society, where it is convenient to
employ deputies, this certain kindness of every female heart towards
a child is very fortunate: in the lower circles it is still more so.
_There_ many mothers are compelled to depend much upon the good-will
of neighbours for the attentions necessary to their families. The
infant is, indeed, in some measure the protegé of a little vicinity,
rather than of any individual. It is handed about from one hand to
another, and kept for a little by each, so as to enable the mother to
attend to other duties that are still more indispensable—such as the
preparation of her family meals, or, perhaps, the work necessary for
obtaining them. There is in this no danger for the child, and not much
obligation for the parents. The poor are in the constant practice of
performing acts of kindness to each other: they are their own best
friends; and their condition would be quite insupportable if it were
otherwise. The attentions, therefore, which one neighbour bestows upon
another’s child, are felt as a very slight burden by the particular
party obliging, while the aggregate of many such little favours forms
an immense relief to the mother. Then, every one knows that if the
case were her own, as it perhaps may be, the individual whom she now
obliges would be ready and glad to oblige her in turn. If the trouble
of managing children had in it any thing really disagreeable, this
universal system of mutual serviceableness could never obtain among the
poor.

It is surprising how much children tend to humanise and soften the
stern scene of general life. The man who is so fortunate as to possess
one or more children, finds it less easy to be wicked than if he had
none; and, however evilly disposed any man may be, he will hardly give
way to his wicked tendencies in the presence of his children. There is
something holy in a child. Its innocence puts it in association with
all gentle and devout feelings; and scarcely any parent will venture
deliberately to contaminate the bright image of heavenly purity, which
the Father of heaven has himself placed under his charge. Even the
infidel can never form the wish that his child should be the same; he
may dare many things, upon the peril of his own soul, but he cannot
dare to hazard the soul of his child. His own mind may be torn by the
demons of doubt and error, but he will keep his child steadfast if he
can, melting nightly at the infantine prayer, which he cannot offer
up himself. If a parent has been imprudent, and now suffers the bitter
effects of his folly, in misfortunes which have exposed him to the
contempt of mankind, here still is a resource. He can steal by night
to the couch of his children, and, beside the unconscious babes, whose
fate hangs all upon his, and who yet reprove not, in their silent
innocence, the guilt which has exposed them to misery, weep himself
into good resolutions, and into comfort.

One of the chief sources of a parent’s pleasure in contemplating
children, lies in the prospects which it is impossible to avoid
forming regarding their future lives. No parent ever contemplates an
unhappy fate for his child: all the look-forward is sunny as its own
sweet eyes—stainless as its uncorrupted heart. There is even hardly
any parent who rests content with hoping that his children will be as
fortunate and as happy as himself. They must be much more so: they
must reach heights of distinction far above any he had ever presumed
to expect for himself. To the parent who has occasion to lament his
unhappy circumstances in life, what treasured consolation there is
in these fond imaginings! The father, as he broods moodily over
enterprises blighted, and a spirit confined for immediate bread to
some narrow scene of action unworthy of its energies—one casual glance
alights upon the fair brow of his child, the bitter present gives
way to the glorious future, and all his own griefs are repaid by the
prospective happiness of his offspring. The mother who looks back to
the comforts of an early home, unhappily exchanged for a scene of care
and woe, feels, as she bends over her unconscious infant, her former
happiness arise in the prospects of that endeared being, and is for the
time consoled. It is this habit of forming flattering anticipations
respecting the fates of our children, that renders the loss of them in
infancy so very severe a calamity. In reality, the life of a child is
of little value: it has as yet cost little, either in care or expense;
and, unless in particular circumstances, it holds but an unimportant
place in society. Yet it is in this very want of all probation of its
value that the poignancy of the loss chiefly lies. We lament it, not
at all for what it was at the time of its death, but for what it might
have been, if it had been spared. We often find that the loss of an
infant is lamented with a more violent and unappeasable grief than that
of an adult; and this is simply because, in the one case, the damage
is ascertained, and forms but one distinct idea; while in the other it
is arbitrary, vast, beyond imagination. A child is, in one sense, a
dangerous possession: it is apt to warp itself into the vitals of our
very soul; so that, when God rends it away, the whole mental fabric is
shattered. It should always, then, be borne in mind, that life is the
more uncertain the nearer its commencement, and that the beings we are
disposed to appreciate most are just those whom we are most apt to lose.

The feelings of a parent, regarding a child in dangerous sickness, are
beautifully expressed in the following poem, which will surprise many
readers into tears:—[5]

    “Send down thy winged angel, God!
      Amidst this night so wild,
    And bid him come, where now we watch,
      And breathe upon our child.

    She lies upon her pillow, pale,
      And moans within her sleep,
    Or wakeneth with a patient smile,
      And striveth _not_ to weep!

    How gentle and how good a child
      She is, we know too well;
    And dearer to her parents’ hearts
      Than our weak words can tell.

    We love—we watch throughout the night,
      To aid, when need may be;
    We hope—and have despair’d at times,
      But _now_ we turn to Thee!


    Send down thy sweet-soul’d angel, God!
      Amidst the darkness wild,
    And bid him soothe our souls to-night,
      And heal our gentle child!”

When a scene like this is closed by death, what an extinction of
hopes! No parent, it may be remarked, ever thinks he can _spare a
child_. Whatever be the number of his family, he is almost sure to be
afflicted to exactly a certain degree by the loss of any individual
infant; for simply this reason, that every one has established its own
claim to his affections, by some peculiar trait of its appearance or
character. It is a lovely and admirable trait of human nature, that
the parent is rather apt to appreciate the lost child above all the
rest. The impossibility of a realization of his hopes regarding that
infant, just makes all those hopes the brighter, so that the twilight
of the child’s _dead existence_ is more splendid than the broad day of
its living life. The surviving babes are all more or less connected
with the common-place of this world—the homeliness of nature; but that
fair-haired innocent, which went to its place in the blush and dawn
of its faculties, what might it not have been? Then, the stirring
grief of parting with that face that was our own—that more than
friend, though but an infant—to break off all the delightful ties of
prattling tenderness, that had bound us, even in a few months, to that
gentle form for ever! A sorrow like this is long in being altogether
quenched; it comes in soft gushes into the heart for many future
years, and subdues us in the midst of stronger and sterner feelings.
The image lives always before us in unchanging infancy, and beauty,
and innocence; it ever seems to be walking in our eyes, as of yore,
with its bright curling hair, and its lightsome carol; and we long for
heaven, that we may enjoy that no small portion of its pleasures—a
restoration to the company of that mortal angel which has been reft
away.


FOOTNOTES:

[5] This exquisite little hymn is extracted from a volume of excellent,
but, we fear, neglected poetry, published under the title of “English
Songs, and other Small Poems, by Barry Cornwall.” The real name of the
author, we understand, is Proctor, and in him much of the old pure
spirit of poetry has revived—the poetry of nature and of the affections.




TEA-DRINKING.


There is a certain class of people who take every opportunity of
sneering at their neighbours for indulging in the “folly” of drinking
tea, which they tell you is poisonous, and for the use of which
the Chinese, as they say, make a point of laughing at us. I have
generally remarked, that those who in this manner condemn the use of
tea are themselves addicted to the drinking of intoxicating liquids
of some kind or other, and that, in most instances, they are not a
bit more healthful or more innocent than the unhappy tea-drinkers
whom they affect to pity. In the way that tea is usually made, with
a large mixture of sugar and cream, both which ingredients are
highly nutritious, it is fully more salutary, and a great deal more
refreshing, than any other light liquid that could be poured into
the stomach. With all due deference to Cobbett, milk, even entirely
divested of its creamy particles, is _heavy_; and though it may be
used with advantage as a meal, when work is done in the open air, it
can never suit the appetites of the great mass of the people, who
are confined by sedentary employments. Milk is the food of men in a
rude state, or in childhood; but tea or well-made coffee is their
beverage in a state of civilisation. It would seem that the civilised
human being must use a large quantity of liquid food. Perhaps solid
meat is more nutritious; but there are cases in which a small degree
of nutriment is quite sufficient. A lady or a gentleman of sedentary
habits does not require to feed like a ploughman, or a fancy man
training for a pedestrian excursion. They can subsist in a healthful
state with a small quantity of solid food, but they do not do well
unless with a large quantity of liquids, and these of a light quality.
Good beer has been recommended as a substitute for tea; but beer is at
the best a cold ungenial drink, except to robust people who have much
exercise. Beer may certainly be made almost as light as water itself,
but in that case it is filled with gaseous matter or confined air, and
it cannot be drunk with comfort as a simple refreshment.

It will always be remembered that there are different kinds of tea, and
that some are more salutary than others. Green tea ought by all means
to be avoided by persons of weak nerves. Black tea is the preferable
for general use, and, if properly made, will prove anti-spasmodic,
and relieve pains or cramps in the bowels. In some instances tea does
not suit the particular state of the stomach, and it should then be
abandoned, the taste naturally pointing out when it should be taken.
But no species of prepared fluid seems so suitable to the palates and
the stomachs of the people of this country. No kind of drink is so
refreshing after a journey or fatigue as tea. It restores the drooping
spirits, and invigorates the frame for renewed exertion. No other
kind of liquid with which we are acquainted has the same remarkable
influence morally and physically. Fermented or distilled liquors,
taken under the same circumstances, either induce intoxication or
sleep. It is preposterous to say that tea is poisonous. As there is an
astringency in its properties, I believe it would be most injurious
were we to live upon nothing else, or drink it as a tincture. But who
does either? As it happens to be prepared and used, it answers merely
as a refreshing and pleasing drink, either to the solid bread and
butter taken along with it, or after a recent dinner of substantial
viands. How idle it is to say that this harmless beverage is ruining
the constitutions of the people of this country! The very reverse can
be demonstrated. The inhabitants of Britain use nearly twenty-seven
millions of pounds weight of tea annually, which is about one pound
nine ounces on an average for every individual. From thirty to forty
years ago they used a great deal less than the half of this quantity,
yet the average length of human life has been greatly extended since
that period. The English and Scotch now use more tea than all the rest
of Europe put together, and yet they are the healthiest nation on the
face of the earth. The North Americans are also great tea-drinkers,
and human life among them is of nearly an equal value. Who would for
a moment compare the thin wretched wines of France and Germany, or
the sour krout of Russia, to the “comfortable” tea of Great Britain,
and who would lose time in calculating the different effects of these
liquids on the constitution?

Tea has other excellent properties. At this present moment it is
putting down the pernicious practice of dram-drinking, and evidently
limiting the extent of after-dinner potations. It seems to be
impossible that a regular drinker of tea can be a lover of ardent
spirits; and it is generally observed, that, as a man (or woman either)
slides into the vice of tippling, he simultaneously withdraws from the
tea-table; so true it is that the brutalised feelings of the drunkard
are incompatible with the refined sentiments produced by

    “The cup which cheers, but not inebriates.”

It is hence to be wished that tea, or some other equally simple
prepared fluid, should be still more brought into use. Do not let it
be urged as an objection, that tea is expensive; for even under its
excessive dearth, compared with its original cost, it is the cheapest
beverage in use. With respect to price, it should not be placed against
water or milk. It comes in place of some other indulgence—intoxicating
liquors for instance—respecting the price of which we never heard any
complaints from the lower walks of life. Tea is thus not entirely a
superfluity. The clamours as to its fostering habits of evil and light
speaking, are so antiquated as hardly to deserve notice. Formerly, when
tea was exclusively a luxury among women, the tea-table was perhaps the
scene where scandal was chiefly discussed. But while I suspect that the
same amount of scandal would have been discussed if there had been no
tea-tables whatever, I must observe, that tea is now partaken of under
greatly different circumstances. From being the favourite indulgence
only of women, it is now an ordinary domestic meal, and there is no
more disposition to draw forth the failings of our neighbours over
tea than over roast beef or punch, at seven o’clock any more than at
five. In the upper classes of society, what with late dinners, routs,
and frivolities of every description, tea-drinking may be put aside
as a vulgarism; but as being, in point of fact, a powerful agent in
humanising the harsh feelings of our nature, and cultivating the
domestic affections, I trust it will long hold a place in the dietetics
of the respectable middle and lower classes of Great Britain.




HUSBANDS AND WIVES.


We meet with numerous rules for the conduct of young newly-married
women of all ranks; and if the world is not filled with good wives,
it certainly is not because there is any want of matronly counsel for
their guidance. But though the happiness of the conjugal state depends
at least as much upon the behaviour of the husband as on that of the
wife, there has not, as far as we are aware, been hitherto promulgated
any code of instructions for the use of the former. Our literature
abounds with narrations which exhibit the dutifulness and affection
of women to husbands unworthy of them, who repaid tenderness with
brutality, nor relented till those whose every amiable feeling they
ought to have cherished and rewarded with their love, either sank
broken-hearted, or, grown desperate, became even more abandoned and
profligate than themselves. The man is to blame in nine cases out of
ten where an alliance proves unhappy. In the lower ranks, especially,
it is too often a want of prudence on his part that renders so many
families wretched. _Of the multitudes of those who have wasted
character, health, and means, in intemperance, there is but a small
proportion who might not have preserved respectability by listening
to the admonitions of their wives._ Yet, with these numerous and
undeniable facts before the world, no writer thinks of preventing
such evils by pointing out and enforcing the duties of the party from
whose misconduct they chiefly spring. A small portion of our columns,
therefore, will not be unprofitably bestowed on a subject of so much
importance.

In order to secure the felicity of the married state, a husband must,
in the first place, endeavour to secure the perfect confidence of his
wife. He must banish every thing repulsive from his manner towards her,
and live with her on such easy and friendly terms that she may never
be discouraged from communicating with and consulting him on every
affair, whether it be in the lesser or the greater concerns of life.
If a wife do not find at home sympathy with her afflictions, cares,
and anxieties, she will seek it abroad—she will detail her griefs
to some acquaintance, to whom she will go for advice in matters of
difficulty, and, perhaps, in matters of delicacy, which cannot properly
be appreciated by a stranger, and therefore ought not to be entrusted
to the ear of one. The happiness of the family will thus be made to
depend in a great measure on a person not a member of it, who, whatever
be her prudence, is not intimately interested in the preservation of
its peace, and who is more likely to take a side and encourage feelings
of animosity than to inculcate the duty of mutual forbearance.

The husband’s duty must therefore be to establish in the mind of his
partner an entire reliance on his affection, and a thorough persuasion
that he is disposed to the full amount of his power to promote
her comfort. Let him not think it beneath him to take an interest
in her domestic arrangements: by showing that he does so, he will
make her sensible that her efforts to render home pleasing are not
unappreciated; her labour for that end will be redoubled, and yet
prove more light to her. As he must be abroad the greater part of the
day, let him not deprive her of his company in the hours of leisure
that business leaves him. A man cannot altogether seclude himself from
the world in the bosom of his family; neither can he always carry his
wife along with him: but he must not for a light reason allow himself
to be detained from her society. A woman’s hours are often lonely;
and after she has bestowed her whole cares for a day to set her house
in order, and anxiously awaits her husband’s return, in the hope of
enjoying a few hours of mutually endearing converse by the cheerful
hearth, if she have to watch every approaching footstep in vain, it
is a cruel disappointment. One of the greatest sins which the husband
can commit, is that of making a practice of staying out late at night,
which, though not reckoned among the usual catalogue of crimes against
social life, is one of those most worthy of reprobation. The mental
anguish endured by many excellent wives from this infamous practice,
no one can picture unless he have witnessed it. There, by the lonely
hearth—the fire sunk to a cinder and a mass of ashes—the candle verging
to its close in the socket—the dingy silent apartment strewed with the
toys and furniture of the children, sent hours since to bed—there, in
the midst of this domestic wilderness sits the drooping, desponding,
almost broken-hearted wife, counting the hours, and conning over
in her wearied mind the numbers of times she has been so deserted,
and foreseeing the still greater misery which awaits her by such a
course of profligacy in her husband. And for what, may we ask, has
the master of the household thus deserted his home?—the company of
hollow friends, idle acquaintances, perhaps drunkards or gamblers,
whose witless jocularity forms the temptation to abandon a good name,
fortune, worldly respectability, and self-esteem. None but the wife who
has endured trials of this nature can properly understand the horrors
resulting from such a life of folly and dissipation.

Every reader must be delighted with the beautiful excuse, which, among
others, Sir Thomas More makes why he did not publish his Utopia sooner.
It shows us how important that great man considered an attentive
performance of the minor duties of life to be. “Seeing that almost the
whole of the day is devoted to business abroad, and the remainder of my
time to domestic duties, there is none left for myself—that is, for my
studies. For, on returning home, I have to talk with my wife, prattle
with my children, and converse with my servants: all which things
I number among the duties of life; since, if a man would not be a
stranger in his own house, he must, by every means in his power, strive
to render himself agreeable to those companions of his life whom nature
has provided, chance thrown in his way, or that he has himself chosen.”

The husband must not accustom himself to form resolutions, and, without
previously consulting his wife, make a sudden declaration of his
purposes, in the same way as he would casually mention to a neighbour
a plan, the execution of which he is just on the point of commencing.
Even although such resolutions may be come to in a spirit of wisdom, to
determine upon any measure without her participation argues a want of
confidence in her affection and judgment, and cannot fail greatly to
distress and discourage her. Granting that there are some matters of
which the husband is the most competent judge, and that his wife cannot
aid or improve his schemes, still she ought to be made acquainted with
them, and the reasons for them, as far as possible; for it is only
proper that the wife should be admitted to the satisfaction of knowing
what is expected to produce advantage to her husband. As to what some
write, that women are not fit to be entrusted with great affairs, it
may have been true in the cases which gave occasion to the remark,
where the object involved a course of crooked policy, or where the
ear to which the secret was committed was that of a female from whom
fidelity was scarcely in any case to be expected. If a man’s designs
be bad, the best way for success in them is to make the disclosure to
nobody—least of all to women; to whom, if they be depraved, how can
he trust? and if they be not thoroughly hardened in wickedness, how
much less can he trust to them, seeing that, being of much tenderer
consciences than men, they are always more ready to relent! But if
he would make his way in the world by fair and honest practices, a
husband can have no better counsellor than his wife: her stretch of
understanding may not be so masculine as to embrace the subject in all
its more important bearings, but, in the lesser details of management,
her advice may prove invaluable.

Without a constant and unreserved interchange of sentiments, a
constant and perfect cordiality cannot be maintained; and then,
indeed, when things are communicated only by fits and starts, and
perhaps never more than half explained, leaving an impression that
her discretion is distrusted, the wife will be more apt to carry
them abroad, to endeavour, by the help of other wits than her own,
to penetrate what is concealed, and in the hope of finding, in the
sympathy of others, consolation for the want of confidence with which
she is treated at home. It is thus that a man becomes by degrees
“a stranger in his own house.” His domestic behaviour is observed
with the same distant caution with which his conduct in public is
scrutinised; and as in all likelihood he does not take the same pains
to produce a favourable impression, and is not equally on his guard to
obviate misinterpretations of what he says and does, he must appear
proportionably less amiable; and as the endearments of domestic life
are in consequence withdrawn, the bad effects of his unsocial humour
are at last felt in his own discomfort.

“Those that are curious observers of mankind,” says a Christian
philosopher, who is not so generally known as might be expected from
the excellence of his writings, “love to consider them in the most
familiar lights. When men are abroad, they choose to appear (whatever
they really are) to the best advantage; but at home, their minds, as
well as their persons, are in a perfect undress and dishabille. The
world is the great theatre on which they act a part; but, behind the
scenes, they may be seen in their proper persons, without any studied
appearances. Our domestic behaviour is, therefore, the main test of our
virtue and good nature. In public, we may carry a fair outside; our
love may be not without dissimulation nor our hatred without disguise;
but at home, Nature, left to itself, shows its true and genuine face,
with an unreserved openness, and all the soul stands forth to view,
without any veil thrown over it. There we see men in all the little and
minute circumstances of life, which, however they may be overlooked by
common observers, yet give a man of discernment a truer opening into a
man’s real character, than the more glaring and important transactions
of it, because, as to these, they are more upon their guard—they act
with more of caution and of art than of plain simple nature. In short,
our good or ill breeding is chiefly seen abroad, our good or ill nature
at home. It were to be wished that we had more family pieces preserved
and transmitted down to us. The good public magistrate is of use to few
only; but the prudent and affectionate father of a family is of a more
general and extensive influence. For my part, I more admire Cornelius,
the centurion, for that short sketch of his character, viz. that he
was a devout man, and one that feared God, _with all his house_, than
if he had been represented as the most victorious general that had
enlarged the bounds of the Roman empire; for we learn from it this
useful lesson—that the influence of a pious example, like the precious
ointment from Aaron’s beard, descends downwards from the head of the
family, diffuses itself over the main body, till it reaches the very
skirts—the lowest members of it.”




THEY.


Before saying a word upon the subject, I must make an apology similar
to that presented by honest Andro Symson, episcopal minister of a
Galloway parish before the Revolution, when, in singing the praises of
Sir David Dunbar of Baldoon, he says, his muse

        ——’gainst Priscian avers,
    _He_, HE ALONE, _were my parishioners_.

As good Andro’s congregation of one required to be spoken of in the
plural, so do my friends THEY need to be mentioned in the singular
number. The truth is, THEY is a collective ideality, a most potent
plural unit, who does a great many remarkable things in the world,
without ever being called to account for them, and without any body
knowing very distinctly who or what he is. I venture to say, that
hardly a subject of his Majesty does not, day by day, refer events
and deeds to the agency of THEY, and yet never has presumed, to this
blessed hour, to consider who this mysterious personage—this great
unknown—this finer spirit than Ariel—can be. In very truth, he is
a most impalpable being, and susceptible of a wonderful variety of
shapes. There is no height of greatness, and no depth of degradation,
which he may not arrive at. Sometimes one would suppose that he is
the government itself—sometimes, only a town council. One of THEY’S
employments is the disposal of criminals. “Are THEY going to hang this
fellow?” one man will ask another. “Perhaps THEY will only banish him,”
is the probable answer. If the culprit be not decently and humanely
hanged, the people get dreadfully enraged at THEY, and look as if they
would almost tear his eyes out. THEY also has a great deal to do in
public works. “Why did THEY make the road so crooked?” “THEY have put
up a very absurd set of street lamps, I see.” “What, in wonder’s name,
do THEY mean by building a temple up there, like a boy’s peerie, or
an hour-glass?” Then THEY is the author of all kinds of rumours and
surmises. “They say—what say they—let them say!” is an inscription on
a wall within Aberdeen Cathedral four hundred years old; and I do not
doubt that THEY would have given currency to scandals regarding the
mother of mankind herself, in Paradise, if there had been any other
lady to tell them to—or if THEY had then existed. Old newspapers say,
“THEY write from St Petersburg that the Empress Catharine is about to
fit out an armament for the Caspian.” “THEY talk at Rome of a change
of councils in the Vatican.” Modern quidnuncs are also filled to the
brim with things which THEY has been circulating. “THEY are now making
out Lord —— to be _non compos_.” “THEY will have a marriage to be on
the tapis between SO-AND-SO and SO-AND-SO;” personages, by the way, who
claim a sort of kindred with THEY, and certainly are of imagination
all compact. THEY is sometimes admired for his power, sometimes blamed
for his stinginess. “THEY used to write capital solid books long ago.”
“THEY used Burns very ill when he was alive.” It certainly was bad of
THEY to treat Burns so scurvily; but unfortunately the fellow is so
utterly impersonal, that we blame without knowing what we are doing.

THEY has a great deal to do with the _naming_ of things. He may be
called, in arithmetical language, the _Grand Denominator_. Indeed, I
do not believe that Adam himself named more things than THEY. “What
do THEY call this place?” one will ask a coachman, on nearing a town,
village, or gentleman’s seat. “THEY call it Ashbourne,” or whatever
else, is the reply. “What do THEY call ye?” is the ordinary question
of a rustic boy to his unknown companion, and so forth. THEY is also
the grand censor of all things which happen in the world. “I will
not do this, for what would THEY say of me?” is a common expression,
when a man hesitates upon some equivocal step. He may be convinced,
from irrefragable data, of the propriety of what he contemplates:
but then he could not convince THEY of it, and, of course, in these
circumstances, he must let the scheme drop. THEY thus prevents many
things that would be bad, many things that would be only strange, and
many things that would certainly be good, if he could be convinced
of it. A most uncompromising fellow is this THEY! He knows very well
that he cannot enter into another man’s bosom, to see all the various
reasons and tendencies which lead him towards the thing he aims at;
but, nevertheless, presuming that he is quite omniscient, or at least
fully as well acquainted with every other particular man’s business
as his own, he never hesitates to give a decided contradiction to any
proposal he is not, at first sight, pleased with. Many are the good
original schemes which THEY has spoilt, from a hasty conclusion without
premises.

THEY, also, amidst all his multitudinous and most Protean varieties of
character, is a general scapegoat for all the mischief that is done in
a household. “I see THEY have cracked that decanter.” “THEY have at
last made an end of the globe in the lobby.” Or, as I once heard said
by the lady of a house afflicted with a breaking woman-servant, “I
declare THEY have broken the very kitchen poker!”—a compound fracture,
too, it was. Such are a few of the doings of THEY in his household
capacity; and it must be owned that in this light he is very great,
and often comes above-board. The grandest aspect, however, in which
THEY ever appears, is when he stands up as a representative of the
government of the country. “THEY are going, I see, to bring us into
a war with France.” “THEY intend, it seems, to resume cash payments
at the Bank.” No matter whether the affair refers to privilege or
prerogative; no matter for the claims of the particular officer
under whose hands it ought to fall; King, Lords, Commons, Treasury,
Admiralty, and Horse Guards—all melt, like mixed colours, into the
single white light of THEY! Things may be different under the Reform
Bill; but, heretofore, there has hardly been any precise government but
THEY. THEY crowns the king—signs the orders of council—passes all bills
through the legislature that _will_ go through—fits out armies, and
rigs fleets—makes war, and concludes peace—is church and state—Swing
and the Press. THEY is a being of past history, and of present
existence—a tyrant, or the people. THEY is the great despot pronoun of
the _world_!




RELATIONS.


Owing to the different merits of the different members of a family, and
in some measure, also, to the various chances which are vouchsafed to
them of bettering their circumstances, we generally see that, though
they all begin alike, some go _up_ and some go _down_ in life, so that
in the long-run the family, or at least its second generation, is
scattered over nearly the whole surface of society, from its top to its
bottom. The case may seem startling; but it is our belief that there is
hardly any person, be his own situation ever so exalted, who has not
relations, and near relations too, in the very lowest walks of life—not
only in the condition of servants, perhaps, for that is decent, and,
in its way, respectable, but in the most degraded state to which human
nature can well be reduced.

In the same way, almost all of us have kinsfolk a little higher in
the scale than ourselves, or whom we think so—it is all one. Now,
it is quite amazing how accurate our genealogical knowledge becomes
respecting one of these individuals, compared with its equally
surprising ignorance regarding those who have not been so fortunate.
When a cousin or half grand-uncle rises above our level, he rises
into a blaze of light, which enables us to trace our connection with
him as plainly as we run our eye along the string of a boy’s kite. But
when a poor nephew or grand-nephew descends into poverty and contempt,
he seems like a plummet submersed in the ocean, where, though we may
occasionally feel him tugging at the bottom of the line, we are totally
unable to trace the line itself. We are always most laudably ready to
exchange the civilities of life and the affections of kindred with
the cousin who has, in the first place, convinced us of his merit by
thatching himself well over with bank-notes. It is pleasant to go and
dine at a kinsman’s house, where we know that our entertainment can be
furnished without any distress to our worthy host. But really it is a
totally different case to intrude upon a scene where our poor friend
is doing his best, with the tears in his eyes, to satisfy the cravings
of his family with, perhaps, a very homely meal. Humanity in that case
demands that we should rather stay away, for we know he does not like
to be seen in his poor state. And then, too, how easily we can put up
with the eccentricities of a wealthy relation, even though they may
sometimes gall our pride a little: how strangely liable, on the other
hand, are we to fall out with the poor unfortunates below us! On the
day after having been regaled to the uttermost excess by our wealthy
friend, we will quarrel with the poor one for having drunk a single
glass of some plebeian fluid. With the former, nothing—with the latter,
every thing, is a fault. The imperfections of the poor are yawning
and palpable as their own rags: those of the rich are as smooth as
broad-cloth can make them. The truth is, our senses can tolerate almost
any odious or improper thing that is found in a scene above our usual
grade in the world. We never know enough of it to be able to measure
its real odiousness, or it is disguised by the cordial appliances which
we always have ready for the sores of the great. But the vices, nay,
the smallest foibles of the lowly, come before our senses so bare,
so beggarly, so unanealed, and, moreover, they are so immediately
followed by that additional wretchedness which wealthy error escapes,
that we have no excuse for them. Hence we generally find, that we have
shaken off the most of our poor relations on account of some trivial
cause of offence, which we find it necessary, however, to be always
nursing in our minds, in order to sustain us in the conviction that the
breach of treaty—the _casus fœderis_—was sufficient.

There is one very obvious mark of the individual who despises poor
relations—a perpetual reference to rich ones. Some people are
constantly bringing in allusions to “my cousin Mr This,” and “my
uncle Mr That,” and even to more remote relations, such as “my
great-grandmother the Countess of Somewhere.” A few are so very silly
as to tell, in the newspaper announcement of their marriage, that
their bride, besides being daughter to this or that plain esquire, is
“grand-niece to General So-and-So,” or “cousin to Mr Such-a-Thing,
secretary of state.” These announcements are an impertinence fit for
the interference of the legislature—or the police. If people have
exalted relations, let them enjoy them as much as they can within
themselves, but do not let them be perpetually presenting this odious
little piece of vanity before others, who not only are not interested
in it, but are perhaps reminded by it that they have no fine relations
themselves. To be always thus singling out a relation from all the
rest, and holding him up in connection with ourselves, is a direct
injury to him, in so far as we are thus trying to exalt ourselves at
his expense—an indirect insult to our kindred in general, whom we leave
out of view, and a nuisance to all before whom we thus exhibit our own
poverty of soul. It is a _cultivation_ of the most odious character,
and necessarily suggests to every thinking person, that in exact
proportion to our homage to the great persons of our family must be our
haughtiness and severity to the humble. The people addicted to this
vice of conversation are evidently satisfied in their own minds that
they are talking very fine, and exciting no feeling in their hearers
but admiration and respect; but in reality they are always scouted
and ridiculed, even to the degree of being honoured with a nickname,
carved, perhaps, out of the favourite phrase.

A really good and philosophical spirit will neither plume himself
upon his more fortunate, nor despise his less fortunate, relations.
He will modestly rejoice in the success of the former, and take care,
by avoiding the appearance of intrusiveness on the one hand, and
splenetic and pettish jealousy on the other, to afford no reason for
the fortunate individual to feel incommoded by the connection, and,
consequently, to endeavour to shake it off. To those who are less
fortunate than himself, he will be as encouraging and kind as his
circumstances render prudent or decent, neither manifesting that vulgar
pride which tries needlessly to make a kind of virtue out of a low
origin, nor that still more pitiable vanity which denies all inferior
kindred, and seeks, at the expense of real dignity, the eclat of a
few “great friends.” We allow there is a general difficulty in the
case. Friends in different worldly circumstances are like positive and
negative clouds in electricity: there is a constant tendency in the
poor to an equalization, which is not relished by the parties whose
pockets are charged positively. But human nature should be always
contending with its weaknesses, and, though full confiding friendship
is not perhaps to be expected, there may still be a sufficient
interchange of kindness to lighten, in no small degree, the general
burden of life.




THE STRANGERS’ NOOK.


In country churchyards in Scotland, and perhaps in other countries
also, there is always a corner near the gateway, which is devoted to
the reception of strangers, and is distinguished from the rest of the
area by its total want of monuments. When you inquire of the passing
peasant respecting this part of the burial-ground, he tells you that it
is the corner for strangers, but never, of course, thinks that there
is or can be any sentiment in the matter. To me, I must confess, this
spot is always more interesting than any other, on account of the more
extended scope which it gives to those feelings with which one surveys
a churchyard. As you wander over the rest of the ground, you see humble
memorials of humbler worth, mixed perhaps with the monuments of rank
and wealth. But these tell always a definite tale. It is either the
lord or the tenant of some of the neighbouring fields, or a trading
burgher, or perhaps a clergyman; and there is an end of it. These men
performed their parts on earth, like the generality of their fellows,
and, after figuring for a space on the limited arena of the parish or
the district, were here gathered to their fathers. But the graves of
the strangers! what tales are told by every undistinguished heap—what
eloquence in this utter absence of epitaphs!

There can be no doubt that the individuals who rest in this nook
belonged, with hardly the possibility of an exception, to the humbler
orders of the community. But who will say that the final sufferings and
death of any individual whatsoever are without their pathos? To me,
who have never been able to despise any fellow-creature upon general
considerations, the silent expressive stories related by these little
heaps, possess an interest above all real eloquence. Here, we may
suppose, rests the weary old man, to whom, after many bitter shifts,
all bitterly disappointed, wandering and mendicancy had become a last
trade. His snow-white head, which had suffered the inclemency of many
winters, was here at last laid low for ever. Here also the homeless
youth, who had trusted himself to the wide world in search of fortune,
was arrested in his wanderings; and, whether his heart was as light
and buoyant as his purse, or weighed down with many privations and
disappointments, the end was the same—only in the one case a blight,
in the other a bliss. The prodigal, who had wandered far, and fared
still worse and worse, at length returning, was here cut short in his
better purpose, far from those friends to whom he looked forward as a
consolation for all his wretchedness. Perhaps, when stretched in mortal
sickness in a homely lodging in the neighbouring village, where, though
kindness was rendered, it was still the kindness of strangers, his
mind wandered in repentant fondness to that mother whom he had parted
with in scorn, but for whose hand to present his cup, and whose eye to
melt him with its tenderness, he would now gladly give the miserable
remains of his life. Perhaps he thought of a brother, also parted with
in rage and distrust, but who, in their early years, had played with
him, a fond and innocent child, over the summer leas, and to whom that
recollection forgave every thing. No one of these friends to soothe
the last moments of his wayward and unhappy life—scarcely even to hear
of his death when it had taken place. Far from every remembered scene,
every remembered face, he was doomed here to take his place amidst the
noteless dead, and be as if he had never been. Perhaps one of these
graves contains the shipwrecked mariner, hither transferred from the
neighbouring beach. A cry was heard by night through the storm which
dashed the waves upon the rocky coast; deliverance was impossible;
and next morning, the only memorial of what had taken place was the
lifeless body of a sailor stretched on the sand. No trace of name or
kin, not even the name of the vessel, was learned; but, no doubt, as
the villagers would remark in conveying him to the Strangers’ Nook, he
left _some_ heart to pine for his absence, _some_ eyes to mourn for
him, if his loss should ever be ascertained. There are few so desolate
on earth as not to have one friend or associate. There must either be
a wife to be widowed, or a child to be made an orphan, or a mother to
suffer her own not less grievous bereavement. Perhaps the sole beloved
object of some humble domestic circle, whose incomings and outgoings
were ever pleasant, is here laid low, while neither can the bereaved
learn aught of the fate and final resting-place of their favourite, nor
can those who kindly, but without mourning, performed his last offices,
reach their ears with the intelligence, grateful even in its pain, of
what had been done to his remains; here the energies which had battled
with the waves in their hour of night, and the despair whose expression
had been wasted upon the black tempest, are all stilled into rest, and
forgotten. The storm is done; its work has been accomplished; and here
lies the strange mariner, where no storms shall ever again trouble him.

Such are the imaginings which may arise in contemplating that neglected
nook in our churchyards which is devoted to the reception of strangers.
The other dead have all been laid down in their final beds by long
trains of sorrowing friends. They rest in death in the midst of those
beloved scenes which their infancy knew, and which were associated with
every happiness, every triumph, every sorrow, which befel them. The
burns in which they had “paidlet” when they were children, run still in
their shining beauty all around and about their last resting-place; the
braes over which they wandered hand in hand, “to pu’ the gowans fine,”
still look down in all their summer pride upon the fold into which they
have at last been gathered for eternity. But the homeless strangers!
_they_ died far from every endeared scene. The rills were not here like
those which _they_ had known; the hills were different too. Instead of
the circle of friends, whose anticipated grief tends so much to smooth
the last bed of suffering man, the pillow of the homeless was arranged
by strangers: they were carried to the burial-ground, not by a train
of real mourners, anxious to express their respect and affection for
the departed, but by a few individuals, who, in so doing, complimented
human nature in general, but not the individual. To the other graves
there was also some one to resort afterwards, to lament the departure
of those who lay below. The spot was always cherished and marked by
at least one generation of kind ones; and, whether distinguished by a
monument or not, it was always a greater or less space of time before
the memory of the deceased entirely perished from its place. Still,
as each holy day came round, and the living flocked to the house of
prayer, there was always some one to send a kind eye aside towards that
little mound, and be for a moment moved with a pensive feeling, as the
heart recalled a departed parent, or child, or friend. But the graves
of the strangers! all regard was shut out from them as soon as they
were closed. The decent few who had affected mourning over them had
no sooner turned away than they were at once forgotten. That ceremony
over, their kind had done with them for ever. And so, there they lie,
distinguished from the rest only by the melancholy mark that they are
themselves undistinguished from each other; no eye to weep over them
now or hereafter, and no regard whatsoever to be paid to them till they
stand forth, with their fellow-men, at the Great and Final Day.




NOBODY TO BE DESPISED—


Except on particular grounds of demerit. This is a maxim which it would
be well if the world would pay more attention to.

There are many people—very good people, too—who have a habit of
speaking contemptuously or lightly of almost every body but themselves.
There are still more who do not seem to consider it necessary to treat
the absent with the least respect, but, to use the words of a modern
writer, are remarkably candid in owning and showing up the faults of
their neighbours.

These, I think, are detestable practices of human nature—the issue of
its weakness rather than its strength.

When I think of a great and good character, I cannot conceive that he
has a habit of depreciating the respect due to his absent friends, or
of treating any of his fellow-creatures with scorn, unless for some
specific delinquency. Such a person will be already too secure of his
own reputation to seek to raise it at the expense of others. He will
be able to take an enlarged view of human society, and, seeing that
the condition of all men is in a great measure accidental, or at least
moulded greatly by circumstances, will not despise any man on account
of his mere place in the general system, but, on the contrary, give him
respect in proportion to his good conduct in that place, whatever it
may be. Such a man, also, will have too much respect for himself, to
use language at any time which he would be ashamed to own at another
time. He would not indulge in a tone of levity or rancour respecting
any man, on whose entrance accidentally into the room he would have to
alter his style, and hypocritically offer him the usual courtesies of
society.

It happens, however, that all men are more or less remote from the
greatness and goodness of this ideal character. We are, as yet, only
in a state of comparative approximation to those qualities; hence we
find that nearly all are alike given to speak slightingly of each
other. There are two grand causes at the bottom of this—Selfishness and
Thoughtlessness. The former gives us such an intense appreciation of
ourselves, and of the rank we hold in society, that we speak and think
as if every man and every class beneath us were too mean to be entitled
to the least respect; we look upon the whole as a degraded caste, whose
very existence must only be acknowledged indirectly, as a thing we
have become acquainted with by seeing it at a distance, not by having
ever come in contact with it. In this view of society our ordinary
literature is very apt to confirm us. The key-note is there struck
always in _alt._ The whole strain of the work, its characters, its
philosophy, its manners, are presumed to be something above the common
level; for literary men are still, after all, very much the slaves of
the great which they used to be. If the writer describes humble life
at all, he describes it as seen by a bird’s-eye view from some lofty
station—not as seen by a person who mingles in it, and partakes of its
sympathies. Even the middle ranks of the community, who in this country
form the great mass of readers, and from which, moreover, almost all
literary men arise, have no literature of their own: they have to read
a literature which has been calculated for the sphere above them,
and in which, of course, their sympathies must be of an imperfect
character. And thus, after all that has been done, it still appears a
desideratum that there should be both a literature and a philosophy
_for the human race_.

Then, as to _thoughtlessness_, as a cause for this universally mutual
contempt. It must be admitted, I should think, that if we only took a
proper consideration of the noble destiny which all partake in common
with ourselves, both in respect to the grand moral ends of this life,
and the more sublime prospects for the future, we would hardly think
meanly of any one, except, as before mentioned, on account of some
specific worthlessness. For my part, I wonder how any man can _dare_
to despise a fellow-creature upon other grounds. Is it difference of
tongue, of rank, of personal character, of external manners, that makes
you despise any one? What, I would ask, are all these distinctions to
the great fellowship of our common humanity—the social end which we are
working to as parts of a great community—as parts of a glorious world,
or the general destiny which awaits us at the close of this brief life?
Reflect upon these things before you permit yourself to think lightly
of a fellow-creature; or, if these things are of no avail with you,
consider what you are yourself, that you thus scorn another. I must say
that I have often observed the most contemptible man to be the most
contemptuous. There are some men who hardly make any other pretension
to the respect of the world, than in so far as they profess to treat
_every thing_ cavalierly. But as he who sheds blood must submit to have
his blood shed by others, so are these men at length detected, and
tossed, as they deserve, in a blanket of their own weaving. Individuals
may be assured that it is not by proclaiming a war of contempt against
the world, or any large number of its members, that a comfortable
situation is to be gained for themselves.

There is a good old national proverb, which tells us that the king’s
errand may come in the pedlar’s road—that is to say, a very lofty man
may occasionally have to take a favour from one in humble life. This is
no mere flattering unction applied by the common people to themselves.
It breathes the very spirit of an enlarged and humane philosophy. It
tells us that all ranks of men are in reality dependent upon each
other, and that every one, filling its proper place, is entitled to
its proportion of regard from the rest. Treating the expression in its
more limited sense, it instructs us that, in the prospect of our being
occasionally obliged to accept of favours from very mean hands, we
should never treat any person beneath us with disrespect—as, otherwise,
with what grace can we accept of such a favour? On this point I take
the liberty to relate a simple anecdote, as told to me some years ago,
in illustration of the subject of this essay, by the individual chiefly
concerned—the wife of a shopkeeper in a country town in the north of
Scotland.

“In —— there lived a poor woman, named Peggy Williamson, a kind of
washerwoman, whom every body looked upon as a wretched creature. This
despised and not very reputable person had a son, who on one occasion
was taken up by the town-officers for some trifling offence, and would
have been thrown into prison, if I had not thought the case rather a
hard one, and interceded with the magistrate in his behalf. Peggy, with
all her faults, was not ungrateful; she came to me, and said she never
would forget my kindness.

“A long time after this, in consequence of a particular calamity, my
husband’s affairs got into a very hopeless state. I was attending the
shop one bleak November day. Few customers were coming in, or likely
to come in, and our prospects were gloomy and dull as the atmosphere
itself. I never, indeed, since we began business, saw a day when
things seemed less promising. The whole street—the whole town—appeared
deserted. All was desolate, cold, and wintry; and with the dread of
utter ruin impending over us, you may suppose that our spirits were not
very good. Well, just while we were in this dolorous state, in came my
old friend Peggy Williamson, accompanied by a country girl, who, she
said, wanted to provide herself with a number of our wares, being about
to be married. This person expended six or eight pounds with us, and we
could not help feeling it as a kind of godsend. It was, however, the
result of my having at one time done a just, for I can hardly call it
a kind, action, to a person whom the most of people despised. Peggy,
who was not perhaps aware of the full extent to which we appreciated
her good offices, told me very modestly, as she left the shop with her
friend, that she was glad to have had it in her power to recommend any
body to us for goods, ‘as she never could forget my kindness to Tam.’
I thus satisfied myself, not only that an act of ordinary benevolence
is likely to produce its reward where it is least expected, but that
some good feeling may exist even in those characters, whom on ordinary
principles we may be most inclined to despise.”

Let us judge, then, or at least let us always be inclined to judge,
with tenderness, both of persons and of things. Let us not take our
impressions of the characters of our fellow-creatures from the little
obvious fault or foible which lies upon the surface, and affords, of
course, the subject of largest discourse to the superficial; but,
dashing aside the weeds which mantle the surface of the character,
ascertain the extent and sweetness of the clear water beneath. It is
of great importance to men, but especially to young men, to acquire a
power of judging correctly and definitely of every thing. They must
learn to estimate every thing relatively, and not be prevented from
allowing merit, even where it exists in the smallest quantities, by its
being mingled with a larger proportion of less worthy qualities. We
often find one kind of merit denied, because it is not another. A man
of untutored genius is sneered at because he wants learning. A learned
man is termed a stupid dunce or a pedant, because he wants genius.
The writer of an unpretending narrative is described by some of his
invidious fellows as no Hume, or Gibbon, or Robertson. An industrious
tradesman is ridiculed as a mere plodder; a farmer is laughed at
because he is only acquainted with country affairs. Glasgow is
condemned as deficient in the refined professional and literary classes
of inhabitants, who reside in Edinburgh; and Edinburgh is scouted for
its being “not at all a place of business.” These are vicious habits
of thought and speech—if _thought_ there can be in what argues a total
absence of every thing like reason.




TRUST TO YOURSELF.


This is a glorious principle for the industrious and trading classes of
the community, and yet the philosophy of it is not perhaps understood
so well as it ought to be.

There is hardly any thing more common in the country than to hear men
spoken of who originally, or at some period of their lives, were rich,
but were ruined by “_security_”—that is, by becoming bound to too great
an extent for the engagements of their neighbours. This must arise in
a great measure from an imperfect understanding of the question; and it
therefore seems necessary that something should be said in explanation
of it.

I would be far from desiring to see men shut up their hearts against
each other, and each stand, in the panoply of his own resolutions,
determined against every friendly appeal whatsoever. It is possible,
however, to be not altogether a churl, and yet to take care lest we be
tempted into an exertion of benevolence, dangerous to ourselves, while
it is of little advantage to our friends.

Notwithstanding the many ties which connect a man with society, he
nevertheless bears largely imprinted on his forehead the original doom,
that he must chiefly be dependent on his own labour for subsistence. It
is found by all men of experience, that, in so far as one trusts to his
own exertions solely, he will be apt to flourish; and, in so far as he
leans and depends upon others, he will be the reverse. Nothing can give
so good a _general_ assurance of well-doing as the personal activity of
the individual, day by day exerted for his own interest. If a man, on
the contrary, suddenly finds, in the midst of such a career, a prospect
of some patronage which seems likely to enrich him at once, or if he
fails into the heritage of some antiquated claims to property or title,
which he thinks it necessary to prosecute, it is ten to one that he
declines from that moment, and is finally ruined. The only true way
to make a happy progress through this world, is to go on in a dogged,
persevering pursuit of one good object, neither turning to the right
nor to the left, making our business as much as possible our pleasure,
and not permitting ourselves to awake from our _dream of activity_—not
permitting ourselves to _think that we have been active_—till we
suddenly find ourselves at the goal of our wishes, with fortune almost
unconsciously within our grasp.

Now, it is a most violent and unhappy disturbance of this system, to
be always poking about after large favours from friends, whether
for the purpose of adding fuel to what we think a good fire, or
preserving a bad one from extinction. All that is obtained in this
way is obtained against the very spirit of correct business, and is
likely to be only mischievous to both parties. In the first place,
it is probable that we shall not make such a good use of money got
thus in a slump, without being painfully and gradually won, as of
that which is the acquisition of our own daily industry. Then, it
is always a presumption against a man that he should require such
subsidies; and, accordingly, his commercial reputation is apt to suffer
from every request he makes. Next, to consider the case in reference
to the friend from whom the demand is made, it is obviously a most
unfair thing, that, when men find it so necessary to be cautious in
adventuring money on unusual risks, even for their own interest, and
are, in such circumstances, so strongly called upon to make themselves
acquainted with every circumstance of the case before venturing—when,
moreover, they only do so in the prospect of an unusual profit—I say it
is unfair, that, when they only adventure money on their own account
under these circumstances, they should be called upon occasionally to
adventure it for the profit of a friend, without knowing any thing of
the likelihood of its turning out well, without being able to take
any of those expedients which they would use in their own case for
insuring its eventual re-appearance, without the least chance of profit
to compensate the risk—trusting the whole, in fact, to the uncertain
and hidden sea of another man’s mind, when perhaps they would not
trust it upon their own, with a full knowledge of soundings, tide,
wind, and pilotage. Men may grant such favours, from their dislike to
express such a want of confidence in a friend as a refusal is supposed
to intimate. But this proceeds upon the erroneous principle that the
refusal indicates want of confidence. In reality, it ought only to be
held as indicating a want of confidence in the particular line of use
upon which it is to be adventured. When the man _now_ wanting the loan
of money expresses himself as certain to reproduce it at the proper
time, he pledges too much of his honour; for there cannot be a stronger
proof of the unlikelihood of his having money _then_ than his wanting
it _now_, so that the uncertainty of the reproduction of the sum could
never be greater. The person from whom it is demanded is entitled,
therefore, to take care that the petitioner is not deceiving both
himself and the individual whom he wishes to supply his necessities.

Humanity—kindred—friendship—have many claims; and these will always be
considered and answered by a man of good feelings. All that is here
contended for, is the inconsistency of a system of large accommodations
with just business, as well as with the real interests of either of
the two parties concerned. Upon the whole, a man will not only be
obliging himself in the best manner, but he will also be obliging
society in a higher degree than he otherwise could do, if he simply
looks well after himself, so that he never _requires_ a favour. Let
no man be unduly alarmed at the outcry of “_selfishness_;” it is the
only principle which can ever become nearly general, and therefore
the only one which can be equal or impartial in its action. When this
cry is raised, let the petitioned party always take pains to consider
whether he in reality _is_ the selfish person—whether the odium of that
bad feeling does not indeed rather lie with the petitioner, who is
content, for the purpose of saving himself some present inconvenience,
or otherwise advantaging himself, to bring a portion of his friend’s
substance into hazard—for hazard, of course, there always is, whenever
money leaves the possession of its owner, and in hardly any kind of
adventure is it ever in greater peril than when lent, or engaged for,
in this manner, without the prospect of a profit. It is, in a great
measure, a mere error arising from want of reflection, to suppose that
there can only be inhumanity on the part of the individual who refuses
to lend or become bound. Inhumanity, of course, there may often be in
such refusals; but is there to be no sympathy, on the other hand, for
the friend betrayed? Are we only to have pity for the man who wants
money—no matter through what causes he wants it—in March, and none for
him who is called upon to undertake the risk of having to pay it in
June, to his grievous inconvenience? Does pity only acknowledge the
present tense, and not the future? Is it so silly a passion that it
only feels for the present wants of an individual who goes a-borrowing,
and has no regard to the contingent sorrows of him who, without fault
of his own, but with every merit to the contrary, is beguiled into a
ruin he did not purchase, in the ineffectual attempt, perhaps, to save
one who, supposing him to be personally as worthy, was at least the
only person with whom blame, if blame there be, can in such a case be
said to rest?

SUMMARY.—Fortune is most easily and most certainly to be won by your
own unaided exertions. Therefore, depend as little as possible upon
prospects of advantages from others, all of whom, you will find, have
enough ado with themselves. Be liberal, affable, and kind; but, knowing
that you cannot do more injury to society than by greatly injuring
yourself, exercise a just caution in giving way to the solicitations
of your friends. Never be too ready to convince yourself that it is
right to involve yourself largely, in order to help any person into a
particular station in society; rather let him begin at the bottom, and
he will be all the better fitted for his place, when he reaches it, by
having fought his way up through the lower stages.




LEISURE.


The most fallacious ideas prevail respecting leisure. People are always
saying to themselves, “I would do this, and I would do that, if I had
leisure.” Now, there is no condition in which the chance of doing any
good is _less_ than in the condition of leisure. The man fully employed
_may_ be able to gratify his good dispositions by improving himself
or his neighbours, or serving the public in some useful way; but the
man who has all his time to dispose of as he pleases, has but a poor
chance, indeed, of doing so. To do increases the capacity of doing;
and it is far less difficult for a man who is in a habitual course of
exertion to exert himself a little more for an extra purpose, than
for the man who does little or nothing to put himself into motion for
the same end. This is owing to a principle of our moral nature, which
is called the _vis inertiæ_, literally, the strength of inactivity,
but which I will explain at once to unlearned persons, by reminding
them, that, to set a common child’s hoop a-going in the first place,
requires a smarter stroke than to keep it in motion afterwards. There
is a reluctance in all things to be set a-going; but when that is got
over, then every thing goes sweetly enough. Just so it is with the
idle man. In losing the _habit_, he loses the _power_ of doing. But a
man who is busy about some regular employment for a proper length of
time every day, can very easily do something else during the remaining
hours; indeed, the recreation of the weary man is apt to be busier than
the perpetual leisure of the idle. As he walks through the world, his
hands hang unmuffled and ready by his side, and he can sometimes do
more by a single touch in passing, than a vacant man is likely to do in
a twelvemonth.

All this is exemplified fully in the actual practice of life. Who,
I would ask, compose the class who perform most of the business of
public charity? It is not those who are highly endowed with wealth and
leisure. It is not in general those whom wealth has placed at ease,
but the class of well-employed traders and manufacturers, who, to
appearance, are entirely engrossed by their own concerns. These men
will snatch an occasional hour from their well-employed lives—perhaps
an hour that ought to be devoted to relaxation—and do you more real
work in that time than an idle man would accomplish in the half of
his yaw-yaw existence. What is curious, if you place the busy trader
on the shelf, as no longer requiring to work for his subsistence, he
immediately loses the power of doing these little superfluous acts of
goodness. In getting out of the way of all exertion, he becomes unable
to do any thing, even when he wishes it. On the same principle, men
never give a job to a lawyer or any body else, who is not pretty well
occupied. And this is from no irrational homage to the name of the man,
as is sometimes thought; it is because the man who does much is most
likely to do more, and most likely to do it well.

Let no man, then, cry for leisure in order to do any thing. Let him
rather pray that he may never have leisure. If he really wishes to do
any good thing, he will always find time for it, by properly arranging
his other employments. The person who thus addresses the public has
acquired the power of doing so, such as it is, not by having had a
great deal of time at his own disposal, but solely by ravishing the
inglorious hours which the most of men spend in unprofitable and
_unenjoyed_ pleasures, and employing them in the cultivation of his
mind. There is an anecdote told of a French author of distinction, who
by regularly employing, in a few jottings, the five minutes which his
wife caused him to wait every day while she dressed for dinner, at
last formed a book; certainly not the least meritorious of his works.
Hazlitt also remarks, that many men walk as much idly upon Pall Mall
in a few years, as would carry them round the globe. In fact, it may
be said that to ask for leisure or time to do any ordinary thing, is
equivalent to a confession that we are indifferent about doing it.

It is very fair that the busy man should be at ease at last. It is
often the object for which he works. Neither can it be allowed that
there is any absolute claim upon the wealthy to exert themselves for
the good of the community. Wealth must be enjoyed as the possessor
pleases, or it is no longer wealth, and one of the objects of industry
is taken away. But it would be of vast importance—both to the wealthy
idle themselves and to the community—if their tastes could oftener
be directed to some beneficial employment within the range of their
abilities and influence. It is a shame to those who are entirely at
their own disposal, that almost all the general good that is done
in the world is done by those who are already overworked. It might
rather be expected that the affluent, who have no particular business
of their own to attend to, should devote themselves to the general
good. This is the more particularly to be expected, when we observe
the worse than trifles upon which idle opulence generally employs
itself. If actual vice be avoided, the most contemptible frivolities
and paltry amusements are sought after, for the purpose of—disgraceful
word!—_killing time_. Sometimes we find the universal necessity of
doing something, taking a good direction, or one at least rather on
goodness’ side. The female part of the affluent world are often found
to be actively benevolent; and nothing can be more laudable. But the
ells of idle humanity, that every day walk the street in vain, are
beyond all mensuration. Now, I am convinced that if these leisurely
persons only once fell into the way of employing themselves for
some good end, they would find themselves far more comfortable than
they are at present. They would suddenly feel the inspiration of a
worthy purpose of existence. They would feel the self-importance of
active exertion—the majesty of industry; that lofty feeling which
even the hard-working housewife feels in increased proportion amidst
the sloperies of a washing Saturday, and which gives to the early
riser his right to taunt and look down upon all the recumbent part of
mankind. The _gentlemen_ must think of it. They must up and be doing.
It is, I repeat, a disgrace to them, in this universally busy scene, to
let all the laurels of charity and kindness be carried away by those
who have enough ado to obtain their own subsistence.




MY NATIVE BAY.


    My native bay is calm and bright,
      As e’er it was of yore
    When, in the days of hope and love,
      I stood upon its shore;
    The sky is glowing, soft, and blue,
      As once in youth it smiled,
    When summer seas and summer skies
      Where always bright and mild.

    The sky—how oft hath darkness dwelt,
      Since then, upon its breast;
    The sea—how oft have tempests broke
      Its gentle dream of rest!
    So oft hath darker woe come o’er
      Calm self-enjoying thought;
    And passion’s storms a wilder scene
      Within my bosom wrought.

    Now, after years of absence, pass’d
      In wretchedness and pain,
    I come and find those seas and skies
      All calm and bright again.
    The darkness and the storm from both
      Have trackless pass’d away;
    And gentle as in youth, once more
      Thou seem’st, my native bay!

    Oh, that, like thee, when toil is o’er,
      And all my griefs are past,
    This ravaged bosom might subside
      To peace and joy at last!
    And while it lay all calm like thee,
      In pure unruffled sleep,
    Oh, might a heaven as bright as this
      Be mirror’d in its deep!

                                       R. C.




ADVANCEMENT IN LIFE


It is very certain that all men are not born to be Franklins; and,
likewise, that if any considerable number of such persons were to
arise, their utility and their distinction would be diminished. There
is a good old proverb, however—“aim at a silk gown, and you may get
a sleeve of it;” which may be followed out, both to the advantage of
individuals and to the benefit of the community.

First, there is one great maxim that no youth should ever want before
his eyes, namely, that hardly any thing is beyond the attainment of
real merit. Let a man set up almost any object before him on entering
life, and, if his ambition be of that genuine kind which springs from
talent, and is _not too much for his prudence_, there is a strong
chance in his favour that a keen and steady pursuit of the object will
make him triumph at last. It is very common, when the proposal of a
young man’s entry into life is discussed, to hear complaints as to the
pre-occupation of every field of adventure by unemployed multitudes.
There may occasionally be some cause for this; but the general truth
is undeniable, that, in spite of every disadvantage, men are rising
daily to distinction in every profession—the broadest shoulders, as
usual, making their way best through the crowd. It is the slothful and
the fearful that generally make such complaints; and they obviously do
so in order to assure themselves that they are not altogether wrong
in continuing to misspend their time. When we hear of the overcrowded
state of any proposed profession, we are apt to overlook that an
immense proportion of those engaged in it are destined, by the weakness
of their character, and want of specific qualifications, to make no
way for themselves, and must soon be the same, so far as rivalry is
concerned, as if they had never entered it. If the entrant, then, has
only a well-grounded confidence in his own powers of exertion and
perseverance, he need hardly be afraid to enter any profession. With
the serious desire of well-doing at heart, and some tolerable share of
ability, he is sure very soon to get ahead of a great proportion of
those already in the field. Only let him never despair—that is, tell
himself it is all in vain, in order that he may become idle with a good
conscience—and there is hardly any fear of him.

The present writer entertains some different ideas respecting original
humility of circumstances from what are generally prevalent. The common
notion is, that humble circumstances are a great obstruction at the
outset of life, and that the more difference between a man’s origin
and his eventual condition, the greater is the wonder, and the greater
his merit. Since it appears, however, that so large a proportion of
distinguished men were poor at the beginning, a question may naturally
arise, are not men just the more apt, on that account, to become
eminent? Although we are all familiar as possible with instances of
fortunes made from nothing, it will be found, on recollection, that
cases are comparatively rare of men who began with fortunes having
ended by greatly increasing them. Many a poor boy has made twenty
thousand pounds before he was forty years of age; but few who had ten
thousand at the age of majority are found to double it with their
years. Here—here is a reason for hope. The fact is, large sums are
not to be acquired without an appreciation and an understanding of
the meanest financial details. To make pounds, we must know the value
of shillings; we must have felt before how much good could sometimes
be done, how much evil could sometimes be avoided, _by the possession
of a single penny_! For want of this knowledge, the opulent youth
squanders or otherwise loses more, perhaps, than he gains. But he who
has risen from the ranks knows the value and powers of every sum, from
the lowest upwards, and, _as saving is the better part of the art of
acquiring money_, he never goes back a step—his whole march is ONWARD.
At the very worst, it is only a question of time. Say one man begins
at twenty with a good capital, and another at the same age with none.
For want of experience, and through other causes above mentioned, it
is not likely that the former person has made much advance within the
first ten years. Now, ten years is an immense space to the individual
who only commenced with good resolutions. In that time, if he has
not accumulated actual money, he may quite well have secured good
reputation and credit, which, prudently managed, is just money of
another kind. And so, while still a young man, he is pretty much upon
a par with him who seemed to start with such superior advantages. In
fact, fortune, or original good circumstances, appear to the present
writer as requisites of a very unimportant character, compared with
talent, power of application, self-denial, and honourable intentions.
The _fortunate_—to use the erroneous language of common life—are
selected from those who have possessed the latter indispensable
qualifications in their best combinations: and as it is obvious that
young men of fortune (necessarily the smaller class) have only a
chance, according to their numbers, of possessing them, it follows,
as a clear induction, that the great mass of the prosperous were
originally poor.

TALENT.—It is a common cry that those who succeed best in life are
the dullest people, and that talent is too fine a quality for common
pursuits. There cannot be a greater fallacy than this. It may be
true that some decidedly stupid people succeed through the force of
a dogged resolution, which hardly any man of superior genius could
have submitted to. But I am disposed to dispute, in a great measure,
the existence of talent, where I do not find it at once productive of
superior address in ordinary affairs, and attended by a magnanimity
which elevates the possessor above all paltry and vicious actions. The
genius which only misleads its possessor from the paths of prudence,
or renders him a ridiculous and intolerable member of society, is too
much allied to Bedlam to be taken into account; and in reality, there
is nowhere so much of what is called genius as in the madhouses.[6]
The imputation of dulness to a man who has prospered in life, will be
found by impartial inquirers, in nine cases out of ten, to be a mere
consolatory appliance to the self-love of one who has neither had the
talent nor the morality to prosper in life himself. Let every man,
then, who possesses this gift, rejoice in it with all his heart, and
seek by every means to give it proper guidance and direction.

APPLICATION is another of the indispensable requisites. Detached
efforts, though they may individually be great, can never tell so well
in the aggregate as a regular and constant exertion, where the doings
of one day fortify and improve the doings of the preceding, and lead on
with certainty to the better doings of the next. It is not economical
to work by fits and starts; more exertion is required, by that system,
for a certain end, than what is necessary in the case of a continuous
effort, and thus the irregular man is apt to fall far behind his
rivals. Men of ability are apt to despise application as a mean and
grubbing qualification—which is only a piece of overweening self-love
on their part, and likely to be the very means of frustrating all the
proper results of their ability. On the other hand, the industrious
man is apt to despair for want of ability—not seeing that the clever
fellows are liable to the weakness we describe, which causes them to
be constantly giving way in the race to mere plodders. Besides, while
few faults are more common than an over-estimation of one’s self, it is
equally obvious that many men only discover their abilities by chance,
and that all of us possess latent powers, which might be turned to good
account, if we only knew and had confidence in them. No man, therefore,
should be too easily dashed on the subject of his abilities. He should
try, and, with the aid of a persevering industry, he may do wonders
such as he never dreamt of.

SELF-DENIAL.—Perhaps among all the qualifications which, in a combined
form, lead to fortune, none is more absolutely indispensable than this.
A man may have talent, may have application, both in abundance; but if
he cannot resist vulgar temptations, all is in vain. The Scotch, as
a nation, are characterised immensely by self-denial, and it is the
main ground of their prosperity both at home and abroad. It is one
of the noblest of the virtues, if not, indeed, the sole virtue which
creates all the rest. If we are obliged at every moment to abandon
some sacred principle in order to gratify a paltry appetite; if the
extensive future is perpetually to be sacrificed for the sake of the
momentary present; if we are to lead a life of Esau-like bargains from
the first to the last—then we are totally unfit for any purpose above
the meanest. Self-indulgence makes brutes out of gods; self-denial
is the tangent line by which human nature trenches upon the divine.
Now, self-indulgence is not inherent except in very few natures; it is
almost invariably the result of “evil communications” in youth, and
generally becomes a mere use or habit. The most of error arises from
the contagion of example. A youth at first debauches himself because he
sees others do it; he feels, all the time, as if he were sacrificing
merely to the glory of bravado; and there is far more of martyrdom in
it than is generally supposed. But though a person at first smokes in
order to show how much disgust he can endure, he soon comes to have
a real liking for tobacco. And thus, for the paltriest indulgences,
which only are so from vicious habit, and perhaps, after all, involve
as much dissatisfaction as pleasure, we daily see the most glorious and
ennobling objects cast, as it were, into hell-fire.

We are by no means hostile to all amusement. The mass of men require a
certain quantity of amusement almost as regularly as their daily food.
But amusement may be noxious or innocent, moderate or immoderate. The
amusements which can be enjoyed in the domestic circle, or without
company at all, are the safest; there is great danger in all which
require an association of individuals to carry them into effect. Upon
the whole, a multitude of bosom friends is the most pernicious evil
that ever besets a man in the world. Each becomes a slave to the
depraved appetites of the rest, and is at last ulcerated all over with
their various evil practices. At the very best, he is retarded to the
general pace, and never finds it possible to get a single vantage hour,
in order to steal a march upon his kind.

HONOURABLE INTENTIONS are also indispensably necessary. The reverse
is simply want of sense and understanding; for it is obvious to every
one who has seen the least of human life, that infinitely more is
lost in reputation and _means and opportunities of well-doing_, by an
attempt to gain an undue advantage, than what can in general cases
be gained. If we had to live only for a short time certain, trickery
might be the most expedient course, so far as this world is concerned;
but if a man contemplates a life above a single twelvemonth, he will
endeavour, by the guarded correctness of his actions, to acquire
the good character which tends so much to eventual prosperity. The
dishonest man, in one sense, may be termed the most monstrous of all
self-flatterers; he thinks he can cheat the whole of the remaining part
of mankind—which certainly is no trifling compliment. He soon finds,
however, that he was seen through all the time by those whom he thought
mere children, and his blindness and silly arrogance receive their
deserved punishment. Even where the depravity may be of a very slight
kind, it is alike in vain. In ordinary transactions, the one party
deals with the other exactly according to his character; if the one
be in general disposed to overreach, the other is just proportionably
on his guard; so that there is no result but trouble, and a bad name.
One thing should be strongly impressed upon such persons: they are
far more generally understood and watched than they are aware of; for
the world, so long as it can simply take care of itself without much
difficulty, is not disposed to adopt the dangerous task of a monitor.
The police-officer knows of many rogues whom he passes every day on the
street; he never lays hold of any, unless for some particular offence.

Such are the principal qualities necessary for advancement in life,
though any one of them, without much or any of the other, will, if
not counteracted by negative properties, be sure to command a certain
degree of success. He who is about to start in the race would do well
to ponder upon the difficulties he has to encounter, and make up a
manful resolution to meet them with a full exertion of all his powers.
To revert to the general question—what is it that enables one man to
get in advance of his fellows? The answer is obvious: it can only
be his _doing_ more than the generality of them, or his _enduring
more privation_ than they are generally inclined to do [that is,
self-denial], in order that he may acquire _increased power of doing_.
The fault of most unsuccessful persons is their want of an adequate
idea of what is to be _done_, and what is to be _endured_. They enter
business as into a game or a sport, and they are surprised, after
a time, to find that there is a principle in the affair they never
before took into account—namely, the tremendous competition of other
men. Without being able to do and suffer as much as the _best_ men of
business, the _first_ place is not to be gained; without being able
to do and suffer as much as the second order of men of business, the
_second_ place is not to be gained; and so on. New candidates should
therefore endeavour to make an estimate of the duties necessary for
attaining a certain point, and not permit themselves to be thrown out
in the race for want of a proper performance of those duties. They
should either be pretty certain of possessing the requisite powers of
exertion and endurance, or aim at a lower point, to which their powers
may seem certainly adequate.


FOOTNOTES:

[6] This remark is borrowed from the conversation of a medical friend.




CONTROLLERS-GENERAL.


It is a prevailing notion, that people are all so exclusively
engrossed with their own concerns in this world, as to have no time or
opportunity to take the least interest in those of their neighbours. No
idea could be more mistaken. The truth is, a great many people—perhaps
a _third_ of the population of large towns, and _three-fourths_ of
those in small ones—are far more anxious about the concerns of their
neighbours than about their own. In fact, society in this respect
resembles the ape department in a menagerie, where, it is said, every
individual chatterer neglects his own pan of meat (opposite his cage),
and stretches with all his might to reach the mess of some distant
companion in captivity, who, on his part, tries, with equal straining
and exertion, to rob some other friend. The case, however, differs
immensely as to intention. The monkeys, as we seriously believe, act
thus from a wish to eat all the neighbouring pans of meat in the first
place, after which they think it will be time enough to attend coolly
to their own. But human beings look after each other’s morals and
worldly prosperity through the most generous impulses. They think it
selfish to be always attending to their own affairs, and that it would
be an utter defiance of the greatest law of nature, if they were only
to look after themselves. Our own business requires, perhaps, the first
attention, but common justice to our race demands that all our _spare_
time, at least, should be devoted to a supervision of the concerns of
other people, and a surveillance of their moral conduct. We are to love
our neighbours as ourselves, and, in order to testify that we love
them, we are to do as we do with children, castigate them properly
whenever they misbehave.

It is lamentable to think how negligent some large classes of society
are respecting the affairs of their neighbours. In large cities, the
more actively engaged citizens go on from year to year in the pursuit
of their own advantage, never casting a single thought upon their
next-door neighbours, unless, perhaps, to make a transient inquiry into
the state of their credit. Is it not fortunate, that, while the men are
thus apt to get wrapped up in their own sordid interests, the fairer
and more generous part of the race are still in general sufficiently at
leisure to see after their neighbours? What _would_ society do without
these amiable controllers-general?—or what would society do, if these
amiable controllers were to get so much engaged too, as to have no time
for the affairs of their friends? It is dreadful even to think of such
a calamity. How many poor improvident wretches would, in such an event,
be left to sink or swim as chance directed! How naughty the world at
large would become!

Let us contemplate the delightful picture of one of these friends of
society. She is generally a person very much at leisure; for without
leisure, that natural preference of our own concerns to those of
others precludes all exertion of the faculty: she is also, in general,
placed in a tolerably secure position in the world, whence she may
survey, with compassionate and patronising eyes, the poor strugglers
beneath her. Virtuous she is, as virtuous can be; that is to say, she
is altogether beyond temptation. Herself and all her own immediate
friends have been fortunate; therefore she has a kind of prescriptive
title to speak freely of the misfortunes of others. It is incredible
what exertions this amiable person will make to procure data for her
remarks, or, to speak more properly, grounds whereon she may proceed
in her benevolent exertions. Charity being an excuse for every
thing, she will even descend so far from her dignity as to institute
inquiries, through servants and children, into the concerns of those
persons whom she has taken under her patronage. Her own Betty, having
the same turn with herself, takes frequent opportunities of visiting
the kitchens of her friends; and all the remarks that the girl has
been able to make upon the external state of things there, and all
the prattle she has been able to pick up from the servants in that
house, is brought home and faithfully detailed to her mistress, who
accidentally, for that purpose, opens a conversation with her. Nor is
this all. Through the impulse of her benevolent wishes, the good lady
will often take information from her servant, which _she_ has learned
from another servant, respecting the concerns of a family in which that
other servant has perhaps a sister or a friend; her sincere desire of
doing good being so strong as to reconcile her to every possibility
of misrepresentation, which a story may be supposed to undergo in its
progress through so many mouths. It is also to be observed, that she is
not exclusively attentive to the concerns of those whom she actually
knows. The acquaintances of her acquaintances, and their acquaintances
again, even to the third generation, she will inquire about with equal
solicitude; and if she knows any thing disagreeable connected with your
friends, or any thing that might be thought to unfit them for your
acquaintance, she always very kindly lets you hear of it, so that you
may be _quite upon your guard_.

“What do you think?” the talk, perhaps, thus proceeds; “they say she is
such a _fine lady_ that she never enters her kitchen: she never knows
any day what is to be for dinner: all that kind of thing she leaves
to her servants. And such quantities of company they keep! Hardly a
night but what there are more or less visitors. A neighbour of ours,
Mrs Blackwell, has an aunt who lives opposite them; and _she_ says that
the racket is without end. I’m sure I was just saying to our goodman
the other day, that if _we_ were to go on in such a way [be it marked,
the speaker is reputed to be in infinitely better circumstances than
the party commented on], we could not go on long. Puir young things!
I’m greatly concerned about them—although, to be sure, it’s not _my_
business. I was at the school with her mother, and I would like to see
them keep right, if it were possible. Young folk are often newfangled
about things at first. They think every body that they see is their
friend—and its ‘this one, come to your supper,’ and ‘that one, come to
your dinner,’ as if they could not get past it. When they come to my
time o’ life, they’ll not be sae flush.”

“They say she’s highly accomplished,” thus runs another strain of
remarks; “plays on the piano-forte and harp—draws—speaks French and
Italian. That would be all very well if _he_ had a fortune to keep it
up; but a poor man’s wife! Commend me to a woman that can darn her
husband’s stockings, and help to get ready his dinner. I think there’s
naething like a gude plain education—reading, writing, and sewing—what
mair does a woman need? The goodman and I were often advised to send
our girls to learn music, but I never thought it their station. It just
puts a parcel o’ nonsense into a girl’s head. Our lasses never learned
ony thing but what they could mak a gude use o’; while, there’s Mary
Foster does nothing but read novells from morning till night; she’s
one o’ your fine misses. If our girls were to bring a novell into our
house, I would put it at the back of the fire, though there was na
another novell i’ the world.”

It is said that in nunneries, where there is neither vice, nor the
possibility of it, the ladies, if unable to talk real scandal, make up
for it by censorious remarks upon the most trifling foibles in their
companions, or upon the most unimportant failures in the performance
of the most unimportant duties. If a holy sister has been observed to
smile at a wrong moment, if she has miscounted a bead, or tripped in
her gown while walking in a procession, there is as much prattle about
it as if she had committed a real offence. Just so, in a country town,
every trivial incident becomes a subject of comment for those amiable
people who make a point of attending to every body’s business but
their own. The consequence is, that every person moves in a country
town as if he were upon an ambuscading party: he sends by stratagem
for every necessary of life which he requires: he takes all kinds of
by-ways and back roads to escape observation, and cannot so much as
cross the street without fearing he will be circumvented. Any thing
like a good round thumping impropriety is hailed in such a place like
rain in a drought. The most of the matters of remark are very small
deer, hardly worth hunting down. When one of a more important character
arises, it is quite a godsend. Suppose, for instance, the failure of
some unfortunate merchant, who has been ruined by mere simplicity of
character. The country people, somehow, have a most exaggerated idea
of the mischiefs of bankruptcy. A bankrupt, in their eyes, is a person
of distinguished criminality—almost enough to make him be regarded as
a world’s wonder. In proportion, therefore, to their previous remarks
for the edification of the unhappy man, is their wholesome severity
afterwards. They are surprised to find that, after such an event, he
still bears the ordinary shape of a human being—that he has not become
signalised by some external transfiguration, of a kind sufficiently
awful to indicate his offence. Another thing they are astonished
at—that the family of a bankrupt should continue to have the usual
appetites of human beings—that they should not, indeed, have altogether
ceased to eat, drink, or sleep. The following is very nearly a
conversation which really occurred, on such an occasion, in a somewhat
humble rank of mercantile life.

“Weel, hae ye heard the news?”

“What news, woman?”

“Ou, hae ye no heard it?—James Sinclair’s shop’s no open this
mornin’—that’s a’.”

“Aih, weel, has it come to that at last? I aye thought it. It was
easy seeing _yon_ could na stand lang. Sic ongauns as they had for a
while—sic dresses—sic parties! But every thing comes to its level at
last. I wonder folk dinna think shame to gang on sae wi’ other folk’s
siller. It’s a perfect black-burning disgrace. And _she’s_ just as
muckle to blame as _him_. There was hersell, just last Sunday eight
days, at the kirk wi’ a new pelisse and a bannet, and the laddies ilk
ane o’ them wi’ new leather caps. I’se warrand there was nae bannocks
ever seen in their house—naething but gude wheat bread. Whenever a
bairn whinged for a piece, it buid to get a shave o’ the laiff. Atweel,
her grandfather, auld George Morrison, was na sae ill to serve. Mony a
claut o’ cauld parritch he gat frae my aunty Jess, and was thankfu’ to
get them.”

“Na, but, woman, I saw Jamie himsell gaun up the street this mornin’,
and a superfine coat on his back just the same as ever. Na, the lass
was seen this forenoon getting a leg o’ lamb—a fifteenpence leg it
was, for our Jenny got the neebor o’t—the same as if naething ava had
happened. But, of course, this’ll no gang on lang. They’ll be roupit
out, stab and stow, puir thochtless creatures; and I’m sure I dinna ken
what’s to come o’ them. She has nae faither’s house to gang back to
now. They’ll hae to set up some bit sma’ public, I reckon.”

“Heaven keep us a’ frae extravagance—I had never ony brow o’ that new
plan she had o’ pitting black silk ribands round the callants’ necks,
instead o’ cotton napkins.”

Such are a few of the remarks of our good friends the
controllers-general of society; and we are very sure that few people
alive but what must look upon them as a most useful, most exemplary,
and most benevolent class of persons.




A TURN FOR BUSINESS.


Next to a thorough grounding in good principles, perhaps the thing
most essential to success in life is a habit of communicating easily
with the world. By entering readily into conversation with others, we
not only acquire information by being admitted to the stores which
men of various modes of thinking have amassed, and thereby gain an
insight into the peculiarities of human character, but those persons
into whose society we may be accidentally thrown are gratified to
think that they have been able to afford instruction. Seeing that we
appreciate their favourite subject, they conceive a high opinion of
our penetration, and not unfrequently exert themselves wonderfully
to promote our interests. Men in business, particularly, who have
this happy turn of being able to slide as it were into discourse, and
to throw it into that train which is best suited to the capacities
and humours of others, are wonderfully indebted to it for the run
of customers it entices to their shops. A stately, grave, or solemn
manner, is very inappropriate in measuring stuffs by the yard; and
though a man be penetrated by the deepest sense of gratitude, if his
bow be stiff, and his countenance not of a relaxing cast, he makes not
half so favourable an impression as another who may not perhaps be a
more deserving person in the main, but has a more graceful method of
acknowledging his obligations. It is astonishing, too, at how cheap a
rate good-will is to be purchased. An insinuating way of testifying
satisfaction with the pleasantness of the weather, is often a very
effectual way of extending popularity; it is regarded as an act of
condescension when addressed to some, while with others it is received
as the indication of a happy temperament, which is at all times
attractive. A person who “has little to say,” or, in other words,
who does not deign to open his mouth except when it is indispensably
necessary, never proves generally acceptable. You will hear such a one
described as “a very good sort of man _in his way_;” but people rather
avoid him. He has neither the talent of conversing in an amusing vein
himself, nor of leading on others to do so; and they are only the
arrantest babblers who are contented with an inanimate listener. I
remember a striking example of the various fortune of two persons in
the same profession, who happened to be of those different dispositions.

Two pedlars made their rounds in the same district of country. The
one was a tall, thin man, with a swarthy complexion. Nothing could
exceed this fellow’s anxiety to obtain customers; his whole powers
seemed to be directed to the means of disposing of his wares. He no
sooner arrived at a farm-house than he broached the subject nearest
his heart—“Any thing wanted in my line to-day?” He entered into a most
unqualified eulogium on their excellency; they were all unequalled in
fineness; he could sell them for what might be said to be absolutely
nothing; and as for lasting, why, to take his word for it, they
would wear for ever. He chose the table where the light was most
advantageous, proceeded immediately to undo the labyrinth of cord with
which his goods were secured, and took the utmost pains to exhibit
their whole glories to the eyes of the admiring rustics. If the farmer
endeavoured to elicit from him some information concerning the state
of the crops in the places where he had been travelling, he could only
afford a brief and unsatisfactory answer, but was sure to tack to the
tail of it the recommendation of some piece of west of England cloth
which he held in his hand ready displayed. Nay, if the hospitality
of the good wife made him an offer of refreshment before he entered
upon business, he most magnanimously, but unpedlar-like, resisted the
temptation to eat, animated by the still stronger desire to sell. There
was no possibility of withdrawing him for a moment from his darling
topic. To the master he said, “Won’t you buy a coat?”—to the mistress,
“Won’t you buy a shawl?”—to the servant girls, “Won’t you buy a gown
a-piece?” and he earnestly urged the cowherd to purchase a pair of
garters, regardless of the notorious fact that the ragged urchin wore
no stockings. But all his efforts were ineffectual; even his gaudiest
ribands could not melt the money out of a single female heart; and
his vinegar aspect grew yet more meagre as he restored each article
untouched to his package.

The rival of this unsuccessful solicitor of custom was a short, squat
man, fair-haired and ruddy. He came in with a hearty salutation, and
set down his pack in some corner, where, as he expressed himself, it
might be “out of the way.” He then immediately abandoned himself to the
full current of conversation, and gave a detail of every particular
of news that was within his knowledge. He could tell the farmer every
thing that he desired to know—what number of corn-stalks appeared in
the barn-yards wherever he had been, and what quantity of grain still
remained uncut or in shock, and he took time to enumerate the whole
distinctly. He was equally well prepared in other departments of
intelligence, and so fascinating was his gossip, that, when the duties
of any member of the family called them out of hearing, they were apt
to linger so long, that the goodwife declared he was “a perfect offput
to a’ wark.” This, however, was not meant to make him abate of his
talkative humour; and neither did he: the whole budget was emptied
first, and he received in turn the narratives of all and sundry. Then
came the proposal from some of those whom he had gratified with his
news, to “look what was in the pack.” The goods were accordingly lugged
from their place of concealment, and every one’s hand was ready to pick
out some necessary or some coveted piece of merchandise. The master
discovered that, as he would be needing a suit ere long, it was as
well to take it now. The mistress was just waiting for Thomas coming
round to supply herself with a variety of articles, “for,” quoth she,
“mony things are needit in a house.” The servants exhorted each other
to think whether they did not require something, for it was impossible
to say when another opportunity of getting it might occur. The ellwand
was forthwith put into diligent requisition, the scissors snipt a
little bit of the selvage, and an adroit “screed” separated the various
cloths from the rapidly diminishing webs. The corners of many chests
gave up their carefully-hoarded gains, with which cheap remnants were
triumphantly secured. In the midst of this transfer of finery, the poor
herd-boy looked on with a countenance so wofully expressive of the
fact that he had not a farthing to spend, that some one took compassion
on him, and, having laid out a trifling sum, had the satisfaction of
making him perfectly happy with the equivalent, flinging it into his
unexpectant arms, and exclaiming, “Here, callant, there’s something
for you!” What a multiplicity of pleasing emotions had this trader the
tact of calling into exercise, all of them redounding tenfold to his
own proper advantage! It was impossible to say whether he cultivated
his powers of talk from forethought, as knowing that they would produce
a crisis favourable to his own interests, or if he indulged in them
because gossiping was congenial to his own disposition. He had a sharp
eye enough to what is called the main chance; but at the same time
he did not possess that degree of intellectual depth which we might
expect to find in one who could calculate upon exciting the purchasing
propensities by a method so indirect. Most probably, therefore, his
success in business was more the result of an accidental cast of mind
than of wisdom prepense, or any aptitude beyond common for the arts of
traffic, as considered by themselves.

Such, also, in most cases, is that talent which gets the name of “a
fine turn for business.” The possessor exerts his powers of pleasing,
alike when engaged in the concerns of his profession, and in society
when there is no object to serve but that of passing time agreeably.
His engaging address is productive of commercial advantages, but it is
not a thing acquired and brought into exercise solely for that end.
Some people, no doubt, finding themselves to have a prepossessing
manner, do employ it systematically to promote their views of business;
but by far the greater number employ it because they have it, and
without reference to the pecuniary profit that may accrue. The
pecuniary profit, however, follows not the less as its consequence;
and we have the satisfaction of seeing urbanity of manners almost
uniformly rewarded by attaining to easy circumstances, while the man
of a gruff unsocial humour has usually to maintain a hard struggle
with fortune. The mere packing of knowledge into the heads of children
is not the only thing required to ensure their future respectability
and happiness—the qualities of the heart also demand the fostering
care of the instructor; and since so much depends on their temper and
behaviour to those around them, parents cannot be too assiduous in the
cultivation of affability, the possession of which virtue is the grand
secret that confers “a fine turn for business.”




SETTING UP.


The taking of a shop, whether to set up a new business or translate
an old one, is always a matter of deep and anxious concernment. On
such an occasion, one generally gets into a state of fidgetiness and
perplexity, which is felt to be far from disagreeable. A sentiment of
unwonted enterprise rises in his mind. He is going, he thinks, to do
a great thing—at least something beyond the usual range of commercial
existence. In the first place, he pays a few sly and solitary visits
to the place—not that he goes in to look about him—no, no; he is
not for some time up to that point. He tries first how the premises
look when simply walked past as if by an unconcerned passenger. As
he passes, he casts an affectedly careless glance at the door and
windows, taking care, however, to receive as deep an impression as
possible of the whole bearing and deportment of the place. After
walking to a sufficient distance, he turns and walks back, and sees
how it looks when approached from a different point of the compass.
Then he takes a turn along the other side of the street, or perhaps,
if afraid to excite observation (and if the place be in Edinburgh),
goes up a common stair, and takes a deliberate and secure observation
from a window. His feeling is almost exactly the same as that of a
lover making observations of a mistress, whose figure he wishes to
ascertain before getting too deeply in love with her to put correct
judgment out of the question. As, in the one case, stature is perhaps
considered, complexion and outline of face duly weighed, and possibly
some very modest inquiries instituted as to what Master Slender calls
“possibilities,” so, in the other, does the shop-inspector consider
all the particulars of the aspect and likelihood of the contemplated
premises. Shops, it must be understood, have characters, exactly like
human beings. Some have an open, generous, promising countenance,
while others have a contracted, sinister, louring expression of phiz,
according to the quantity of mason-work there may be in front. Some
are of a far more _accessible_ character than others, with a kind
of _facilis descensus_ in the entry that is in the highest degree
favourable to custom. People can hardly avoid falling into such shops
as they pass along the streets, for positively they gape like so many
Scyllas for your reception, and goodwives, who, like Roderigo, have put
money in their purses, are caught like so many rats without thinking
of it. There are others, I grieve to say, with such a difficulty of
entrance, either from a narrow door, a shut door, an elevation of the
pavement, or a certain distance from the thoroughfare, that it requires
an absolute determination to purchase such and such articles in such
and such shops—a full _animus emendi_, as lawyers would say—to overcome
the obstacle. Perhaps it does not matter for some businesses, which are
not much overrun with competition, that they should be carried on in
shops of this kind. If there be only one music-seller in the town, he
might have his boutique in a twelfth story, and yet he would be sure
to get all the natural custom of the place; but in the case of one out
of some five hundred haberdashers, or some two thousand grocers, it is
absolutely imperative that he should be established in some place with
a fatal facility of access. In all cases, there is a combination of
qualities in shops, as well as in men and women. There is something
indescribable about it; but an experienced eye, pretty well acquainted
with the characters of the streets [this is another subject] and parts
of streets, could almost in a moment decide upon the probabilities of
any given shop in a large city. He would combine in an instant in his
own mind the various qualities, and, counting them into each other
after the manner of Lieutenant Drummond, but by a figureless kind of
arithmetic, assign at once the exact value of the shop to any class
of traders. And shops have characters, too, in another sense of the
word—that is, they have reputations. Let a shop have all the apparent
advantages in the world, yet, if it be a shop in which several persons
have committed _faux pas_ in business, it is naught. We often see an
excellent shop thus lose caste, as it were, and become of hardly any
value to its proprietor. Suppose some one has failed in it between
terms, and deserted it: then do all the bill-stickers come in the
first place, and paste it over with huge placards from top to bottom,
exactly as a man drowned in the sea, however fine a fellow he may have
been, gets encased in a few days in barnacles and shell-fish, the
conchological part of the world taking that opportunity to show their
contempt for the human. Though the character of the shop is not yet,
perhaps, at its worst, yet, as it happens to remain unleased over the
next term, the despairing landlord, some time in September or October,
begins to let it “by the month or week” to all kinds of nameless
people, who die and make no _sign_, such as men that show orreries, or
auctioneers selling off bankrupt stocks, till at last it is as hopeless
to think of getting a good tenant into it, as for a man with a bad
character to expect a good place in the Excise. The shop is marked for
ever; and unless, like the man in the Vicar of Wakefield, it can get a
thoroughly new face and form, it has no chance whatsoever of resuming
its place in the first rank of shops.

After having completely made up his mind to take a particular shop,
he goes and asks advice. His confessor[7] readily consents to take a
walk with him in that direction, and give his candid opinion upon the
subject. The two walk arm in arm past the premises, the confessor alone
looking, lest, in endeavouring to observe, they should themselves be
observed. “I’ll tell you what,” says the confessor, “I like that shop
very much. If the rent be at all suitable, I think you might do very
well in it.” It is then proposed that the confessor should step in to
inquire the rent; for though there be equal reasons why each should
not expose himself as being on the outlook for a shop, the person
not actually concerned has always least reluctance to submit to that
disadvantage, being borne up, it would appear, by a conscious absence
of design, while the guilt of the other would be betrayed by his first
question. If the confessor reports favourably, then the individual who
wants the premises ventures in himself, inspects the accommodations,
and makes farther inquiries. The two afterwards retire together, and
have a deep and serious consultation upon the subject.

In the deliberations of a person about to enter life in this way, there
is always much that is extravagant, and much that is vague. I never
yet knew it fail, that, if there was success at all, it arose from
different sources from those which had been most securely calculated
upon as likely to produce it. Suppose it is a business for the supply
of some ordinary necessary of life: the novice reckons up almost all
the people he knows in different parts of the town, as sure to become
his customers; he expects, indeed, hardly any other kind of support. It
is found, however, when he commences, that one friend is engaged in one
way, and another in another, so that, with the exception, perhaps, of
some benevolent old lady, who sends occasionally to buy a few trifles
from him _upon principle_, all is waste and barren where he expected to
reap a plentiful harvest. He finds, however, on the other hand, that
he gets customers where he did not expect them. People seem to rise
out of the earth, like the men of Cadmus, to buy from him. The truth
is, he is resorted to by those who are disengaged at the time, and to
whom his shop is convenient; and all the good-will of all the friends
in the world will not get over, for his sake, the difficulty of some
engagement elsewhere, or the inconvenience of distance.

It is also a very remarkable thing of people about to enter upon such
an enterprise as we are now describing, that they often overlook the
most important considerations of all and pay a very minute attention
to trifles and things by the by. They perhaps fail to observe that
there is not nearly enough of population around them to justify their
setting up a particular business; but they fully appreciate and lay
great stress upon the circumstance of having a water-pipe in the back
room, by which they may be enabled to wash their hands at any time of
the day. They may neither have capital nor range of intellect for the
business; but they are top-sure that the woman who sells small wares in
the area will supply them with a light for the fire every morning. The
shop may be unsuitable in many important respects; but nothing could be
better in its way than the place for a sign above the door. Even where
every matter of real consequence is well weighed and found answerable,
there is generally a fussy and festering anxiety about details,
accompanied, in the sensations of the principal party, by peculiar
dryness of mouth and excoriation of thought-chewed lip. Matters may
be such that a confessor, with all the evil-foreboding qualities of a
stormy-peterel, could not see a single flaw in the prospect; yet it
is amusing in such cases to hear the intending trader laying as much
stress upon the peculiar situation of a fire-place in the back room, or
the willingness of the landlord to supply a padlock to the door, as if
in these things, and in nothing else, lay all his hopes of profit and
eventual respectability in life.

Suppose, however, that, after all kinds of fond and dreamy
calculations, the shop has been taken and opened. I think there can
hardly, for some time, be a more interesting sight to a benevolent
on-looker, than the young and anxious trader. The shop almost throws
itself out at the windows to attract the observation of the passer by.
The youth himself stands prompt and alert behind his counter, never
idling for a moment, nor permitting his shopboy to idle, but both busy,
cutting, and brushing, and bustling about, whether there be any thing
to do or not. If but an old lady be seen looking up at the window, or
glancing in through the avenue of cheap prints that forms the doorway,
what an angler-like eagerness in the mind of the trader that she would
but _walk in_!—nothing more required—were she once within the shop,
no fear but she is well done for. And when any body does go in to buy
any thing, what a readiness to fly upon the article wanted—with what
serviceable rapidity of finger is the parcel unbound—how polite and
_impressé_ the manner in which the object is presented and laid out for
inspection—what intense gratitude for the money wherewith it is paid!
With what a solicitous air is a card finally put into your hand as a
memorandum of the place!—a proceeding only the more eloquent when not
accompanied by an actual request for your farther custom.

In a large city, advertising is necessarily resorted to as one of
the modes, if not almost the only mode, of forming a business. Here
it is obvious that a mere modest statement of the case will not do.
Something must be said, to make the setting up of the new shop appear
in the character of an _event_. The public attention must be arrested
to the circumstance, as if it were a matter of public concernment. It
must appear as if the interest of the community, and the interest of
the shopman, were identified. No good bargains, no certainty of good
articles, no safety of any kind, any where else. Such is the strain
of his advertisements, which, though they make the judicious grieve,
make a vast number of other people, and even some of the judicious,
buy. The secret is this: A warm and highly coloured style is necessary
with a new shopkeeper, to meet and counteract the indifference of
the public towards his concerns. If he put forth a cool schedule of
his goods and chattels, it does nothing for him, because it does not
single him out from the great herd. But if he uses a striking and
emphatic phraseology, and even mixes a little extravagance in the
composition, it is apt to fix attention to him and his shop; and the
people, being so warmly solicited, go to try. Again (and here, perhaps,
lies the better part of the thing), the frequency and fervour of his
advertisements at least convey the impression that he is anxious for
business, and ready and willing to execute it; and as people like to
deal with such persons, he is apt to be resorted to on that account,
if upon no other. Frequent advertising is, upon the whole, a mark
rather of a want of business, than of that kind of respectability which
consists in the enjoyment of a concern already in full operation and
productiveness; but with beginners, it is quite indispensable.

The difficulty of establishing a new business is fortunately got over
in a small degree by a certain benevolent principle in human nature—a
disposition to encourage the efforts of the young. Some people act so
much under this sentiment, or have such an appetite for the sincere
thanks of the needy, that they go to hardly any shops but those of
new beginners. The sight of a haberdasher’s shop, in its first and
many-coloured dawn, with prints, and ribands, and shop-bills, flying
in all directions—or of a provision shop, where hams project their
noses into the very teeth, almost, of the passer by, and cheeses lie
gaping with a quarter cut out, as if ready to eat rather than to be
eaten—or of a bookseller’s shop, where every fresh and trig volume
upon the counter seems as if it would take the slightest hint of your
will, and, starting up, pack itself off, without any human intervention
whatsoever, to your lodgings—is irresistible to these people. They
must go in, whether they want any thing or not, and, after buying
some trifle as an earnest of future custom, get themselves delighted
with a full recital of all the young trader’s feelings, and prospects,
and capabilities, which he is ready to disclose to any one that will
lay out sixpence, and appear to take an interest in his undertaking.
If the customer be an old lady, she is interested in his youth, and
inquires whether he be married or not. If not, then she wants him to
get on well, so that he may soon be able to have a wife; if he be, and
have children, then she sympathises but the more keenly; she thinks
how much human happiness depends upon the success or failure of his
undertaking—how one fond soul will watch with intense anxiety the daily
progress of the business, taking an interest in almost every penny that
comes in, and how many little mouths unconsciously depend upon what is
done _here_, for the fare which childhood so much requires and so truly
enjoys. She goes away, resolved to speak of the shop to all she knows,
and perhaps in two or three days she is able to bring in a flock of
young ladies who want various articles, and who, recommending the new
beginner to others, aid materially in making up the steady business,
which, with economy, perseverance, and suitable personal qualities, he
at length acquires.


FOOTNOTES:

[7] Bosom friend.




CONSULS.


The population of a large town is perpetually receiving accessions
from the country—not for the purpose of increasing the aggregate of
inhabitants, but to supply the waste of existence which takes place
in such a scene, and to furnish a better selection for the peculiar
offices and business of a city than what could be obtained from the
successive generations of the ordinary inhabitants. Nothing can be
more clear than that the youths born and bred in a large city have
a less chance to establish themselves in its first-rate lines of
business, than the lads who come in from the country as adventurers;
the fact being, that the latter are a selection of stirring clever
spirits from a large mass, while only the same proportion of the
former are likely to possess the proper merit or aptitude. Besides,
the town-bred lad is apt to have some points of silly pride about his
status in society; he cannot do this and he cannot do that, for fear
of the sneers of the numerous contemporaries under whose eyes he is
always walking. But the gilly, hot from Banff or Inverness, who comes
into the town, “with bright and flowing hair,” rugging and riving for
a place in some writer’s office, or elsewhere—why, the fellow would
push into the most sacred parts of a man’s house, like Roderick Random,
and at the most unconscionable hours, in search of some prospective
situation; and when he has got it, what cares he about what he does
(within honesty) in order to advance himself, seeing that all whoever
knew him before are on the other side of the Grampians. Thus, the sons
of the respectable people of large cities are constantly retiring
from the field—some to the East Indies, some to the West—some evanish
nobody knows how—while their places are taken by settlers from all
parts of the country, whose children, in their turn, give way to fresh
importations. Then, there is a constant tide towards the capital, of
all kinds of rural people, who, having failed to improve their fortunes
in the country, are obliged to try what may be done in the town. A
broken-down country merchant sets up a grocery shop in some suburb—a
farmer who has been obliged to relinquish his _dulcia arva_, sets up an
hostelry for carriers, and so forth. Every recurrence of Whitsunday and
Martinmas sends in large droves of people on the tops of heavy carts,
to pitch their camps in Edinburgh; many of them with but very uncertain
prospects of making a livelihood when they get there, but yet the most
of them astonished a year or two after to find that they are still
living, with the children all at the school as formerly, although,
to be sure, the “reeky toun” can never be like the green meadows and
dear blue hills which they have left behind in Menteith, or Ayrshire,
or Tweeddale. What change, to be sure, to these good people, is the
close alley of the Old Town of Edinburgh, the changeless prospect of
house tops and chimneys, and the black wall opposite to their windows,
ever casting its dark shade into their little apartments, for the
pleasant open fields in which they have sown and reaped for half a
lifetime, and where every little rustic locality is endeared to them by
a thousand delightful recollections! But yet it is amazing how habit
and necessity will reconcile the mind to the most alien novelties.
And, even here, there are some blessings. The place of worship (always
an important matter to decent country people in Scotland) is perhaps
nearer than it used to be. Mr Simpson’s chapel in the Potterrow is
amazingly convenient. Education for the children, though dearer, is
better and more varied. There is also a better chance of employment
for the youngsters when they grow up. Then Sandy Fletcher, the ——
carrier, goes past the door every Wednesday, with a cart-load of home
reminiscences, and occasionally a letter or a parcel from some friend
left at the place which they have deserted. By means of this excellent
specimen of corduroyed honesty and worth, they still get all their
butter and cheese from the sweet pastures of their own country side,
so that every meal almost brings forward some agreeable association of
what, from feeling as well as habit, they cannot help still calling
_home_. Then it is always made a point with them to plant themselves
in an outskirt of the town, corresponding to the part of the country
from which they come, and where they think they will have at least a
specimen of the fresh air. A Clydesdale family, for instance, hardly
ever thinks of taking a house (at least for the first year or two) any
where but in the Grassmarket, or about Lauriston, or the Canal Basin.
People from East Lothian harbour about the Canongate. Bristo Street
and the Causewayside are appropriated indefeasibly to settlers from
Selkirkshire and Peeblesshire. Poll the people thereabouts, and you
will find a third of them natives of those two counties. In fact, the
New Town, or any thing beyond the Cowgate, is a kind of _terra borealis
incognita_ to folk from the south of Scotland. They positively don’t
know any thing about those places, except, perhaps, by report. Well, it
must certainly be agreeable, if one is banished from the country into a
town, at least to dwell in one of the outlets towards _that part of the
country_; so that the exile may now and then cast his thoughts and his
feelings straight along the highway towards the place endeared to him;
and if he does not see the hills which overlook the home of his heart,
at least, perhaps, hills from which he knows he can see other hills,
from which the spot is visible—the long stages of fancy in straining
back to the place

    “——He ne’er forgets, though there he is forgot.”

There is one other grand source of comfort—in fact, an indispensable
convenience—to people from the country living in a large city, namely,
CONSULS. Every person in the circumstances described must be familiar
with the character and uses of a CONSUL, though perhaps they never
heard the _name_ before. The truth is, as from every district of broad
Scotland there are less or more settlers of all kinds of ranks and
orders, so among these there is always one family or person who serves
to the occasional visitors from that part of the country, as well as to
the regular settlers, all the purposes which a commercial Consul serves
in a foreign port. The house of this person is a _howff_, or place
of especial resort, to all and sundry connected with that particular
locality. It is, in fact, the Consul-house of the district. Sometimes,
when there is a considerable influx from a particular place, there is
a Consul for almost every order of persons connected with that place,
from the highest to the lowest. The Consul is a person—generally an
old lady—of great kindliness of disposition, and who never can be put
about by a visit at any time upon the most vaguely general invitation.
Generally, a kind of open table—a tea-table it is—is kept every Sunday
night, which is resorted to by all and sundry, like an “at home” in
high life; and though the Consul herself and some of her family sit
on certain defined and particular chairs during the whole evening,
the rest are tenanted by relays of fresh visitors almost every hour,
who pay their respects, take a cup, and, after a little conversation,
depart. In general, the individuals resorting to these houses are as
familiar with every particular of the system of the tea-table—yea,
with every cracked cup, and all the initials upon the silver spoons—as
the honest Consul herself. Community of nativity is the sole bond of
this association, but hardly any could be stronger. A person from the
country takes little interest in the gossip of the city, important
as it may sometimes be. He likes to hear of all that is going on in
the little village or parish from which he has been transplanted. All
this, and more, he hears at the house of the Consul for that village,
or parish, the same as you will be sure to find a London newspaper
in the house of the British resident at Lisbon. Any death that may
have happened there since his last visit—any birth—any marriage—any
anything—he gets all in right trim at the Consul-house, with all the
proper remarks, the whole having been imported on Thursday in the most
regular manner by the carrier, or else on some other day by a visitant,
who, though only a few hours in town, was sure to call _there_. At the
Consul-house you will hear how the minister is now liked—who is likely
to get most votes in the coming election—from whom Mrs —— bought her
china when she was about to be married—and the promise of the crops,
almost to a sheaf or a potato. But the topics are of endless variety.
One thing is remarkable. The most determined scandal is bandied about
respecting their ancient neighbours; and yet they all conspire to
think that there is no sort of people to be compared with them in the
mass. They will let nobody talk ill of them but themselves. There is
sometimes a considerable difference in the characters and ranks of
the individuals who frequent a Consul-house. Perhaps you find, among
persons of higher degree and more dignified age, apprentice lads, who,
being the children of old acquaintances of the Consul, are recommended
by their mothers to spend their Sunday evenings here, as under a
vicarial eye of supervision, and being sure to be out of harm’s way in
the house of so respectable a person. These stolid youths, with their
raw untamed faces, form a curious contrast, occasionally, to the more
polished individuals who have been longer about town, such as writers’
clerks or licentiates of the church. Possibly they will sit you out
five mortal hours in a Consul-house, without ever speaking a word, or
even shifting their position on their chairs, staring with unvaried
eyes, and hands compressed between knees, right into the centre of the
room, and hearing all that is going on as if they heard not. At length
the young cub rises to go away, and the only remark is, “Well, Willie,
are you going home? Good-night.” After which, the Consul only remarks
to the adults around her, “That’s ane o’ John Anderson’s laddies—a
fine quiet callant.” But this holds good only respecting Consuls in
a certain walk of life. There are houses where people of very high
_style_, from a particular district, are wont to call and converse;
and there are dens in the inferior parts of the town, to which only
serving girls or boys (there is no rank among boys) resort. Every
place, every rank, has its Consul. And not only is the Consul valuable
as an individual who keeps a Sunday evening conversazione. She actually
does a great deal of business for the particular district which she
represents. If a townswoman wants a gown dyed, or to obtain _swatches_
of some new prints, or to purchase any peculiar article which requires
some address in the purchasing, then is the Consul resorted to. A
little square inexplicable epistle, with not nearly enough of fold to
admit a wafer, and the phrase “for goods” on the corner, supposed
to be a kind of shibboleth that exempts letters from the laws of
the Post-office, comes in with the carrier, requesting that Mrs ——
will be so good as go to this or that shop, and do this and that and
t’other thing, and send the whole out by return of Pate Fairgrieve,
and the payment will be rendered at next visit to town. Thus the
Consul is a vast commission-agent, with only this difference, that she
makes nothing by it to compensate her immense outlay of capital. The
duties, however, of the Consulate are their own reward; and we doubt
if Brutus, who first assumed the office, bore it with a prouder head
or more satisfied heart, than many individuals whom we could point
out. Henceforth, we do not doubt, people will refer to the days when
such and such a person was Consul for their native village, in a style
similar to the ancient chronology of Rome; and “Consule Tullo” itself
will not be more familiar or more memorable language, than “in the
Consulate [shall we so suppose?] of Mrs Bathgate!”




COUNTRY AND TOWN ACQUAINTANCES.


The exact balance of favours in ordinary acquaintanceship is a matter
very difficult to be adjusted. Sometimes people think they are giving
more entertainments than they get, and on other occasions you would
suppose that they are mortally offended at their friends for not coming
oftener to eat of their meat and drink of their cup. It is hard to say
whether a desire of reserving or of squandering victuals predominates;
for though one would argue that it is more natural to keep what one has
than to give it away for nothing, yet, to judge by the common talk of
the world, you are far more likely to give offence by coming too seldom
than by coming too often to the tables of your friends. From this
cause, I have often been amused to hear people, about whose company I
was not very solicitous, making the most abject apologies for having
visited me so seldom of late, but promising to behave a great deal
better for the future—that is to say, to give me henceforward much more
of what I never desired before, even in the smallest portions.

But this kindness of language is not confined to the party threatening
a visit: the party threatened is also given to use equally sweet
terms of discourse. “Really, you have been a great stranger lately.
We thought we never were to see you again. What is there to hinder
you of an evening to come over and chat a little, or take a hand with
the Doctor and Eliza at whist? We are always so happy to see you.
I assure you we are resolved to take it very ill; and if you don’t
repay our last visit, we will never see you again.” With an equally
amiable sincerity, the shocking person with whom you have been long
quite tired, having ceased to gain any amusement or any eclat from
the acquaintance, replies, “I must confess I _have_ been very remiss.
Indeed, I was so ashamed of not having called upon you for such a
length of time, that I could not venture to do it. But, now that the
ice is broken, I really _will_ come some night soon. You may _depend_
upon it.” And so the two part off their several ways, the one surprised
at having been betrayed into so many expressions of kindness towards an
individual about whom he or she is quite indifferent, and the other,
either benevolently resolving, in the simplicity of his heart, to
pay the promised visit, or as much surprised at having been brought
into circumstances where he was reduced to make such a promise—which,
however, as he is sure to forget it in a few minutes, is a matter of
very little moment. If these, however, be the puzzlements which beset
a town acquaintanceship, ten times more difficult is it to adjust the
mutual rights and balance of advantages appertaining to one in which
the one party is of the town, and the other of the country. In most
such cases, either the one party or the other has great and real
cause of complaint. For example, a citizen of tolerable style, who has
been confined to some laborious employment all the year round, amidst
gas-light within doors, and a foggy and smoky atmosphere without,
with what delight does he throw himself into the country some fine
sunshiny day in September, for the purpose of paying a long-promised
visit of three days to a country friend! He is received with boundless
hospitality. The best bed-room, situated in that part of the house
where you generally find a city drawing-room, is aired and provided
in the most agreeable manner for his accommodation. The goodman rides
about with him all day, and dines and drinks with him all night, except
during those intervals when the lady or her daughters solace him with
tunes on the piano, learned many years ago at a boarding-school in
town. The whole house, in fact, from the worthy agriculturist-in-chief
to the chicken that has latest chipped in the barn-yard, are at his
service, and he drinks in health, and rapture, and a taste for natural
objects, every hour. The three days are imperceptibly elongated to as
many weeks, till at last he has become just like one of the family,
calls the lady goodwife, and the daughters by their abbreviated
Christian names, and is a very brother and more to his excellent
entertainer. At length, replenished with as much health as will serve
him through a whole twelvemonth of city life, rosy in cheek and in
gill, sturdy as a pine on the hills, and thickened immensely about
the centre of his person, he finds it necessary to take his leave.
The whole of the worthy ruralists gather about him, and, as if not
satisfied with what they have already done for him while he was in
their presence, load him with other acts of kindness, the effect of
which is only to be experienced on the way, or after he has reached
his own home. If he could carry a ewe cheese on each side, like the
bottles of John Gilpin, they would have no objection to give them.
In fact, there is no bounds to the kindness, the sincere heartfelt
kindness, of these people, except his capacity or willingness to
receive. Of course, he feels all this most warmly for the time; and
while the impression is strong upon him, he counter-invites right and
left. The goodman is never to be a day in town without coming to take
pot-luck. The ladies are to come in next winter, on purpose, and have
a month of the amusements of the town, residing in his house. Any
of their friends whatsoever, even unto the fourth generation, or no
generation at all, he will be delighted to see, whenever they are in
the city. He throws himself, his bosom, his house—all, all, open to
them. But what is the real result of all this? He goes back to town,
and resumes the serious labours of his profession. The roses fade from
his cheeks, and gratitude from his heart. Some day, when he is up to
the ears in a mysterious green box, like a pig in his trough, or a
pullet in a well; or perhaps some day as he is rushing swiftly along
the streets, intent upon some piece of important business, his city
eyes awake upon a vision of the country, in the shape of that very
friend who so lately was rendering him so many acts of kindness. The
case is felt at once to be a scrape;—however, he must make the best
of it. With almost breathless apprehension, he asks Mr Goodman what
stay he is going to make in town. What joy!—he goes within an hour to
Falkirk tryst! But, ah! this is but a short relief. He comes back the
day after to-morrow, and can then spend a day. Well, a day it must
be: it is all settled in a moment, and, three minutes after having
entered the house, Mr Goodman finds himself shaken by the hand out at
the door, which is closed behind him ere he can well believe that he
has as yet seen his city friend. He walks a little way in a confused
state of mind, hardly able to say distinctly that he is himself, or
that his late guest is the identical good fellow he seemed to be three
months ago. The whole appears a dream, and he thinks it must be hours
since he entered the house, though it is only minutes. Falkirk tryst
over, he comes back, and, at the appointed hour, attends his city
acquaintance, who, meanwhile, having consulted with his spouse, has
taken the opportunity, since there was to be a dinner at any rate,
to invite all the stiff people he knows, in order to pay off his old
debts. The honest agriculturist gets a place among the rest, perhaps
a good one, but in such a scene he finds no entertainment, and hardly
gets a word of conversation with his friend during the whole evening.
At the proper hour he rises to take his leave among the rest. The host
inquires when he leaves town—this is always a leading question for a
country friend—hears, to his unspeakable comfort, that it is to be by
the morning coach—and so good-night. Of course, after this, there is
little inducement for Mr Goodman to send his daughters to spend a month
in the house of his city friend. The girls, however, do come in somehow
or other, and are living with some other person on a visit, when one
day, walking along the most crowded and fashionable street, they meet
their father’s friend arm in arm with his wife. Seeing that they have
first perceived _him_, he runs forward in the kindest manner, and,
after introducing them to his partner, inquires after every particular
individual left at home. Some miscellaneous talk ensues, and then, just
at the skirts of the conversation, when they are hovering on the point
of separation, he throws in, “You will be sure to see us some evening
before you leave town.” And then—and then there is no more about it.

A varied case often occurs as follows:—A young lady of perfect
accomplishments, though of the middle ranks of life, happens to be
particularly convenient to a neighbouring family of gentry in the
country, where she is constantly invited by them, and becomes the bosom
friend of all the young ladies, but only because her accomplishments
are useful to them as a means of spending their time. But this
acquaintance, though of use in the country, and there felt as involving
no risk of dignity, becomes inconvenient when the parties happen to
meet in town. The high-born demoiselle, who elsewhere would have rushed
into the arms of her humble but ingenious friend, now tamely shakes
her hand, and, with cold complaisance, addresses her thus: “Mamma is
keeping no company this winter, but I dare say she would be glad to see
you some evening to tea: and—good-morning.” Such is the world!




WHERE IS MY TRUNK?


It is well known in Scotland that the road from Edinburgh to Dundee,
though only forty-three miles in extent, is rendered tedious and
troublesome by the interposition of two arms of the sea, namely, the
Friths of Forth and Tay, one of which is seven, and the other three
miles across. Several rapid and well-conducted stage-coaches travel
upon this road; but, from their frequent loading and unloading at
the ferries, there is not only considerable delay to the travellers,
but also rather more than the usual risk of damage and loss to
their luggage. On one occasion it happened that the common chances
against the safety of a traveller’s integuments were multiplied in a
mysterious, but most amusing manner—as the following little narrative
will show.

The gentleman in question was an inside passenger—a very tall man,
which was so much the worse for him in that situation—and it appeared
that his whole baggage consisted of a single black trunk—one of medium
size, and no way remarkable in appearance. On our leaving Edinburgh,
this trunk had been disposed in the boot of the coach, amidst a great
variety of other trunks, bundles, and carpet bags, belonging to the
rest of the passengers.

Having arrived at Newhaven, the luggage was brought forth from the
coach, and disposed upon a barrow, in order that it might be taken down
to the steam-boat which was to convey us across. Just as the barrow
was moving off, the tall gentleman said,

“Guard, have you got my trunk?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” answered the guard; “you may be sure it’s there.”

“Not so sure of that,” quoth the gentleman; “whereabouts is it?”

The guard poked into the barrow, and looked in vain among the
numberless articles for the trunk. At length, after he had noozled
about for two or three minutes through all the holes and corners of
the mass of integuments, he drew out his head, like a terrier tired of
earthing a badger, and seemed a little nonplussed.

“Why, here it is in the boot!” exclaimed the passenger, “snug at the
bottom, where it might have remained, I suppose, for you, till safely
returned to the coach-yard in Edinburgh.”

The guard made an awkward apology, put the trunk upon the barrow, and
away we all went to the steam-boat.

Nothing farther occurred till we were all standing beside the coach at
Pettycur, ready to proceed on our journey through Fife.

Every thing seemed to have been stowed into the coach, and most of the
passengers had taken their proper places, when the tall gentleman cried
out,

“Guard, where is my trunk?”

“In the boot, sir,” answered the guard; “you may depend upon that.”

“I have not seen it put in,” said the passenger, “and I don’t believe
it is there.”

“Oh, sir,” said the guard, quite distressed, “there can surely be no
doubt about the trunk now.”

“There! I declare—there!” cried the owner of the missing property; “my
trunk is still lying down yonder upon the sands. Don’t you see it?
The sea, I declare, is just about reaching it. What a careless set of
porters! I protest I never was so treated on any journey before.”

The trunk was instantly rescued from its somewhat perilous situation,
and, all having been at length put to rights, we went on our way to
Cupar.

Here the coach stops a few minutes at the inn, and there is generally
a partial discharge of passengers. As some individuals, on the present
occasion, had to leave the coach, there was a slight discomposure
of the luggage, and various trunks and bundles were presently seen
departing on the backs of porters, after the gentlemen to whom they
belonged. After all seemed to have been again put to rights, the tall
gentleman made his wonted inquiry respecting his trunk.

“The trunk, sir,” said the guard, rather pettishly, “is in the boot.”

“Not a bit of it,” said its owner, who in the meantime had been peering
about. “There it lies in the lobby of the inn!”

The guard now began to think that this trunk was in some way bewitched,
and possessed a power, unenjoyed by other earthly trunks, of removing
itself or staying behind, according to its own good pleasure.

“The Lord have a care o’ us!” cried the astonished custodier of
baggage, who, to do him justice, seemed an exceedingly sober and
attentive person. “The Lord have a care o’ us, sir! That trunk’s no
canny.”[8]

“It’s _canny_ enough, you fool,” said the gentleman sharply; “but only
you don’t pay proper attention to it.”

The fact was, that the trunk had been taken out of the coach and placed
in the lobby, in order to allow of certain other articles being got at
which lay beneath. It was now once more stowed away, and we set forward
upon the remaining part of our journey, hoping that there would be
no more disturbance about this pestilent member of the community of
trunks. All was right till we came to the lonely inn of St Michael’s,
where a side-road turns off to St Andrew’s, and where it happened that
a passenger had to leave us to walk to that seat of learning, a servant
having been in waiting to carry his luggage.

The tall gentleman, hearing a bustle about the boot, projected his
immensely long slender body through the coach window, in order, like
the lady in the fairy tale, to see what he could see.

“Hollo, fellow!” cried he to the servant following the gentleman down
the St Andrew’s road; “is not that my trunk? Come back, if you please,
and let me inspect it.”

“The trunk, sir,” interposed the guard, in a sententious manner, “is
that gemman’s trunk, and not yours: yours is in the boot.”

“We’ll make sure of that, Mr Guard, if you please. Come back, my good
fellow, and let me see the trunk you have got with you.”

The trunk was accordingly brought back, and, to the confusion of the
guard, who had thought himself fairly infallible for this time, it was
the tall man’s property, as clear as brass nails could make it.

The trunk was now the universal subject of talk, both inside and
outside, and every body said he would be surprised if it got to
its journey’s end in safety. All agreed that it manifested a most
extraordinary disposition to be lost, stolen, or strayed, but yet every
one thought that there was a kind of special providence about it, which
kept it on the right road after all; and, therefore, it became a fair
subject of debate, whether the chances _against_, or the chances _for_,
were likely to prevail.

Before we arrived at Newport, where we had to go on board the ferry
steam-boat for Dundee, the conversation had gone into other channels,
and, each being engaged about his own concerns, no one thought any more
about the trunk, till just as the barrow was descending along the
pier, the eternal long man cried out,

“Guard, have you got my trunk?”

“Oh, yes,” cried the guard very promptly; “I’ve taken care of it now.
There it is on the top of all.”

“It’s no such thing,” cried a gentleman who had come into the coach at
Cupar; “that’s _my_ trunk.”

Every body then looked about for the enchanted trunk; the guard ran
back, and once more searched the boot, which he knew to have been
searched to the bottom before; and the tall gentleman gazed over land,
water, and sky, in quest of his necessary property.

“Well, guard,” cried he at length, “what a pretty fellow you are!
There, don’t you see?—there’s my trunk thrust into the shed like a
piece of lumber!”

And so it really was. At the head of the pier at Newport there is
a shed, with seats within, where people wait for the ferry-boats;
and there, _perdu_ beneath a form, lay the enchanted trunk, having
been so disposed, in the bustle of unloading, by means which nobody
could pretend to understand. The guard, with a half-frightened look,
approached the awful object, and soon placed it with the other things
on board the ferry-boat.

On our landing at Dundee pier, the proprietor of the trunk saw so well
after it himself, that it was evident no accident was for this time
to be expected. However, it appeared that this was only a lull to our
attention. The tall gentleman was to go on to Aberdeen by a coach then
just about to start from Merchant’s Inn; while I, for my part, was to
proceed by another coach, which was about to proceed from the same
place to Perth. A great bustle took place in the narrow street at the
inn door, and some of my late fellow-travellers were getting into the
one coach, and some into the other. The Aberdeen coach was soonest
prepared to start, and, just as the guard cried “all’s right,” the long
figure devolved from the window, and said, in an anxious tone of voice,

“Guard, have you got my trunk?”

“Your trunk, sir!” cried the man; “what like is your trunk?—we have
nothing here but bags and baskets.”

“Heaven preserve me!” exclaimed the unfortunate gentleman, and burst
out of the coach.

It immediately appeared that the trunk had been deposited by mistake
in the Perth, instead of the Aberdeen coach; and unless the owner had
spoken, it would have been, in less than an hour, half way up the Carse
of Gowrie. A transfer was immediately made, to the no small amusement
of myself and one or two other persons in both coaches who had
witnessed its previous misadventures on the road through Fife. Seeing
a friend on the Aberdeen vehicle, I took an opportunity of privately
requesting that he would, on arriving at his destination, send me an
account by post of all the further mistakes and dangers which were sure
to befall the trunk in the course of the journey. To this he agreed,
and, about a week after, I received the following letter:—

  “DEAR ——,

 “All went well with myself, my fellow travellers, and THE TRUNK,
 till we had got a few miles on this side of Stonehaven, when, just
 as we were passing one of the boggiest parts of the whole of that
 boggy road, an unfortunate lurch threw us over upon one side, and the
 exterior passengers, along with several heavy articles of luggage,
 were all projected several yards off into the morass. As the place
 was rather soft, nobody was much hurt; but, after every thing had
 been again put to rights, the tall man put some two-thirds of himself
 through the coach window, in his usual manner, and asked the guard if
 he was sure the trunk was safe in the boot.

 “‘Oh Lord, sir!’ cried the guard, as if a desperate idea had at that
 moment rushed into his mind; ‘the trunk was on the top. Has nobody
 seen it lying about any where?’

 “‘If it be a trunk ye’re looking after,’ cried a rustic, very coolly,
 ‘I saw it sink into that well-ee[9] a quarter of an hour syne.’

 “‘Good God!’ exclaimed the distracted owner, ‘my trunk is gone for
 ever. Oh, my poor dear trunk!—where is the place—show me where it
 disappeared!’

 “The place being pointed out, he rushed madly up to it, and seemed
 as if he would have plunged into the watery profound to search for
 his lost property, or die in the attempt. Being informed that the
 bogs in this part of the country were perfectly bottomless, he soon
 saw how vain every endeavour of that kind would be; and so he was
 with difficulty induced to resume his place in the coach, loudly
 threatening, however, to make the proprietors of the vehicle pay
 sweetly for his loss.

 “What was in the trunk, I have not been able to learn. Perhaps the
 title-deeds of an estate were among the contents; perhaps it was only
 filled with bricks and rags, in order to impose upon the innkeepers.
 In all likelihood, the mysterious object is still descending and
 descending, like the angel’s hatchet in Rabbinical story, down the
 groundless abyss: in which case its contents will not probably be
 revealed till a great many things of more importance and equal mystery
 are made plain.”


END OF THE VOLUME.

  Printed by W. and R. CHAMBERS,
  19, Waterloo Place, Edinburgh.


FOOTNOTES:

[8] Not innocent—a phrase applied by the common people in Scotland to
any thing which they suppose invested with supernatural powers of a
noxious kind.

[9] The orifice of a deep pool in a morass is so called in Scotland.




  Transcriber’s Notes

  pg 44 Changed: their course acccording to the general
             to: their course according to the general

  pg 78 Changed: dressed a dood deal above Filch
             to: dressed a good deal above Filch

  pg 79 Changed: solicit his former friends for sudsidies
             to: solicit his former friends for subsidies

  pg 138 Changed: It was farther remarked
              to: It was further remarked

  pg 207 Changed: covered up in a similar maner
              to: covered up in a similar manner

  pg 272 Changed: without being painsfully and gradually won
              to: without being painfully and gradually won